Mary Blackwood Collier, Ph.D.

Professor Collier completed bachelor’s and master’s degrees in French at UC Santa Barbara and earned a doctorate with highest honors in French literature from the Université de Paris, Sorbonne. Since 1976 she has served on the faculty of the Music Academy of the West as French diction coach. She started teaching at Westmont since 1981. In 2012, the French government knighted her as a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques, the highest distinction the French Republic can give, for promoting French language and culture. She travels often to France and has spent many summers there. Her publications include a book on the opera “Carmen,” “La Carmen essentielle et sa réalisation au spectacle.”