A RETIRED academic who has had a long association with Charles Sturt University and its predecessor, Bathurst Teachers’ College, has died after a distinguished career in arts and education.
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Former BTC lecturer and CSU donor Dr Oliver Fiala fled post-World War 2 Europe for a new life in Australia.
Dr Fiala and his wife, Heather, were long-time supporters of the Charles Sturt Foundation.
More than a decade ago they donated about $40,000 worth of books to the CSU Faculty of Education, including drama texts, with some written by Dr Fiala.
These are housed in the Truskett Library at CSU in Bathurst and are known as The Fiala Collection.
Born and educated in Moravia, Czechoslovakia, in 1923, Oliver Fiala studied at the Conservatorium of Music and Dramatic Arts before fleeing as a political refugee in 1948.
After arriving in Sydney in 1949, Dr Fiala travelled by train to the migrant camp at Kelso which housed many new arrivals from post-war Europe.
During this early period, he worked in a variety of manual jobs in and around Bathurst until he received a scholarship to attend Sydney Teachers’ College, graduating in 1958.
He later gained a Master of Education and received a Fulbright Fellowship travel grant to complete his PhD at the University of Colorado.
In 1962 that Dr Fiala was offered a position as a drama lecturer at BTC in Bathurst. This role involved not only teaching, but also producing two plays each year and acting as the dramatic adviser for the Little Theatre Club and annual college revue at BTC.
During this time Dr Fiala wrote Drama in Action, a secondary school drama teaching program.
It was from BTC that he departed for the USA to complete his PhD as a Fulbright Scholar.
Upon his return to Australia, Dr Fiala accepted a position lecturing in drama at the University of NSW, and later became a senior lecturer and acting Head of the School of Drama there.
Dr Fiala died on October 12, aged 95.
