Dr. Stuart Alan Millner

Dr. Stuart Alan Millner

Stuart Alan Millner was born in Boston, Massachusetts on November 11, 1940, to Isidore and Minnie (Alpert) Millner. He graduated from the Boston Latin School and later received his B.A. from Boston University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Brandeis University, where he completed a dissertation on Thomas Gray’s Welsh and Norse poetry.

A lover of eighteenth-century literature, Stuart worked for fifty-two years as a beloved professor of English at Suffolk University. He took immense pride in being a role model for both junior faculty and students in the department of English. He strove to inspire his students, stating that his goal in teaching was to help undergraduates who dreaded his class find comfort and joy in the English language. As a result, students frequently commented that his classes were among the best and most memorable that they took in college.

Stuart’s door was always open to his students, and he spent countless hours working with individuals to improve their reading comprehension and writing skills. He would assist students to rewrite their papers numerous times, modeling the revision process and taking pride in their improvement. His teaching inspired a number of students to major in English, and to become English teachers or professors themselves. His spirit lives on in his students and the classes they went on to teach.

Stuart’s life was characterized by his devotion to others. As a teenager, his father was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and he was ultimately bedridden. Stuart then became the primary caregiver for his father; despite his own heavy workload, he would rise at 4:30 am to get his father ready for the day, work a full day, and then rush home to continue his caregiving tasks. After his father’s death, he remained devoted to his family, cheerfully nursing his mother in her declining years, and later helping his sister to care for her disabled son.

Throughout his life, Stuart maintained a positive outlook, and took particular joy in his teaching, his friends, his family, and his interests in opera and literature, especially William Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson, and James Joyce.

Stuart is survived by his sister and brother-in-law, Barbara and Roland Airey, his nephew Scott Airey of Needham, MA, and his niece Jennifer Airey of Tulsa, OK. Services were held.