Eleanor Saunders Towns eyes were initially set on Howard University, but an administrative error redirected her to the University of Illinois in 1961. Towns was a State Champion High School Debater, so she decided to study Drama with plans on teaching speech. She recounts her experience as one of around 200 black students on campus as unique compared to other black students because she came from a majority - white high school in Rockford, Illinois. The Deltas' emphasis on scholarship and opportunity for a connection to the black community on campus attracted her most to the sorority.
Elias Jackson (he/they), a transmasculine nonbinary individual, discusses his experience of participating in the Shire of Caer Gwyn, a local Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) branch. They discussed what it meant to be a part of a community like the Shire and how the Shire's culture differed from other SCA branches and events. This interview also covers the history of the Shire, as Elias holds documents and artifacts from the branch established before the Shire, as well as its transformation into an LGBTQ+ space.
A newspaper article published in the Daily Illini about the first chapter of Society of Women Engineers being formed at the University of Illinois. The article was found within an Engineering College Scrapbook covering 1959-62.
A page of a scrapbook made by the University of Illinois College of Engineering which contains eight articles from the Daily Illini newspaper. Five of the articles relate to war work for women and a training program being offered by the College of Engineering to train young women to take over positions being left vacant by men going off to fight in World War II.
A page of a scrapbook made by the University of Illinois College of Engineering which contains three articles from the Daily Illini newspaper about the Pratt and Whitney aircraft scholarship program being offered to cover the costs of a training program being offered by the University of Illinois Engineering Department to train young women to take over positions being left vacant by men going to war.
A report written by Stephanie Ball detailing the results found by the Dean’s Student Advisory Committee convened by Dean William Schowalter to study the environment for undergraduate women in the College of Engineering.
Erma Scott Bridgewater (1913-2013) was a member of the Class of 1937. She joined the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. Erma said she experienced discrimination as an African-American student. Also, Erma said that she did not have a lot of financial difficulty during the Depression.
