Born in Bellflower, California, Angelina E. Stuart (Angie as she is known to her friends and colleagues) is the eldest of three girls. Her father, Gerald L. Head, met her mother, Carmelita Espinosa Farias, in Tepic, Nayarit, Mexico and married after a year-and-a-half courtship. They moved to LA, where Angie’s father graduated from UCLA and then started working on his doctorate in Gaucho Literature at UCLA. Since her mother didn’t speak English, Spanish was the language in her home. In 1963, her father took the family to Carlos Paz, Argentina, when she was five so he could finish his research and dissertation. During that time, Angie attended Kindergarten and fell in love with the simple country life of the provincial town. Returning to California, she didn’t speak English so she struggled to understand her teacher and classmates. The family moved to San Diego in 1964 when her father obtained a position at San Diego State University as a Professor of Spanish & Portuguese.
Angie attended Patrick Henry High School in San Diego and went directly to San Diego State University as a Math major to work in Computer Science. Quickly realizing that major wasn’t the right fit for her, Angie switched her major to Spanish to become a teacher. In her junior year at SDSU, she was selected for a year-long Study Abroad opportunity in Madrid, Spain, where she studied at the Universidad Complutense. She traveled extensively in Spain both with friends and as a group. Having taken an intensive art course at the Prado Museum, Angie earned a Minor in Art. At the close of that academic year, she traveled for two months broadening her knowledge of languages, cultures and sights throughout Europe.
After earning her B.A., she continued her studies at SDSU towards a Master’s Degree in Spanish with emphasis in Latin American Literature. In the process, she taught Spanish as a Graduate Teaching Assistant. She realized her dream of teaching and loved it completely. Angie also married and raised two wonderful children, Michael and Marissa.
After obtaining her M.A., Angie taught as a Part-Time Lecturer in the Spanish Department. One of her students loved her teaching style so much that he recommended Angie to his father, who happened to be the Dean at Center City Community College. He took that recommendation and interviewed Angie for a job teaching English as a Second Language (ESL). Although Angie had never taught ESL before, the language skills she had and her desire to learn made her an excellent candidate for the IOEP program so he hired her to teach English to adult refugees from Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam. She loved teaching these motivated students and felt great satisfaction watching them assimilate into American society. She continued teaching ESL when hired at the American Language Institute at the SDSU Foundation for several years while also teaching Spanish in the Spanish Department at SDSU.
After divorcing, Angie needed to find a full-time job that had security (not a year-to-year contract) so she applied for tenure-track Bilingual Kindergarten position in La Mesa/Spring Valley School District. She was interviewed and hired on the spot! Teaching Bilingual Kindergarten was delightful but having a five-year-old child at the time made her experience Kindergarten twenty-four hours a day, which really made Angie miss her adult students. In that first year, she received a flier for a tenure track Spanish/ESL position at SWC that seemed tailor-made for her so she made the decision to apply.
Angie was hired at SWC in fall of 1990. Always learning and innovating, she felt SWC was the perfect place for her. She immediately began collaborating with her officemate Margarita Andrade-Robledo on a Spanish grammar textbook for their courses because the book instructors were assigned to use for Native Speakers was for non-native speakers with no knowledge of Spanish. Angie participated in many professional workshops and never stopped seeking new ways to motivate and teach her students. Not a person to turn away from a challenge, Angie also accepted many faculty roles at the College, like serving as the first Department Chair of World Languages & ESL, the first Tenure Review Coordinator, and was eventually elected as Academic Senate President.
Over the years, Angie has received many awards, among them the SWC Faculty Leadership Award in 2006 for her work as Tenure Review Coordinator. Because of rapid and unexpected changes at SWC during her tenure as Senate President, The State Academic Senate of California Community Colleges (ASCCC) recognized Angie by bestowing the prestigious ASCCC Norbert Bischoff Memorial Award for “Demonstrated Leadership During Extraordinary Times at SWC” on her in June of 2012. All the while, she cared for her father, who passed away in October of 2012. After his passing, Angie even served as Accreditation Faculty Co-Chair and helped the College get through two challenging accreditation cycles. Angie was also honored to be the recipient of the Phillip Lopez “Courage of Lion Award” in May 2015 for her work in defending free speech on campus during those tumultuous times.
In June 2017, Angie retired from teaching to dedicate herself to caring for her aging mother, her spouse, and home. She felt called to serve God so when Angie was invited to serve the You Did It For Me, Inc. (YDI4M) in November of 2018 as a Founding Board Member, she humbly accepted. YDI4M is founded on the Gospel of Matthew 25:34-40, “Truly I tell you, whatever you do to one of the least of your brothers, you did it to me.” YDI4M connects vulnerable people in the San Diego East County with services and resources to maintain housing, food, healthcare, education and work. This important work helped renew Angie’s purpose and gave her great satisfaction.
Anyone who knows Angie well will tell you that her faith holds a prominent place in her life. She has always felt a closeness to God and holds a deep reverence of Mother Theresa, seeking to emulate Mother Theresa’s famous quote, “Do small things with great love.” This deep faith sustained her when she lost her mom in July of 2022. Angie attends Spanish Mass at her family parish, Mission San Diego de Alcalá. As time permits, she participates in a Catholic prayer group for the LGBTQ community called Creando Puentes, which is based on Fr. James Martin’s book Building A Bridge. This group seeks to deepen the Catholic faith without judgment and invites every precious individual closer to God regardless of who they are or whom they love.
Angie lives with her spouse of 30 years, Bev, and their dog, Jackson, in the upper foothills of Jamul, where she loves to garden, especially irises, and native plants which support wildlife. She is proud of her successful married children and their families. She loves spending time with her three grandsons, ages almost two, 15 ½ and 21. She enjoys regular get-togethers with her retired World Language colleagues and shares a close relationship with Professor Shannon Engelhart and her family. She enjoys traveling with her neighbors and dear friend, Ted and Carol Bietz and loves being close with their family as well. Angie’s life is full and life is good. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous quote says, “Use me, God. Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be and what I can do and use it for a purpose greater than myself.” This inspires Angie to keep trying to make this world a better place one moment, one task, one person at a time.
