‘We had the best of the best’: Alumni couple supports future educational leaders

Between them, retired educators Dan and Bobbie Plough earned five degrees and four credentials from San Diego State University. Often when sharing that fact, the couple will be playfully asked if they knew other universities existed.

All joking aside, there’s ample reason for their loyalty.

“We wouldn’t have had a career without San Diego State — we really wouldn’t,” Bobbie said. “Whether it was our teaching program, becoming an administrator or my doctoral program, we had the best of the best.”

Added Dan: “They set us up so that we could be successful in our jobs and thereby do what’s right for kids. The fact that we were going to be affecting children’s lives was very clear to us through our education at San Diego State."

Here are the professional paths that education helped launch:

Dan earned a bachelor’s in communication, teaching and administrative credentials and a master’s in administrative education en route to a career that saw him teach and become a vice principal in east San Diego County before serving as a superintendent in the backcountry community of Warner Springs and principal of an alternative education school in the border community of Calexico. He retired in 2010.

Bobbie earned a bachelor’s in social science before following the same graduate school path as her husband. She did him one better, though, earning an Ed.D. in PK-12 educational leadership in 2011. She taught in San Marcos and La Mesa before becoming an administrator. She ended her career in the Bay Area after Dan’s retirement, serving as superintendent of Santa Clara Unified School district and a tenured-track faculty member in educational leadership at California State University, East Bay.

Now back in San Diego, the couple recently reconnected with their alma mater through philanthropy. Through a generous bequest and ongoing annual contributions, the Ploughs created an endowment to provide scholarship support to aspiring administrators going through programs in the Department of Educational Leadership. 

"Our thought was that by giving this, we ease the financial burden,” Bobbie said. “That’s just one more worry that can be taken off their plate so they can concentrate on their studies."

Indeed, both Bobbie and Dan know from experience that a life devoted to educational leadership isn’t a path paved with material riches. But there are often more meaningful rewards.

"I understood very early in my career that the financial end of my career was not the driving point,” Dan said. “I wasn’t going to become a wealthy person, but I could make a difference with kids. That really came to light when I was in Calexico working with high-risk kids. The staff there was pushing those kids so they actually went to college and became successful. I look back at that and say maybe my leadership helped."

Added Bobbie: “It’s about how to work with people to move a school forward. And frankly, how to hold people accountable and do it in a way that’s dignified. Those kinds of tools are what we learned in the program at SDSU."

To learn more about how you can support students through a gift or bequest, please contact Megan Beardsley, Senior Director of Development, at [email protected].