Patricia L Skarda

Patricia Lynn Skarda, 68, of Easthampton, MA and Clovis, NM, died September 2, 2014, in Northampton, MA. She was born March 31, 1946, in Clovis, NM. After graduating from Clovis High School, she attended Sweet Briar College, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and Texas Tech University, from which she graduated in 1969. She then completed her Ph.D. in English at the University of Texas in 1973. Pat began teaching as a Professor in the English department at Smith College in the fall of 1973. With the exception of a year as Distinguished Visiting Professor at the United States Air Force Academy, she spent her entire career at Smith, retiring as Professor of English in the fall of 2013. Pat spent most of her holidays, sabbaticals, and summers in Clovis, considering herself a citizen of Clovis. Many of her books have been published. Her doctoral dissertation was on the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, and, as the years unfolded, the scope of her scholarly writing expanded to include work on Mary Shelley, on Coleridge, on Wordsworth, on Hazlitt, on the Gothic, on an array of present-day writers, on questions of religious tolerance, on writers and artists who are Smith alumnae. Highlights of this versatile career include a highly successful co-edited anthology of Gothic short fiction and poetry and a set of distinguished contributions to the Modern Language Associations indispensable Approaches to Teaching series. As a teacher, her range was no less striking, and, over the years, her courses were among the best known and most heavily enrolled in the English department. Her Romantic Poetry and Prose became a stop on almost every English majors intellectual itinerary, and her career as a teacher was full of imaginativeness and invention. Pats achievement as a teacher felt deeply by her many students year in and year out was acknowledged formally in 1986, when she won the Colleges Senior Teaching Award. She was no less generous as a member of the College community, devoting herself to the Smith chapter of Phi Beta Kappa and to the Colleges alumnae, giving countless lectures to Smith clubs around the country. Pat will be remembered by her colleagues and by her many devoted students as a teacher utterly committed to guiding and nurturing the whole person to doing the trans formative work at the center of the liberal arts mission. One of Pats students the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Amy Ellis Nutt captured the impact of Pats teaching in a tribute to her: "What music I make with my own words is music that was learned first from you and from your beloved poets, and it is that music that continues to sustain me". Her colleagues, friends, and students will feel deeply this loss, but, more deeply still, they will give thanks for that sustenance and celebrate that music. Pat also participated actively in her Roman Catholic faith on the local, diocesan and national level. Pat served St. Marys Church Northampton until its closing in a number of ways, including lector and Eucharistic Minister. Later, Pat served as an Eucharistic Minister at Our Lady of the Valley, Easthampton. In 1993 she joined the Caritas Christi Secular Institute, committing herself to a life based on Gospel spirituality and using the means of the world to make Christ known and loved. Her commitment included prayer, daily celebration of the Eucharist and concentration of purpose.
Pat served the Diocese of Springfield serving on the Catholic Newman Center Advisory Board to advise it on its presence at the University of Massachusetts. She also encouraged biblical scholarship among Christian clergy and laity through the Ecumenical Center for Pauline Studies. Pat served the Church nationally as Secular Institute Liaison to the National Catholic Conference of Bishops Committee on Vocations, Chair of the Vocation Committee of the United States Conference of Secular Institutes, and Member of the Vocations Committee. She was devoted to lay ministry in the Church at both the highest national levels as well as the most local. Pat was preceded in death by her grandfather, A.W. Skarda; her parents, Lynell G. and Kathryn Burns Skarda; and her siblings, Katrina A. Skarda Green and Gregory A.F. Skarda.
She is survived by a brother, Jeffrey J. Skarda and his wife, Penelope Cerling, of Houston, TX; by nieces and nephews, Tom Skarda, Jennifer S. Skarda-McCann, Loren S. Skarda, Evan L. Green, Eric F. Skarda, Erin L. Skarda Ake, Katlin M. Green, Hannah A.S. Green; and great-nephews, Henry Nathaniel McCann and Gregory Ryder Skarda.
Cremation has taken place. There will be a Celebration Mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Clovis, NMon October 25, 2014. Inurnment will follow at Plains Sanctuary Mausoleum, Mission Garden of Memories in Clovis.
Additionally, a Memorial Service will be held at Smith College in Northampton, MA on Saturday, November 8, 2014.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Catholic Relief Service, Baltimore, MD; Sacred Heart Parish of Clovis, NM; the Skarda Scholarship Fund of the Clovis Community College (CCC Foundation), 417 Schepps Blvd., Clovis, NM; or the charity of your choice.