MESSAGE FROM TIMELINE AUTHOR
The Timeline, a historical account of Kansas Alpha Pi Beta Phis using their KU educations in public life, including some of the challenges faced, is a work-in-progress. Although the compiling was led by me, Nancy Dickinson (1984), many KU Pi Phis contributed to this project, including especially Lisa Rinehart Hoffman (1988) and Fran Becque, national Pi Phi Historian. Other Kansas Alpha alumnae who contributed helpful information and feedback include Anne Bloomfield Fischer (1985), Jean Ferguson Shepherd (1965), Lynette Berg Robe (1963), Jean Burghart Glattke (1964), Bridget Geoghan Wagstaff (1975), and many others.
Please contact me with any questions, suggestions, corrections. All errors are my own.
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Also, please nominate Pi Phis you believe should be featured (especially where there are fewer than
three in her pledge class already listed).
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Please keep in mind that I could fill this Timeline of 150 many times over with the many KU Pi Phis doing remarkable things in the world! I had to cap each pledge class at 3 featured representative Pi Phis, making some tough choices based on historical impact. Some pledge classes were chock full of candidates. I had to flip a coin in many cases.
Moreover, my research was necessarily sporadic and undoubtedly missed many Pi Phis because of the lack of an electronic index. I hope the KU Pi Phis or the national Pi Phi organization will consider creating a networking index, because I found many Pi Phis I suspect would enjoy knowing each other cross-generationally, with common interests and experiences.
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Until that time that we have an electronic index, the best way to connect professionally with other KU Phi Phis is via the chapter's LinkedIn profile.
In Pi Phi,
Nancy Dickinson
Nancy Dickinson ('84)
I am a corporate lawyer and independent legal academic in Denver, Colorado, who researches/writes about evolution in rights/responsibilities of children in the context of their families. I volunteered to build this Timeline as a commemoration . . . to try to answer the questions Gertrude Blackwelder and the other founders faced at the formation of I.C. Sorosis at KU in 1873).
Needless to say, it was presumptuous of me take on 150 years of history and as just one of 3500 alums,
2000 of them living! Exactly because Kansas Alpha has now reached the grand age of 150, with so many
distinguished alumnae, I thought it was worth at least trying to distill some answers to the questions the founders faced in their era, though. If you have ideas for those answers and additional context that should be added, please contact me via email: nancy@dickinsonx.com.
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ABOUT ME
MY KANSAS ALPHA TIES
I was a second-generation KU Pi Phi as my late mother Mary Ann Mize Dickinson was initiated in 1957. I was also a fourth-generation continuous Jayhawk, and my great-great-grandfather, Oscar Woods, graduated from KU in 1879. (I don't know if Oscar thought the women students lacked mental capacity and were physically feeble! Even if he did, I think the Timeline proves him wrong, and in spades, no?).
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