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.