Full Biography
Timothy Stiven has been teaching history and humanities since 1986. Timothy was born in South Laguna Beach, CA and raised in San Diego CA. He began his teaching career in Glendale, CA at Toll Jr. High, an institution where his grandfather had taught 50 years earlier. Timothy received his BA and Teaching Credential at Loyola Marymount University. He received the Dockweiler Medal for History and the Fr. Sullivan SJ Prize for writing, graduating in 1985.
Timothy's career has spanned diverse educational environments. After a stint teaching in Geneva, Switzerland, he spent 18 years at prestigious private prep schools in Los Angeles. However, his commitment to public education led him back to San Diego in 2006, where he joined Canyon Crest Academy (CCA), a newly established public school. His impactful teaching earned him CCA Teacher of the Year honors in 2010 and a spot as a San Diego County Teacher of the Year Semi-Finalist in 2022.
Timothy has dedicated his four decades in education to nurturing creative thinkers, promoting cultures of empathy, and cultivation of gratitude.In 2013, he launched the Envision Conservatory for the Humanities at CCA, a rigorous, three-year, application-based program focusing on philosophy, theology, ethics, and civics.
The COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 prompted Timothy to innovate further by utilizing Zoom to connect with a school in Kabul, Afghanistan. This initiative led to the creation of Flowers for the Future, an organization that began as a small book club and has evolved into a global educational network. Flowers for the Future now supports 500 Afghan girls in Kabul with live, peer-to-peer instruction and has expanded its reach to branches in Hong Kong, Tbilisi, Meppel, and Boston. Last June, the program awarded its first group of Afghan students California High School diplomas. The initiative, alongside the Eileen Murphy Foundation—which Timothy founded in 2022—has joined the Alliance for the Education of Women in Afghanistan, facilitating secure connections with girls across various Afghan provinces.
In addition to his educational endeavors, Timothy is an active civic leader. He serves as Chair of the San Diego International Sister Cities Association, is a member of the World Affairs Council of San Diego, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts and Commerce.
He has been married to his college sweetheart for 29 years and has a son, who is a graduate student in International Relations at Loyola University Chicago.
