Peter Beidler ’65G ’68 Ph.D., a storied Lehigh professor who earned national accolades for his teaching, passed away on April 6, 2023. He was 83.
A Chaucer scholar, Beidler taught English at Lehigh for 40 years before retiring and moving to Seattle, Washington, with his wife, Anne, in 2006. Former colleagues described him as a dynamic and engaging teacher.
“He was charismatic,” says Barbara Traister, professor emerita of English. “He attracted students of all kinds from across the curriculum and was wonderfully suited as an undergraduate instructor. Students were mesmerized.”
Dean of Athletics Joe Sterrett ’76 '78G '03P '05P '07P '09P says, “He made learning fun and enduring, finding ways of combining traditional learning experiences with pragmatic applications.”
Over his career, Beidler authored or co-authored 32 books, edited 11 book-length projects, and wrote 207 articles. He lived for a time on a Hopi reservation in Arizona with his family while he worked on a novel, and he taught in China as a Fulbright scholar. Known for his novel approach to teaching, he formed a corporation with students one semester, and they fixed up a run-down house in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, all while moving through a robust list of books on self-reliance.
In 1983, he was named national Professor of the Year, the second recipient of the award from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE).
“My father never described himself as a natural when it came to teaching,” says Kurt Beidler ’92. “He did have to work at it and plan it out. He was devoted to it and always prepared.”
Peter Beidler himself had described teaching as a “red-eye, sweaty-palm, sinking-stomach profession. Red eye because I never feel ready to teach, no matter how late I stay up the night before preparing for class. Sweaty palm because I’m always nervous before I walk into that classroom, sure that I will be found out this time. Sinking stomach because I walk out of the classroom an hour later convinced that I was even more stuttering and bumbling than usual.”
Beidler was aware of his power as a teacher, however. In an essay, he once wrote: “As a teacher I had both a decent salary, and the only kind of power worth having, the power to change lives.”
