Maureen Fitzsimmons

Message from the President

Oct. 12, 2022

Dear LMU Community:

I am saddened to share that Senior Instructor Maureen Fitzsimmons ’09, M.A. ’11, a visiting rhetorical arts fellow, passed away on Oct. 9, 2022, of cancer. She was 59 years old.

Senior Instructor Fitzsimmons joined LMU in August 2018 as an instructor of core curriculum and rhetorical arts and was promoted to full time instructor in August 2021. While earning her master’s degree in English, she helped organize, with Professors Steven Mailloux and K.J. Peters, the 2011 Bellarmine Forum, “Ignatian Imagination in the World: The Future of Education, Faith, and Justice.”

Senior Instructor Fitzsimmons’s primary interest was pursuing innovative, effective pedagogical approaches for teaching writing. To that end, she researched educational environments and methods that impact student learning, including Jesuit rhetoric and Universal Design for Learning. Since 2010, Senior Instructor Fitzsimmons presented papers at more than 25 national and international conferences. Her chapter “Ladder of Contemplation versus a Pilgrim’s Staff: A Rhetoric of Agency and Emotional Eloquence in St. Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises” was published in Traditions of Eloquence: The Jesuits and Modern Rhetorical Studies.

A lifelong learner, Senior Instructor Fitzsimmons struggled in school early on, but she overcame her difficulties and persevered, a lesson she often shared with her students.

She earned her undergraduate and master’s degrees in English from LMU, and an M.A. in rhetoric and composition from UC Irvine. She earned her Ph.D. from UC Irvine in spring 2021.

Because Ignatian spirituality was so important to her, in lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations in her honor be made to the Center for Ignatian Spirituality.

Senior Instructor Fitzsimmons’s family will hold services in Northern California, and they plan to host a celebration of her life in the Los Angeles area, with details forthcoming.

Please keep Maureen, her family, and her many friends in your thoughts and prayers.

Sincerely,

Timothy Law Snyder, Ph.D.
President