With two graduate degrees from Stanford, John Dennis had options. But he chose to spend his career helping underprivileged college students succeed. He exposed them to the arts, corrected their grammar and always maintained high expectations.
Dennis, 59, was killed February 9 at his home in Oakland. A 43-year-old man, whom Dennis met decades earlier while volunteering in a mentorship program for disadvantaged youth, is charged with his murder.
A graduate of Central California's Paso Robles High School, Dennis, MA '74, PhD '87, earned a bachelor's degree from UC-Santa Barbara. He studied history at Stanford. He spent 29 years as a member of the history faculty at St. Mary's College in Moraga, Calif. From 1992 until 2005, Dennis was head of St. Mary's High Potential Program, which helped first-generation college students, most of them African-American and Latino, succeed at St. Mary's. Tom Brown, a former St. Mary's dean, estimated that Dennis worked closely with as many as 1,000 students through this program alone.
When the High Potential students first arrived for a summer “bridge” program before school began, they usually sat divided by race. By the end of the summer, the teacher nicknamed “Dr. D” had them interacting as a unified community, Brown says.
Dennis never accepted excuses for low performance, Brown recalls. “John's attitude was a lot of these other kids, their parents ran companies. If [those kids] can't read and write, someone will support them. If these kids can't read and write, they are going to be fired. He really set high standards and challenged and supported them to meet those standards,” Brown says.
Dennis was vibrant, energetic and over-the-top. His personality was reflected in his clothes. “It wasn't just a blue suit—it was indigo,” remembers Angelica Garcia, director of the High Potential Program. (Dennis stepped down in 2005.) Brown imagines Dennis standing at the gates of heaven wearing “his purplest of purple suits.”
In addition to his work at St. Mary's, Dennis was part of the African-American studies department at City College of San Francisco, Merritt College and Edward Shands Adult School in Oakland.
Dennis is survived by his brother, Archie Morton Dennis; his stepmother, Florence Dennis; a nephew; and a grandniece.
