“He taught courage and gusto; he taught love,” said Reid Barbour, an English professor and former student of Gless. “He taught gusto for life’s simplest, most basic delights. Above all, he taught me how to be strong when it is most difficult to be strong.”
Members of the College of Arts and Sciences and the UNC community remembered Gless for his contributions to the University and his “unconditional kindness” at a memorial service in the George Watts Hill Alumni Center Sunday evening.
Gless died on June 10 at the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center at the age of 68 after a 15-year battle with a bone marrow disorder. Gless is survived by his wife, Friederike Seeger, and daughter, Elena Gless, who was born in August.
The heavily attended service began with a performance of “Amazing Grace” accompanied by photos of Gless in his home, on his many travels and with stacks of textbooks.
“We wanted to have a representation of how many ways he contributed to the University as a teacher, as an administrator, to give a full perspective on what he meant to Carolina,” said Mary Floyd-Wilson, a former student of Gless and professor in the English department, who helped plan the service.
Floyd-Wilson said Gless was constantly thinking about how best to give his time to the University, especially to the humanities.
“It was his community, he worked tirelessly for it,” she said. “He really just gave all his energy and time to this community because he loved it so much.”
Gless served as both chairman of the Department of English and Comparative Literature and senior associate dean of the humanities during his more than 30 years at UNC.