Associate Professor
B.A., M.A., California State University at Los Angeles
(CSULA)
Professor Oliver has also taught Communication
Studies courses at West Los Angeles College, Pierce College, California
State University Northridge, and California State University Los
Angeles. She regularly teaches Public Speaking, Interpersonal,
Intercultural, Gender Communication, and Rhetoric of Women. She also
teaches Communication Behavior in Childhood, Rhetorical Discourse,
Rhetoric of Popular Culture, and Health and Disability Communication,
among others, and has overseen numerous Communication Practicum
(internship) courses.
For California State University Los
Angeles, School of Education, she has evaluated the communication skills
of student teachers, taught Intercultural Communication in Urban
Settings and mini-courses on mainstreaming children with disabilities
into regular classrooms. She was the first female chair of the
Communication Arts Department (School of Film and Television), LMU and a
former chair of the Communication Studies Department, LMU. Former
president and program director of California Women in Higher Education,
LMU chapter and once named woman of the year by that chapter.
She
served as LMU’s first sexual harassment mediator, vice president of
LMU’s Faculty Senate, first vice chair of the Academic Assembly, LMU
college facilitator for multicultural affairs, and as a member of LMU’s
Racial Discrimination Mediation Panel, Intercultural Advisory Committee,
and on the Committee on Faculty Committees. And LMU’s students once
voted her the university’s teacher of the year.
Professor
Oliver’s research focuses on developing peer mentoring to facilitate
learning and build communities, particularly among the underprivileged.
Her research has taken her from religious communities in Northern
California to villages in rural Namibia. In her long career, Professor
Oliver has mentored countless students, student organizations, and
faculty.