Joyce Poirot

Joyce Poirot, a longtime champion of adult and community education at the University of California, Davis, died of natural causes in Sacramento, Calif., on Nov. 12, 2025. She was 88. Her career in service of extension programs and leadership development left a lasting imprint on California's public-service sector, and she will be remembered for her fierce commitment to enabling learning, leadership and community engagement.

Poirot served as director of extension or continuing professional education programs at UC Davis and its affiliated units from 1979 until her retirement in 1997. During that span she helped to shape what would become known as the "Poirot Executive Program" for county human-services directors and their leadership teams. The program reflected her enduring legacy by offering networking and intensive training for executives in often-under-resourced human-services agencies across California, equipping them to lead in a changing policy and social environment.

At UC Davis, she founded the Center for Human Services Training and Development to provide continuing education for professional staff in child welfare, adult services, probation, public health, mental health and related agencies. A key contribution to the field was university-based training for eligibility workers, who serve as gatekeepers to public assistance for the poor and others needing social services.

Under her leadership, the extension unit at UC Davis expanded its reach into workforce development, capacitybuilding for public agencies, and custom training for local government. She recognized early on that lifelong learning was not just for traditional students but for professionals in health, human-services, and community agencies who needed flexible, adaptive education. One of her achievements was connecting the university's continuingeducation infrastructure with local and regional agencies so that training became a tool of service rather than only academic enrichment.

From 1984 to 1996, Poirot was the prime mover in establishing 16 conferences - attended by more than 3,000 people, including lawmakers, academics and local officials - that examined social issues related to young people, from homelessness and immigration to youth at risk.

After her retirement, she helped establish the C.S. Linderman Scholarship Fund in 1998, named after her late son, Charles Scott Linderman, an organizer and activist for economic justice who served under Gov. Jerry Brown. The scholarship program at the UC Davis College of Letters and Science creates a pathway for students who demonstrate financial need, the potential for community leadership, and an interest in participatory democracy.

One of the recipients, Jennifer Le of East San Jose, wrote Poirot to thank the program's board for awarding her a scholarship that helped her land an internship with Rep. Ami Bera, mentor college freshmen from the local Southeast Asian community, and expose her to opportunities to help address human rights violations, economic injustice, and humanitarian crises.

A second recipient, Stephanie Jennings of Gilroy, Calif., wrote to her and recounted her work lobbying at the state Capitol on issues related to school drinking water, renewable energy and fracking in California - all a result of attending UC Davis on the Linderman scholarship.

Colleagues recall Poirot as someone who brought warmth, quiet energy and strategic vision to the often-unsung work of adult education. She believed that extension programs should not merely transfer knowledge, but should catalyze institutional improvement, strengthen public agencies, and ultimately better the lives of children, families and communities. The training she oversaw for human-services leaders emphasized workforce retention, continuousquality improvement, and the human face of public systems.

Prior to her work at UC Davis, Poirot - a proud Armenian-American who was born Joyce Boyajian - earned a master's degree in social work at the California State University, Sacramento. She began her career at the Sacramento County Department of Social Welfare. She served first as a case worker for handicapped persons and then as a special projects planner. In 1971 she moved on to the anti-poverty Model Cities Program in Pittsburg, Calif.

Poirot requested that no memorial service be held. She wrote, "There is no better way to honor me and all that I value than to contribute as generously as possible" to the Linderman Scholarship Fund. Visit https://giving.ucdavis.edu/ways-to-give and indicate the fund you're supporting with your gift.