Verna Dauterive, a former trustee, benefactor, and adjunct professor of education at the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, died on June 1 in Los Angeles. She was 93 years old.
Dr. Dauterive was a native of LeCompte, Louisiana. Her mother was the principal of an all-Black school and her father was a Pullman porter. She graduated from Wiley College, a historically Black educational institution in Marshall, Texas.
In 1943, Dr. Dauterive was hired as the youngest teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District. At that time, she was one of only four African American teachers in the city. She spent the next 60 years as a teacher and administrator in the public schools. While working as a teacher, Dauterive earned a master’s degree and an educational doctorate from the University of Southern California.
In 2008, Dr. Dauterive donated $30 million to the University of Southern California in honor of her late husband Peter Dauterive, who was the founding president and CEO of the Founders Savings & Loan Association. Verna and Peter Dauterive Hall, an interdisciplinary social sciences building, opened in 2014.
