Frances “Francie” Cogan, professor emerita of literature in the Honors College of the University of Oregon, died on March 8 after a long illness. She was 68 years old.
A native of Eugene, Oregon, Cogan earned her bachelor’s degree at the University of Oregon and then enlisted in the Navy. She returned to the University of Oregon and earned a doctoral degree. Dr. Cogan joined the faculty at the Honors College in 1981 and remained on the faculty until her retirement in 2013.
David Frank, professor of rhetoric and dean of the Honors College from 2008 to 2013, said that “Professor Cogan left a deep and abiding mark on her students, providing them with the intellectual equipment needed to think critically and live moral lives. She was truly committed to the craft of teaching.”
Dr. Cogan was the author All-American Girl: The Ideal of Real Womanhood in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America (University of Georgia Press, 1989) and Captured: The Japanese Internment of American Civilians in the Philippines, 1941-1945 (University of Georgia Press, 2000).
The University of Oregon Foundation has established the Frances Cogan Memorial Fund in her honor.