Remembering Student Initiatives
When Southwestern tells its story, it often sounds like things just happen, or that heroic leaders made things happen. But it almost always has worked the other way around, where things have happened because individual students, faculty members, and staff members--and coalitions among them--have worked to make things happen forcefully enough or long enough for the institution to accept them and even champion them. The entries in this theme explore student initiatives have had a lasting effect on the institution.
The Early History of Sororities at Southwestern
The establishment of sororities on our campus shows a history of perseverance as women sought to create equity between men and women on campus.
Following the arrival of Greek fraternities for men in 1887, female students saw a need for a similar space in which they could create bonds and connect to other like-minded female students through ritual. However, they were dismissed by the Faculty and Administration, as some thought allowing…
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How Korouva Milk Bar Became a Place
The Korouva Milk Bar was an exclusively student-run café and organization that opened in 1994 and closed its doors in 2020 as part of the initial COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. As of this writing, in May 2023, it has not re-opened, though plans are in motion to resurrect it in a different location on the east side of campus in the near future.
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Remembering the Negro Fine Arts School
How should we remember this program that taught music lessons to local Black children when Southwestern and Georgetown were segregated?
A note about terminology: This entry is about race relations during the Civil RIghts Movement era at the height of the white supremacist system of Jim Crow segregation in the South, where racial discrimination was legal in many institutions, including Southwestern and Georgetown I.S.D. At this time, Black people in the U.S. were referred to and self-identified as “Negro” or “Colored.” When…
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