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Francis Marion University

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The official Instagram of Francis Marion University, home of the patriots.

Francis Marion University

FMU is one of South Carolina's 13 state-assisted universities, providing a strong liberal arts based undergraduate education with degrees in the arts, laboratory sciences, business, education and the social and behavioral sciences. We also provide graduate programs in education, business and psychology. FMU is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) to award bachelor's, master's and specialty level degrees. We enroll over 4,000 students in an intimate campus environment near Florence, S.C.

Francis Marion University
Dr. Peter Terence Whelan, 77, died on Sunday, November 3, 2024, after a long illness. Peter was born in Gloucestershire, England, in the shadow of Berkeley Castle, where—as Peter was fond of recounting—King Edward II was murdered, allegedly with a red-hot poker. As Peter’s parents never tired of telling him—the passion for relating points of historical interest, humorous and otherwise, clearly being partially genetic in derivation—his nativity coincided with the coldest day of the twentieth century. Having survived the blizzard, the family quickly evacuated to the milder climes of the south coast and ultimately settled in Bournemouth. Peter claimed that his academic career during his grade school years was undistinguished. However, it was during this time that he discovered the talent for literature and languages that would shape his entire career. Beginning with French and Latin, Peter ultimately amassed a knowledge of so many languages, both ancient and modern, that even his immediate family members lost count. Peter studied Russian at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst; taught himself German while serving in the British Army of the Rhine; graduated with an honors degree in Arabic from Durham University after resigning his commission as a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery; and became fluent in Spanish while teaching English Dialectology and History of the English Language at the University of Oviedo, Spain. Peter’s five years in Oviedo—the last two years of the Franco dictatorship, during which the students spent weeks on strike, and the post-Franco upheavals, during which the authorities frequently closed the universities—laid the foundation of his competency in English literature as he sat in his office reading. Eventually, having realized that in order to make literature a career he needed a PhD, and having found a topic for a dissertation in D.H. Lawrence’s interest in myth, he moved to the University of Exeter, Devon. The offer of a visiting position at Kenyon College in 1982, just as his scholarship was running out, brought him to Gambier, Ohio. There, he crossed paths with Roberta Olmstead in what can only be described as a cinematic meet cute. Roberta, who worked at the university bookstore, was so flustered by Peter that she seized the nearest novel to peruse in an act of feigned nonchalance. Peter, who was so smitten that he had—perhaps for the first time in his life—not even glanced at the book, never noticed she was holding it upside-down. The two were married in 1986 and moved to Jordan, where Peter taught at the University of Mu’tah and Roberta gave birth to their children in a little hospital shadowed by Kerak Castle, making castle-adjacent births something of a family tradition. The last 22 years of Peter’s career were spent at Francis Marion University, where he taught Mythology and World Literature with a focus on the literature of the ancient and classical world. Truly blending his love of languages and literature, Peter taught himself ancient Hebrew and the Egyptian Hieroglyphic Alphabet in order to read the original source material for his classes. Peter’s career highlights included the publication of a book based on his dissertation (D. H. Lawrence: Myth and Metaphysic in The Rainbow and Women in Love), being recognized by the Philological Association of the Carolinas for his “magisterial” paper, "Samson, Delilah, and Yahweh: Character and Prejudice," and receiving a 4 out of 5 difficulty rating on Ratemyprofessor.com, where students raved, “If you do not like to read do not take him,” and, “Cute for an old dude.” Peter’s athletic accomplishments were no less important to him than his academic ones. As a high school rugby player, Peter famously once hoisted a competitor up by his jersey and threw him a distance of some feet. (Peter dismissed versions of this story in which he lifted the opposing team member overhead and chucked him several yards as “apocryphal.”) Members of the Cycle Club of Florence can attest that Peter never lost this competitive spirit. The crowning achievement of Peter’s cycling career was his 2009 completion of a 102.7-mile ride with a total vertical ascent of 11,100 feet to reach the summit of Mt. Mitchell. During the ride, his children shocked a bus full of other cyclists’ family members into awed silence upon discovering that their 62-year old father was minutes further up the mountain than even the triathlete husband of the 30-something woman who—up til then—had been loudly bragging at the front of the bus. When reminded of this feat in the final weeks of his life, Peter responded, less-than-half-jokingly, “tell that story to everyone you know.” Peter is survived by his wife of 38 years, Roberta Olmstead, son and daughter-in-law, James Whelan and Melody Chen, daughter, Jasmine Whelan, and sister, Trish Soolikhan.
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UNIVERSITY NEWS

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