Meet CSUB’s new associate dean of libraries

South Africa native Dr. Gloria Dikeogu joins university from Ottawa University in Kansas

By California State University, Bakersfield

October 12^th, 2023

Dr. Gloria Dikeogu is used to taking big risks while pursuing her educational and professional goals.

She left her family and home country of South Africa behind in the 1990s to come to the U.S. and attend college in Kansas. Now Dr. Dikeogu has made another big change, leaving the state behind after nearly 30 years to accept a position at California State University, Bakersfield as the new associate dean of libraries.

“I’m always looking for ways in which I can learn from others and ways I can teach others,” she said. “This is a giant opportunity I’ve been given, and I’m excited to be able to embrace it.”

Dr. Dikeogu joined the university in September after spending the past two decades as the director of library services at Ottawa University, a private Christian school. She is also an experienced teacher, public librarian and a published author of both fiction and academic publications.

Dr. Dikeogu holds several degrees, including master’s degrees in human resources, business administration and library and information management from Ottawa University as well as a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction from Kansas State University.

“We are excited to have Dr. Dikeogu join our team,” said Walter W. Stiern Library Dean Sandra Bozarth. “She brings over 20 years of experience with her and we can’t wait to work with her as she helps move the library forward.”

As associate dean, Dr. Dikeogu is responsible for supervising and supporting library services staff as well as supporting Dean Bozarth in her endeavors.

Dr. Dikeogu was interested in applying to CSUB because she said she wanted to be part of a system that is more focused on research than what she has experienced at Ottawa University. She also felt that she wanted a new challenge after having been in her role as a library director for a long period of time.

While Dr. Dikeogu was the director of a university library, it serves a considerably smaller population of students than CSUB with around 5,000 students across all its campuses. CSUB typically serves around 10,000 students across its two campuses.

“I needed to spread my wings. I needed something more,” she said. “I need to prove to myself that I am good enough to handle a bigger challenge like this, that I could work at a larger scale.”

'I love learning'

Dr. Dikeogu fell in love with libraries at a young age. As a child growing up in Cape Town, the capital of South Africa, her mother would frequently take her to their community library.

“I didn’t learn to read in the library, but all the times she took me helped me be interested in being one someday,” she said. “Librarianship is not only about loving the book but also being able to provide people with resources. I love librarianship because you’re continuously learning about things, and I love learning.”

That love of learning also eventually led Dr. Dikeogu to develop a passion for teaching. Although she first worked in the Cape Town public library system for a few years, she quickly transitioned into a hybrid teacher-librarian position after obtaining a teacher’s diploma from the University of Cape Town.

She both taught and helped run the libraries of two secondary schools with middle school and high school-aged children.

While she enjoyed her work, it was a difficult period in her career. At that time in the late 1980s, South Africa was still grappling with the upheaval that resulted from the fight against apartheid. It was a period of institutionalized racial segregation that began in 1948 and ended in the 1990s due to a resistance effort led by future president of South Africa Nelson Mandela.

“It was a very complicated experience,” she said. “It was not easy to teach, because there was a lot of disruption. There were police on the streets and everyone was out protesting. It was not a good learning environment for both the teachers and the pupils.”

Dr. Dikeogu only taught in South Africa for two years, after which she went back to work for the public library system. That didn’t last long, however, as she began looking for ways to get out of South Africa and have new experiences.

That led her to applying for and being accepted into the South African Program at Denison University in Ohio when she was 26 years old. Dr. Dikeogu was conflicted about leaving, as she is an only child and it meant leaving her parents behind.

“It was a big deal, and very challenging,” she said. “I had a good life in South Africa, but I wanted something more. I wanted a different experience, to learn more about other countries.”

Dr. Dikeogu was one of over 200 South Africans who came to Denison as part of the two-month program, which helped prepare them for attending an American university and assist in placing them at an institution that fit their field of study.

She said it was a big cultural change, as the program was the first time she interacted with people from other racial and ethnic groups.

“It put together people who otherwise wouldn’t have met,” she said. “They were trying to teach people to work together. That was my first experience with multicultural education, which helped put me on the path I’m on now.”

A new experience

Coming to CSUB was a major change for Dikeogu, being a whole new educational system than what she’s been used to. Having only been on campus for less than a month, she is still in the process of getting settled in.

“I’m still learning where I fit in and what I need to do,” she said. “I have learned so much about how the library and the CSU functions, but there’s so much more to learn. I’ve just barely scratched the surface.”

Dr. Dikeogu said she’s already been impressed with how organized and efficient the library is. She is also excited to learn more about the university and to have the opportunity meet more students, faculty and staff.

One of her first priorities is gaining a better understanding of what the staff needs are and how she can best help them.

Dr. Dikeogu said she’s excited for the opportunity to help grow the library in the future. She would like to see the library expand existing programs and provide new ones that can provide more resources to students.

“We need to better support some of the programs that are already here and collaborate with other departments on campus so we can offer more programming that might be useful and interesting to students,” she said.

Dr. Dikeogu imagines a bright future for not only herself at the CSUB, but for the Walter W. Stiern Library as well.

“There are so many opportunities to look at how students are interacting with us and see what we can do to better serve them and strengthen our connections with them,” she said. “I’m so excited to be part of that process.”