Saying he loves university life, his students and teaching, English professor Tom Dilworth is glad to have been elected to the Royal Society of Canada but thinks it would be a mistake to think it means much.

The society named him to its academy of the arts and humanities in September; he will be inducted during a ceremony on Saturday, November 26, at the Ottawa Convention Centre.

“It just means that you have worked hard and published a lot,” says Dr. Dilworth. “What does make it important for me is that I was nominated by Byron Rourke.”

Dr. Rourke, the late psychology professor emeritus who died August 10, was named a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1997. Dilworth says their regular conversations grew into a friendship.

“It was really a marvellous experience of intellectual life just to talk to the man,” he says. “I feel very privileged to have gotten to know him.”

Founded in 1882, the Royal Society of Canada is the senior national body of distinguished Canadian scholars, artists and scientists and exists to recognize academic excellence and outstanding contributions to Canadian intellectual culture, to advise governments and organizations, and to promote a culture of knowledge and innovation in Canada.

In electing Dilworth, the society’s fellows recognized him as “the foremost scholar on the poet and painter David Jones” and noted his publications on 19th and 20th century British and American authors.

Dilworth says it is a “real honour” to be among the fellows on the UWindsor faculty. In addition to Rourke, they include physicists Gordon Drake and William McConkey, philosopher Ralph Johnson, environmental geologist Brian Fryer and creative writing professor emeritus Alistair MacLeod.