Regula Meier, long-time faculty member at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, died late last month in Washington, D.C. She was 91 years old.
Meier was born in Uetikon, Switzerland on Lake Zurich. After training at Teacher’s College Unterstrasse in Zurich, she moved to Norfolk, Virginia, when her husband was appointed a professor of history at the Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary, which is now, Old Dominion University.
In the early 1960s, Meier was hired to teach German and French part-time. She started teaching full-time as a professor in 1968 and eventually served as the chair of the university’s department of foreign languages and literature from 1991 to 1996. She taught at the university for more than a half century.
“She was a highly respected faculty member who embraced all students, but especially international students,” said John R. Broderick, president of Old Dominion University. “Her enthusiasm for her teaching and her students was apparent every time you talked to her.”