James Missey retires

Perhaps the best known pacifist at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point has retired after 34 years of teaching English.

James Missey, a conscientious objector since the mid-1950s, was one of a large group of faculty who came to UWSP in the late 60s. Many of the teachers hired at that time by English faculty chair, the late Lee Burress, shared similar political views and were allowed the freedom to express them both on and off campus.

A California native, Missey holds a bachelor's degree from Pomona College and master's and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. He taught at Beloit College and at Denison University before coming to UWSP in 1966.

During the late 60s and early 70s, Missey spoke passionately against U.S. involvement in Vietnam. He fasted in protest. He printed and distributed leaflets urging passive resistance to the war. He stationed himself in front of a military tank on parade at the Stevens Point airport. For many years, he has participated in weekly peace vigils in the downtown area.

Missey has been arrested three times for civil disobedience. The first two times, he had brief jail visits. The last time, in the early 80s, he sat for several hours on the steps of the local army recruiting office, then spent two days in the county jail.

In 1990 on the 20^th anniversary of the Kent State killings, Missey wrote a piece, "Revisiting the Intensity of the '60s," published on May 4 in the Christian Science Monitor. Another book written by Missey, "The Eve of Revolution: An Anti-War Memoir," published in 1985 by the Portage County Historical Society, the UWSP Foundation and the UWSP English Department, chronicled the activities of the Vietnam anti-war movement in Stevens Point, especially on the UWSP campus.

Missey says the volatile era of the late 60s and early 70s, was a period of great hope that America would make fundamental changes yet also a period of grim despair when young Americans needlessly lost their lives.

A specialist in late Victorian and early modern literature, modern drama as literature and American Literature, Missey taught at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. During the past few years, he has specialized in teaching freshman English. He says he elected to change his classroom focus after pairing with master teacher Tom McCaig in a faculty mentoring program. He says he has enjoyed working with the first-year students whom he describes as "fresh, sincere and eager."

For the past 10 years, Missey has been studying 20^th century Christian anarchist, Ammon Hennacy, who began his career of activism as a draft resistor during World War I. Hennacy eventually became part of the Catholic worker movement and was befriended by Dorothy Day. A grant from the University Personnel Development Committee will allow Missey to visit the premiere collection of radical materials at the University of Michigan which includes a significant Hennacy archive . Following retirement Missey also hopes to visit collections at Marquette and the University of Wyoming with the long-term goal of writing a book or series of articles about Hennacy and his pursuits.

Other plans for Missey and his partner, Cathy Dugan, also a teacher in the UWSP English Department, include continuing to live in their Stevens Point home and traveling to England for his daughter's wedding.

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