From Dean of Arts & Sciences Dan Everett:

 

It is with sadness that I write to inform the community that Diane Moul, a senior lecturer in the English and Media Studies Department, passed away on Friday, October 4, after a long battle with cancer.  Our heartfelt sympathies go out to Diane’s family and friends, and to those of you here at Bentley who were close to her.

 

Diane began teaching at Bentley as an adjunct in the fall of 1999.  She was promoted to lecturer in fall of 2005 and then senior lecturer in 2010.  She taught courses on 19th-century British literature, women and literature, and expository writing. Her colleagues admired Diane for her passion for teaching and bringing literature to life for her students.  Her course “The Fiction and Films of Jane Austen” often had a waiting list of students eager to take the course.  One of Diane’s former students described her as one of the “most amazing professors and warmhearted women” she has known.  Students describe her as encouraging and supportive, and describe her classroom and office as spaces where they felt comfortable expressing their ideas.

 

Diane’s scholarship focused on the American writer Grace Sartwell Mason.  Diane’s dissertation, “A certain something: Reclaiming Grace Sartwell Mason,” re-introduces readers to Sartwell Mason’s work and argues that the author is an essential writer of the twentieth century whose works have been forgotten.  Diane received a Bentley publication award for her piece “A Boys’ Town: Grace Sartwell Mason’s Lickey and His Gang,” which appeared in Narratives of Community: Women’s Short Story Sequences.  Prior to coming to Bentley, Diane taught at area colleges such as Providence College, Bryant College, and the University of Rhode Island, where she earned her Ph.D. in 1998. 

 

Diane also held an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.  From 1975 to 1986 she worked as an assistant product manager for Proctor & Gamble, and she was an account executive and account supervisor for the multinational advertising agency Needham, Harper & Steers, whose clients included McDonald’s, Kraft Foods, and General Mills.   Diane had expressed to her department chair that these experiences made it easier for her to relate to her students and to help them make connections between the liberal arts and business.

Diane's family will be holding a memorial service for her this Saturday, October 12th at 3:00 p.m. in the ballroom of the Student Union at Rhode Island College (600 Mt. Pleasant Avenue, Providence, RI 02908).  All are welcome to attend.

A memorial service will be held on campus.  Details will be forthcoming.  If you would like to participate in the service, please contact Wiley Davi, chair of the English and Media Studies Department.