 "Photo: N/A")
In the late 1960s Doane College began to change and diversify, with some of the first black students admitted to campus.
In 1972, Doane’s first black professor, Dorothy King-Stocken, taught her first class on campus.
And in 2008, this group of alumni plans to make a difference at Doane by helping black students pay for school, through the Ronald Hatchett Les Grant Memorial Scholarship.
Once called the African Americans for Freedom, Rights and Opportunity (AAFRO) and now known as The Alumni of Color, returned to campus during Homecoming weekend to increase the funds for their newly sponsored scholarship.
The Ronald Hatchett Les Grant Memorial was recently created to specifically help black students pay for tuition at Doane, and then have the funds to remain at school throughout the academic year.
This past weekend The AAFRO group and Alumni of Color decided to start a fund for books and emergencies, along with the scholarship, since they, and many current students, travel a long distance to attend Doane.
"What we are trying to do now is make it four in, four out and help you get your diploma," alum Dennis Williams said.
AAFRO has $12,000 for its scholarship fund and needs $25,000 before the first scholarship will be presented.
Members of the AAFRO group meet every two years at Doane, but for members like Phil Watley, this was the first time he had seen campus in 35 years.
Watley said he, and the AAFRO group, were here to support students.
The AAFRO group began in the late 1960s when many of the first black students were admitted to Doane. They remained a group until 1978.
"We were uniting cultures and making it comfortable to attend Doane," Williams said. "We laid the ground work. We didn’t have any alumni to look back to. We were support for each other."
With just a handful of members, the group conducted a sit-in and demanded support to bring a teacher of color to Doane. The efforts of AAFRO brought King-Stocken to campus
King-Stocken was a professor for speech communications and oral interpretation of literature.
She came to campus after receiving her master’s in communication from the University of Northern Colorado-Greely. She taught at Doane from 1972-1974.
Along with returning to campus to making a difference for students, alumni of AAFRO reminisced about their time at Doane.
"My sister and I thought how did we make it here," alumna Mamie Cousins said. "We made this a family. We made this
