Rocco said fantastic opportunities for higher education exist at this level for instructors and students alike. Because professors are able to continue to grow professionally through education, they are able to truly become masters in their field and serve as an invaluable resource to their students.

"Knowledge from personal experience and first-hand expertise is shared far beyond what can be found in textbooks alone," Rocco said. "The ability to profess one's own point of view is a privilege earned at the university level."

Rocco said he augments his research-based teaching with experiences from his own struggles and successes and aims for his students to be fully prepared for their first Monday in front of their own classrooms. He said his coursework is a filter for "what is high in the sky and what works."

A Winona State professor since 1972, Rocco has enjoyed the growth of his own knowledge in the field of education. He has studied near and far from home, completing postdoctoral work in educational psychology at the University of Minnesota and in biomedical ethics at the Gregorian University in Rome. He and his wife, Joyce, another WSU professor, have visited professors at the University of Hawaii, and universities in the People’s Republic of China and American Samoa.

Frank Rocco's focus at WSU has been helping build the knowledge base and the career visions of young teachers. He has been the senior author of several state approved SPED teacher training programs over the years, each with an emphasis on practical curriculum.

The man who has invested the better part of his career developing Winona State's special education department now takes time to reflect on the years that have brought him to this point.

Frank’s father, Antonio Rocco, came to the U.S. from the southern part of Italy in 1921 as an indentured servant working in the Detroit auto plants and mines of the Ford Motor Company. He left his pregnant wife and unborn son overseas to start a new life for them in America. Ford helped him with housing and education, as he supported his family back home. Seven years after leaving Italy, Antonio was finally able to bring his wife and son, Dominic, across the Atlantic Ocean to their new home.

Frank Rocco was raised in a mainly immigrant community on the north side of Pittsburgh, Penn., and said he spoke Italian before he spoke English. Rocco, his three brothers and one sister grew up from modest roots.

Frank Rocco attended Oliver High School near his home. During senior year, he studied electric shop, wood shop, metal shop, print shop, physical education, and English. 

One and one half years out of high school and a full time employee at the neighborhood supermarket, Rocco crossed paths with his high school English instructor, Mrs. Bleisner, who said to him: "You're a smart boy, Frank. You could be a very good teacher."

Bleisner encouraged him to look into teaching programs at Clarion State Teacher's College, in Clarion, Penn. The open enrollment policy at the school for teachers gave Rocco the opportunity he sought.

His earlier plans of joining the military to be followed by trade work had now been refocused on education.

"Teachers and clergymen were the only professions we saw," Rocco said. In order to exchange the blue collar for the white, he said, the only avenues open to him were to become a teacher or to enter the clergy. His father’s advice on the decision: "Good, Frank. You can go to work when it rains, sit down when you want to, and when you’re sick, they’ll pay you." 

In the mail came school requirements for living needs, including some supplies Rocco didn’t have: sheets, pillowcases, pajamas, and suitcases. Without his knowing, Frank's sister-in-law, Delores, set out to collect the essentials for him. She initiated a gathering of store stamps, S & H Green Stamps, from neighbors.

To his surprise, young Rocco set off to school in the fall of 1958 holding two brand-new, brown suitcases packed with the required materials.

"Many who gave the stamps were waving," he said. "This was a great sacrifice for them to make. These were stamps that could've been used for themselves."

After one semester at college, Rocco found himself in a bind. The transition was difficult, his grades were off track and he was on academic probation.

"I was desperately serious," Rocco said. "I could not go back to my neighborhood after they had helped me get there. I was their hope, as I was the only one from my neighborhood who went to college.  I couldn't afford to fail."

Redeeming himself through hard work, Rocco earned the class scores he needed and also discovered a role model. 

Rocco said his college English teacher, Dr. Dana Still, continued the role played by his high school English teacher in helping grow the vision of the kind of instructor he wanted to become. 

"They are both outstanding people. Mrs. Bleisner is of the same cut as Still. Both are from the best traditions of higher education," Rocco said. "They both had high standards, and they both felt responsible for achieving them in their students; also the mark of great teachers."

Subsequent outstanding academic performance at Clarion State helped Rocco earn a masters degree fellowship to study peripatology at Boston College.

"I didn’t really know what I was going to school for until I got there," he said. "I knew it was some form of special education dealing with the blind."

Rocco had entered in a government-funded study in "orientation and mobility of the blind." He said there were promising opportunities in the field as it was just being established and there was a growing need for specialists. 

Boston College was the second institution in the country to offer such courses, and Rocco was in the second class to study in its peripatology program. The practicum courses were taught by the program’s first-year graduates, themselves taught by war veterans.

Included in the class work were lessons in "sightless travel." Students were blindfolded and given walking canes. After considerable training, they were to navigate through Boston to a designated location using only environmental cues and no assistance from an accompanying university trainer.

Working his way down the sidewalk one afternoon, Rocco tapped cane tips with another blindfolded classmate. He and the young lady politely excused themselves, moved aside, and continued on. Rocco's trainer, Bill Goodman, said to him of the student, "Wow, you should see that one, Rock!" Later, in a class meeting, Goodman pointed out to Rocco the woman he had bumped into that afternoon. For the first time, Rocco laid eyes on the woman who would become his wife, Joyce White.

After Rocco and White earned their master’s degrees at Boston College, they were married on Dec. 14, 1963, in Joyce's hometown, Lincoln, Neb.

After several years of teaching, the Roccos moved on to Michigan State University in Lansing, Mich.  As a fellowship student, Frank pursued his doctorate in special education with disciplines in severe-profound mental retardation, emotional disturbance, and learning disabilities.

In 1969, at age 29, Rocco had earned his Ph.D. degree in special education and child development. Before coming to Winona State in 1972, Rocco had experience at the kindergarten, elementary and secondary education levels, and was superintendent of the Iowa School for the Blind. 

The Roccos began their family in Iowa with the adoption of their first daughter from Korea, Kristin. Their family continued to grow in Winona with the adoption of Tegen and Paige. Kristin and Tegen are now teachers and Paige is a nurse.

On his life in special education, Rocco said, "I have been blessed with really wonderful students and great colleagues. In this field, you find yourself surrounded by great people with great hearts. It turned out to be a really wonderful thing. If I could go back and do it again, I would."

Now in phased retirement, Rocco spends his newfound personal time writing both prose and music, nursing his backyard vegetable garden, and enjoying leisurely afternoons gliding Lake Winona with Joyce in their white sailboat. 

Rocco looks forward to completing a book, a musical for high schools, teaching around the world, and watching his daughters raise their own families.

Last Modified: Monday, March 21, 2005 15:41 by Rhone Richard