Dr. Elaine McLevie

New Zealand native Elaine Marianne McLevie studied English at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, where she obtained, both, her Bachelor's of Arts degree and her Master's of Arts by 1955. Over the next two years, she taught at a girls' college in Mount Victoria. After her husband finished his master's studies in Education at Victoria University in 1957, she departed New Zealand with him and, over the next ten years, taught internationally at several other schools in Singapore and Hong Kong.

By 1968, the McLevies had moved to MIchigan for their respective graduate programs at Michigan State University, where Elaine’s comparative literature studies focused on the post-World War I hero in English and U.S. novels. The couple simultaneously earned their doctorates in December of 1970, and the following year Dr. Elaine McLevie, Ph.D., and her husband, Dr. John McLevie, Ph.D., moved to San Diego. From 1973 to 1975, where they worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development and University of Southern California Brazil Project. Then, in 1975, Elaine McLevie accepted a hire offer to teach in the Grossmont College English Department, where she remained on staff for the next eight years. 

At Grossmont, McLevie taught boilerplate composition classes as well as the occasional course in Introduction to Literature, Poetry Writing, and Literature Of the Western World. However, she became increasingly active in administrative service and campus politics. From 1976 to 1978, she was voted President of the Grossmont Faculty Senate and later elected to the Executive Council of the Academic Senate of California Community Colleges. In 1979, Dr. Elaine McLevie was elected for inclusion in the World Who's Who of Women, and by the fall semester of that year she discontinued her teaching duties with the English Department to join her husband’s increased involvement in local education administration. In 1982, Elaine McLevie was selected to participate in a leadership training program for women, "Leaders for the '80's," co-sponsored by the League for Innovation in Community Colleges and the American Association of Women in Community and Junior Colleges. The Program was the very thing to groom her for her appointment to the post of Dean of the Division of Communication and Fine Arts (which, at that time, included the English Department), which she held from January 1983 until summer of 1987.

At the end of her term as Dean, Dr. Elaine M. McLevie did not return to Grossmont’s English Department. Instead, she took another administrative position as Vice President of Academic Affairs for the College of Marin in Kentfield, California before becoming Chair of the College of Marin English Department in 1992. The following year, she joined her husband in retirement and brought her 25-year career in higher education to a close.

After 1996, the McLevies, with their decades of administrative experience, became involved with helping San Diego refugee populations through the Episcopal Refugee Network, for which Elaine served as Community Relations Coordinator, President, and Board Member. In 2009, leading one of the causes closest to heart even while she was at Grossmont College, Dr. Elaine McLevie became an active member of the International Advocacy Committee to promote the status and equality of women worldwide.

In 2018, the American Association of University Women, Del Mar/Leucadia Branch, as part of its series highlighting important issues in the county, sponsored McLevie's nomination for "Senior of the Year," awarded by the City of Encinitas Senior Citizen Commission in partnership with the Encinitas Rotary Club.

• "About Us." RefugeeNet: An Episcopal Outreach in San Diego. refugee-net.org. Accessed 30 November 2018.
• Commencement (5 December 1970). Program. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University, 1970.
• Finley, Lois. “McLevie Elected To Exec Council.” The G (Grossmont College, El Cajon, CA) 26 April 1975: p1-2.
• Gilliam, James. “Dear Sirs.” Received by Board of Trustees of Grossmont College Mr. Erv Metzgar, President Grossmont College, Multicultural Concerns Committee, Heartland Human Relations Association, 17 Apr. 1979, La Mesa, CA. UC San Diego Library Digital Collections. Web.
• Glaeser, Liz. “GC’s  Dr. Elaine McLevie Is Elected To the Who’s Who.” The G (Grossmont College, El Cajon, CA) 14 March 1979: p1.
• McIntosh, Linda and Janelle Werthmann. "Encinitas Looking for Senior of the Year...and More Community News." San Diego Union-Tribune (San Diego, CA) 8 February 2018. Online.
• “McLevie, Dr. Elaine.” Daily Californian (El Cajon, CA) 2 March 1982: np.
• _____. The Gallery: A 25th Anniversary Photographic Directory of the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community Faculty, Administration, and Staff. El Cajon, CA: Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District, 1987. p70.
• Melton, Bob. “Go-Ahead To Smoke Weighed.” Allied Gardens-San Carlos Life News (La Mesa, CA) 12 November 1975: pA1, A3.
• Nova University, "Center for Higher Education Catalog 1985-86" (1985). Fischler Postgraduate Course Catalogs. 56. nsuworks.nova.edu
• Orazio, Fred D., Administrative Law Judge. "United Professors of Marin, Local 1610, CFT/AFT, AFL-CIO v. Marin Community College District, Case No. SF-CE-1524." State of California Decision of the Public Employment Relations Board. March 21 1995.
• Thompson, Sherry L. “Donnelly Named New Dean.” The G (Grossmont College, El Cajon, CA) 7 October 1987: p12.

• Dr. Elaine McLevie 1972-1979 (Division Dean Communication and Fine Arts 1979-1983)