Robert Rowland, history and classical humanities professor, died Wednesday in Philadelphia.

Rowland, who was suffering from cancer, died in his sleep. The cause had not been determined as of press time. Rowland was in Philadelphia for cancer treatment.

Rowland came to Loyola in 1991 as a history and classical humanities professor and served as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. He stepped down as dean in 1998 but stayed at Loyola as a professor. This semester he was teaching two history courses and one classical humanities course. Lucie Barnard, history junior and a student in Rowland’s Roman Culture class, said he had been absent from the class for about three weeks.

David Moore, chairman of the history department, commented on the loss to the university. “He was a very valuable member of the faculty. He will be greatly missed, and not only by the history department, but also by the classical humanities department,” Moore said.

“He was a great professor and knew what he was talking about,” Barnard said of Rowland. “He knew stories about everything. Anything that came up in class he had an interesting story for,” she said.

Rowland received his bachelor’s degree in classical languages from La Salle University in 1959 and his master’s degree and Ph.D. in classical studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 1961 and 1964 respectively.

Before coming to Loyola, Rowland taught at the University of Maryland-College Park, where he was chairman of the Department of Classical Studies and served as acting director of the Center for Archaeology. During his career he was a professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia, Villanova University, the University of Pennsylvania and a part-time instructor at La Salle College.

Rowland authored or edited seven books and wrote more than 100 articles. He lectured in the United States, Europe and Canada. The Republic of Italy honored Rowland with the title of Cavaliere (Knight) in 1994, according to his Loyola Web site. He also served as the President of the American Philological Association’s Friends of Ancient History of the Atlantic States from 1989 to 1990.

Tara Templeton can be reached at [email protected].