A dedicated community activist, Dr. Crouch’s public service includes being a director of numerous organizations, including Unity House of New York, Friends of Chamber Music, Troy, NY, the founder and acting director of Security Deposit and Rental Assistance Fund to assist the working poor, Troy, NY, and as a volunteer of Brand Library/Art Center, Glendale.A Blanchard Community Library volunteer, in 1998 Dr. Crouch became a member of the library’s Board of Trustees where she served as chairwoman from 2000-2003.Dr. Crouch also chaired the local study on affordable housing for the League of Women Voters/Ventura County; she is the unit head for the league’s Santa Paula branch.Her other books include “Spanish City Planning in North America,”1993’s “Water Management in Ancient Greek Cities” another Oxford University Press publication, and “Geology and Settlement: Greco-Roman Patterns” to be published this year by Oxford University Press.Dr. Crouch has also authored articles and book reviews for scholarly journals, proceedings papers and essays. She has conducted 58 lectures and taken 24 trips abroad for research, mostly to the Mediterraneanarea.Dr. Crouch’s accomplishments are even more remarkable considering that she is the mother of seven children, has nine grandchildren, enjoys 35 hobbies, has published poetry, had one-person show of photography exhibited in three venues and remains a committed community volunteer.For more information on Dr. Crouch’s appearance at the Jan. 11 SPSA meeting or about the arts society, call 525-1140.
Dr. Dora Crouch: SPSA featured speaker to focus on architectural history
January 07, 2004
Santa Paula News
The Santa Paula Society of Art knows that art is universal, and Sunday’s meeting will feature a noted architectural historian, Dr. Dora Crouch.
By Peggy KellySanta Paula TimesThe Santa Paula Society of Art knows that art is universal, and Sunday’s meeting will feature a noted architectural historian, Dr. Dora Crouch.The meeting is open to the public and will be held at the historic Depot from 2 to 4 p.m. The Depot, home to the SPSA gift shop and gallery, is located on the corner of 10th and Santa Barbara streets.Dr. Crouch is the author of two books, “History of Architecture: Stonehedge to Skyscrapers” and “Traditions in Architecture: Africa, America, Asia and Oceania.”The first, recently out of print, was published by McGraw Hill in 1985 and translated into Malalyan. Dr. Crouch’s second book was published in 2001 by Oxford University Press, and is being translated into Chinese for publication in China.“I will talk about architecture as one of the arts dealt with in my Ph.D. program at UCLA,” said Dr. Crouch. “As a useful art, architecture has many functions in human society. I will discuss some of the problems of this art, using examples from my slide collection and my life experience, and tying these ideas into the architecture of Santa Paula.”Dr. Crouch graduated third in her high school class in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and was honored as Alumna of the Year in 1998.She earned degrees from the Eastern Montana College, UCLA and her Ph.D. with distinction from the University of California Los Angeles.Dr. Crouch had a distinguished career in education and worked at state universities as well as Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, School of Architecture where she retired as the Professor Emerita. After a year as a visiting professor of Art at Stanford University, Dr. Crouch became a self-employed historian.
