A dedicated, accessible teacher, he took part in many aspects of university life, including by giving public lectures and organizing conferences.
RLT was meant to reveal the many sides of Russian literature, focusing in particular on the writers little known in the West and repressed in the Soviet Union.
In 1972, Proffer and his family were in Joseph Brodsky's room when the poet was called in by the authorities and encouraged to leave before Nixon's visit to the Soviet Union.
Proffer met Brodsky's plane in Vienna and after enormous effort got him an American visa and a place at the University of Michigan.
Ann Arbor became a stop on the Russian literary underground railway, as a stream of prominent writers came to visit Ardis or teach at the university.
Attending were Arthur A. Cohen, Sasha Sokolov, Joseph Brodsky, Susan Sontag and many other notable Russian and American literary figures.