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Communication Associate: Public Relations | Lori Melton | lmelton@d.umn.edu | (218) 726-8830
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May 5, 2009
Susan Beasy Latto, Director, UMD Public Relations 218 726-8830 slatto@d.umn.edu

UMD Announces Two Retiring Faculty

The University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) has announced the retirement of two faculty members: Thomas Farrell, Professor of Writing Studies and Yolande J. Jenny, Associate Professor of Foreign Languages and Literature.

Thomas J. Farrell is retiring from the Department of Writing Studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth, where he joined the faculty in 1987. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1988 and Professor in 2004. He taught many advanced writing courses, and also courses on the Bible, ancient and medieval culture, and modern technological culture.

Dr. Farrell's scholarship centers on the thought of the cultural historian Walter On regarding the historical development of literacy. His most well known work is his book Walter Ong's Contributions to Cultural Studies: The Phenomenology of the Word and I-Thou Communication (2000).

Dr. Farrell also served as the senior co-editor of An Ong Reader: Challenges for Further Inquiry (2002) and of four volumes of Ong's essays entitled Faith and Contexts (1992-1999), contributing introductory essays to four of those five collections. In addition, Dr. Farrell has served as the co-editor of three anthologies of essays by diverse authors and has himself contributed essays to four anthologies about Ong's work as well as to numerous other books and journals.

Yolande J. Jenny is retiring from the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at the University of Minnesota Duluth, where she joined the faculty in 1965. She taught French, German and Methodology at first, then later only French language and literature. Her specialty was Voltaire , Rousseau and 19th century novels.

Dr. Jenny published articles on Voltaire and numerous translations of works by various French Swiss authors. Her production of educational audio-visual materials on Haiti and on French speaking Switzerland were nationally best selling items in the 70's and 80's. She also was appointed reviewer of French Swiss novels for the French Review, a quarterly publication of The American Association of Teachers of French.

Dr. Jenny was one of the first UMD faculty members arranging for students to study abroad. Starting in 1966, she helped students to spend the summer in the French section of Switzerland, enrolling at the university of Lausanne or Neuchatel.


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