The founders and directors of the National Museum of Language mourn the passing of one of those instrumental in the founding of the museum. This obituary appeared in the Washington Post.

First Prince George's Head Of Language Studies
Friday, February 6, 2009

Dora F. Kennedy, 87, an educator who became the first supervisor of foreign-language education in Prince George's County public schools, died of cancer Feb. 1 at Washington Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park.

Dr. Kennedy taught English, Spanish and Latin in Ohio and New York and then taught elementary school in College Park before being named to the supervisory role in Prince George's in 1959. She retired in 1991.

She was an early exponent of audio-lingual methods in foreign-language instruction and of total language immersion for elementary and secondary students. She was the co-author of two definitive texts on foreign-language instruction.

In the mid-1980s, she said she was pleased to see signs of a resurgence of foreign-language study -- Spanish, French, German and Latin as well as less commonly taught languages -- in the Washington area..

"It continually comes home to the American people that we are no longer necessarily the top dog -- that there are other people out there who speak other languages," she told The Post in 1986. "People are beginning to realize that foreign languages are very much related to many careers."

Dr. Kennedy continued to instruct foreign-language teachers after her retirement. From 1991 to 2008, she was an adjunct instructor in foreign-language teacher training at the University of Maryland's College of Education.

Dora Funari was born in Bellaire, Ohio, and received a bachelor's degree in education and Romance languages, with honors, from Ohio University in 1942. She received a master's degree in elementary education in 1957 and a doctorate in foreign-language education in 1979, both from the University of Maryland.

She was a College Park resident and was involved in community preservation and improvement for 30 years. She helped found the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Maryland and was a co-founder of the National Museum of Language in College Park.

She received a number of awards for her contributions to foreign-language education and was a member of several academic honor societies.

She was a former president of the Maryland Foreign Language Association, a board member of the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages and a member of the executive council of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.

Her husband, Edwin D. Kennedy, died in 2006.

Survivors include a son, Dallas C. Kennedy of Natick, Mass.

-- Joe Holley

This honor was published by the University of Maryland:

Outstanding Service to the College of Education
COLLEGE PARK, MD (November 2007) – In a "Celebration of Achievement," family, friends and colleagues will gather on Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2007, at the Samuel Riggs IV Alumni Center to pay homage to 14 distinguished individuals at the College of Education's Annual Alumni Awards Ceremony. Co-sponsored by the College Alumni Chapter and Phi Delta Kappa, the festivities begin at 5:30 p.m. with a reception, followed by dinner and of course the highlight of the evening—the awards ceremony.

The 2007 honorees being recognized for outstanding contributions to and beyond the field of education included:
Dora F. Kennedy
In 1942, Dora F. Kennedy graduated with a B.A. in romance languages (French, Italian, Spanish) from Ohio University, where she also studied Portuguese, Russian and German. She put her language skills to use during World War II, serving as a Portuguese translator for Army Intelligence. She also taught languages at the elementary and secondary level in Ohio, New York and Maryland, then went on to earn her M.Ed. in elementary education from the University of Maryland in 1957.

In 1959 Kennedy was asked to serve as the first Supervisor of Foreign Languages in the Prince George's County Public Schools system, where she built and gained national recognition for this extremely positive program. Almost all of the foreign language teachers in Prince George's and Montgomery County today were trained by her. In 1991 she retired from Prince George's County. Since then has consistently volunteered her prodigious talents as an adjunct lecturer in the College of Education's Department of Curriculum and Instruction and has never missed any of her classes.

A role model for her students and colleagues, Kennedy has provided an immense amount of teaching and service to her department, the college and the university. She is a vital liaison with the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures in interdisciplinary meetings and has been instrumental in significantly increasing enrollments in the foreign language education certification program. In addition, because of her connections with several area schools she is able to place many of the college's foreign language student teachers. Kennedy provided key ideas for the successful redesign of the foreign language education undergraduate sequence and developed courses that came from the restructuring. After earning her Ph.D. in foreign language education from Maryland ('79), her dissertation on Exploratory Foreign Language Programs was rewritten into a Teacher Training Text format and she has also published a student text for Exploratory Programs in the Middle and High School curriculum.