Claire A. O'Donoghue

Claire O’Donoghue, Chair of the English and Speech Division of the College of Professional Studies, did her doctoral studies at New York University mentored by Mitchell Leaska a Virginia Woolf scholar. Her area of expertise is semiotics and the history of women poets who fell through the cracks of 19thcentury women’s literary history. Her poet of interest is Laura Catherine Redden Searing and her most successful volume of verse, "Sounds from the Secret Chambers” published in 1873. Prof. O’Donoghue continues her inter-disciplinary study among woman, image, and text in American Art and Literature, a part of her CTL research as a senior Fellow in the Center for Teaching and Learning. She has participated in the National Council of Teachers of English Institutes for Teachers of Literature to assist her further in the integration of critical thinking and persuasive writing in her online courses. Over the years she has taught a number of courses offered by the English division and has created a number of new courses for online teaching: Literature and Language of Sports, Women’s Voices in Literature, and Short Fiction. She has also taught in the LST passport program for incoming freshmen. Her current goal is to expand divisional course offerings in the College of Professional Studies for the non-English major, courses that will enrich and broaden students’ knowledge of their chosen professions. Claire is currently working on a new course, The Literature and Language of Economics. Prof. O’Donoghue is a former woman’s basketball player for St. John’s University and was an All-City basketball player & Captain for The Mary Louis Academy team “back in the day.”