Dennis Fiems & Denise Harris Fiems

Dennis Fiems was fortunate enough to be a charter faculty member of Oakland Community College in 1965. He was hired as a Faculty Assistant in the Foundations of Modern Society course. By November he had been named the course coordinator. In its inception, OCC was pursuing an audio tutorial approach to education. This approached challenged student to be disciplined, teachers create suitable learning paths and, most importantly, College resources. Gradually the College morphed into more traditional teaching and learning techniques. When the two courses of Foundations of Modern Society were developed, he turned his attention to creating two history courses: World Civilizations I and II. After these courses were approved by the College Curriculum Committee in 1968, Dennis began teaching them in the fall of 1969 and continued to teach them until his retirement in 2007.

In addition to teaching, Dennis participated in many college activities. He served on the Philosophy and Objectives Committee in 1967 and the Representative Advisory Council. He played a role in forming the Oakland Community College Faculty Association and served on the OCCFA Council for two decades.

Having secured employment at OCC, he felt sufficiently secure to marry Susan Strongman in 1967. Three years later they had a son Matthew Fiems. Susan was involved in many College activities through the years. Early on she was a member of the Faculty Wives Club, a sort of throwback to the 1940s. She also organized a program at the Highland Lakes Campus called Kid’s College designed to introduce children to college through a series of short age-appropriate courses.

Susan and Dennis retired in 2007 to start a new phase of their lives. However, in October of that year Susan was diagnosed with cancer. She struggled valiantly against the disease. In the end the disease was too much, and Susan died on July 13, 2008, just four days short of her birthday.

*Denise Harris *was married for 31 years and had four sons when her husband Jim died at the age of 51. It was a challenging time as Denise was not only widowed young, but still had a 14 year old son to raise alone. Rising to the challenge, she put their affairs in order and set out to achieve a childhood dream to become a librarian. After graduating with her Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science from Wayne State University in 2007, she was hired by the White Lake Township library to be, among other things, program librarian.

This is where Dennis met Denise. After Susan’s death he was casting about for things to do and went to his community library to offer to do historical programs. He was directed to Denise and made his pitch. She asked “How much?” He said “free” and she responded: “I can work with that,” which left Dennis surprised and intrigued. He presented a program and a while after she sent an email inquiring whether Dennis would be interested in doing a program related to To Kill a Mockingbird. He responded that he wasn’t sure he was interested, suggested that she may have to twist his arm and maybe could discuss it over lunch. She accepted the lunch invitation and added “Should I begin working out with weights?” so that she would have the strength to twist his arm. He was further intrigued by this spunky woman. One thing led to another and that “other” was marriage on January 1, 2010 at 1:00 pm.

Since then, they have flourished in each other’s company: enjoying books, travel, daily life together, and grandchildren.

But they are also committed to helping others. As a result of this concern and their own good fortune in life, they have created the Dennis Fiems and Denise Harris-Fiems Endowed Emergency Fund to help those in need.