Even after 55 plus years in Hillsdale, Mich., Mitzi McArthur Dimmers ‘59 wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
Originally from Fostoria, Ohio, Mitzi Dimmers attended Hillsdale College and, a few years after graduation, returned to Hillsdale where she has lived ever since.
“We love this town,” she said. “And the college is such a plus for us because we take part in a lot of things on campus like the music, the lectures, and even the classes. We feel a very close connection to the college.”
Mitzi Dimmers, who majored in early childhood education and was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma, said the college had much stricter rules when she was a student. The freshmen had to be in their dorms by 9 p.m. on a school night.
“If you made grades after the first semester, then the second semester you could be out until 10 p.m.,” she said. “You had to sign in and sign out so they knew where you were.”
Mitzi Dimmers lived on the fourth floor of Mauck Hall during her freshman year.
“We called it the Penthouse,” she said. “There were four girls in my room and three girls in the other rooms. The college closed that floor soon after we were there because of safety reasons. We had to go up four floors to get to our room. We were on top of the world.”
After her freshman year, Mitzi Dimmers lived in the Kappa Kappa Gamma house.
Because her father was unwilling to send her to school, Mitzi Dimmers had to work hard in order to afford her education. She received a scholarship that paid for half of her tuition and room and board, and she worked on campus to cover the rest.
“All four years I worked at the [Mary Randall] preschool,” she said. “I would come in after hours and clean up the school and prepare the paints and supplies so that it would be ready for the next day.”
The preschool was in the basement of Mauck Hall, and the playground was in the yard next to Mauck Hall, where the current preschool is now.
Kappa Kappa Gamma was a large part of Mitzi Dimmers’ four years at Hillsdale. She pledged in the fall of 1955 and was initiated in the next spring.
“They did not have delayed rush then,” she said. “We rushed within the first month of being on campus.”
Mitzi Dimmers served as Membership Chairman and was highly involved in her chapter.
“Of course, your friends on campus were Kappas, and you became close to those girls, working and living in the house,” she said. “That was my home.”
After graduating and spending a few years away from Hillsdale with her new husband Alan Dimmers, Mitzi Dimmers was again an active member of her chapter, but this time as an alumna. She served as treasurer of the chapter for over 25 years.
Her husband, Alan Dimmers, was a resident of Hillsdale all of his life, but left the town to go to college at Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio.
Mitzi Dimmers spent the first semester of her senior year at Merrill Palmer School in Detroit, concentrating on psychology and child development. It was that semester that Mitzi Dimmers met her future husband.
“At the time, he was dating my little sister in Kappa and she had told him about me,” she said. “I wasn’t on campus, but at that time he was in Wayne State law school near Merrill Palmer. One night he needed a date, so he just called me and I went.”
A year later in 1960 they were married. A few years later they returned to Hillsdale, where they have lived ever since. Alan Dimmers worked with his father as a lawyer at the family practice. Alan Dimmers and Mitzi Dimmers raised three children.
“I have enjoyed living here,” she said. “It’s a great place to raise a family.”
As for her alma mater, while the campus certainly looks different, Mitzi Dimmers said the atmosphere is very similar.
“There’s a closeness just because of the number of students,” she said. “It’s not a huge campus, and I think the association with the professors is very similar.”
Mitzi Dimmers said the academic standards are more difficult now than when she was in school.
“In fact, I don’t know if I could do it,” she said. “I think more is expected out of the students.”
In the course of her many years in Hillsdale, she has enjoyed watching the campus change and grow.
“It looks different of course,” she said. “The new buildings are beautiful, and make the campus just lovely.”
Yet despite the different aesthetics of campus, one thing has not changed.
“The true meaning of Hillsdale College hasn’t changed,” she said. “We love it.”
sodell@hillsdale.edu
