Fall 2006 Contents

1. Sustainability
2. From the Provost and Dean of the College
3. New Campus Spaces
4. Parent to Parent
5. Stellfox Award
6. Sports

Fall 2006 In Focus Home

Robert Frost with the students on the steps of Old West, 1959.

Ian McEwan, the first Stellfox distinguished writer.

Rita Dove, the second to receive the Stellfox award.

The Harold and Ethel L. Stellfox Visiting Scholars and Writers Program

This is the tale of the gift that keeps on giving. It begins with a small-town woman whose dream is to inspire others as she once was inspired. She passes that dream on to the students at her alma mater, and it is fulfilled.

Chapter one began when Jean Louise Stellfox ’60 had the honor of meeting the poet Robert Frost when he came to Dickinson in 1959. As he interacted with students, Miss Stellfox was inspired to become an English teacher, a career which she loved and excelled at for 39 years in her hometown of Shamokin, Pa.

When Miss Stellfox died suddenly in 2003, after being struck in a hit-and-run accident, it was discovered that she had bequeathed most of a $1.5 million estate—an amount that nobody suspected this modest schoolteacher possessed—to Dickinson College to start a program that would bring renowned writers to campus.

Todd Kerstetter ’93, Miss Stellfox’s attorney and former student, contacted Dickinson about the planned gift (she had accumulated the money through careful saving and wise investment). The college set to work to find a literary figure who would meet the high standards set by this remarkable donor.

And so, the first recipient of the Stellfox award, Booker Award-winning British novelist Ian McEwan, arrived on campus Sept. 26, 2005, for a three-day visit.

McEwan summed up his entire experience at Dickinson in one word—enlivening. As for the
students, they were as affected by the residency as McEwan was. “It was fantastic to have Ian McEwan here,” says Megan Browndorf ’08, “because he solidifies the idea that writers are real people.”

This November, Rita Dove came to Dickinson as the second Stellfox distinguished writer. Dove served as poet laureate of the United States from 1993 to 1995. In 2004-2006, she was poet laureate of Virginia and is commonwealth professor of English at the University of Virginia. Dove was elected a chancellor of The Academy of American Poets in 2006.

Thanks to Miss Stellfox, many more esteemed writers will be able to come to Dickinson, and many more students will have the opportunity to be inspired.

Mission accomplished, Miss Stellfox.

The Harold and Ethel L. Stellfox Visiting Scholars and Writers Program was so named to honor Miss Stellfox’s parents.