Prof. Roberta Fullagar, Reading Specialist, Dead at 77

Roberta Fullagar, who oversaw the creation of the University's elementary education program in the early 1950s, died January 10, 1995 after a long illness in Chapel Hill, N.C. She was 77.

Prof. Fullagar began teaching at the University in 1952 at the women's Prince Street campus. Her specialty was the teaching of reading. Then, when the University became co-educational in 1955, she moved to the River Campus, remaining on the faculty until June 1959. She resigned her tenured position because her husband, William Fullagar, had accepted an appointment as founding dean of the College of Education that same academic year; she believed that to stay might pose a conflict of professional ethics. She then joined the faculty at the State University of New York at Brockport, where she taught until her retirement in 1976.

Prof. Fullagar held a B.S., M.A., and Ph.D from the University of Minnesota.

The family has established a memorial fund in her honor. Those wishing to make donations may send them in her name to the University of Minnesota Arboretum, P.O. Box 39, Chanhassen, MN, 55317.

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