Posted: November 12, 2024
By: Alison DeLory
Dalhousie Women’s Connection is the new name of Dalhousie’s oldest alumni association.
Dalhousie Women’s Connection is a group of alumni who have been, and continue to be, focused on the empowerment of women and the enhancement of the student experience—now with a renewed and inclusive focus reflected by the new name.
Early days
Dalhousie admitted the university’s first female students in 1881. Four years later, Margaret Florence Newcombe was awarded a Bachelor of Arts — the first woman to graduate from Dal.
Then, in 1909, a group of women created the Dalhousie Alumnae Association. The first alumni association at Dal, its first task was securing housing for female students so they could pursue a university degree.
Margaret Florence Newcombe was the first woman to graduate from Dal in 1885.
When Jennie Shirreff Eddy donated the full amount required to build a women’s residence in 1920, to be named for her parents, Shirreff Hall, the money the Dalhousie Alumnae Association had raised to that point was used to furnish three key public spaces in Shirreff Hall: the Victorian Lounge, the Library, and the Study Hall. An endowment of the Women’s Division continues this beautification.
In 1946, the group merged with the Dalhousie Alumni Association and assumed a new name: Women’s Division, Dalhousie Alumni Association (WDDAA).
The work continued, with additional ideas and projects taking shape over the years. There were several named scholarships established for the university by the WDDAA, plus bursaries—including an international study one—and awards and medals in several faculties.
In 1991, the WDDAA hosted the Student Musicale for the first time, in partnership with Dal’s Fountain School of Performing Arts. It’s become a beloved tradition and the Student Musicale will next be held in January 2025.
Cynthia Pilichos (BA’68, BEd’75) and Elizabeth Ryan (BA’70) are the group’s two long-serving co-leads.
“I became a member of the Women’s Division Dalhousie Alumni Association through Cynthia Pilichos. I knew Cynthia from our undergraduate days and when I saw her at an Annual Student Musicale, she suggested I join,” says Ryan. “I was volunteering with other women’s group and had the time and interest in learning new things and meeting new people.”
Cynthia Pilichos (left) and Elizabeth Ryan (right), co-leads of the Dalhousie Women's Connection.
The newest change
In recent years, the group began re-examining its mandate and operations. After much review and discussion, in Fall 2024 it is re-emerging as the Dalhousie Women’s Connection.
“The formerly named Women’s Division Dalhousie Alumni Association has an impressive long history of volunteer commitment,” says Ryan, “under an organizational structure and approach to the volunteer effort that now has limited to no appeal for a younger and more diverse demographic. This trend was evident well before Covid and the pandemic.”
Ryan says when re-shaping and re-imagining the former Women’s Division, the group was able to keep its best features while incorporating the growing body of knowledge about shifts in volunteering.
“Future success means expanded and deeper collaboration with other components of the university and the community, hence the name Dalhousie Women’s Connection and a rebranding of the organization for a wider appeal,” says Ryan.
Dalhousie Women’s Connection operates on Dalhousie’s core values of diversity, inclusion, empowerment, and equity with members participating at varying levels of commitment, locally and across the province and country.
As volunteerism is evolving, so has the Women’s Division of the Dalhousie Alumni Association, but its core purpose of enhancing the student experience remains.
The newly re-shaped and re-imagined Women’s Connection keeps its best features from the past while incorporating shifts in volunteering.