Education Commons^™

Lists Of Oral History Interviews, Barbara C. Allen

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The main document is a simple list of interviews conducted by History 650 and Honors 122 students of La Salle University faculty, staff, administrators, alumni, neighbors, and Christian Brothers. The supplementary file is a spreadsheet with more details.

Interview Of Fred J. Foley, Jr., Ph.D., Fred J. Foley Ph.D., Jeanmarie Turner

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Dr. Fred Foley, Jr. was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in December of 1946. His parents were Fred Joseph Foley and Doris Nelson Foley. He moved to the Philadelphia area with his family when he was four years old. He is married, has three children and four grandchildren. He lived in Delaware County growing up. Dr. Foley attended St. Andrew's Grade School and Monsignor Bonner High School for Boys. He attended St. Joseph’s College as an undergrad majoring in Politics. He graduated with a B.A. in Politics in 1968. He attended Princeton University for his Master’s and Ph.D. programs. He graduated …

Interview Of Margaret Mcguinness, Ph.D., Margaret Mcguinness Ph.D., Stephen Pierce

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Dr. Margaret McGuinness was born in 1953, in Providence, Rhode Island. She went to an all-girls Catholic high school called St. Mary’s Academy Bayview in Providence where she graduated in 1971. McGuinness went on to major in American Studies and Civilization as an undergraduate at Boston University graduating with a B.A in 1975. She continued her work at Boston University where McGuinness earned a master’s of theological studies (M.T.S) focusing on Biblical and Historical Studies in 1979. She would move to New York to work on her dissertation at Union Theological Seminary finishing with her Ph.D. in 1985 concentrating on …

Interview Of Alice L. Hoersch, Ph.D., Alice L. Hoersch Ph.D., Selena Bemak

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Alice Lynn Hoersch was born in 1950 in Abington, PA to Albert and Alice Hoersch. She moved to Honey Brook, located in Chester County, PA at two-years-old. Hoersch lived in Honey Brook until she finished graduate school in 1977. She attended Honey Brook Elementary School. She graduated as valedictorian from Twin Valley High School in 1968. Hoersch studied geology at Bryn Mawr College, graduating in 1972. She received both her master’s and Ph.D. in metamorphic petrology from Johns Hopkins University in 1974 and 1977, respectively. The same year she obtained her Ph.D., Hoersch began teaching as an assistant professor of …

Interview Of Stephen Andrilli, Ph.D., Stephen Francis Andrilli Ph.D., Jane Highley

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Stephen Francis Andrilli was born in August 1952 in Bryn Mawr, PA. He was born to Francis and Leatrice Andrilli. Dr. Andrilli is the oldest of four children; his three sisters are Carol (now Carol Strosser), Patricia (now Patricia Kempczynski), and Barbara (now Barbara Parkes). Aside from a few years of living in Gettysburg, Dr. Andrilli has lived in the Philadelphia area for most of his life. He attended St. Jerome School, where he finished 8th grade. He then attended LaSalle College High School, where he graduated in 1969 at age 16. He entered La Salle University (formerly La Salle …

Interview Of Kevin J. Harty, Ph.D., Kevin J. Harty Ph.D., Meghan Skiles

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Dr. Kevin J. Harty was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1948. He grew up in Brooklyn until his family moved to Chicago when he was about twelve years old. His father worked for the telephone company, which spurred the family’s move to Chicago, and his mother stayed home and cared for the family. Dr. Harty attended high school in the suburbs of Chicago, graduating when he was fifteen and a half years old. Between high school and college, he worked for a year in a department store, and briefly considered going into the fashion industry. He attended Marquette University …

Interview Of Richard Mshomba, Ph.D., Richard Mshomba Ph.D., Daniel Miller

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Dr. Richard Mshomba is an economics professor at La Salle University. He was born in Tanzania and spent his early adult life working for the Tanzanian government. When he was 27 he came to the United States to attend school at La Salle College. While attending La Salle he lived with the brother of a local Bishop who helped to get Richard accepted to La Salle. Richard spent three years at La Salle College earning his degree in Economics. After talking with his professor Richard Garrison, he decided to apply to graduate school at the University of Delaware. While he …

Interview Of Jennifer Sipe, M.S.N., R.N., Jennifer Sipe, Anthony Palazzolo

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Jennifer Sipe was born in 1969 at Chestnut Hill Hospital. Jennifer had an unstructured childhood which allowed her time to follow her interests and explore local woods and creeks in Bucks County growing up. Jennifer went to Willow Dale Elementary and also was a graduate of William Tennent High School class of 1987. During high school Jennifer was involved in many activities and took a wide range of classes. At an early age as an aggressive learner after completing high school, Jennifer decided to be the first one in her family to attend college. She started college at Temple University …

Interview Of Stuart Leibiger, Ph.D., Stuart E. Leibiger Ph.D., Gina L. Bixler

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Stuart Eric Leibiger, Ph.D. was born in 1965 in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, the youngest of four children. He spent all of his life along the northeastern seaboard of the United States. He was raised in Connecticut and graduated from the University of Virginia and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before settling in the Delaware Valley. He joined the La Salle University history department in 1997 after working at Princeton University for a time. Shortly after being hired as assistant professor or history at La Salle, Dr. Leibiger adapted his dissertation into his first book Founding Friendship: …

Interview Of Margaret Mary Markmann, Ph.D., Margaret Mary Markmann Ph.D, Alexander P. Rowan

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Dr. Markmann was born in 1948 at the Anderson Hospital in Center City, Philadelphia. She was the fourth of eleven children born into a household of her mother, her father and her grandparents. She grew up in Philadelphia and has lived in the area for her entire life only leaving once after she completed nursing school. During her childhood her extended family lived nearby, her grandmother lived down the street and her Aunt and Uncle lived in the opposite direction. Her father was the direct descendent of Irish immigrants who settled in South West Philadelphia and lived in Southwest Philadelphia …

Interview Of Diana Regan, M.A., Diana Regan M.A., Melissa Nichols

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Diana Regan was born in Philadelphia, on an undisclosed date, and grew up in Bryn Mawr, where she has spent her entire life with the exception of a brief time in the 1960s when she lived in New York City. Her father had his own business distributing home heating fuel oil, and her mother worked with him. She had one brother who is now deceased. Regan attended St. Thomas Aquinas elementary school in South Philadelphia, followed by high school at Mater Misericordiae Academy (now Merion Mercy Academy) in Merion, Pennsylvania. In pursuing her higher education, Regan first attended Immaculata College …

Interview Of Margaret Mccoey, M.S., Margaret M. Mccoey, Matthew Riffe

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Margaret “Peggy” McCoey is the Director of Graduate Programs in Computer Information Science, Information Technology, and Economic Crime Forensics at La Salle University. Born in the Oxford Circle section of Philadelphia in 1957, Peggy grew up in St. Martin of Tours parish attending their grade school before going to Little Flower High School. After graduation in 1975, Peggy entered La Salle University an undergraduate where she received a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. Peggy received a master’s degree from Villanova in 1984. Beginning in 1982, Peggy McCoey has taught at La Salle University in some capacity. Throughout the 1990’s, Peggy …

Interview Of Joseph Grabenstein, F.S.C., M.A., M.Ed., M.L.S., Joseph Grabenstein, F.S.C., Wesley Schwenk

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Brother Joseph Grabenstein is the Head Archivist of the La Salle University Archives and also manages the Brothers of the Christian School, District of Eastern North America Archives that are housed here at La Salle. He worked as an assistant archivist from 1992 until 1994 and was made head archivist January 1, 1994. Grabenstein was born in 1950 in Cumberland, Maryland to Herman and Irene Grabenstein. He is a 1968 graduate of Bishop Walsh High School and received his Bachelor of Arts in History in 1973 from La Salle College. He taught a variety of classes including history, geography, religion …

Interview Of John Lukacs, Ph.D., John Lukacs Ph.D., Leo Wong

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John Lukacs was born in 1924 in Budapest Hungary. He grew up in a middle class family raised by a Roman Catholic Father, and a Jewish mother. While he received most of his education in Hungary, he went to high school in Great Britain during his teenage years. During the Second World War, he was drafted into a forced labor battalion for much of the war. When German troops occupied Hungary in late 1944, he had to avoid getting sent to death camps by avoiding German patrols. In addition, he had to avoid being caught in the crossfire during the …

Interview Of Frederick Van Fleteren, Ph.D., Frederick Van Fleteren Ph.D., Leo Wong

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Frederick Van Fleteren was born in St. Clair Shores, Michigan in 1941. He was raised by two devout Catholic parents who valued his education. He went to Catholic grade schools and colleges in the United States, as well as two Irish universities when he was getting his Ph.D. in philosophy. His interest in philosophy would guide his academic and professional career from his undergraduate years to his time as a Philosophy professor at La Salle University. From 1967 until 1978, he was an ordained priest with the Augustinians. He received his B.A. and M.A. from Villanova in 1964 and 1968 …

Interview Of John P. Rossi, Ph.D., John Patrick Rossi Ph.D., Kevin N. Bretz

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This interview examines Dr. John Rossi’s life since his formal retirement in 2006. Major topics in the interview include Dr. Rossi’s publication of the La Salle history book, Living the Promise. Rossi details the archival experience, the research, drafts, and publication of the book. He also discusses the book’s reception at the school, as well as the community. Another major topic that was explored was Dr. Rossi’s travels and experience in Great Britain while he was researching his doctoral dissertation in the 1960s. Other topics include his analysis of history and his perspective on how technology has affected the …

Interview Of Charles A. Desnoyers, Ph.D., Charles A. Desnoyers Ph.D., Remus Lee

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Dr. Charles Albert Desnoyers (b. 1952) was born and raised in North Plainfield, New Jersey with his parents and five younger siblings. He attended St. Joseph’s Parochial School and North Plainfield High School for the duration of his primary school education; it was in North Plainfield High School where he began showing an interest in history, due to the influences of his history teachers. He later attended Villanova University, changing to a sociology major after a year of general sciences. His graduation from Villanova University with a minor in history led him down the path to getting a Ph.D. and …

Interview Of Michael R. Dillon, Ph.D., J.D., Michael R. Dillon, Ph.D., J.D., John A. Prendergast

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Dr. Michael Richard Dillon (1942-2020) was a Professor and Chair of the Political Science Department at La Salle University in Philadelphia. He grew up in Wilmette, Illinois, a suburb just outside of Chicago, where he spent many years before opting to attend the University of Notre Dame for his undergraduate and, later, his graduate and doctoral degrees. Dr. Dillon first came to La Salle in 1968, where he spent 17 years as a member of the Political Science Department under the Chair at the time, Robert Courtney. After obtaining a J.D. from Temple University, Dr. Dillon left La Salle in …

Interview Of Sidney J. Macleod, Jr., M.F.A., Sidney J. Macleod Jr., M.F.A., Amy E. Brooks

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Sidney MacLeod (often called Sid) was born in 1933 in Chicago, Illinois. He is the oldest of three children and the only boy. He earned his M.S.S. at Saint Mary’s College in Winona, Minnesota and his M.F.A. at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. After graduate school he was drafted into the U.S. Army where he served two years on several domestic military bases. He began working at La Salle in 1959. In 1961 he married his wife, Mary Jane. They have four children (three sons and one daughter). He continues to work at La Salle full-time. When he retires he …

Interview Of Edward J. Sheehy, F.S.C., Ph.D., Edward J. Sheehy, Lauren De Angelis

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Edward J. Sheehy was born in 1946 to Edward and Rosemary Sheehy. His father was a naval commander and later the head of an aerospace company called Hercules. He entered the novitiate of the Christian Brothers in 1963, received his undergraduate degree in history from La Salle College in 1968, his Master of Liberal Arts from Johns Hopkins University in 1973, and his Ph.D. in History from George Washington University in 1983. He worked at St. Gabriel's Hall, Calvert College High School, Hudson Catholic High School, Central Catholic High School in Pittsburgh, PA, and La Salle University. A specialist on …

Interview Of Richard Grande, Richard Grande, Frank Hopper

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Richard Grande was born and raised in South Philadelphia. He was educated in the Philadelphia Parochial System from kindergarten through high school. He graduated from Bishop Neumann High School in June of 1960. He attended La Salle College from September 1960 through May 1965. In 1964, he was on the team of scholars who brought national recognition to La Salle College through their appearance on the nationally televised quiz program, the GE College Bowl. He majored in English at La Salle College and received his Bachelors degree in May of 1965. He received a teaching assistantship from the University of …

Interview Of Robert S. Lyons, Jr., Robert S. Lyons Jr., Christina Becker

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Robert S. Lyons, Jr. (1939-2013) graduated from La Salle College in 1961. The following is his obituary from McGhee Funeral Home:

"Robert S. Lyons, Jr., of Upper Southampton, died Wednesday, June 5, 2013. He was 73. Born June 29, 1939, in Philadelphia, PA, Bob was the son of the late Robert and Catharine Lyons. Bob is survived by his; beloved wife Joan M. Lyons (nee Lang); children, Joanne Jenkins (Ken), Robert P., M.D. (Renee), Richard (Leanne), David (Julie), and Gregory. He will also be missed by his 11 grandchildren. Bob Lyons, the author of Palestra Pandemonium: A History of the …

Interview Of John J. Seydow, Ph.D., John J. Seydow, Frank Hopper

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John J. Seydow was born and raised in Olney section of Philadelphia. He was educated in Philadelphia’s Parochial School System from kindergarten through high school. He graduated from Cardinal Dougherty High School in June of 1959. He attended La Salle College on a full time basis from September 1961 through May 1965. He majored in English at La Salle and received his Bachelors degree in May of 1965. The following September he began a graduate fellowship at Ohio University where he earned his Masters and Doctorial degrees in English by May of 1968. In August 1968, he returned to La …

Interview Of John J. Rooney, Ph.D., John J. Rooney Phd, Lauren Woodring

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Dr. John J. Rooney was born in 1923 to a working class family in South Philadelphia. He went to primarily Catholic schools and during his childhood, witnessed three World Series from his house. He started attending La Salle University in 1940, majoring in chemistry. During World War II, he left school to join the Navy as a flight instructor. He came back to La Salle and graduated in 1946. From there, he went to Temple University to get a master’s and then Ph.D. in psychology. During this time, he simultaneously went to school, taught first chemistry and then psychology at …

Interview Of Marc A. Moreau, Ph.D., Marc A. Moreau Ph.D., Elizabeth Wagner

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Marc Moreau was born in 1948 in Lewiston, Maine. His family is French Canadian, and the part of town where he grew up was a pocket for French-speaking people. It was referred to as a "Petit-Canada." Lewiston's economy centered on textile mills. All of his grandparents and both of his parents worked in the mills during their lives. His mother later became a nurse during World War II, and his father served in the army during that time but later returned to the mills. Moreau has a younger sister and brother. He delivered French newspapers as a boy and attended …

Interview Of Bernhardt Blumenthal, Ph.D., Bernhardt Blumenthal Ph.D., Derek Casey

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Dr. Bernhardt Blumenthal (d. 2012, age 75) was a La Salle graduate of the class of 1955 where he majored in German. After graduating from La Salle he earned his master's in German from Northwestern University, earned a Fulbright scholarship to study in Germany for a year and returned to begin his doctorate in German Literature at Princeton University. Upon graduation from Princeton in 1963 he was hired by La Salle to begin his career as a professor of German language and literature. In 1969 he became the Director of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures and held that …

Interview Of Emery C. Mollenhauer, F.S.C., Ph.D., Emery Mollenhauer, Matthew Deininger

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Brother Emery Mollenhauer, a product of West Philadelphia, grew up in a good home where his father worked as an interior designer furnishing department stores and manufacturing curtains for the theater while his mother was a house wife. Brother Emery graduated number one in his class from Most Blessed Sacrament grade school. He attended West Catholic High School for boys under the direction of the Christian Brothers. By the time of graduation, Brother Emery was ranked third in his class and decided to become a Christian Brother. He received a Bachelor’s Degree graduating Magna Cum Laude with Phi Beta Kappa …

Interview Of Arthur Bangs, F.S.C., Ph.D., Arthur Bangs F.S.C., Ph.D., Caitlin Haug

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This Interview was conducted in order to collect the oral history of Brother Arthur Bangs and his time spent as Brother of La Salle, which includes his time outside and within the campus of La Salle University. This interview was conducted in Brother Bangs' office in Olney Hall on the second floor at La Salle University. Brother Bangs was born in 1932 in Philadelphia, where he went to West Catholic High School. He then furthered his education by joining the Brothers of La Salle upon graduation and entered as a student at La Salle College. After graduating from La Salle, …

Interview Of Leo D. Rudnytzky, Ph.D., Leo D. Rudnytzky Ph.D., Meghan Mccormack

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In this oral history, we cover Dr. Rudnytzky’s life from his early childhood in Ukraine and Eastern Europe to his formative years in the United States. He provides a detailed account of his time as an undergraduate student at La Salle University. The interview then spans his graduate studies and early years of teaching at La Salle, along with the differences between his time here, at Ivy League schools, and at foreign institutions. The subject discusses his involvement in various ethnic and religious groups and his impact on La Salle by way of symposiums, speakers, and programs, which he has …

Interview Of Daniel Burke F.S.C., Ph.D., Daniel Burke F.S.C., Ph.D., Christopher A. Thompson

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Interview with Brother Daniel Burke FSC. Born in Pittsburgh, PA in 1926, Brother Daniel, an Irish-American, went to an all Italian grade school where he emerged as an art student and class valedictorian. His father fought in World War I and survived. After the war, Brother Daniel’s father, also Daniel Burke, was a automobile sales and repair man, then worked on the staff of the Registrar of Wills, Allegheny County, PA. His mother worked at the newspaper, the Pittsburgh Press during the depression. Brother Daniel went to high school at La Salle Hall in Ammendale Maryland, and College at Catholic …