Nancy Quisenberry Memorial is Friday

A memorial service for the late Nancy L. Quisenberry, former interim dean of SIUC's College of Education and Human Services and the Carbondale Noon Rotary Club's first woman president, will begin at 2 p.m. Friday, Dec. 8, in the University Museum Auditorium in Faner Hall.

Nancy Quisenberry

Quisenberry, who died Sept. 27 in Urbana at the age of 68, retired from SIUC in 1998 after a career that spanned nearly 40 years, but retired never meant "inactive."

After relocating to Champaign, she joined St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Urbana, the Urbana Rotary Club, the Urbana Community Development Commission and the Urbana chapter of the DAR, and she continued her membership in a host of education-related organizations.

She also continued to work in her chosen vocation. The year after her retirement, she became president elect of the International Council on Education for Teaching, serving as president from 2001 to 2002. She also received the Association for Childhood Education International's top award and published a book titled "Educators Healing Racism." And in 2002, she and SIUC colleague D. John McIntyre edited a sequel to that book, using case studies aimed at helping teachers, students, administrators and staff recognize and combat racism when they saw it.

Quisenberry came to SIUC in 1971 with her husband James D. Quisenberry, both serving as assistant professors in the department now known as curriculum and instruction. She was promoted to associate professor in 1976 and received a full professorship in 1980.

She moved into administration in 1982, serving as her college's associate dean for academic affairs, then became interim dean in 1996, when her boss, Donald L. Beggs, moved into the University's top academic slot.

Her honors include selection as one of the University's Women of Distinction and listings in The World Who's Who of Women and Who's Who in American Education.

A native of Washington, Ind., where she was high school salutatorian, she earned her bachelor's and master's degrees from Indiana State University in Terre Haute and her doctorate from Indiana University in Bloomington.

Her survivors include her husband, who retired from SIUC in 1995; her son and daughter-in-law, James P. and Jill Quisenberry; her grandson Will Quisenberry; and sisters Judith Brustkern and Linda Banks.

She is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in her hometown.

- K.C. Jaehnig