Erica Jolly completed secondary education at St Peter's Collegiate Girls' School and graduated from the University of Adelaide with an Honours degree in history in 1956. She then taught in secondary schools for forty years, mainly in South Australian Technical High Schools until 1974. In 1978 she completed a Masters degree in English literature at Flinders University.
Erica realised early that categorisation and predetermined pathways for students limited their scope. That limitation, reinforced by teaching subjects as 'silos', discouraged interdisciplinary approaches.
In 1992 she gave up her position as Deputy Principal (Curriculum) at Marion High School.
Elected to the Flinders University Council in 1990, she supported interdisciplinary developments on Council, and also when she was on the Academic Senate from 1997-2002. From 1992 to 2016 her focus has been on her role as the education/health advocate for the SA Chapter of the Australian Federation of University Women.