Robert M. Henkels Jr. ’62

Rip, a retired professor from the Department of Foreign Languages at Auburn University, died Nov. 16, 2003, of colon cancer. Rip graduated from Princeton cum laude in French and English. He spent his junior year in Paris. As a National Endowment for the Humanities fellow, he earned a master's and a doctorate in the humanities in French studies from Brown University in 1965 and 1966, respectively. He taught at Phillips Academy Andover, Williams College, Emory University, and Western Michigan University before arriving at Auburn University as head of the Department of Foreign Languages in 1979. Rip published extensively on the work of the 20th-century avant-garde French novelist Robert Pinget, gaining international recognition. He served on numerous evaluation committees of research projects for the National Endowment for the Humanities and was active in the Advanced Placement examination in French for secondary school students. He was a devoted teacher and worked closely with students like Sarah-Jane Murray, who was honored with a Porter Ogden Jacobus Fellowship in 2003, the highest award given to graduate students at Princeton. He is survived by his wife, Wickham Taylor Henkels; his daughter, Karin

Henkels; his grandsons, Titonan and Gabriel; and his granddaughter, Zoelie.

The Class of 1962