Elizabeth Mazzocco, director of the Five College Center for the Study of World Languages in Amherst, Massachusetts, died on September 24 at the Baystate Medical Center in Springfield. She was 56 years old.
A native of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Professor Mazzocco was valedictorian of her high school graduate class in Commerce, Texas. She was a graduate of East Texas State University (now Texas A&M University-Commerce), where she majored in English and history. She held a master’s degree in medieval studies and a Ph.D. in Italian studies from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania.
Before joining the Five College Center for the Study of World Languages, Dr. Mazzocco taught at the University of Pennsylvania and Mount Holyoke College.
The Five College Center offers courses in less commonly taught languages for pools of students from Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, and Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.