January 28, 2005: Volume 63, Number 4

Barbara Rotundo is mourned

Barbara Rotundo, Union's first peacetime woman professor, a prominent civic leader, and a pioneering educator and scholar, died Dec. 24.

She was hired to teach in the English department in 1953. Her appointment was only for a term or two in those all-male days. She was the widow of Joseph Rotundo '29, former professor of economics and government and a local radio commentator and public servant.

She later served as associate professor of English at the University at Albany, where she founded one of the first university writing workshops in the country and wrote a grammar text.

She was a member and president of the Schenectady School Board and was involved in wide-ranging civic roles in the Capital District, active in the Girl Scouts, Job Corps, Carver Community Center, Society of Architectural Historians, Refreshing Springs Day Care Center, and Religious Society of Friends.

In the Boston area, she served as a historical tour guide and an Elderhostel instructor. She was scholar respected for her work on 19th-century Boston and on the historical study of cemeteries and gravestones.

A native of Schenectady, she graduated from Mt. Holyoke in 1942 and earned a master's in English at Cornell and a Ph.D. in American literature from Syracuse University.

<< Previous Story Hatke paintings shown in...

Next Story >> 'Shangri-La' on Feb. 3...