Frank O'Malley (19 August 1909 – 7 May 1974) was a professor of English at the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin founded the school in 1842. The main campu ...

. He spent his entire career at Notre Dame, where he was renowned as an undergraduate teacher.

Early life and education

O'Malley was born in 1909 into an Irish immigrant family in Clinton, Massachusetts, where his father worked in a cotton mill. O'Malley attended Catholic

grammar school A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary school ...

and public

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

in Clinton. After graduating from high school at the top of his class, he spent two years working at a

drug store A pharmacy (also called "drugstore" in American English or "community pharmacy" or "chemist" in Commonwealth English, or rarely, apothecary) is a retail shop which provides pharmaceutical drugs, among other products. At the pharmacy, a pharmacis ...

in order to save money so he could attend university. O'Malley went to the University of Notre Dame in 1928 as an undergraduate and graduated in 1932 as the class

valedictorian Valedictorian is an academic title for the highest-performing student of a graduating class of an academic institution. The valedictorian is commonly determined by a numerical formula, generally an academic institution's grade point average (GPA ...

. In 1933 he was awarded a

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

degree in English. After one year as an instructor in English and History he was hired full-time by the English department in 1934.

Career at Notre Dame

O'Malley remained at Notre Dame and taught in the English department until his death in 1974. He was exceedingly popular with his students and came to be acknowledged as "the university's most inspiring undergraduate teacher". An obituary in '' The Review of Politics'' described him as "certainly the greatest teacher of the humanities in the modern history of Notre Dame". O'Malley enjoyed and excelled at teaching freshman composition, encouraging his students to "write something fresh about a tree, the feeling of alienation, their first kiss". In 1936 he introduced a course in "Modern Catholic Writers" which he continued to teach for the rest of his career. It introduced students to recent and contemporary Catholic authors working in a various disciplines and became "by far the most popular course in the humanities ever offered at the university". In 1938 he instituted a new program for English majors called "Philosophy of English Literature". His thinking and teaching were influenced by contemporary European Catholic lay intellectuals including

Waldemar Gurian Waldemar Gurian (February 13, 1902 – May 26, 1954) was a Russian-born German-American political scientist, author, and professor at the University of Notre Dame. He is regarded particularly as a theorist of totalitarianism. He wrote widely on p ...

Jacques Maritain Jacques Maritain (; 18 November 1882 – 28 April 1973) was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised Protestant, he was agnostic before converting to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he helped to revive Thomas Aquinas fo ...

, and Étienne Gilson. In 1939 O'Malley and Gurian founded the journal '' The Review of Politics''. O'Malley was managing director from its establishment until 1963 and published eight articles in the journal. His subjects included

John Henry Newman John Henry Newman (21 February 1801 – 11 August 1890) was an English theologian, academic, intellectual, philosopher, polymath, historian, writer, scholar and poet, first as an Anglican ministry, Anglican priest and later as a Catholi ...

, Romano Guardini, Maritain, and

William Blake William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...

. In 1971 O'Malley was awarded Notre Dame's Sheedy Teaching Award for "sustained excellence in research and instruction over a wide range of courses" in the College of Arts and Letters. In 1972 he was awarded an

honorary doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hon ...

by Notre Dame. He had been nominated for the degree by the student body.

Posthumous recognition

In 1991, during the celebration of the university's 150th anniversary, a weekend symposium on O'Malley attracted 200 of his former students to the Notre Dame campus. In 1994 Notre Dame established the annual Frank O'Malley Undergraduate Teaching Award for "outstanding service to the students of the Notre Dame Community".

References

{{Reflist 1909 births 1974 deaths University of Notre Dame faculty People from Clinton, Massachusetts