In a letter enclosed with a cheque for $70, the final payment on a student loan provided by the Dalhousie Alumnae Association, the sender’s gratitude is heartfelt. The $330 loan had enabled her to continue her post-graduate psychology studies in 1950, but what she had received was “a good deal more than money—there was sympathy and interest—things that cannot be measured or repaid.” Another alumna had managed to repay $130 of her $250 loan within four years of graduating, after which her payments ceased. A decade later she wrote to explain that personal circumstances had made it impossible to meet her obligations and that she was currently completing medical school while raising two children and working as a part-time instructor. She was so glad to be doing what she “thought was impossible in 1942” when she’d left Dalhousie, and someday hoped to finish paying off her loan. In response, the Alumnae Association congratulated her on her energies and ambition and cancelled her debt.
The Women Student’s Loan Fund was established in 1923 after Jennie Eddy’s generosity had built Shirreff Hall, obviating the Alumnae Association’s founding mandate in 1909 of housing female students. As early as 1921, Eliza Ritchie (Class of 1887 and past president of the Association) spoke to alumnae about turning their efforts toward establishing a fund for directly supporting women students, as the money already raised by countless bazaars, musical teas, and lectures was more than enough to both handsomely furnish the new residence’s library and help to maintain it into the future.
Watch now: Dalhousie Original: Eliza Ritchie
Over the next few decades more than 40 women received loans of between $100 and $300, significant sums considering that in 1925 residence and tuition fees together were less than $500. In 1946, when the Alumnae and Alumni associations merged and the Women’s Division was created, the new by-laws stipulated both their continued fundraising for the Alumnae Students’ Loan Fund and the control of those funds by the division.
By the mid-sixties the Loan Fund was being underutilized, with few if any applicants. It was rolled into a nascent scholarship fund and in 1967 the alumnae proudly presented the university with a $10,000 endowment for the Dalhousie Alumni Association (Women’s Division) Scholarship. Over the next six decades they continued to raise money to provide bursaries, awards, and prizes for women students. In a letter acknowledging an alum’s final loan payment, the convenor notes how happy the division was to have provided her “the necessary help over the last mile.” The number of “last miles” made a little easier first by the Alumnae Association and then the Women’s Division are too many to count. But the race is far from over and the Dalhousie Women’s Connection—the newly named and revitalized body—is at the ready.
This story appeared in the DAL Magazine Fall 2024 issue. Flip through the rest of the issue using the links below.