As part of Body Appreciation Week '07, Dickinson hosted Ophira Edut, author of Body Outlaws: Rewriting the Rules of Beauty and Body Image, as well as a national speaker, activist and entrepreneur, to
give a talk on positive self-image,
held in the Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium on February 7, 2007.
Mrs. Frank F. Taylor, formerly Frances D. Rombach, of the class of 1954, died of a fractured skull and other injuries after her Volksagen crashed into a tree in Morristown, NJ. She was a member of Pi Beta Phi, active in the Alumni Association, and a member of the Presbyterian Women's Circle in Morristown. Mrs. Mary Davies Harrigan, of the class of 1924, died in Ridgway, PA, Hospital, where she had been a patient for six weeks. She was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs.
Mrs. Howard G. Watson, formerly Helen Fooks Wright, of the class of 1903, died on May 31, 1957. She was the principal of a high school in Perryville, MD, and the mother of one. She was a member of the Presbyterian Church and of Pi Beta Phi, along with the Harmon Literary Society, the Navy League, and the Women's College Club of Cecil County, MD. She was a also a former president of the Retired Teachers of Marylnd. Miss Ruth E.
Taken from Alta Kimmel's personal scrapbook is this handwritten invitation, or bid rather, to the Pi Beta Phi fraternity for women. The letter is written by the Greek organization's president, Helen Purvis, and gives instruction for acceptance or rejection of the bid.Â
Barbara Wishmeyer, the Dean of Women for the Academic Year 1962-1963, included photographs of her female students in her scrapbook of their pledge formal attire during the sorority rush/pledge spring season. Women had the opportunity to pledge Chi Omega, Phi Mu, Pi Beta Phi, and Zeta Tau Alpha. In these photographs from top to bottom are:
Peggy McBee
Doris Detweiler '66
Carol Frey '66
Ann Davis
Elisabeth Lane '66
Lori Shimer
A report released by Dickinson on June 10, 1961 showed the distribution of grades by class, gender, and greek organization. According to the report, the 348 women on campus maintained an overall average of 2.81, while the 721 men had an grade average of 2.35. Seniors maintained the highest average with a 2.82, while freshman had the lowest, a 2.21. Sui Generis was the greek organization with the highest average, a 3.0, and they were closely by Phi Mu and Pi Beta Phi with 2.97 and 2.89 respectively.
The pivotal events of the Vietnam War, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. as well as that of Robert Kennedy, was the foreground to the world events that welcomed the lives of Dickinson students during the decade of the 1960's. Having been an era of social, sexual and civil revolution, did not hinder the development and the rise of women as leaders on this campus. On the contrary the grand majority of women surveyed by Martha C.
Members of Pi Beta Phi continued to support and participate in traditional social and philanthropic activities. This included supporting the Settlement School in Gatlinburg, Tennessee and underprivileged children who were local to the Carlisle area. Additionally, members were expected to "achieve a high level of scholarship and to serve the college by participating in most campus activities." The social calendar included traditional formals and teas as well as bridge and dessert parties with fraternities.
In 1957 the women of Pi Beta Phi continued their traditional social and service events. Christmas caroling and bridge tournaments were also popular sisterhood events. While in past years officers held their title for the full school year, in 1957, Pi Beta Phi had separate groups of officers for the spring and fall semester. In the fall, the leaders were Wendy Buckler, President; Lee Steinwald, Vice President; Virginia Burgess, Treasurer; and Nancy Carpenter, Secretary.
Pi Beta Phi won the President's Cup as the outstanding fraternal organization in the first year sororities were able to enter. Their victory was announced during the Homecoming Football Game in October of 1972. At the same time, the women from Drayer basement pulled off the traditional Homecoming prank and kidnapping of the duplicate mermaid which was located on the cupola of Old West. Second floor of Malcolm Hall retaliated by taking the original from the May Morris room of the library.