Roald Tweet had a way with words, with listeners, with his comforting voice, and his patient, relentless curiosity and compassion will be felt in the Quad-Cities for years to come. The 87-year-old Augustana College professor emeritus of English died on Wednesday after a brief illness (congestive heart failure and Covid-19), and the tremendous loss reverberates throughout the community. “He was my teacher from the time I was seventeen till now,” said Ann Boaden (Augie Class of ’67), a longtime English professor who retired in 2016. “His brilliance, his puckish wit and playfulness, his persistence... Read More

Kai Swanson of Augustana College, Rock Island, related Wednesday: “It is with a heart made heavy by a thousand light memories that I inform the Augustana community of the passing of Roald Tweet, professor emeritus of English.” Tweet, 87, died today after a brief illness. He became a member of the Augustana English Department in 1960, and remained there until his retirement in 1999; he chaired the department from 1967 until 1984. In 1998, he was appointed to the Conrad Bergendoff Chair in the Humanities, the second person (after Dorothy Parkander) to hold the College’s first endowed position. Tweet... Read More