In addition to the profound contributions former East European, Eurasian and Russian studies department chair and Provost Barry Scherr made to the College, he was “a wonderful father” who was “always present,” according to his son David Scherr.
“Despite having a very busy professional career, he really prioritized the family,” David Scherr said. “He’s just a good and present father, and I know that he and my mom had a wonderful partnership for 50 years.”
Scherr died on Sept. 12 at 79 years old following a battle against pancreatic cancer, according to an obituary written by his daughter Sonia Scherr. He is survived by his wife Sylvia Scherr, David Scherr, Sonia Scherr and his brother Richard Scherr.
Scherr graduated from Harvard University in 1966 with a degree in Slavic studies and completed his Ph.D in Russian literature at the University of Chicago in 1970, according to Dartmouth News. He married Sylvia Scherr in 1974, the same year he joined the College as a faculty member.
At Dartmouth, Scherr was an East European, Eurasian and Russian studies — then known as the Russian department — professor for 38 years and became chair of the department in 1981. As a faculty member, Scherr taught courses related to Russian studies and co-led the creation of an exchange program with Moscow State University, according to Dartmouth News.
Scherr was a “supportive” dad who “cared about people no matter who they [were],” according to David Scherr.
“Growing up, he would leave his office and come down to my track meets at Hanover High [School] to watch me run,” David Scherr said.
Scherr also supported Sonia Scherr’s pursuit of traveling around the world to write and teach, according to David Scherr.
“My sister … always loved writing, and that’s an important part of her life,” David Scherr said. “…He was very supportive and provided a lot of guidance on that. …[She] also lived in a lot of different places around the world and the United States, and so he visited her all over the world to have some really meaningful times being with her.”
Former professor Lenore Grenoble — who was hired by the Russian department when Scherr was department chair — said he served as a “supervisor and mentor” to her.
“He was not a big, flashy personality,” Grenoble said. “He spoke very fast and would giggle a little bit, but people found it easy to work with him because he was always very understated.”
Grenoble, who referred to Scherr as a “real program builder,” worked with him to build the joint linguistics and cognitive science program at the College.
“There had been this talk about starting linguistics at Dartmouth for a long time, but nothing had happened," Grenoble said. “When I was hired, he started to work on that, and together, we worked with existing resources at Dartmouth to pull people together in a really interdisciplinary way.”
Scherr also held several “key” administrative positions at the College, including associate dean for humanities from 1997 to 2001 and Provost from 2001 to 2009, according to an obituary published by the College. His “planning and fundraising efforts” as associate dean for humanities led to the founding of the Leslie Center for the Humanities in 1999. Scherr retired in 2012.
Russian Language Program director Alfia Rakova noted Scherr’s ability to “balance” his roles.
“Can you imagine how busy one can be when you’re Provost of Dartmouth?” Rakova said. “He would be in his [Russian department] office at 7:30 a.m., before he would go to Parkhurst where his [Provost] office was at 8:30. [The department] was like his sanctuary for his love for Russian literature and language.”
Rakova also praised Scherr’s proficiency in Russian, adding that they always spoke the language together.
“Sometimes I would even forget that he’s not a native speaker,” she said. “His Russian was very, very good.”
Scherr’s love for the Russian language extended beyond the College. In addition to his numerous publications on Russian culture in different academic journals, Scherr served as chair of the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages for “several years,” according to Dartmouth News. He was also an editorial board member of the Slavic and East European Journal.
Scherr passed his knowledge of Russian on to his children as well, according to David Scherr.
“When my sister and I were young, he would teach us Russian on the way to school,” David Scherr said. “He’d like to teach us a few words here and there on the rides in the school, which was a neat thing.”
According to John Kopper, a former Russian professor who retired from Dartmouth in 2020, Scherr often took interest in topics outside of his area of expertise as well.
“Even if the topic was well off his own interests, he got interested in everything that students were writing about,” Kopper said. “He would come into the next meeting having read a lot about them and often, by that point, knew more than the student.”
Kopper added that Scherr was also heavily invested in helping out colleagues within his department.
“I would give him my stuff to read, which wouldn’t interest most people on this planet, but again, he would be interested and read instantly,” Kopper said.
Despite the challenges that come with administrative roles, Scherr remained well-respected and beloved among his peers, according to Grenoble.
“Especially once you get up to the administrative [level], like the Provost Office, you make decisions that people don’t like,” Grenoble said. “But he always respected people, and they sensed that.”
Grenoble said widely-respected people like Scherr are “hard to find.”
“That’s quite a legacy in a field where you can make theoretical opponents or maybe personal enemies if you just rub each other the wrong way,” Kopper said. “But everyone liked Barry.”
