Thomas Scarseth

Thomas Scarseth graduated Valedictorian from La Crosse Logan High School in 1956 where he is honored on the Logan Wall of Fame and won a Merit Scholarship. Before coming to UW-La Crosse, he was a U.S. Marine and worked in the Agronomy Departments of Purdue University and UW-Madison.

He received a Bachelor’s in 1966 and Master’s in 1968 in Education from UWL. He taught for two years at Lincoln Junior High School in La Crosse. He came to UWL’s English Department as an Instructor in 1968. In 32 years, he achieved the rank of Associate Professor and retired in 2000 as Professor Emeritus. He was a popular teacher of composition and American Literature. He was the English Department’s expert in the
works of William Faulkner and for many years taught the course of Adolescent Literature to prospective teachers and librarians.

His publications included the book Hmong Uves/Hmoob Ne(!j (with Laotou Lo and Wendy Mattison), a bilingual collection of the memoirs of eight elderly Hmong immigrants from Laos. Tom also published an article on Steinbeck’s novel OJ Mice & Men in the book Celebrating Censored Books edited by Karolides and Burress.

He served on the English Department’s Executive Committee which hired and evaluated faculty members, and for many years, was a member of the University’s Academic Freedom Committee which acted to preserve and protect Faculty Rights and due process.

As extra-curricular work, he served in the Friendship Program which helped Hmong immigrants learn English and American life skills. He was also an expert juggler, who gave public performances to instruct and entertain, and, in the Free University, taught hundreds of students how to juggle.

He was married to Jean Scarseth, a career program assistant in several departments of UWL. He was a long distance biker on the old railroad trails of Wisconsin, and a serious hiker, going to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and to the Havasupi Reservation twice as well as the Cloud’s Rest Peak in Yosemite Park.