Daniel J. Tutolo; 1934-2014: BGSU education professor left lasting impact on teachers

3/28/2014

BOWLING GREEN — Daniel J. Tutolo, a professor emeritus of education at Bowling Green State University who had a flair for teaching prospective educators, died Wednesday in Hospice of Northwest Ohio in Toledo. He was 79.

He learned in January that he had a brain tumor, his wife, Jo, said. He'd been a volunteer the last 25 years at Hospice of Northwest Ohio.

Mr. Tutolo taught until 2011. He'd officially retired in 1994, a year after Dawn Shinew received a master of education degree from BGSU. When she returned in 2012 as director of the school of teaching and learning in the college of education and human development, Mr. Tutolo welcomed her back.

“You could describe him as one of the stalwarts,” Ms. Shinew said. “He was well regarded as a scholar, but at his very core was a teacher who touched students semester after semester after semester.

“We always try to model what we would consider best practices. That was a huge part of what Dan communicated to future teachers,” Ms. Shinew said. “He not only talked about being a good teacher, but showed it in everything he did.”

His daughter Patty, a Spanish teacher in the Springfield Local Schools, said: “He was passionate about literacy and teaching people how to encourage literacy.”

For decades, Mr. Tutolo led conferences and had speaking engagements around the world. Starting in 1981, he made regular visits to Italy — where his parents were born — and researched the education system there.

He also was a longtime appointee by the National Council of Teachers of English to its Committee on Public Doublespeak, which studies language that is used to mislead. In 1985, the friends of BGSU libraries group recognized Mr. Tutolo for his support as a member of the library advisory committee.

Mr. Tutolo was born Aug. 30, 1934, to Maria and Felice Tutolo in South Euclid, Ohio, and was a graduate of C.F. Brush High School there.

He received a bachelor of business administration degree from Kent State University in 1957 and enlisted in a management training program at Goodyear Tire & Rubber in Akron.

But 1958 brought recession, and Goodyear laid off 52 of 60 trainees, Mr. Tutolo among them.

He answered a newspaper ad for a crash course that led to a teaching certificate. He hadn't before seriously considered the profession.

“As a matter of fact, I thought, ‘Oh, my, not me!’” Mr. Tutolo told The Blade in 1988. “But I knew at the end of the first year that I'd found my niche.”

He received a master of education degree in elementary administration from Kent State and became an elementary teacher and then principal in the Cuyahoga Falls school system. He received a doctorate in elementary education, reading, and language arts in 1971 from the University of Akron.

He was hired by BGSU in 1973 after about three years as an assistant professor at Ohio State University's Marion, Ohio, campus.

He was preceded in death by his first wife, Josephine, and his second wife, Joan.

Surviving are his wife, Jo Brandon Tutolo, whom he married Jan 2, 1993; daughters, Jean Tutolo, Patty Feehan, and Beth Campbell; stepson, Marcus Brandon; stepdaughter, Trisha Brandon, and six grandchildren.

Visitation will take place from 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday in the Dunn Funeral Home, Bowling Green, with a prayer service at 4:30 p.m.

Funeral services will be 11 a.m. Monday in St. Aloysius Church, Bowling Green, where he was a member.

The family suggests tributes to the Daniel Tutolo scholarship fund at Alice Lloyd College in Pippa Passes, Ky.

Contact Mark Zaborney at: mzaborney@theblade.com or 419-724-6182.