Charles Bell Burke, a graduate of Cornell whose dissertation, “The Open Road,” was the first doctoral dissertation on Walt Whitman, joined the English Department in 1909 and was in charge of subfreshman English and the regular freshman course. At the upper division level, he introduced courses in the short story, the essay, and the novel. He became head of the English Department in 1923, a position he held until his retirement in 1942. During his tenure as head, he funded two awards: the Captain Robert A. Burke Award for excellence in prose fiction, in honor of his father; and the Eleanora R. Burke Award for excellence in expository writing, in honor of his wife who had died in 1936. In 1970 the Department of English commissioned artist Anita Woods to paint a portrait of him for the department. The painting was unveiled in January 1971.