KHTS Radio Santa Clarita Radio – Santa Clarita News
Retiring Instructor paved the way for females in Computer Information
For the past 31 years, Gloria McKimmey has taught computer information technology at College of the Canyons.
In honor of her impending retirement, her family will establish the Gloria McKimmey Scholarship that will be awarded to a female COC student who demonstrates merit and is a single parent. McKimmey has been on the move for most of her 81 years.
Born in Brooklyn to Italian immigrants, she left New York for the sunny beaches of Florida as a teenager. Following World War II, she moved again, this time to South Bend, Ind., so that she could help support her brother's dream of attending the University of Notre Dame. While working as a secretary there, she met and married her husband Tom and the two soon headed west to start a new life in California.
A decade later, McKimmey — like many of her students — began her academic career at a community college. A mother of three school-age children at the time, she eventually earned her BA and her MS from Cal State Northridge. She began her teaching career at College of the Canyons in the 1970s and was hired as a full-time instructor of Secretarial Sciences after teaching part time for two years. When she realized that shorthand and typing would soon be obsolete, McKimmey taught herself to use a personal computer in the 1980s, spearheading curriculum changes as the department of Secretarial Sciences gave way to Computer Information Technology.
[view:node_ad=5]McKimmey's determination to master new programs and technology over the last twenty years has inspired countless students to embrace the computer age. Several years ago she earned a Microsoft Office Specialist Master Certificate by passing Word Expert, Excel Expert, Access and PowerPoint tests. She thought that if she was asking her students to take the tests, she should set the example by taking them also.
McKimmey said she looks forward to spending her retirement with Tom, her husband of 52 years, their three daughters,and her four beloved grandchildren. For more information about the Gloria McKimmey Scholarship fund and how to donate, contact the COC foundation at (661) 362-3435.
