It is with great sadness that Flinders University acknowledges the recent passing of Adjunct Lecturer Dr Marietta Rossetto. Dr Rossetto’s colleagues Dr Kate Berniz, Dr Barbara Kameniar, Dr Mirella Wyra and Lyn Wilkinson have penned this tribute to their beloved mentor and friend.
For almost 30 years, Dr Marietta Rossetto was a devoted Languages Education coordinator, lecturer, teacher, scholar and friend to thousands of languages students and student teachers. She was also a highly esteemed research colleague and friend to the many staff who were privileged to have worked with and for such a passionate educator in Education, Languages, and Humanities at Flinders University. Marietta also taught at Adelaide University and was a much-loved secondary school teacher of French, ESL, Italian and History.
She first became involved with staff and students at what was Sturt CAE in the late 1980s, when she participated in the Poetry Club. The fabulous evening she organised on Dante is still remembered; her love of this poet and her passion for poetry in general were strongly in evidence, as was her academic knowledge. Marietta also published two anthologies of her own poetry.
Marietta’s passion for and expertise in teaching was recognised by an Excellence in Teaching Award in 2009. Her students always evaluated her as ‘outstanding’ semester after semester, year after year, until she retired.
Marietta made a significant difference to the learning and lives of all her students. She was a lecturer who would finish a class, then have students hang back to talk. You would often see students follow her down the corridors at Sturt campus (when Education was located there), pile into her office while carrying her many boxes of ‘realia’ (authentic resources) while continuing an uplifting yarn. Marietta had an open-door policy, and her porcelain cups of tea were always ready to go for students and staff. She created lifetime bonds with people.
As a researcher, Marietta leaves a significant body of work in Languages, Humanistic Sociology, Transdisciplinary Education, Translation, Intercultural Education and language pedagogy. She successfully developed curriculum for Teacher Education topics and inspired all her students in Education to raise the profile of languages in South Australia. Marietta would encourage students to be ‘hands-on’, inspiring educators. She persuaded many to become research practitioners.
Marietta supervised several PhD and Masters students – some of whom in the 1990s went on to teach and research in languages largely because of Marietta’s contagious enthusiasm and advocacy for language learning. Marietta made the complex accessible as part of her larger goal to give all an empowering educational experience.
Marietta was also highly engaged with the broader community. She organised many language conferences at Flinders and across the education sector, such as the Biennial Greek Research conference. She co-led the Languages Education Research Group (LERG) and was an active member of language associations, and many educational committees. Marietta volunteered for 13 years at Catherine House, preparing delicious pasta meals once a week for the shelter’s participants. Together with her son, Daniel, she facilitated the establishment of a long-term collaboration between Flinders University and Arsenal in the Community (the London-based Premier League club’s education foundation).
Marietta had close ties with First Nations people and was given a name by the Yirrkala people of Arnhem Land, as she had lived in Nhulunbuy for five years during the 1970s and in the Northern Territory for more than a decade.
Also, when the porcelain cups of tea were filled, Marietta shared her deep love for her children and husband Silvano. As her boys grew and there were grandkids running around her home, she could not hold back from telling us wonderful stories about how proud she was of her boys’ successes, marriages, her darling husband, and later, her grandkids (and their adorable quirks). The photos would come out and her unforgettable smile would fill the room. Marietta’s smile was always present.
As students (two of us) and later colleagues (all of us), we personally feel very blessed to have learned so much from Marietta over many years. We learned how to be ‘student-centred’ languages teachers, engaged academics and rigorous researchers who prioritised participant representation. Marietta was particularly dedicated to this in her research.
Beyond her amazing academic achievements, Marietta taught many of us how to be devoted, loving and unconditional mammas. For this, her wisdom and the life advice that she shared with us, Marietta left a lasting effect on our lives and families. We will always remember here, and as she said, we will ‘never argue with ignorance’.
Thank you, Marietta.
In loving memory – from Kate Berniz, Barbara Kameniar, Mirella Wyra, Lyn Wilkinson and her many colleagues in Education and Humanities.