After graduation from Colchester County Academy in Truro, Nova Scotia, Marjorie Dunn Chapman worked in banking, as a secretary, and as an assistant to a Professor of Adult Education at MacDonald College. It was the latter experience which inspired Chapman at the age of 33 to return to school, attending St. Francis Xavier University. After earning her BA in 1960 (Suma cum laude) she moved to Fredericton to study for her PhD. From 1965-1970 she was a Lecturer in the Department of English and in 1970, became the first woman to receive a PhD in the Faculty of Arts at UNB. Her dissertation was entitled Virginia Woolf's recurrent imagery: an approach to the world of her imagination.
Known as an excellent teacher, Dr. Chapman was the only woman in the Department of English until 1984, and retired in 1985 after more than twenty years as a UNB faculty member. Marjorie Chapman died on 9 November 2006 in Fredericton.
Source(s):
- UA Case 77; Section 2, Box 1.