THERESA ALEXANDER, CLASS OF 1938

By 1933, the Simmons College had grown to 1,577 students and 147 faculty members. College facilities had expanded from one leased house to the stately Main College Building, two brick dormitories, a dining hall, and nine small residence houses. The curriculum had grown from courses in four major areas of study to B.A. degrees offered through the Schools of Education, Science, Social Work, Physical Education, Prince School of Store Service Education, Public Health Nursing, and Landscape Architecture. Black students at the College through the 1930s numbered ten, a small but significant increase in difficult economic times.

Throughout the 1940s, Simmons College continued to grow during the challenging lean war years and the early postwar period as the demand for well-trained Simmons graduates increases sharply. After World War II, the G.I. Bill of Rights stimulated the College to allow males to enroll in technical courses. In 1945, the School of Library Science and the School of Social Work enrolled two men each. Admissions for the class of ’48 marked the largest enrollment of students of color to that point in the College’s history.

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