Douglas Valentine LePan

Douglas Valentine LePan, OC, public servant, educator (born 25 May 1914 in Toronto, ON ; died 27 November 1998 in Toronto). LePan taught English literature at the University of Toronto and Harvard 1937-41, was a personal education adviser to Gen A.G.L. McNaughton 1942-43, and fought in the Italian campaign with the Canadian Army. He was a member of the Department of External Affairs 1945-59, developing an expertise in economics and serving in Washington as minister-counsellor, as secretary and director of research for the Royal Commission on Canada's Economic Prospects, and briefly as assistant undersecretary of state.

A volume of memoirs, Bright Glass of Memory (1979), recalls LePan's early experiences. After teaching at Queen's University 1959-64, he returned to the University of Toronto as principal of University College 1964-70 and university professor 1970-79. He was Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto after 1979.

He won the Governor General's Award for his second volume of poetry, The Net and the Sword (1953) and for his novel The Deserter (1964), both of which are concerned with the experience of war. After Weathering It: Complete Poems 1948-87 was published in 1987, he wrote another poetry anthology, Far Voyages (1990) and Macalister or Dying in the Dark (1995), a fictionalized biography of Canadian Second World War hero John Kenneth Macalister. He was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada shortly before his death.