Women of color

In both the 1970-'71 and '71-'72 academic school years lists of names of Black students at Dickinson were compiled. By whom and for what purpose is unknown.

The list for 1970-'71 contains 59 names: 9 seniors, 4 juniors, 26 sophomores, and 20 freshmen.

The '71-'72 list shows an enrollment of Black students of 55, without a class-year breakdown.

Sponsored by the Congress of African Students (CAS), the 3rd Annual Black Student Union Conference was held at Dickinson on September 27, 1980.

The Conference's keynote speaker was Dr. Marion Oliver, who spoke on the topic of "1980's: Challenge to Succeed" in the Social Hall. After Dr. Oliver's address, attendees of the Conference broke off into small discussion groups, ate a buffet dinner, and then had a "Disco" as a closing social event.

The Dickinson College Chaplain Paul Kaylor wrote a letter in October of 1969 to offer the presentational services of the most-recently returned Project Africa participants. 

Dorothy "Dottie" Cole worked with twenty other students in Sierra Leone "building a hospital in the village of Mabai which will, when completed, serve persons from a 50 mile area in that country." 

Paul E. Kaylor, Dickinson College's Chaplain at the time, wrote this letter to the Operation Crossroads Africa headquarters in New York City in December of 1967 to endorse Dickinson's two applicants for the year, Dorothy Lynne Cole and Barry Eugene Taylor. Kaylor recommends both students enthusiastically, writing "they are, as the reference forms indicate, young people of the highest order and will [...] prove to be excellent Crossroaders."

OCA (Operation Crossroads Africa) was founded at Dickinson by Judy Rogers, '65. Rogers was the College's first representative in Africa in the summer of 1963. The following summer ('64) three other Dickinson students followed her lead.

Maureen Newton (Class of 1965) is featured in the 1965 Microcosm as its Business Manager.

The only foreign student at Dickinson during the 1962-3 year was Hsiao Mei Tsou from Singapore. She remarks in this article on the differences between America and Singapore, most notably that girls never talked to boys back home. Very studious, she works often in the library but wishes that it were open later, but finds the Dickinson students very helpful. In Singapore, about half of children go to school and even less complete post secondary education. Hsaio loves the United States and thinks she wants to stay after graduation.

To further prove that Phi Mu’s refusal to allow a bid to go to an African American student was unjust, the creators of the soon-to-be Alpha Delta Epsilon sorority included in their scrapbook the membership statement of Phi Mu.

In the spring semester of 1967, the Beta Delta Chapter of the Phi Mu fraternity was preparing to offer bids for new members. In order to release bids and begin pledging, bid recommendations had to be signed by the District Recommendations Counselor, Mary Horst. After her request of the “racial statuses” of each of the recommended girls and being informed that one of the girls, Bobbie Swain, was of the “Negroid race,” Horst refused to sign the recommendation for said girl.

 

Candid shot of African American female students on Dickinson's campus, 1973. Dickinson College increases its diversity from the first woman to graduate in 1887, to the first known African American student graduating in 1901, and to the first known African American female student graduating in 1919.