We dedicate our department website to our colleague Dennis Keen, whom we lost in February 2011. As you visit our site, we invite you to reflect on just a few of Dennis' contributions and accomplishments:

Dennis leaves behind an impressive list of service. In 1986, the English Department hired Dennis to be the first director of the English Lab and prime coordinator of Developmental Education. He held this position for the first ten years of his career at SCC. In this position as director, he gave new life to our offerings of Developmental Education, and many of our current programs are the result of his care in thinking through what would best serve our underprepared students.

Dennis served as SCC English Department Chair for many years and as Interim Dean of Arts and Sciences on more than one occasion. At one point, Dennis served as both Interim Dean of Arts and Sciences as well as Interim Dean of Business, Hospitality, and Information Technologies. His college service included helping to restructure the college's shared governance model, leading the College Alliance Communications Master Plan Task Force during its first year, and drafting the college's 2009-2011 Strategic Plan.

Perhaps Dennis' greatest legacy is the number of students who learned the importance of words and how to use them to express the thinking that he required of them. Students continue to rave about how positively he impacted their lives in terms of learning - and in terms of the confidence he gave them that they could be successful college students and human beings.

Dennis was happy to share his amazing skills and talents with all of us, and he always did so with a smile and a joking remark. Dennis was known for his quick wit, his love of language, and his drive and determination. Students, instructors, and administrators have all benefitted from his 24 years here at SCC.

For so very many years and in so very many ways, Dennis was the heart and soul of our department as well as the Arts and Sciences division, and we will forever be the poorer for his passing. Please honor Dennis by donating generously to the Dennis Keen Scholarship Fund through the Community Colleges of Spokane Foundation. More information can be found at the Foundation's website.