With his signature bow tie, blazer and distinctive spectacles, his scholarship and curiosity, James Gray Watson epitomized the idea and the ideal of a professor. For friends and colleagues at The University of Tulsa, he was both beloved and brilliant. He spread enthusiasm for literature and learning wherever he taught, whether in a University of Tulsa classroom or in a community lecture hall.
Watson had come to the study of literature while laid up from a sports injury at Maine’s Bowdoin College. A fraternity brother jokingly gave him a copy of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. Watson was enchanted by the writer; he changed his major and went on to become one of the world’s leading scholars on the Southern novelist. For all his passion for Faulkner, Jim Watson’s “approach to teaching was less sound and fury than supportive and friendly,” said a writer for the Tulsa World. He had the “ability to make great stories come to life.” His classes overflowed, another journalist noted, and included everyone from full-time students to adults who audited his courses “to recapture the self-awakening that only comes from a master lecturer.” One friend noted that Professor Watson’s love of language went beyond the classroom. He reveled in words and word play, and was “a demon with puns, (and) dropped them with a deadpan look that left others either groaning or confused.” He could recite many poems and prose selections from memory.
Born in Maryland, Watson graduated high school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After obtaining his master’s and doctoral degrees at the University of Pittsburgh, he joined The University of Tulsa faculty in 1969 and eventually served as the Frances W. O’Hornett Professor of Literature. In his 40-year career, he inspired both TU and the City of Tulsa, where booklovers knew him as a guest lecturer for the Tulsa City-County Library. (One year he also chaired the author selection committee for the library’s Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award.) At TU, he earned repeated recognition, including the Outstanding University Professor Award (1982), the Certificate of Honor from TU’s Multicultural Affairs Committee (1991) and the Excellence in Teaching Award from the Henry Kendall College of Arts and Sciences (2002). He was the 2007 Tulsa Undergraduate Research Challenge Mentor of the Year and the December 2008 TU Commencement speaker.
Watson served on many administrative and advisory committees at both the university and college levels, including the presidential search committee that identified President Steadman Upham. Upham recalled Watson showing him the campus during the interview process. During their walk, Upham noted “how quintessentially professorial in demeanor and temperament he seemed. […] Joyfully he showed me the McFarlin Collection, extolling its virtues and potential for future research. Later, we conversed about the campus and issues facing the university, particularly the scholarly resources, so carefully assembled at TU over the years. Jim was quite influential in my decision to come to TU.” Among Professor Watson’s greatest gifts, Upham said, were his compassion, empathy and kindness.
Another colleague noted that Professor Watson, unlike many other scholars and writers, never longed for some imagined form of grand success that others might. “He radiated a deep commitment to the life he lived here, among his real friends and at TU.” He was rooted to his family and his home. With Jim Watson, what you saw was what you got. Along with being celebrated by his TU friends and family, he will be remembered by the many students he taught to look more deeply into the words they read. Professor Watson passed away in March of 2010.
In recognition of his distinguished life, Professor Watson’s family committed a series of gifts that, supplemented by others, created the James G. Watson Endowed Professorship in English. The University of Tulsa, the Henry Kendall College of Arts and Sciences and the Department of English are sincerely grateful for this generous outpouring from the Watson family. Through his namesake professorship, Jim Watson’s love of language, scholarship and storytelling will carry on to new generations of students.
