“The students at John Carroll are so terrific. They really want to learn and they are deeply engaged socially,” Debby Rosenthal said.

Rosenthal is the chair in the English Department. She is passionate about social change and social justice and she hopes she can be a role model for all of her students.

Rosenthal began her career at JCU in 1997 after moving to Cleveland due to her husband’s job. She is originally from Rochester, New York and spent time in Pennsylvania and New Jersey while completing her undergraduate education at the University of Pennsylvania and graduate education at Princeton University.

She has a doctorate in Comparative Literature of the Americas, though at JCU she has taught only American Literature. Before teaching at JCU, Rosenthal was a graduate teaching assistant at Princeton University and was also an adjunct professor at Kent State and Case Western Reserve University. She has been teaching at Carroll for 22 years now.

Rosenthal has taken three sabbaticals whilst being a professor at JCU to live in Switzerland, France and England, each for one year at a time. She said her favorite place she has lived has been Switzerland because she loved the culture and closeness to the Alps.

Rosenthal was drawn to John Carroll because of the emphasis the University places on liberal arts, service and social justice. Much of her teaching here is done with an emphasis on social justice. For instance, she teaches a linked course between climate change literature and the biology of climate change.

When asked what her favorite course to teach was, she responded by saying, “I don’t have a favorite. I love them all, but I have maybe a secret favorite I have only taught as an independent study. I have taught it four times so far and so many students wanted to sign up [that] it actually became almost larger than an independent study. The course is titled Don Quixote in American Literature.”

Rosenthal has five published books and is working on three more. One of the current books she is working on, entitled, “Contemporary Environmental Literature and Class Politics,” is about class, socioeconomics and the environment. She is also editing a book for MLA called “Teaching the Literature of Climate Change” that approaches the different ways professors can teach climate change literature. Additionally, she is working on editing a group of essays about climate change, fiction and class.

Rosenthal won the 2016 Lucrezia Culicchia Award for Teaching Excellence. She was also awarded the Lydia Maria Child Social Justice Award, which recognized her “outstanding academic work and activism that furthers Child’s goal of creating a more equitable world.”

Rosenthal said that Carroll holds a special place in her heart. Her children grew up on the campus and would come to class and even help her grade quizzes. Now, her children are in college, but she said that it has been wonderful to have John Carroll play a major role in their lives.