Ex-educator published 50 works
By Daily Press staff
A Santa Monica man who died earlier this month after being pulled out of his burning Sunset Park home was recently remembered by his friends, students and colleagues at Pierce College, where he was a professor for nearly two decades.
“Dedicated,” “generous” and “outstanding” are the three most often heard words when the name of Jim Burry comes up. Burry, 66, a highly regarded teacher at Pierce for 16 years, died on Sept. 8, from second-and third-degree burns.
Burry came to Pierce in 1987 and became the lead instructor for PACE, the college’s successful program for accelerated college education geared toward working adults. He taught English and humanities to adult students and became so popular that at times the demand for his classes exceeded a manageable size.
Then-PACE Director Mike Cornner remembers suggesting to Burry that a second teacher could be brought in to help bear the burden. Burry told him, “No, these students signed up to take this class with me, and I’m not going to let them down.”
That is how Burry will be remembered by those who worked with him: As someone students could depend on. English professor Richard Follett knew Burry during his entire Pierce tenure.
“I liked his passion for teaching and his dedication to his students,” Follett said. “Did you know he only slept four hours a night? He would read every student essay two times: Once as an overview and the second time for comments. He went above and beyond the call of duty.”
Burry retired from Pierce in January, 2004. While there, his love was PACE, according to Follett. On his own time, Burry established legendary four-hour Friday evening workshops on survival writing skills open to any PACE student. Called “chalk talks,” the voluntary sessions focused on common mistakes in writing and the nuts and bolts of writing a term paper. “Chalk talks” regularly drew a full house in a large lecture hall, and students came semester after semester for refresher lectures.
“People attended his Friday night workshops in droves,” Follett said. Burry also regularly sponsored a large number of independent study classes for which he received no remuneration.
Dean Charlotte Doctor, who followed Cornner as PACE director, said “Jim was extremely dedicated to students and their success, and especially to students who wanted to pursue a career of teaching English. He often offered special research opportunities for them. He always put their welfare first in his life.”
Cornner, now marketing director, affirmed, “He was an outstanding teacher of writing. He was also very generous with his time.”
The PACE office still gets letters of gratitude from past graduates for the skills they learned in Burry’s English classes, or because they finally are traveling and seeing the world they had learned about in his humanities classes.
Burry was born on Dec. 8, 1937. Following military service as a soldier in the United States Regular Army, he attended Santa Monica College. He transferred to UCLA and earned an M.A. in English. The multilingual Burry was credentialed in language arts and literature, in humanities, and as a community colleges supervisor. Before coming to Pierce, he worked at UCLA in the Institute on Educational Testing and taught English at West LA College.
During his tenure at Pierce, he served on the Academic Senate and was instrumental in the development of the English placement exam. For many years he supervised sessions for English and ESL classes, read assessment exams and advised students.
Burry published more than 50 works. He also was a musician. He is remembered with great respect by his peers.
Memorial services will be private. The family has requested that a memorial fund for scholarships be established and a fund has been set up through the Foundation for Pierce College. One scholarship will support a transferring PACE student and another benefit a student planning a career teaching English.
Donations to the Foundation should be identified “in memory of Jim Burry.” Direct them to: The Foundation for Pierce College, 6201 Winnetka Ave., #2600, Woodland Hills, Calif., 91371. (Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in a Pierce College publication).
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 25, 2004. Read the original PDF.