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Obituary

Professor flavored history with fun

SUE GORDON McCORD: 1929-2005. Sue McCord served up lessons with a side of culture to her University of Tampa students. She died recently at age 76.

By MARTY CLEAR
Published October 21, 2005

TEMPLE TERRACE - The day Sue McCord's death notice appeared in the newspaper, her best friend received a phone call.

The caller had been a Leesburg High School student 50 years before, and Dr. McCord had been her history teacher.

"She said that Sue was the best teacher she ever had," said Flora Zbar, who was such a close friend of Dr. McCord's that she was listed among her survivors.

"She said, "I'm coming to the funeral because I want to meet her son to tell him how much she meant to me.' "

Students and colleagues were united in their admiration for Dr. McCord's talent and dedication to her profession.

Dr. McCord was a lifelong educator and spent 28 years as a history professor at the University of Tampa. She died Oct. 13 at age 76.

Zbar, a retired assistant English professor at the University of South Florida, said one thing that made Dr. McCord an extraordinary teacher was that she was a Renaissance woman who brought a wide scope of knowledge to her classes.

Even though her specialty was European history, Dr. McCord earned her doctorate in English from USF. She chose that degree because it was one of the few doctoral programs offered at USF in the 1960s.

She could have traveled to Gainesville to work on a history degree, but she was a devoted single mother and refused to leave her son even for one night a week.

She infused her expertise in literature - and her love of art - into her history classes, Zbar said. Dr. McCord believed it was essential to place historical events in the context of culture, and that helped bring history to life for her students.

Although she was highly educated and passionate about knowledge, Dr. McCord also was entertaining, both in the classroom and in social situations.

"She had a wicked, wicked sense of humor," Zbar said. "She had a real sense of the ridiculous. She could see the absurdity in any situation. That's something that all her students and all her friends know about her."

At UT, Dr. McCord initiated a program that encouraged adult women who had started college but not finished to return to school and complete their studies. She ran the program for almost 10 years.

She retired her professorship in 1995 but loved teaching so much that she never completely left it behind. She still taught at UT and USF and was an active docent at the Tampa Museum of Art.

At the time of her death, Dr. McCord, who lived in Temple Terrace, was preparing a new lecture she was going to deliver at the museum.

Her death came suddenly, a result of a tiny intestinal rupture that led to sepsis, which spread throughout her body.

"Thursday she celebrated her birthday," Zbar said. "Saturday she was taken to the doctor. Sunday she had emergency surgery. By Tuesday she was really beyond hope. She died very early Thursday morning."

Besides teaching, Dr. McCord's other passion was her four teenage grandchildren. She had taken three of them on trips to England in recent years and had been planning another trip before she passed away.

"She was very whimsical with them, and very supportive," Zbar said. "Those kids just loved her."

Dr. McCord is survived by her son, Jonathan Rotondo-McCord; her grandchildren, Johanna, Theresa, Adrian and William Rotondo-McCord; and two brothers.

[Last modified October 20, 2005, 09:03:09]