"When you go into Mona's office, you can expect a warm smile and genuine inquiries about your life, your own teaching, your dog; and then a rigorous quiz about your progress, your deadlines, and your goals," writes one student of Raimonda "Mona" Modiano, UW professor of English and comparative literature.
Letter after letter remarked on Modiano's personal generosity in addition to her intellectual example, demanding lessons plans — "the sheer volume of reading was breathtaking" — and tireless ability to foster opportunities for her students.
"A student's emergence into his or her professional community is one of the most crucial aspects of a successful academic career, but it is also one that is rarely supported by academic institutions," writes David Baulch, now associate professor at University of West Florida. With Modiano's help Baulch met some of the top scholars in his field while he was a graduate student, thus "Mona facilitated the kind of international intellectual community that has been necessary for my professional development."
Others wrote of Modiano's help obtaining fellowships, submitting manuscripts and cultivating opportunities to present their work, such as organizing special panels on UW graduate research at the international Society for Textual Scholarship biennial conferences — where graduate students rarely present at all.
"Students need to be in touch with people whose influence can help new academics achieve professional success," Modiano says. To do this she not only fosters ways to send students to renowned conferences but each year arranges for three to four distinguished speakers to come to the UW for a week each of formal talks and socializing.
"I do not see these professors as simply potential academics to network with to hopefully advance my career, but also as sources of knowledge that I would never have had the pleasure of enjoying if it were not for Prof. Modiano's continued efforts to bring such amazing minds to visit," wrote student Heather Stansbury.
A faculty member at the UW since 1973, Modiano became a full professor in 1986 and won a distinguished teaching award in 1994. An expert on British romanticism, she has written of and edited work about Samuel Taylor Coleridge, author of such poems as The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
In 1998 she and associate professor Miceal Vaughan established the textual studies program that considers how texts are altered over time by such things as publishing errors, well-meaning editorial tampering, translations from one language to another, even subsequent revisions by the authors themselves. How authentic the text is becomes important when investigating and discussing — sometimes heatedly — what authors mean in the works they have published.
"The program . . . puts students in the midst of the most important debates in literary criticism, about the nature of text in the electronic era, about the interaction of literary theory and popular practices of reading and writing, about the connection between literature, film and other art forms," wrote student Gabrielle Dean.
Originally from Romania, Modiano earned a diploma from the University of Bucharest and was working on a doctorate at the University of California, San Diego when she encountered her own graduate student mentor, professor Fred Randel. He opened her eyes to the role of originality in literary studies and gave her confidence, something she tries to do for her students, "to instill optimism in their abilities," she says.
Fostering a sense of community is another. "Students in textual studies have rich interactions with faculty on a professional and social basis, encouraging a natural mentoring and sense of community," Meg Roland says. "This is due to Professor Modiano's unequaled personal hospitality," wrote the 2002 graduate, now an assistant professor and chair of the English Department at Marylhurst University.
"She has hosted countless informal dinners and brunches at her home," wrote student Rene Murphy Keep. "Those that I have attended were exquisitely hosted, such that each person present felt welcome upon arrival and replenished upon departure."
