Notes from five continents filled Facebook feeds in reaction to the untimely passing of Dr Maureen “Mo” Minielli. The messages illustrated the impact one individual can have upon the world. Maureen passed away in her sleep on 25 February in Klaipeda, Lithuania where she was teaching for a semester. She had just returned a week earlier from London where she was celebrating her daughter Lauren’s sixteenth birthday with some quality international travel time, an appropriate rite of passage for the daughter of a woman who had traversed the globe on numerous occasions. Maureen was passionate about travel, but really, she was passionate about people. Well, people, family, Nixon, and sports perhaps!
In 1965, Maureen was born to Dean and Marcia Montgomery in Chicago, IL. She had two siblings, Pete and Michelle. The other thing that was birthed in Chicago was Maureen’s enduring affinity for the Chicago Cubs. If you knew Maureen very long, you knew she was a Cubs fan and knew she loved sports. Maureen and her father found a common passion in sports. She later moved to Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, where she eventually graduated high-school in 1983. Maureen said, “He was mad when we moved from Chicago to PA in 1976 and had to PAY for CABLE TELIVISION [to watch the cubs]!” to a friend on Facebook. After the passing of her father in 2015 she would often reminisce about watching and attending Cubs games and other sporting events with her father, and made a point to go to Cubs games “with him”, though he was only present as a photograph and in her heart.
While Maureen developed a love for sports that carried into her life in Pennsylvania where she became an avid Penn State fan, she also continually excelled academically. Starting at the Harrisburg Area Community College, she attained an associate’s degree in Liberal Arts. She then attended the University of Pittsburg where she studied Communication for a B.A. which she received in 1987, and where her fascination with presidential rhetoric began. While many were likely working on Theses about “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”, Maureen was working with thesis advisor Dr Michael Weiler on “The Rhetoric of Ronald Reagan about El Salvador from 1981-1983.”
She moved from Pitt to Penn State for her M.A. where she worked with Dr Richard B. Gregg on her thesis, “The Rhetorical Visions of Reagan and Bush in Selected Speeches.”
“If you were at Penn State in the 1990s, and anywhere near the Sparks Building, you knew Mo,” fellow Penn State Alum Davis Houck said in a Facebook comment. “You wondered sometimes if Mo ever left that building, such was her commitment to our unit and the people in it. I'll never forget her gift of friendship, her constant generosity, and steady counsel.”
In Indiana Maureen’s passion for sports was consummated in her marriage to Mike Minielli, who fittingly worked as a soccer coach. Mike oversaw the men’s and women’s soccer teams at St. Joseph’s College, where he attained national ranking for his NCAA Division II teams. Mike and Maureen were married on 21 December 1996, the same year Mike’s team made the NCAA Division II final four.
During this time Maureen was presenting academically as well. Dr Rod Carveth of Morgan State University remembers chairing a panel that Maureen presented on all the way back in 1993. “I was impressed by how intelligent she was, and what a great sense of humor she had,” Carveth said. “She was also a terrific friend.”
Maureen moved to St. Cloud State University from 1991 until 2001, before she became a lecturer at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). While at IUPUI, Maureen finished her Ph.D. with Penn State.
It was in her Ph.D. program that she would find her lasting scholarly muse, Richard Nixon. Maureen’s dissertation title was, “The Rhetoric of the 1972 Presidential Election: An Analysis of Four Nixon Crisis Speeches.” She was advised by Dr Thomas W. Benson, and defended in 2006.
Somehow, in true Maureen fashion, while working as a full-time instructor at IUPUI and working on a Ph.D., she found the time to have a child. Her only daughter Lauren was born in 2003. Maureen was most passionate about her family, as many of her friends heard enough about Mike and Lauren to consider them friends as well … even though they had never met her husband or daughter! Mike called Lauren, “a complete mini-me of you,” who, “is on her way to being an amazing adult” in a recent Facebook post. Pictures of Lauren’s soccer and academic achievements as well as travel adventures pepper Maureen’s Facebook feed.
In 2006 the International Communication Association (ICA) held its annual conference in St. Petersburg Russia, and somehow the new mother and new Ph.D. found time to travel. One outworking of Maureen’s dissertation was a presentation regarding President Nixon and Russia in 2006. It is likely that her colleague Dr John Parrish-Sprowl’s passion for Eastern Europe and annual trips to Poland influenced Maureen through encouraging her to attend and present at ICA, but it was Mo’s energy during the conference that caught the attention of Dr Mike Hazen of Wake Forest University. Hazen was a founding member of the Russian Communication Association, and who was one of the primary early voices that introduced the study of “communication” as a discipline to Eurasia.
“My first impression of her was formed when I arrived a day late for the conference due to airline problems and found her holding court in the lobby of the Soviet Era hotel that the conference participants were staying in,” Hazen said. “I think that she spent most of the conference there answering questions and generally seeing that things went well. Mo was this energetic person who displayed a charisma that permeated all of her efforts to promote relationships between Americans, Russians and other people from the former Soviet Bloc.”
One of her students said of her on Facebook, “you are the kind of professor that makes community college gems!”
Another said, “She was strict, excellent, knowledgeable, and she had a huge heart … she believed in me and in every one of her students.”
Another said this of her “favorite” professor: “She reminded us that we were valuable and not to give up.”
And yet another said of her “first, and very favorite, college professor,” that, “Mo was a relationship teacher … she checked in on me, even 18 years after I was her student … if I reflect, so much of the teacher I am today is because of what Mo taught me—that relationship-building is how to reach kids … Your heart lives on in others’ actions each and every day.”
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Maureen Minielli had a variety of academic interests. Maureen was primarily known as a scholar of Richard Nixon’s rhetoric, but her other contribution to the field of intercultural communication was truly remarkable. In the early 2000s, her strong interest in intercultural communication led her into becoming an active member of the Russian Communication Association (RCA), and later, Eurasian Communication Association of North American (ECANA). She played a leading role in the development and expansion of both organizations. What she was able to accomplish in her organizational efforts required superior collaboration and negotiation skills, as well as a commitment to a clear vision. In the summer, Maureen would spend weeks drafting ECANA’s policies or creating content for the organization's new website.
Later, Maureen became a founder of the Communication Association of Eurasian Researchers (CAER), an organization dedicated to closing gaps between East and West, resolving communication misunderstanding issues, and connecting international scholars and practitioners for research and collaboration.
Maureen has been a leader on the forefront of initiatives across the region. She has put a great effort into creating connections and opportunities for scholars in post-socialist countries. For instance, during Maureen’s term as a president of CAER, she developed a variety of initiatives and set up a structure to recruit and involve diverse members from different countries.
Her most recent initiative she was actively helping scholars in Baltic region. Maureen was also planning to teach and network in Kyrgyzstan in future. During her trips, she was ready to learn about culture and scholarship in the region, as well as to provide any assistance that was needed.
Maureen has been a remarkable mentor to communication scholars in Eurasian and Eastern European countries. The support she has provided to these communities has not been happening only during her multiple trips. Maureen kept in touch with many scholars from these countries, and aided them in numerous ways. Maureen was committed to helping international scholars to the extent that she would often review multiple manuscripts written in rudimentary English and assist the international scholars with academic style and form. As a patient and dedicated mentor, she was always concerned with how another person might feel in a given situation and generously lent a hand to people in difficult situations.
Furthermore, Maureen has been an active scholar in connection to the broader communication research across Eastern Europe and Eurasia. She presented at conferences in the region, such as Ukraine, Croatia, and Czech Republic. Maureen has contributed to the regional journals, for instance in Romania and Ukraine.
In last two years, Maureen has been the lead editor working on two edited books to showcase recent developments of communication and media studies in Eurasia and Eastern Europe. Within this specific project, she actively recruited scholars from different countries of the region, which actually represents a unique endeavor that has not been done by anyone else in decades.
In addition to abundant work with international scholarly community, Maureen was active in multiple academic organizations in the United States; Eastern Communication Association, National Communication Association, New Jersey Communication Association, and New York State Communication Association.
Maureen was dedicated to hands-on teaching, research, and making a real difference in society. She was a paragon of excellence in communication pedagogy for many years. Her commitment to communication education and research demonstrates what a passionate scholar in rhetoric, public speaking, and intercultural communication can do in order to make the world a better place to live.
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Maureen Minielli embodied an epitome of a true scholar. She worked with tremendous devotion and integrity on her teaching, research, and service, while truly always giving the absolute best of herself to all those aspects of the vocation. Hence, besides her mourning family, also her colleagues and students have been experiencing a great loss by her early passing. Among those missing her are many communication scholars from Eurasia and Eastern Europe, who are immensely grateful for her contribution, mentorship, and friendship she had given so readily. In this deep sorrow, the memory of Maureen’s vivacious spirit serves as a source of inspiration to continue the work she began.
In true Mo fashion, Maureen C. Minielli was posthumously awarded full professor, and will posthumously publish two books as the first author, showing that even death couldn’t stop her from impacting the world.