Charles Witke, professor emeritus of Greek and Latin in LSA, died March 21, 2026. 

Edward Charles Witke was born Sept. 22, 1931 in Los Angeles, son of Emil Ernst and Ethel Ann (Martin) Witke. He received his B.A. from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1953 and his A.M. and Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1957 and 1962, respectively. 

After a year teaching at the University of Chicago, he moved to the University of California at Berkeley, where he rose to the rank of associate professor (1968-70), and chair of the Committee on Mediaeval Studies (1964-70). 

After a brief stint at the State University of New York at Binghamton, he joined the University of Michigan faculty in 1971 as professor of classical studies and director of the Program in Comparative Literature. 

He served as associate dean of LSA from 1971-74 and was a member of the college’s executive committee from 1975-78. He was ordained to ministry in the Episcopal Church as deacon (1988) and as priest (1989). He retired from U-M in 2001. He is survived by his wife, Aileen Gatten.

Charles was known for his work on Latin literature, including four monographs. Most significant are his fine studies of the Roman satirists: Lucilius, Horace, and Juvenal. He focused much of his later research on texts of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, where his publications cover Latin paleography, Erasmus, theology, liturgy, and the history of the Western Christian church. His later work included a translation of Erasmus’ “Hyperapistes.”

Italy held a special place for Professor Witke. As a student, he held a Fulbright Fellowship there and was awarded the Rome Prize by the American Academy in Rome (1960-62). He returned to the Academy many times; in 1997, he was appointed as a Resident there. He held grants from various universities and the National Endowment for the Humanities. 

Charles will be remembered for his mastery of his craft, his dry wit (he once reviewed a book on Roman satire, saying the book itself was a satire of scholarship), and his dapper bow tie (the mirror in which he allegedly tied it every day of his career is still a prized possession in the Department of Classical Studies). 

While serving as associate dean for curriculum in LSA, he received a request from the department for two tenure-track positions, one in archaeology and one in Greek literature. Both were granted. 

In the buoyancy of the moment, Charles, who was recused from participating in the decision, was nonetheless drafted to write a letter informing the department, which he did in Latin with considerable elegance (though debate still simmers over whether D. R. Shackleton Bailey’s response, also in Latin, was the more elegant). 

A student’s recollection of housesitting for him well captures his kind, unmaterialistic nature. Charles had encouraged her to practice driving his stick-shift car in case of dog-related emergency, though she told him she didn’t know how to drive a stick. The day after his departure to Oxford, she dutifully attempted to move the car out of the garage and accidentally backed it into the corner of the house. 

The result was nil to the house, but a pretty good dent in the fender of the car. When she got Charles on the phone and explained what had happened, his first question was, “Are the dogs OK?” then, “Was there any damage to the garden there by the house?” Once assured that dogs and garden were unharmed, he said, “Well, then nothing important was damaged.”

— Submitted by Basil Dufallo, professor of classical studies, LSA