Literacy Luminaries
Professor Emerita Carol Dixon, Ann Kaganoff ’75,’81 and Tina Hansen McEnroe ’89 establish legacies
Professor Emerita Carol Dixon founded the UCSB Reading Clinic in 1973 and mentored many students whose impact has rippled throughout the classrooms and communities they served. Of these students, two accomplished educators — Ann Kaganoff ’75,’81 and Tina Hansen McEnroe ’89 — have joined Carol in philanthropic commitments to shape the work of literacy education at the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education. Through a combination of gift vehicles, these three educators have invested in the Gevirtz School’s child-focused approach to literacy.
UC Santa Barbara Foundation Trustee Tina Hansen McEnroe ’89 is a master teacher and received an honorary doctorate from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 2016. She is recognized at the state and national level for her work as a reading specialist and special education teacher. In 1987, she came to the Gevirtz School from a fourth-generation farming family in Monterey County to earn her master’s in education under Carol’s mentorship at the UCSB Reading Clinic.
Tina’s substantial estate commitment establishes an operating endowment for the Tina Hansen McEnroe and Paul V. McEnroe Reading and Language Arts Clinic, which she founded in 2011 with her husband, Paul. The reading clinic that Carol founded had closed in 1993 due to state budget cuts. Tina realized the potential for private support to fill the gap, and the McEnroes dedicated themselves to re-establishing and expanding the clinic. Tina has served as the McEnroe Reading and Language Arts Clinic’s associate director for over a decade. Her estate commitment will provide crucial support for the clinic’s vital work in perpetuity.
“Former Gevirtz School Dean Jane Conley told me many years ago that we would need two essential commitments to ensure the success of the clinic: First, the buy-in of supportive faculty, which I am very proud and thankful to say we have, and second, an endowment,” said Tina.
Carol and her husband have joined Tina in this effort. The couple first endowed the James D. and Carol N. Dixon Graduate Fellowship Fund in 2016 and recently made their own significant estate commitment to build on this vision for literacy scholarship. The Dixon Fellowship will support Gevirtz School graduate students with a primary focus on reading and literacy, particularly those working in the McEnroe Reading and Language Arts Clinic.
For Ann Kaganoff, the Dixon Fellowship opened a new way to make an enduring impact. Ann was among the first of Carol’s graduate students. After receiving her Ph.D., Ann founded the UC Irvine Reading and Neurolinguistic Clinic in 1985, based on the UCSB clinic model. This clinic served Orange County families until 1992. Following her time with UCI’s Department of Education, Ann dedicated over 30 years to helping students of all ages with learning delays and disabilities as a private practice educational therapist.
When Ann returned to the Santa Barbara area in 2021, she reconnected with Carol and the new director of the McEnroe Reading and Language Arts Clinic, Dr. Diana J. Arya. Thanks to the generosity of her daughter Rachel Kaganoff, and proceeds from the sale of her Irvine home, Ann could partner with her family to endow the Ann Parkinson Kaganoff Family Endowment for Literacy. She has been able to recently expand this endowment with a designation from her trust.
“I suppose we all inspire each other. This gift is a way of inspiring people to leave the Gevirtz School better than they found it,” said Ann, whose endowment joins the Dixons’ in support of fellowships and the McEnroe Reading and Language Arts Clinic.
“Literacy education will continue to have an important role in the Gevirtz School’s mission and this is largely due to the important professional and philanthropic contributions made by Carol Dixon, Ann Kaganoff, and Tina Hansen McEnroe. Their dedication to the field helped establish this legacy and their philanthropic gifts assure that literacy education remains a central part of our school’s mission into the future,” said Jeffrey Milem, Jules Zimmer Dean of UC Santa Barbara’s Gevirtz Graduate School of Education.
Carol was a leading voice in the movement to reimagine literacy as a social accomplishment rather than a set of rules. Her students have continued to shift the paradigm. Tina, Ann and Carol agree that teaching makes a difference in many lives, and that literacy is the foundation of education. All three serve as members of the McEnroe Reading and Language Arts Clinic advisory board.
“It’s heartening to see the work we started expand in ways we couldn’t have imagined,” Carol said. “If people care about something and they realize that other people also care, then there's more incentive to give back because you don't feel alone. Together, we can have more of an impact than any one of us could by ourselves.”
Published January 2025
Former Gevirtz School Dean Jane Conley told me many years ago that we would need two essential commitments to ensure the success of the clinic: First, the buy-in of supportive faculty, which I am very proud and thankful to say we have, and second, an endowment.
Tina Hansen McEnroe ’89
