Debora Curry
English Dept - Administrative Assistant
Email: debora.curry@gcccd.edu
Office Hours: Monday-Friday 8am to 10am and 2pm to 4pm - email Debora for link for her Zoom Office hours
Source: "Fidelia Dickinson Is Chaucer Fan." The USD Vista (University of San Diego, San Diego, CA) 7 October 1965: p1. Used with permission, courtesy of the University of San Diego Archives.
Source: Previously unpublished. Reprinted with permission, courtesy of the University of San Diego Archives.
Fidelia Rita Dickinson first began teaching classes as a novitiate in the Order of the Immaculate Heart Sisters in Hollywood. After earning her Master's from Immaculate Heart College in fall of 1958, she rejoined secular life and taught part-time for Santa Monica City College. During this period, she was a University of California, Los Angeles Ph.D. candidate, and, in 1962, after dissertating on literary fame during the Middle Ages, Dickinson and her husband earned doctoral degrees and moved to Milwaukee, where, because of a nepotism clause (typical of this era), Dickinson accepted a teaching position at the University of Wisconsin while her husband taught at Marquette University. After returning to San Diego in 1964, the couple again were compelled to work at separate institutions, and Dr. Fidelia Dickinson, much prefering to work with her husband at San Diego State College, became instead an Assistant Professor at the University of San Diego.
It’s at this tenuous juncture in Dickinson's career path that her brief intersection with Grossmont College occurred. According to an official announcement in the campus newspaper, Dickinson was slated to begin teaching English for Grossmont Junior College at the start of 1966 fall semester. However, that same month, San Diego State College relaxed the enforcement of its nepotism clause to allow for the Affirmative Action hiring of women: once the opportunity availed itself for Dr. Dickinson to become a librarian at the same institution where her husband was a faculty member, Dickinson chose not to follow through with the junior college position and instead joined the staff at San Diego State.
Over the next fifteen years, Dr. Dickinson enjoyed a long and prestigious career at the San Diego State College library working under Dr. Louis Kenney as Associate Director of Libraries. Around 1982, she transitioned into teaching English, during which time she hosted more than a hundred Chinese nationals pursuing advanced degrees in the United States.
Dr. Dickinson retired from San Diego State University in 1990 and was awarded the status of Professor Emerita. She passed away in December 2016.
Debora Curry
English Dept - Administrative Assistant
Email: debora.curry@gcccd.edu
Office Hours: Monday-Friday 8am to 10am and 2pm to 4pm - email Debora for link for her Zoom Office hours
8800 Grossmont College Drive
El Cajon, California 92020
619-644-7000
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