He was also director of the graduate summer program for teachers of German from 1972 to 2004 at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria. In the late 1960s and early 1970s he was in the administrative team led by Director Paul Engle in the International Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa where he honed his skills as a literary critic and met writers like Kurt Vonnegut and John Irving. During the 1970’s and 1980’s his major research area was the literature of the GDR and on a university grant he was able to invite numerous GDR writers to the campus of the University of Northern Iowa. From the 1970s until his retirement, he was guest professor in Spain (University of Salamanca), Russia (Herzen University, St.Petersburg), China (Nei Mongol Institute of Technology, Hohhot) and Guatemala (University of San Carlos). After his retirement from the University of Northern Iowa he became a Fulbright Professor at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow.
Languages: speaking, reading, and writing: English, German, French, Spanish, and Norwegian. Languages reading only: Swedish, Danish, Icelandic, Dutch, Portuguese, and Latin.