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Steve Witte may be first remembered for Written Communication, which he edited from its beginning in 1984.
That journal really was the first place where one could publish lengthy, deeply researched studies. It was very much needed and Steve carried that project through with great commitment and energy from the beginning up to his end. I remember talking with him once about his tough Oklahoma childhood and adolescence, which gave him the persistence to make his complex career in the academy meaningful for all of us. -Charles Bazerman
What people will remember of him is the journal, yes, but much more, more along the lines of his complexity, dedication, and genius.
Indeed, until he became the Knight Professor of Composition at Kent State University, an endowed chair he held for the last eleven years of his life, Steve Witte looked less the editor of a prestigious journal and more a restless, wandering scholar of the Middle Ages. After his doctorate in 1977 at Oklahoma State University, he taught two more years there, one year at Indiana State University, seven years at the University of Texas at Austin, two years in the Language, Literacy, and Culture program at Stanford University, one year as visiting professor at the University of Oklahoma, one year as visiting professor in the Applied Cognitive Science Laboratory at McGill University, two years as Senior Researcher in the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the University of Wisconsin.
Throughout, infusing his work as a teacher/editor/scholar, were managerial and administrative positions. After his BA in 1966, he managed bookstores in Stillwater and Berkeley. In Austin for five years he served as president of the elected board of directors for the municipal utilities district. For two years, in between academic posts, he owned and managed Information Transfer Services in Austin. At Stanford, Wisconsin, and McGill he chaired programs and directed university assessment projects. At Kent State he founded and directed the Center for Research on Workplace Literacy, and coordinated an innovative doctorate in Literacy, Rhetoric, and Social Practice. And year after year he was taking on additional work, labors of love that ten people together could have bragged about, work as consultant, national board member, editorial board member, invited speaker, report writer, grant writer, grant...