3 PAST TENSE Remembering our PSU Women’s Association n 1948 female faculty members at Vanport College, PSU’s founding institution, formed a Vanport College Faculty Women’s Club. During the decades following the College’s move to the Park Blocks, the club morphed into an organization that eventually became the Portland State University Faculty Women’s Association. Club membership, which initially started with faculty women, soon embraced non-teaching spouses of faculty and eventually was extended to include university women staff. A copy of the club’s founding constitution surfaced after the 1948 flood of Vanport City and continued to guide the organization’s activities, which included monthly board meetings and general meetings to carry out social and service functions. From the outset, the organization sponsored membership social activities, such as faculty potluck dinners, teas for members and female students, holiday parties, annual picnics, fall mixers for new members, and annual fall coffees and spring luncheons, both often featuring guest speakers. In the late 1960s, the women’s growing organization launched a very successful gourmet potluck program, an activity that enabled the membership to meet and socialize with new and current faculty members and spouses. This function later expanded in the 1980s to include international potlucks, also hosted at members’ homes. Closely linked to its social aims, the women’s organization actively pursued various service activities to support the institution and the community. Early on, it sponsored the creation of a Mother’s Club, which became a catalyst in the campaign to make Vanport a four-year college. The Faculty Women’s Association also joined the Federation of Women’s Clubs as a means of putting Vanport’s name (and Portland State’s soon after) before the public. The service goal most cherished by the women’s organization was to provide financial assistance to students. Various fundraising events were pursued over the years, including rummage sales, food sales, fashion shows, Christmas card sales, and member contributions. In 1954-55, when the organization changed its name to Portland State College Women’s Faculty Club, it contributed $100 to the college’s Student Loan Fund and $25 to a student scholarship award for the most Outstanding Sophomore Girl. Fundraising evolved to focus on student scholarships and by 1969 one full tuition scholarship was awarded along with several partial tuition awards. Income-generating activities varied from a giant rummage sale in the 1950s to an annual art show and sale at Washington Square during the 1970s spearheaded by Embry Savage, an active member and artist. These and similar activities enabled the organization to award sizable scholarships to two or three women students at its regular spring luncheons. With the passage of time, the level of enthusiasm that had characterized the organization’s early decades declined. In 1995, 47 years after its creation, 12 members attended a final association meeting at which they elected a slate of officers in perpetuity, with Beryl Dahl and Barbara Alberty as President and Vice President. The University’s Financial Aids Office and Foundation were authorized to administer the assets of the Women’s Association — which today amount to more than $121,000 — for scholarship distribution to students. Annually, this endowment makes four $2000 awards. These continuing assets constitute a continuing legacy for a women’s service activity that dates back to the University’s founding years. — Beryl Dahl and Steve Brannan I Priscilla Blumel, Beryl Dahl and Sylvia Moseley, all members of the PSU Women's Association, contributed to this article through their recollections of the organization. Photo by Larry Sawyer, taken at the 2012 RAPS Holiday Brunch.
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