A. D. Van Nostrand papers (MS.1UF.V1)

Biographical note

Albert Douglas Van Nostrand was born in Babylon, Long Island. He graduated from Amherst College in 1943 and went on to receive his MA and PhD from Harvard. From 1949 to 1951, he was a teaching fellow at Harvard. In 1951, he joined the faculty at Brown University, was promoted to Associate Professor in 1956, and became chairman of the English department in the 1970's.

In addition to his duties as professor at Brown, he was host of the NBC educational television series, "The American Scene", a 13-part series on the American novel, and "A Prospect of Literature." In the early 1970's, he received a grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities to travel the country to present his multimedia presentation, "Exiles in the House" about communication between the generations.

One of his lasting legacies as an educator is the creation of the functional writing model, which focuses on "drilling students in the art of getting a coherent argument down on paper."