In memoriam: Phyllis Franzek, 65

Phyllis Franzek, associate professor (teaching) of writing in the USC Dornsife Writing Program, has died. She was 65.

Franzek died in Los Angeles on Jan. 3 after a short battle with pancreatic cancer. She taught throughout most of the Fall 2015 semester, relinquishing her duties only when she learned of the severity of her illness upon her diagnosis in mid-November.

Franzek joined the Writing Program in 1997 and was at the time of her death its longest-standing full-time faculty member. She taught a variety of writing classes for both graduate and undergraduate students across USC.

Over the years, she was instrumental in shaping the writing curriculum and fostering its evolution and development. In addition to her teaching duties, each summer she coordinated orientation sessions for new teaching faculty members and served as a mentor and adviser to continuing faculty.

Franzek played a key role in the development of the program’s advanced writing courses for upper-division students, said Jack Blum, senior associate director of the Writing Program. She was one of three instructors to teach the first set of prototype courses and after that served as an adviser helping to refine and extend the curricular initiative that eventually nearly doubled the number of courses offered by the program.

William Feuer, a fellow USC writing professor, met Franzek in 1988 when they entered the same graduate program in English at USC Dornsife.

She was fiercely intelligent, uncommonly articulate, hardworking, brave and kind.

William Feuer

“I was in awe of her from the start and not a little jealous. From the outset she possessed in abundance qualities that academics and teachers usually take years to develop,” Feuer said. “She was fiercely intelligent, uncommonly articulate, hardworking, brave and kind. And those traits served to enrich the lives of both her students and those instructors she mentored in the Writing Program.

“But, most of all, I will remember her wicked sense of humor. I have depended on her over the years for such laughter, and the encouragement that went along with it.”

Franzek was a member of the National Council of Teachers of English and the Modern Language Association. She presented numerous papers on modern American poetry at conferences, published articles about poets Charles Wright and Adrienne Rich, and edited a collection of scholarly articles entitled Technology, Scholarship, and the Humanities: The Implications of Electronic Information. In Spring 2014, she was tapped by the USC Mortar Board Society for Excellence in Teaching.

LauraAnne Carroll-Adler, assistant professor (teacher) of writing, recalled meeting Franzek when the two were beginning a graduate program at UCLA.

“After the new student orientation, several of us gathered outside, nervous and apprehensive about the challenges of the program. Phyllis joined the group and took on the task of reassuring us. Her instinct to support and encourage others, emerging at this first meeting, remained even as she faced her own obstacles. It was one of her defining features.

“I think all of us in the Writing Program, without even thinking, relied on her when we were faced with career or personal challenges. Her capacity for empathy and her willingness to listen seemed endless. We also knew that she would be the first to notice our successes and achievements. In our last conversation before she became ill, in fact, she was urging me to keep her updated on some of the work I was doing. Always supportive, always strong.”

John Holland, director of the Writing Program, agreed: “Phyllis was a remarkable teacher, colleague and friend. We will miss her.”

Franzek grew up one of six children in Lewiston, New York, a little town north of Niagara Falls near the Canadian border.

he always enjoyed the arts and reading, and was also into music, playing piano and guitar and doing some singing, too.

Peter Franzek

“She had a very inquisitive spirit as a young person,” said Peter Franzek, her youngest brother. “She was very loving, a caretaker type. She always enjoyed the arts and reading, and was also into music, playing piano and guitar and doing some singing, too.”

Phyllis Franzek earned her first bachelor’s degree in political science at Indiana University Bloomington, where she competed on the same swim team as Olympian Mark Spitz in the late 1960s. Afterward she indulged her independent spirit by traveling around the United States, with stints working in Yellowstone National Park and in an Alaskan cannery.

Eventually she earned another bachelor’s degree in English at State University of New York at Buffalo followed by two master’s degrees in the same subject at both the University of Virginia and USC Dornsife. In 1995, she received her doctorate in English at USC.

Franzek’s research interests included 20th- and 21st-century American poetry, global contemporary poetry, the art and mythology of the Tuscarora Native American tribe, and Niagara Falls as an iconic force in the national imagination and American literature.

“When we were kids she tutored me and some of our cousins,” Peter Franzek recalled. “She was a natural teacher and loved working with students. She enjoyed helping them write and would always talk a lot about them.”

From 2004-06, Phyllis Franzek served as a visiting professor of English at Dogus University in Istanbul, Turkey.

“She had a wonderful time there,” her brother said. “She really dove into the culture and learned a lot about it, and she brought back many photos and artifacts. The experience fed into her travel spirit and also gave her an opportunity to teach English to different students.”

Franzek loved foreign languages and studied French, Spanish, Italian, Turkish, Latin and Polish, the latter part of her family’s cultural heritage.

“She loved art and antiques and vintage clothing — she had a great eye for that,” Peter Franzek said. “She loved poetry, and she wouldn’t just pick up one book on a poet, she would collect everything she could get her hands on.”

Her collection of Adrienne Rich, her favorite poet, was formidable.

Her brother noted that she wrote beautiful letters, saying “any correspondence we got from Phyllis we’d always keep because they were such wonderful letters. They were uplifting and very entertaining. We will definitely miss that.”

Phyllis Franzek was preceded in death by her parents Raymond and Eugenia Franzek. She is survived by her sisters Patty Walton and Sandra Reuter and her brothers Peter, Michael and Ronald Franzek; nieces Jeanne Chauvin, Julie Caplan, Lydia Franzek and Rachel Franzek; and nephews Jeff Switzer, Harrison Franzek and Peter Thomas Franzek.