At the close of her sophomore year, Judith Rogers, one of the first African Americans to receive campus housing at Dickinson, had received two distinctions.
The first, as a press release informs, is $900 dollars raised by herself and some of her peers which enabled her to participate in Operation Crossroads Africa in the summer of 1963. As a participant in the project, Rogers traveled to Sierra Leone where she aided in the construction of a dormitory for a secondary school in the city of Bo. Rogers lived with other African students, ate the local food, wore the traditional dress and practiced local customs alongside Sierra Leoneans while she was there. Upon her return, Rogers was expected to give at least 50 lectures on her experiences in Sierra Leone, as a way to educate Americans on what life is like in Africa.
The second distinction Rogers received was selection by Dickinson faculty to serve as a counselor in one of the freshmen women's dormitories for the following school year. Rogers was the first African American woman at Dickinson to serve as such, and was chosen based on her leadership capabilities, "character and mature outlook." Her job as a counselor entailed making herself "available to first-year students for consultation on matters of academic and campus life."