Gay Wilentz, a humanitarian, pioneer, scholar, teacher, and mentor, passed away on Monday, Feb. 6, 2006. She suffered from Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as "Lou Gehrig's disease." Although this neurodegenerative disease ended her life on earth, her legendary spirit of advocacy and service continues to permeate all the lives she inspired. Dr. Wilentz , born Sept. 1, 1950, was a professor, the Director of Ethnic Studies, and Co-Coordinator of the Multicultural Literature Concentration in the Department of English at East Carolina University. While in Sierra Leone, Africa, from 1977-1980 on a Peace Corps assignment, Gay became enamored with African Literature. Her experience in Sierra Leone led her to passionate pursuit of a Ph.D. in African, African-American, and Caribbean Literature at the University of Texas in 1986. After receiving her doctorate degree, Wilentz began working as an Associate Professor in the English Department at East Carolina University in 1988. In 1991, her research led her to Belize, where she was on several occasions a Visiting Professor at the University of Belize. Gay once said that "the telling of stories, passing them from one to the other, is what we call orature. Instead of literature, it's orature, a way of passing down tradition." Gay passed this "orature" down to generations of students by being the conduit between the University of Belize and East Carolina University.

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Excerpt taken from: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/reflector/name/gay-wilentz-obituary?id=9129863

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Seodial Frank H. Deena is Professor of Multicultural and Postcolonial/Transnational Literature and Criticism at East Carolina University where he co-coordinates the Graduate Multicultural and Transnational Literatures Program and teaches multicultural, world, postcolonial, African American, and Caribbean literatures, as well as the Bible as Literature. He received his Ph.D. in Literature and Criticism from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, his masters degree from Chicago State University, and his undergraduate degree from the University of Guyana. His research includes three books, 42 articles, and 150 presentations (92 conference presentations and 58 other scholarly presentations). He has published widely in professional journals such as College Language Association Journal, UFAHAMU: Journal of the African Activist Association, Commonwealth Novel in English, Commonwealth Review, Indo-American Review, Afro-American Literature, The Literary GRIOT, and Journal of Caribbean Studies; and has chapters in Postcolonial Discourse (Prestige 1996), Literature of Nature (Fitzroy Dearborn 1998), Alice Walker’s The Color Purple: A Reader’s Companion (Asia Book Club 2002), Latitude 63˚ North (Mid-Sweden University College 2002), and Terranglian Territories (Peter Lang 2000). His books, Canonization, Colonization, Decolonization: A Comparative Study of Political and Critical Works by Minority Writers (Peter Lang Publishing INC., 2001), From Around the Globe: Secular Authors and Biblical Perspectives (University Press of America, 2007), and Situating Caribbean Literature and Criticism in Multicultural and Postcolonial Studies (Peter Lang Publishing INC., 2009), have been published. and he is currently working on “Multicultural, Postcolonial, and Postmodern Cross-sections and Intersections with the Bible, Literature, and Culture.”