Courtesy of the Arora Family Charitable Foundation
Shirley Arora
April 20, 2021
Shirley Arora, professor emerita in the UCLA Department of Spanish and Portuguese, died March 23 in Lake Oswego, Oregon. She was 90.
During her 37-year career at UCLA, Arora became the first woman to chair the Spanish and Portuguese department, a position she held for 10 years. She was a member in key campuswide committees, including the Council on Academic Personnel, and she was the president of the Faculty Center.
Arora retired from UCLA in 2000, the same year she became the founding trustee of the Arora Family Charitable Foundation.
In 2003, she established an endowment in the Spanish and Portuguese department to support graduate students. Over the course of nearly two decades, the Dr. Shirley L. Arora Graduate Fellowship Fund has provided financial support to more than 30 graduate students. In 2005, the department honored Arora with the distinguished alumni award.