Mary Poole, Dissertation Fellow

Dissertation Fellowship, 1975

Mary M. Poole Alumnae Dissertation Fellow, 1975 Mary Poole arrived at Northwestern as a graduate student in 1974, and just never left. Her undergraduate degree is from the University of Michigan, and she earned an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Theatre from Northwestern. She is exceedingly proud to have been the first recipient of the University Alumnae Dissertation Fellowship, without which she would have been unable to finish her degree.

She has performed in the university productions since her graduate student days, and then as faculty in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Glass Menagerie, The Gin Game, The Belle of Amherst, and in Arsenic and Old Lace, directed here by Frank Galati. Professional appearances in Chicago include acting with Apple Tree, City Lit, Griffin, Red Twist, Victory Gardens, and Wagon Wheel Theatre. This spring, she will join in the Hypocrites production of Three Sisters. She directs on the mainstage, most recently, Twelfth Night, Brighton Beach Memoirs, and Three Sisters.

Currently, she teaches all nine quarters of the acting sequence in the Department of Theatre, where she has been a full faculty member since 1990. Her principal research areas focus on acting theory and contemporary British playwrights, and she is published in Communications, the journal of the International Brecht Society. Mary serves as the Master at Jones Fine and Performing Arts Residential College; and is a member of the British Scholarships Committee of the Office of Fellowships. She has been placed on the ASG Faculty Honor Role three times, and in 2010 was appointed a Charles Deering McCormick Distinguished Senior Lecturer. She is the proud aunt of two nieces, both of whom, following their great-grandmother, grandmother, mother, and aunt, have chosen teaching careers, becoming the fourth generation committed to education. Reflection on the Alumnae Fellowship:

"I was brought up to be a proper young woman of the time: polite, well-mannered, selfless, ego and emotions under control, expressing only cheer, warmth, and a willingness to serve others. I wasn’t allowed to get dirty, let alone fight for things I wanted. But my father, bless his heart, was curious, ambitious of mind, and well-informed. He inspired my hunger for a life of the mind. I was top of my little high school class, but not prepared for Michigan, where I promptly fell in love with an intellectual boy who left for Viet Nam. I flunked out twice, then met Jim Coakley and John Styan, theatre professors who believed theatre to be a legitimate method of exploring the world, and, that art was essential to human life and learning. Through them, I became a committed and successful undergraduate. When they both moved to Northwestern, I followed them. I finished the M.A. here at Northwestern (and my college funds), wanting more thinking, more learning, more of who I realized I could become. On graduation day, I was offered a paid managerial position, while Northwestern invited me into the doctoral program. The Alumnae changed my life. Because you saw ambitious young women without other resources, because you valued their voices and futures, you made it possible for them to choose the academic path. Your generosity and attention has changed more lives than just the recipients’, for I went on to teach, as I’m sure many of the other fellows did, too. Your gifts then, have affected not only our lives, but the hundreds of students we have taught. What a wonderful idea the grant was, and what profound effect it continues to have. I feel such gratitude to the women of 1975 who took action, and to those of you who carry on their legacy and renew it each year. Thank you, and Brava!"