Sarah Fisher, UCLA Pioneer, Dies at 95

Sarah Carolyn Fisher, one of five psychologists who taught at UCLA when it was known as the University of California, Southern Campus, and one of the first women to invade what was then a predominantly male field, has died at 95.

She had taught from 1915 until her retirement in 1957. Her death at home in Hollywood on Sept. 11 was announced by the university this week.

Miss Fisher, who earned her doctorate from Clark University in Massachusetts, became part of a small faculty at what was then the two-year State Normal School for teachers on North Vermont Avenue. In 1919 that school became part of the University of California system, and in 1927 it was designated the University of California at Los Angeles. The campus was moved to the west side of the city two years later.

Miss Fisher was a fellow of both the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science and the American Psychological Assn. and did research on emotion, perception and dyslexia.

Bertram H. Raven, head of the university’s Department of Psychology, described her as a “true humanist.” Her home in Hollywood, he said, was a center in which cultural leaders gathered to discuss music, literature and the arts.

“At a time when psychology was essentially a male profession, Carolyn Fisher was one of several women who served as a very important role model to both male and female psychology students, many of whom went on to illustrious careers,” Raven added.