Glenn Morocco, LaSalle University professor

Glenn A. Morocco, 75, of Erdenheim, a language and literature professor at La Salle University from 1967 until he retired in 2002, died of heart disease Friday, April 27, at his home.

Dr. Morocco helped found the graduate program in bilingual/bicultural studies at La Salle and was its director in the years before he retired, a niece, Maria Morocco, said in an interview

The master of arts program in those studies is now offered by the Hispanic Institute at La?Salle.

Dr. Morocco was born in Cleveland and earned a bachelor's degree in French at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in 1958 and a master's in French at Middlebury College in Vermont in 1962.

He was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to the University of Strasbourg and earned his doctorate in French literature at the University of Pennsylvania in 1974, where his doctoral dissertation was about French poetry during the Renaissance.

His niece said that before joining the La Salle faculty, he taught at Chestnut Hill College and at Hiram College in Ohio and for a time was a faculty member in the summer language program at Middlebury.

He was fluent in Spanish, Italian, and German as well as in French, she said, and was known for his scholarly work about feminist poets during the Franco regime in Spain.

Though he had taken his doctorate in French literature, she said, his shift to Spanish literature "had to do with his own personal intellectual interests."

And so, she said, "he spent many summers doing scholarly research in Madrid," focusing on the work of a female literary society. "He told me these women were writing during the Spanish Civil War" of the 1930s, "but whether their literary efforts continued, I don't know."

Besides his niece, Dr. Morocco is survived by brothers Daniel and Norman and several nieces and nephews.

A private service is planned for Lakeview Cemetery in Cleveland.

Donations may be sent to the Hispanic Institute at La Salle University, 1900 W. Olney Ave., Philadelphia 19141.

Contact Walter F. Naedele at 215-854-5607 or wnaedele@phillynews.com.