Who was JoAnne Epps, Temple’s acting president?

JoAnne A. Epps, who was named acting president of Temple University in April, died Tuesday after falling ill at a university event.

» READ MORE: Temple’s acting president, JoAnne A. Epps, has died after collapsing on stage at university event

Epps was at Temple for nearly four decades.

Here’s what to know about her:

After law school, Epps served as deputy city attorney in Los Angeles in 1976. She returned to Philadelphia four years later to join the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

She began working at Temple in 1985, and then was named law school dean in 2008.

In 2016, she was promoted to provost, the school’s No. 2 position. Her title also included senior vice president and chief academic officer, and she oversaw academics across the university’s 17 schools and colleges and 12 administrative offices.

Epps became acquainted with Temple early in her life. Her mother was a Temple secretary, who retired in the 1980s. And Epps worked at the university when she was 16 as a cashier in the Temple bookstore.

She was introduced to Trinity College by a young Trinity student who had visited Cheltenham High School when she was a senior to recruit young minority students. He drove her to Trinity for a visit with the dean of admissions, and soon she had an offer of tuition assistance.

She had wanted to become a legal secretary, like the fictional character Della Street on her favorite show, Perry Mason. She almost left Trinity after her sophomore year, she said in a 2016 interview with The Inquirer, because she wasn’t getting the typing and shorthand skills she needed to land that job.

Then a Trinity dean suggested she become a lawyer, something she had never considered.

“I had never met a lawyer, a man or a woman, white or black,” she said in 2016. “I reversed course.”

She went on to have a career replete with leadership roles, noteworthy promotions, and accolades, including a 2015 Spirit of Excellence Award by the American Bar Association, the 2015 M. Ashley Dickerson Award by the National Association of Women Lawyers, the 2014 Justice Sonia Sotomayor Diversity Award by the Philadelphia Bar Association, and is a three-time honoree by Lawyers of Color Magazine as one of the 100 most influential Black lawyers in the country.

“I am obviously humbled and excited and really looking forward to being able to make a contribution to the university that I so love,” she said.

She also told The Inquirer that she thinks “some part of what gave the board confidence in selecting me is my ability to sort of calm waters.”