Presented to: Neila C. Seshachari
For:
Neila Seshachari died March 10, 2002, the week following her election as president-elect of The Association for Mormon Letters.
As teacher, scholar, editor, Neila helped promote and interpret Mormon letters during her career at Weber State University, since coming to the United States with her husband Candidai Seshachari in the late 1960s. "Sesh" was a former president of AML. Neila received a Distinguished Service Award from AML in 1994, honoring the tenth anniversary issue of Weber Studies, which she as editor devoted to Mormon letters.
Neila set standards and then worked with others to bring us up to these standards. During her year on the board of AML she wrote a grant for AML which sets a model for future grant writing to private foundations. She devotedly responded to AML board discussions with detailed e-mails full of insights. And at last year's Annual Meeting she delivered an interpretative paper on Leap by Terry Tempest Williams that was to be just the beginning of study of writing from a Mormon background. Although she was Hindu, not Mormon, she loved this literature.
With thousands of co-workers, students, and scholars we mourn her passing. Today we dedicate these sessions to her memory.