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Happy birthday friend! Thinking of you today and sending our best wishes for the next year.

 I was very saddened to learn the news about Rosemary Hoffmann’s passing.  By some quirk of fate, I read the email from the Maryland Portal as I was engaged in a Zoom meeting for a class, Philosophy 100, I originally taught for her and Wally Knoche many years ago. 

I met Rosemary for the first time in late August of 1977.  I was working on one of my Sorbonne theses, living in the Kleine Mantelgasse in Heidelberg and living a quiet life with little to worry about beyond whether to go the General Library of the University of Heidelberg or the Philosophisches Seminar.  Someone had suggested that I apply for a teaching position with the University of Maryland on the other side of Heidelberg. Without giving it much thought, I did so and a week later got a call from Bob Speckhard, the English Coordinator.  He interviewed me and said, “I want you to meet Rosemary and Wally,” I have a feeling that you have a lot in common with them.

This was the understatement of the century.

If I remember correctly, this interviewed occurred on a Thursday and early the following week I was on a Medevac plane to Zaragoza, Spain.  This plane stopped first in Nice and then went to Rota before taking me to Zaragoza, which is in the middle of the Aragon Desert (I think).

I worked directly for Rosemary and Wally for four years, getting to know both very well as they guided me through the ropes of becoming a Maryland-in-Europe prof.  Rosemary had so many different personal and professional virtues.  When I started in the Med Dept at Maryland, I had never taught, had not really lived in an English-language environment for almost a decade.  She was so careful and understanding she had a much better knowledge of my needs than I did.  Over the first six months, she taught me how to heed and follow the departmental processes, how to be patient and think through how to work with the adult working students and how handle the various challenges of working on a rather isolated, often politically charged USAFE base.  These might seem like simple and obvious skills but for me they were challenging-- I had been outside of the US and focused on France and philosophy for so long that I needed a mentor.

As I began to understand the world of adult education in a military environment, I easily figured out how to adapt my own continental philosophical interests to the US adult ed program. Here again, Rosemary was incredibly helpful.  As a pedagogue she had unique skills—stimulating and imaginative but extremely disciplined. As someone had no discipline outside my academic interests, these weren’t easy lessons for me.   This was a long time ago now and the cultural differences between the US and Europe were wider then than they are now.  Rosemary was a gifted academic with a PhD in German; she had a very good sense of who I was and how to help me bridge this gap cultural.  After about a year of teaching basic lower and upper-level courses, she began to work with me on the creation of new seminars and 3sh courses. By the time this process started, I had moved from Zaragoza to Naples and then on to San Vito Air Station near Brindisi.  The mission there was a cutting-edge USAFE intel project. My students there were mostly Air Force and Navy intelligence analysists and linguists; they were part of the global US intel community and had served at NSA in Maryland, Misawa, Japan and several places in the UK and Germany.  These were exceptional students who were yearning for challenging courses which would help them develop as students and humans.  Rosemary understood this situation well and encouraged me to develop new courses and teach ones in Shakespeare, American Lit, French and other similar ones.  She often flew down to either Naples or Brindisi and we not only worked on our Maryland projects but had really interesting trips in the Italian country side.  She was incredibly curious and open; she loved meeting the Italian agricultural workers in these areas.  We would get ourselves invited into their unique Trulli homes and be offered meals.  Experiences of a lifetime!!

Rosemary and I met up again professionally when I transferred from La Maddalena in Sardinia to Hahn, AB in the Hünsruck region of Germany.  The world was changing and this decision for me was very significant.  Rosemary had moved from Wally’s assistant in the Mediterranean area to the directorship of part of part of Germany—I forget the exact title. 

Hahn AB was a crucial part of the Reagan military build-up in the early 1980s.  It was the first base in Europe to use the new multi-role fighter, the F-16, and had a nuclear storage area as well as one of the important AF intel units.  This meant working with multiple services, a very complex student body, and an expanding student body.  Because of its geopolitical importance, it also became a site of political protests and terrorist attacks.

For Rosemary, this meant that she was responsible for one of the most important university programs in Europe—or anywhere really.  Our professional relationship changed during this time.  Another administrator probably would not have grasped the complexity of her new assignment or grasped the importance of finding the right personnel to teach and manage the program.   As my professional relationship with Rosemary deepened, so did my understanding of teaching in general and my own professional responsibilities in particular.  I still taught experimental classes over several academic areas but the need in the Hahn world was for something else—someone who could handle the high volume of students and also figure out practices that would help this student population.  In conjunction with the field reps, Patrick Pryor and Bill Badger, and the ESO, Mike Koster, we devised ingenious approaches to teaching classes that suited these students with very odd schedules and incredibly demanding military exercises that closed the bases down for days and weeks—thus cutting the students off from their classes.  I was often the lead prof to teach these “trick” sessions, to trouble shoot them and prepare them for general use. Rosemary was so emphatic, intelligent, and demanding in these discussions and meeting.  These traits were all but absent from my personality but little by little I got better; what one of the protest magazines once called “Militär-Heimat Hunsrück” despite all the stress, demonstrations, and dangers, Rosemary developed an incredible program.  To this date, I receive emails from our former students who always express appreciate for those classes.  As they tend to say, “We realized that you were there for us.”

After a while, Rosemary decided to return to the US to pursue one of her deep loves—architecture.  The changes in the US presence in Europe continued:  wars, more terrorism, many huge demonstrations, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the “drawdown” of troops.  Hahn AB closes but I moved to the nearby Bitburg AB and Spangdahlem.  Technology was changing global education and for many reasons Maryland in Europe was at the forefront of this.  This shift in teaching possibilities led me to accept a position at the home campus in Adelphi, MD.  After decades as a UMUC prof, seldom visiting the US, and always more interested in continental Europe than “elsewhere,” I found myself arriving at Maryland’s US HQ as an administrator. 

As I was being shown my office, one of the first people to greet me was my friend and former supervisor, Rosemary Hoffmann.  She was modest and kind: “Do you remember me?”  I started laughing—"Of course,” I said, “and started into “Do you remember…?”

For about a decade our offices were a few meters from each other.  Both of us liked being back in the US—we liked the DC-NYC corridor and felt that the institution needed our European expertise.  It was also interesting to have contact with “USM,” the University System of Maryland.  This gave us a good sense of how UMUC fit into the Maryland master plan.

During this time, Rosemary, in addition to working in university administration, taught German and did very important work in adapting language studies to the new online methods. 

I have been typing for about an hour from the Marriott Downtown Hotel in Philadelphia where I am attending a Northeast Modern Language convention and participating in a political demonstration at the Philadelphia City Hall.  It is time for Rosemary Memorial Service.  I was shocked and saddened to learn that she had passed; she had such a deep influence on my life, and I can’t think of anyone I admired more.  I had planned on sharing some of the kind and helpful things she did for me in my first few years back in the US, but ran out of time. 

Many of us are at once deeply saddened to think she’s no longer with us and infinitely grateful to have known such an intelligent, kind, and curious person. 

 I was very saddened to learn the news about Rosemary Hoffmann’s passing.  By some quirk of fate, I read the email from the Maryland Portal as I was engaged in a Zoom meeting for a class, Philosophy 100, I originally taught for her and Wally Knoche many years ago.  

I met Rosemary for the first time in late August of 1977.  I was working on one of my Sorbonne theses, living in the Kleine Mantelgasse in Heidelberg and enjoying a quiet life with little to worry about beyond whether to go t0 the General Library of the University of Heidelberg or the Philosophisches Seminar. 

 Someone had suggested that I apply for a teaching position with the University of Maryland on the other side of Heidelberg. Without giving it much thought, I did so and a week later got a call from Bob Speckhard, the English Coordinator.  He interviewed me and said, “I want you to meet Rosemary and Wally,” I have a feeling that you have a lot in common with them.

This was the understatement of the century.

If I remember correctly, this interviewed occurred on a Thursday and early the following week I was on a Medevac plane to Zaragoza, Spain to teach there on a trial basis.  This plane stopped first in Nice and then went to Rota before taking me to Zaragoza, which is in the middle of the Aragon Desert (I think).  Far, far from a German university town.

I worked directly for Rosemary and Wally for four years, getting to know both very well as they guided me through the ropes of becoming a Maryland-in-Europe prof.  Rosemary had so many different personal and professional virtues.  When I started in the Med Dept at Maryland, I had never taught, had not really lived in an English-language environment for almost a decade. 

 She was so careful and understanding; she had a much better knowledge of my needs than I did.  

Over the first six months, she taught me how to heed and follow the departmental processes, how to be patient and think through how to work with the adult working students, and how handle the various challenges of working on a rather isolated, often politically charged USAFE base.  These might seem like simple and obvious skills but to me they were challenging--I had been outside of the US and focused on France and philosophy for so long that I needed a mentor.

As I began to understand the world of adult education in a military environment, I easily figured out how to adapt my own continental philosophical interests to the US adult ed program. Here again, Rosemary was incredibly helpful.  As a pedagogue she had unique skills—stimulating and imaginative but extremely disciplined. As someone had no discipline outside my academic interests, these weren’t easy lessons for me.   This was a long time ago now and the cultural differences between the US and Europe were wider then than they are now.  Rosemary was a gifted academic with a PhD in German; she had a very good sense of who I was and how to help me bridge this gap cultural.  After about a year of teaching basic lower and upper-level courses, she began to work with me on the creation of new seminars and 3sh courses. By the time this process started, I had moved from Zaragoza to Naples and then on to San Vito Air Station near Brindisi.  The mission there was a cutting-edge USAFE intel project. My students there were mostly Air Force and Navy intelligence analysists and linguists; they were part of the global US intel community and had served at NSA in Maryland, Misawa, Japan and several places in the UK and Germany.  These were exceptional students who were yearning for challenging courses which would help them develop as students and humans.  

Rosemary understood this situation well and encouraged me to develop new courses and teach ones in Shakespeare, American Lit, French and other similar ones.  She often flew down to either Naples or Brindisi and we not only worked on our Maryland projects but had really interesting trips in the Italian countryside.  She was incredibly curious and open; she loved meeting the Italian agricultural workers in these areas.  We would get ourselves invited into their unique Trulli homes and be offered meals.  Experiences of a lifetime!!

Rosemary and I met up again professionally when I transferred from La Maddalena in Sardinia to Hahn, AB in the Hünsruck region of Germany.  The world was changing and this decision for me was very significant.  Rosemary had moved from Wally’s assistant in the Mediterranean area to the directorship of part of part of Germany—I forget the exact title.  

Hahn AB was a crucial part of the Reagan military build-up in the early 1980s.  It was the first base in Europe to use the new multi-role fighter, the F-16, and had a nuclear storage area as well as one of the important AF intel units.  This meant working with multiple services, a very complex student body, and an expanding student body.  Because of its geopolitical importance, it also became a site of political protests and terrorist attacks. 

For Rosemary, this meant that she was responsible for one of the most important university programs in Europe—or anywhere really.  Our professional relationship changed during this time. 

 Another administrator probably would not have grasped the complexity of her new assignment or grasped the importance of finding the right personnel to teach and manage the program.   As my professional relationship with Rosemary deepened, so did my understanding of teaching in general and my own professional responsibilities in particular.  I still taught experimental classes over several academic areas but the need in the Hahn world was for something else—someone who could handle the high volume of students and also figure out practices that would help this student population.  In conjunction with the field reps, Patrick Pryor and Bill Badger, and the ESO, Mike Koster, we devised ingenious approaches to teaching classes that suited these students with very odd schedules and incredibly demanding military exercises that closed the bases down for days and weeks—thus cutting the students off from their classes.  I was often the lead prof to teach these “trick” sessions, to trouble shoot them and prepare them for general use. 

Rosemary was so empathetic, intelligent, and demanding in these discussions and meeting.  These traits were all but absent from my personality but little by little I got better; what one of the protest magazines once called “Militär-Heimat Hunsrück” despite all the stress, demonstrations, and dangers, Rosemary developed an incredible program.  Even now, I receive emails from our former students who always express appreciate for those classes.  As they tend to say, “We realized that you were there for us.”

After a while, Rosemary decided to return to the US to pursue one of her deep loves—architecture.  The changes in the US presence in Europe continued:  wars, more terrorism, many huge demonstrations, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the “drawdown” of troops.  Hahn AB closes but I moved to the nearby Bitburg AB and Spangdahlem.  Technology was changing global education and for many reasons Maryland in Europe was at the forefront of this.  This shift in teaching possibilities led me to accept a position at the home campus in Adelphi, MD.  After decades as a UMUC prof, seldom visiting the US, and always more interested in continental Europe than “elsewhere,” I found myself arriving at Maryland’s US HQ as an administrator.  

As I was being shown my office, one of the first people to greet me was my friend and former supervisor, Rosemary Hoffmann.  She was modest and kind: “Do you remember me?”  I started laughing—"Of course,” I said, “and started into “Do you remember…?”

For about a decade our offices were a few meters from each other.  Both of us liked being back in the US—we liked the DC-NYC corridor and felt that the institution needed our European expertise.  It was also interesting to have contact with “USM,” the University System of Maryland.  This gave us a good sense of how UMUC fit into the Maryland master plan.

During this time, Rosemary, in addition to working in university administration, taught German and did very important work in adapting language studies to the new online methods.  

I have been typing for about an hour from the Marriott Downtown Hotel in Philadelphia where I am attending a Northeast Modern Language convention and participating in a political demonstration at the Philadelphia City Hall.  It is time for Rosemary’s Memorial Service.  I was shocked and saddened to learn that she had passed; she had such a deep influence on my life, and I can’t think of anyone I admired more.  I had planned on sharing some of the kind and helpful things she did for me in my first few years back in the US but ran out of time.  

Many of us are at once deeply saddened to think she’s no longer with us and infinitely grateful to have known such an intelligent, kind, and curious person.  

I joined OMA in October 2024, and almost right away, Rosemary sent me an email complimenting my work for the university and thanking me for taking this "next step".   I responded by thanking her and complimenting her work as well.   I never heard from her again.    Meanwhile, I first met Rosemary in 1999 when she interviewed me for a faculty position.   Even though I was nervous, she seemed excited to see me and rolled out the red carpet for me as she was showing me all the possible places that I could go to in Asia, various information about UMUC, etc.   Overall, I had such a great time with her and Barbara Crain that day and thus, returned home with good feelings about the whole experience.    Thank you so much, Rosemary, for everything, and am extremely grateful that I could have the best career experience of my life all because of you and Barbara.   Til we all meet again.      

I only met Rosemary once when she was passing through Bangkok, Thailand.  We had lunch, and I found her very delightful.  Though that was at least 20, maybe 25, years ago, I remember the restaurant and the gist of a great conversation.  I communicated in writing with Rosemary occasionally after that, but I never saw her again.  I am very sorry to hear of her passing, but very pleased to hear of the interesting and wonderful life she had.

Posted on: Feb 10, 2025 at 4:09 PM

To everyone who reached out to us when we were desperate, I have some news.

Today we received a copy of a letter from the SSA, setting a hearing date for 28 April 2025. Although we no longer have legal representation (our lawyer got sick and her back up retired) I have every confidence that things will go in our favor.

Again, my gratitude to everyone for their thoughts and help through this really terrible ordeal. The mental cost, the loss of my peace of mind (to me...Adriano is lucky to have a "spotless" mind!) has been dear and eased only by help and support given by everyone. Watch this space after the end of April. I don't know how long decision take but rest assured I will be posting the news as soon as I have it!

Chris was modest and just brilliant. Im sorry to hear she's gone, and glad she was safe and loved to the end. Condolences to her friends and family.

Gary and I worked together in the 1990s as academic directors, and in the Maryland faculty exchange program in Xian, China. He was a perfect colleague: kind, responsible, well-informed, and funny as hell. Condolences to his family and friends.