Dickinson’s Dottie Warner Earns Humanitarian Award
Photo by Dan Loh.
Behind the scenes for four decades, she's now center stage
by MaryAlice Bitts-Jackson
When Dottie Warner discovered she'd been named the United Way’s 2025 Alexis de Tocqueville Humanitarian Award winner, she had to take a beat. “It rendered me speechless—and you know that never happens,” Warner admits with a chuckle. “I didn’t see it coming at all.”
But to her colleagues and friends, the honor is far from surprising. They know that Warner has been a significant force for good in the community for nearly 40 years.
The catalysts
Warner was hired to work in Dickinson’s Office of the President in 1976, and she went on to direct the newly created Office of Conferences & Special Events (CASE). She continues to lead CASE today.
She says she got involved with the United Way because she was inspired by the college’s work in the local community. A visit to a local domestic violence shelter introduced her to a young mother and child who’d fled an abusive home—and brought the United Way’s support of such services into sharp relief. “I realized that every dollar from the United Way goes to help people in my own community in so many ways,” Warner remembers. “From then on, I was hooked.”
Inspired and committed
Over the years, Warner has served on many more committees and co-chaired a successful United Way campaign. Now in her third term on the organization’s board of directors, she also gives back financially. She’s led the organization’s “super panel” of panel chairs for more than a decade, and she’s a driving force behind Dickinson’s annual U-Turn sale, which benefits the United Way.
Additional volunteerism includes service through the Carlisle Rotary Club and on Carlisle’s Summerfair Committee. As a volunteer for the Carlisle Salvation Army, Warner M.C.’d the organization’s popular fashion show benefit. She’s lent talent and time to the West Pennsboro Sewer Authority and the Carlisle First Night initiative. She was president and a member of the Cumberland Valley/Yellow Breeches Chapter of the American Business Women’s Association, which named Warner Woman of the Year in 1992, 1997 and 2002.
Warner was awarded the United Way’s Outstanding Volunteer Service Award in 2015. She received the Association of Collegiate Conference and Event Directors’ Jack Thornton Distinguished Service Award, the Leadership Carlisle Distinguished Community Service Award and the ACCED-I Outstanding Mentor Award. And in 2018, she was inducted into the Big Spring School District’s Bulldog Foundation Hall of Fame for work benefitting her neighbors.
A word for future leaders
Karen Faryniak ’89 delivered remarks during that 2018 induction ceremony. Seven years later, Faryniak again took the podium to speak about her longtime colleague and friend, this time joined by President John E. Jones ’77, P’11, and Cate Mellen, executive director of the local United Way. “The Alexis de Tocqueville Humanitarian Award is a perfect fit for Dottie,” Faryniak said during the June 17 ceremony. “But Dottie is probably the last person who would ever have guessed that she would be selected as the recipient. That’s just who Dottie is—hardworking, loyal, professional, committed, accomplished, but not one to seek the limelight.”
“I’m more of a behind-the-scenes person,” Warner agrees. “That’s what I do for a living.” At that, she gestures to a photograph of the Old West lawn, taken on the morning before a past Commencement—one of the countless events she oversees at Dickinson each year. The lawn is dotted with meticulously spaced white chairs, each one facing a pristine white stage.
Still, Warner is moved knowing that her name is memorialized through the award—just as it’s permanently imprinted on a brick outside the Paz Center, thanks to members of her family who honored her in this way. Warner has a message for others who wish to also make a mark.
“Never in a million years did I think I’d get this award. And if there’s anything I’d like to come out of it, it’s to let people know that I’m not anything special,” she says. “I’m just someone who’s committed to this work, and I enjoy it. So if you want to get involved and put in the work, you can make a difference too.”
TAKE THE NEXT STEPS
Published June 23, 2025