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This is my letter to the World That never wrote to Me- The simple News that Nature told- With tender Majesty Emily Dickinson I began a project months ago to learn about you as a teacher. More truthfully, I think this started sometime around 1989 and has been a gradual awakening. When you died in 1990, just after Thanksgiving, I barely knew you, yet I felt connected. The day of your funeral when the minister addressed the congregation and asked for all former students of Miss Walsh to stand, the rustling of that many people rising from their seats--their collective presence, testament to a career of teaching--took away my breath. I wasn't sure what hit me. All I knew was that I was glad to be there. Since that time, I've continued to teach and come to realize that teaching "legends" like yourself are a neglected phenomenon; regional status often unrecognized and your stories unwritten. I knew that you taught English and math for many years; and when Wilmington College was first established across the street from New Hanover High School in the Issac Bear Building in 1947, you were one of a few teachers at the high school who became college faculty. I was uncertain, however, about your association with "the college" which was to become the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. I thought you were one of the original female faculty members. Now I know your connection with UNC-W was as a part-time instructor of night classes, not a full-time position. Yours was an insignificant role; your presence there, mostly unacknowledged. The Dean of Students at the time says he often heard about your excellent teaching from students although he rarely, if ever, saw you. Former English Department faculty do not recall your attending meetings or social functions. Researching your influence at UNC-W has not led to discoveries I intended, rather the inquiry took on a life of its own. In the process, however, I have experienced much confusion. I did not anticipate that writing about you would be this frustrating--even inappropriate. But the more I learned, I realized you would not have approved of the idea in the first place. You would have said to me, "Get on with more important work--don't fret with my life as a teacher." You would not want to be the center of attention. I could not see this at first--which is why I am writing this letter--to let you know I got the message. When I first met you, I was in a life transition. My husband and I had been married for one year; I was in the process of returning to graduate school, and we bought the house across the street from you in the Audubon neighborhood. In fact, your Dutch Colonial house--its period look--was a point I considered before we purchased our home. No wonder movie executives discovered where you lived to be a most suitable location for filming Carson McCullers' Member of the Wedding--it is a place with an appearance of times past. I had no way of knowing a school teacher lived in the house, a "teaching legend." Since my mother is also highly regarded as a teacher, I know, in her case, it comes from relentless attention to honest work. With her, it's always "do it right, or don't do it at all." This is not to mean she does not allow mistakes; it means, however, she will not tolerate indolence. She means business. Her standards--within reach, but high. What I've learned about you is similar. Former students say you were a" stickler, "hard but good" "immense dignity without being stuffy," someone who exemplifies an ideal. About you one student said, "[S]he looked off into the distance and [we] looked off into the distance to see if [we] saw anything." I often hear that students who had never written a poem, wrote their first--and sometimes only--poem in your class. Kelly Jewell, a former student of yours in a night class at Wilmington College, says that when you read his poem "Going North," you said, "That's good. …

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a putative autoimmune disease of the central nervous system, affecting many adults of childbearing age. Although extensive research has examined the association between MS and traditional perinatal outcomes (i.e. cesarean section, birth weight and preterm birth), other important outcomes are understudied, partly due to existing methodological challenges. Using comprehensive populationbased databases including the British Columbia (BC) MS Database, BC Perinatal Database Registry, Vital Statistics Birth Registry, Population Data BC Consolidation File and Census GeoData, this dissertation investigated the association between MS (and related clinical factors) with: labour induction and augmentation; obstetrical epidural and spinal anesthesia; length of birth hospitalization in mothers and their newborns; as well as birth outcomes in fathers with MS. Overall, individuals with MS were not at increased risk for the investigated outcomes compared to the general population with the exception that multiparous women with MS had higher rates of epidural anesthesia compared to multiparous women in the general population. Within MS women, those with longer disease duration had less epidural anesthesia and those with greater disability had more labor induction. Men with greater MS disability tended to father offspring with lower mean birth weight, but their newborns were still within the normal range for the general population. Individuals with MS who wish to have children must also decide between initiating disease-modifying drug (DMD) early to minimize relapses (i.e. MS attacks) or delaying/stopping therapy prior to conception to avoid potential fetal harm from in utero DMD exposure. This dissertation explored perinatal outcomes in women and men with iii MS exposed to DMDs and includes a systematic review of DMD exposure on perinatal outcomes. Data from BC suggest that DMD exposure in men and women with MS does not increase the risk of unfavorable perinatal outcomes. However, best evidence from the systematic review indicates that interferon-beta exposure in women with MS is associated with preterm birth, lower mean birth weight and shorter mean birth length in newborns; nonetheless, growth parameters of exposed newborns remained within normal values for the general population and preterm births tended to be close to term.