Grand Valley State University lost a member of its community when Mary Noel Easter was found dead in the Yankee Springs Township on Saturday afternoon, said the Grand Rapids Police. Easter, affiliate professor of writing, had been missing since last Tuesday.

63-year-old Easter was found in a wooded area of Yankee Springs Recreation Center, said a police spokesperson. Police have yet to determine the cause of her death and an autopsy is pending.

“We’re shocked and grieved to lose a valued colleague who has contributed over her years at Grand Valley,” said Fred Antczak, dean of the college of liberal arts and sciences. “Her death was a great surprise and I think that everyone would want to express their respect for Professor Easter.”

Antczak said that he is unsure what kind of memorial the university will plan, but he believes that the university will release more information sometime on today.

“I’m sure there will be a number of people who want to express their condolences to the family and to simply register their grief at the loss of their colleague and their professor,” said Antczak. “I hope that her students are doing alright and I’m sure grief counseling will be available to those who need it.”

Faculty in the writing department were the first to discover that Easter had been reported missing, said Mary Eilleen Lyon, assistant vice president of GVSU’s News and Information Services.

“They took all of the proper steps in the writing department,” said Lyon. “The faculty followed up and tried to find out what was going on. When it was obvious that (Easter) would not be in her classes, they made it a priority to take care of her students.”

Professors within the writing department have stepped up to cover Easter’s classes. Professors volunteered to hold office hours to accommodate her students as they prepared their final portfolios for the Writing 150 course. Ellen Schendel, associate professor of writing and director of the Fred Meijer Center for Writing, said that the writing center held extra hours on Sunday to provide additional assistance for Easter’s students and that they will most likely be sending extra writing consultants into her classrooms to help the faculty that will be substituting until the end of the semester.

Grand Rapids police say that more information about Easter should be available later this week, once the results of the autopsy are released to the public.

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