05/13/2014
Professor Chuck Leska is Retiring
At the end of this spring semester 2014 Professor Chuck Leska will move from Ashland to his new lakeside home in upstate New York. This move signals the beginning of Chuck's retirement from full-time work in academia. We all expect that he still has some courses left to teach, but from now on such teaching will be at his convenience.
In listing his contributions to our department, we can quickly cite Chuck's teaching expertise in a wide variety of courses, his leadership as Department Chair, his curricular vision within our departmental structure and well beyond, his interdisciplinary collaboration in first-year offerings and in scholarship, his ever-ready willingness to help colleagues and students, his work within the Computer Science community beyond Randolph-Macon, or any combination of these and many other outstanding attributes. Perhaps even more importantly, though, Chuck has brought a stimulating energy and bright attitude to our department and to the classroom. He is not just a colleague or a professor, but much more a friend. His neighbors, friends, and family in upstate New York will now be benefitting from Chuck's cheerful presence and his ever-ready, hearty laugh and his starting a recollection of his most recent hair-raising adventure with "Oh, my G-o-d." We're going to miss that in the department—perhaps necessitating an occasional trip to upstate New York for a refresher.
We all wish Chuck the very best in retirement—good days by the lake, happy times with friends and family, and an ever-improving golf game. The Department in the meantime will try to carry on the high standards that Chuck has set, but will never be quite the same.