GSE Professor Remembered as ‘Caring’ and ‘Dedicated’

Rita E. Guare, Ph.D., professor of education and past president of the Fordham University Faculty Senate, died on March 28. She was 58.

“Prof. Guare was a faculty leader in the Graduate School of Education and in the University,” said James J. Hennessy, dean of the Graduate School of Education. “She was a caring, dedicate, and demanding teacher and mentor; her commitment to her students, particularly those in our Church Leadership program, will ensure a lasting legacy.”

Guare, a professor in the GSE’s Center for Catholic School Leadership and Non-Public Education, was the recipient of the 2004 Scanlon Award, an honor for a faculty member who has served the University, GSE and students with distinction.

“Rita Guare was an outstanding, gifted and senstive teacher,” said Sister Maureen McDermott, one of Guare’s former students. “I think I may have been the last student that Rita mentored to completion in May 2006. I consider her a great gift to my life and my Fordham experience.”

Guare was active in prison ministry and was Fordham’s liaison for the South Bronx Community Council of Churches. She received her master’s and doctoral degrees from GSE, in 1980 and 1991, respectively. She served on more than 25 committees at Fordham and served as Faculty Senate president from 2001 to 2004.

Guare co-authored a book, Truancy Revisited: Students as School Consumers (Scarecrow Press, 2003) with Bruce Cooper, Ph.D., professor and chair of the GSE Division of Administration, Policy and Urban Education, and she has contributed seven chapters to other books.