Joan Roussel Sargent

Dr. Joan Roussel Sargent, Ph.D.

November 24, 1917 - February 23, 2015

Dr. Joan Roussel Sargent, Ph.D., age 97, former Aurelia Henry Reinhardt Professor of English and Dean of the Faculty, Mills College, Oakland, CA.

Roussel Sargent was born at Acocks Green, Birmingham, Warwickshire, England, on November 24, 1917 and died on February 23, 2015 in Oakland, California. The only child of Sydney Beuzeville Byles Sargent and Winifred Muriel Strachan, Roussel spent her childhood in Lympstone, Devon, and Horsham, Sussex, England.

To her father Sydney, a banker and descendant of a long line of Sargents from Henley-on-Thames, Roussel attributed her love of literature, language, and long walks.

Roussel graduated from secondary school in Horsham, Sussex in 1935. In 1937, she moved to London to become a clerk in the Bank of England, a job she disliked, although it enabled her to attend concerts and theater in the West End until the air raids stopped her social life.

In 1940-41 Roussel worked with the Women's Volunteer Service to help children displaced by the blitz. She also worked for the Canadian YMCA, running a canteen in Horsham. In 1945, after VE Day, Roussel did similar work with returning soldiers in the Hague, Netherlands.

After World War II, Roussel Sargent attended the University College, University of London, graduating at the top of her class in English literature. In 1951, she won the prestigious Smith-Mundt Award, to study for one year at the University of Iowa. Returning to England in 1952, she resumed graduate work at University College specializing, under the direction of Prof. Harold Jenkins, in the plays of the seventeenth-century dramatist Thomas Middleton.

In 1958 at the International Summer School at Stratford-on Avon, Roussel met Jane Rule, a former student and friend of Dr. Elizabeth Pope, chair of the English Department at Mills. Dr. Pope wanted to fill an interim position in seventeenth-century drama. At Jane Rule's suggestion, she hired Roussel. Roussel's interim position became permanent. She taught at Mills for 27 years. Throughout that time, she shared a home with Evelyn "Peg" Deane, the Executive Secretary of the Alumnae Association.

Roussel's distinguished academic career is reflected in her appointment as Aurelia Henry Reinhardt Professor of English and her eventual appointment as Dean of the Faculty of Mills College. After a brief interlude as Dean, Roussel returned to the classroom and her great love, teaching.

Roussel said that great teachers love the material and love their students. She did both. Roussel held students to high standards in her courses on sixteenth and seventeenth-century literature, William Blake, William Butler Yeats, Virginia Woolf, and modern British literature. Invariably encouraging, soft-spoken, funny and compassionate, Roussel kept her office door wide open. No student was ever turned away.

During her retirement, Roussel became an accomplished and prolific creative writer, developing her skills at writing workshops such as "Flight of the Mind." In addition, she found time to help edit the local MacArthur Metro newspaper and to travel widely, visiting Turkey, England and Greece, and touring the U.S.

Baptized an Anglican, Roussel left the church in her youth but returned to the church through the ministry of the Rev. Dr. George P. Hedley, Chaplain at Mills. In 1996, she became an active member of St. Cuthbert's Episcopal Church in Oakland. There she served as senior warden and on several committees, becoming the heart and soul of the parish until her death.

Of Roussel's many impressive achievements, perhaps most remarkable was her capacity to love, to accept people, and to put herself in another's shoes. Roussel's generous heart changed lives, particularly those of two children in whom she took a loving interest until they completed college and thereafter.

Roussel leaves behind scores of friends, among them Margaret Deane, her partner's sister. She is also survived by her cousins in England: Dr. David Sargent, Jean and Donald Hamilton and their children and grandchildren, and her beloved cat Nigel.

A memorial service will be held for Roussel Sargent at 11:00 AM on Saturday, April 18, 2015 at St. Cuthbert's Episcopal Church, 7932 Mountain Boulevard, Oakland, CA. In lieu of flowers, gifts in Roussel's memory may be sent to Mills College or St. Cuthbert's Episcopal Church.