Birth: September 15, 1922 Profession: February 10, 1958 Death: January 14, 2006
Sister Margaret Mary “Peggy” Dunn, English professor at colleges in Purchase, N.Y., Chicago, San Diego and Tokyo, died Saturday, January 14, at Kenwood Convent of the Sacred Heart, a retirement center for members of her religious order in Albany, N.Y. Sister Dunn, 83, was a member of the Society of the Sacred Heart for 53 years. Sister Dunn taught English and served as an academic dean at Manhattanville College, Purchase, N.Y., from 1958 to 1966. From 1967 to 1982, she taught English at Barat College in Lake Forest Illinois. (Barat College merged with DePaul University in 2001). She taught English from 1982 to 1984 at the University of the Sacred Heart in Tokyo, Japan. Before moving to Kenwood in 1995, she taught English at the University of San Diego and served as coordinator of adult education at St. Therese Catholic Church. All four of the colleges at which she taught were founded by her religious order, the Society of the Sacred Heart. Before 1958, Sister Dunn taught English in schools sponsored by her religious order in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and in Rochester and Albany, New York. A native of New York City, Sister Dunn entered the Society of the Sacred Heart in 1952, after earning a bachelor’s degree in English from Hunter College in 1944 and a master’s degree in English from Columbia University in 1947. She earned a Ph.D. in English at Fordham University in 1966 and a second master’s degree in Norwegian Language and Literature from the University of Chicago in 1967. An expert in works of Norwegian author Sigrid Undset, Sister Dunn taught popular classes in Scandanavian literature in addition to the usual fare of English courses. She visited the University of Oslo in Norway in the late 1970s as a research scholar, and her book “Paradigms and paradoxes in the life and letters of Sigrid Undset” was published by University Press of America in 1993. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Sister was an advocate for African-American students at Barat and helped them organize the Black Student Union. In 1970, Sister Dunn launched Barat’s Oxford Program, which made it possible for Barat students to study at Oxford University in England. A funeral service was held for Sister Dunn on Tuesday, January 17, at Kenwood in Albany, followed by burial in the convent cemetery. Memorial contributions may be made to the Society of the Sacred Heart, 4100 Forest Park Avenue, Suite A, St. Louis, Missouri, 63108.