Friends remember professor

Fifteen students gathered in 1501 Posvar Hall last night to remember Pitt professor Keiko… Fifteen students gathered in 1501 Posvar Hall last night to remember Pitt professor Keiko McDonald, who died last weekend. A small group of McDonald’s students gathered in her usual classroom to watch the movies she showed, including ‘Madadayo’ and ‘MacArthur’s Children,’ and to take turns sharing their favorite memories of her. ‘We’re doing this because we love her,’ said Pitt senior Mark Prascak. She was a ‘unique individual, always loving and giving, and she always put her students first.’ The students who gathered in Posvar made up just a small percentage of the lives she touched. In her 36 years at Pitt, McDonald, who was the chairwoman of the East Asian Studies Department, taught thousands of students, many of whom sent letters, flowers and notes of remembrance. An informal memorial sits in the East Asian Studies Department. Sympathy cards have been sent from places as far as Japan, where many of her former students either work or study. According to her teaching assistants, McDonald supported her students by writing letters of recommendation to help them study abroad and further their knowledge of Japanese culture and cinema. Before the movies were shown, students spoke about McDonald’s kind spirit, big smile, warm personality and loving nature. They said she was a down-to-earth individual. They also reminisced about her wildly colored wardrobe, specifically the bright sneakers she wore to class. Per her request, her students called her Keiko, not Professor McDonald. Many of them said she was more than a teacher: She was a friend. Gautam Jayanthi, a senior who had McDonald as an adviser, said that McDonald ‘had a magnetism about her.’ She was ‘so full of life.’ Most of the films McDonald showed in her classes highlighted teacher-student relationships, which she fostered throughout her career. One of those movies was ‘The Last Samurai.’ A former student and teaching assistant, Brandon Taper, compared McDonald’s life to that of the samurai, as she used to describe it. He said, ‘The cherry blossom represents the samurai because it was fragile, here for a few hours and then blown away. She was like a cherry blossom. She was here, and then she left.’ The University has tentatively scheduled a formal memorial service for McDonald in Heinz Chapel on Wednesday, Oct. 1. See Wednesday’s Pitt News for a story in memory of Keiko McDonald.