Counselors will be on hand again today at Missouri State University to offer free help dealing with grief to those who knew retired history professor Dr. Marc Cooper. Representatives from the Mercy Employee Assistance Program will be available in Strong Hall from 9:30 am to 4 pm to offer one-on-one meetings.
The 66-year-old Cooper was stabbed last Wednesday night at his home east of campus. An instructor in MSU’s Modern and Classical Languages Department, Dr. Edward Gutting, has been arrested in his death.
At a news conference Friday morning at the university, Dr. Victor Matthews, dean of the College of Humanities and Public Affairs, which oversees a department in which the two taught, said it’s “very difficult” to lose someone who’s made such an impact “and who has been a voice for the humanities for so many years,” he said.
Dr. Cooper, during his nearly 35 years on campus, was “an active scholar and published several articles on the cuneiform tablets of ancient Iraq,” according to Suzanne Shaw, vice-president for marketing and communication at MSU.
Dr. Matthews said he doesn’t know of any conflict between Cooper and Gutting. In fact, he said he can’t imagine Dr. Cooper having a conflict with anyone.
Dr. Matthews knew Dr. Cooper when the retired history professor was a graduate student and had followed his career.
“And when I came here it was nice to make a reconnection,” he said. “He was funny is maybe one way to put it. He was someone who enjoyed life and could laugh at human foibles.”
According to Dr. Matthews, because Dr. Cooper was interested in many different kinds of things, his “scholarship really moved away from his original specialty area (the ancient Near East) more into pedagogy.”
“He pioneered online education in history and the development of blended classes,” Matthews said.
Suzanne Shaw said, as students go back to class next week, they shouldn’t worry about their safety.
“It’s a tragedy for the campus. It’s the loss of an emeriti faculty who was beloved on campus, but this campus is safe,” she said.
According to Dr. Matthews, replacement professors are being lined up to teach the four general education courses that had been assigned this fall to Dr. Gutting who has been placed on administrative leave pending the investigation.
Dr. Matthews says Gutting’s wife, Dr. Angela Hornsby-Gutting, a history professor at MSU, will still be on staff when classes start on today.
