Margaret Curtis-Howe

E. Margaret Curtis was born and educated in England and received a Ph.D. from the University of Manchester. After taking out Canadian immigration papers to live and work in Manitoba for three years, she was offered a position at Western Kentucky University in the Department of Philosophy and Religion. In 1972 Dr. Curtis-Howe became a part of the Hilltopper family.
Dr. Curtis-Howe was hired by WKU to teach Greek, but ended up teaching a variety of classes including Near Eastern Archaeology, Middle Eastern Religions, and Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. She started off on an H-1 Visa, graduated to a Green Card, and finally became an American citizen in 1993.
International travel and study was an important part of Dr. Curtis’ academic career. She travelled widely in the Middle East: Israel, West Bank, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and the Sinai. While teaching in the Philosophy Department she also studied at WKU for an MA in English, and on the strength of this degree was awarded a Fulbright position as Senior Scholar in Linguistics and American Literature at Sana’a University, Yemen, where she taught from 1996-97.
After retiring from WKU in 2000, Dr. Curtis-Howe travelled in Asia, including Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, and Singapore. She then taught Western Cultures and Spoken English at Chongqing Technical and Business University, Sichuan Province, China, from 2008 to 2009. For shorter periods she taught at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, and also at Kocaeli University, Izmit, Turkey. Scandinavian and European countries were also featured largely in her travel profile.
To continue her Hilltopper Legacy, Dr. Curtis-Howe established a scholarship fund in her name. Through the E. Margaret Curtis-Howe Scholarship Fund, students will be helped in perpetuity.