Nancy Potter (1926-2023) was a retired University of Rhode Island professor, advisor, mentor, and published author. Born in Manhattan in 1926 and raised in Connecticut, Nancy received her B.A. and M.A. from Tufts University and her Ph.D. from Boston University. She was a professor of English at University of Rhode Island for 42 years and a recipient of URI’s President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. She retired in 1989 after a career teaching modern American and British literature and creative writing and serving in various administrative positions. She was a beloved advisor and mentor – many of her students became her life-long friends. She directed 50 master’s and Ph.D. theses and won Fulbright Senior Lecturer Grants in American Literature in Argentina, New Zealand, and Chile.
During her world travels, she committed every detail of her adventures to memory and brought much of her experiences to her stories. She was a master of the short story, and was widely published in numerous journals including The Kenyon Review and The Massachusetts Review. A collection, We Have Seen the Best of Our Times, was published by Knopf in 1968. In addition, the University of Illinois Press published another, Legacies on 1987. Several students have benefitted from the Nancy Potter Endowment at URI, funded by colleagues and former students in her honor and enhanced by her own contributions.
“Nancy Potter remains one of the most intelligent, eloquent, witty, gracious, and generous people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting in my life,” said Winifred Brownell, dean of URI’s College of Arts and Sciences in a 2004 interview. She was inducted into the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame in 1992.
