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Two Delaware women who fought their way through discrimination to pioneer the frontiers of education have been recognized for their contributions to women’s history.
Dr. Audrey K. Doberstein, the only woman to head a four-year college in Delaware, and Dr. Reba Ross Hollingsworth, teacher and counselor, were guests of honor at the Women’s Day Celebration presented by Delaware Technical & Community College and the Owens Campus Alumni Association on a night that focused on the value of education.
Each woman struggled to get the jobs she wanted and to earn respect at a time when women were not expected to go to college or to work outside the home after they were married. But, these two witnessed tremendous advancement in women’s rights. And they never hesitated to raise that banner.
Doberstein, who began her career teaching elementary school, has been on the faculties of three institutions of higher learning. She took over a struggling Wilmington College in 1979 and in the following 26 years oversaw its transformation as it expanded from two sites to six and increased its course offerings to 24 undergraduate and 16 graduate programs and a doctoral program in education. Doberstein also promoted a partnership between Wilmington College and Delaware Tech that offers evening, weekend and accelerated programs at the Georgetown campus for baccalaureate and graduate students.
When Doberstein took over Wilmington College, it took the press a while to begin to take her seriously. “All the newspaper articles were about my husband and where he worked, my kids and my religious experience,” she said.
Her co-honoree faced a complex set of hurdles to become a respected educator and counselor.
Hollingsworth said she had been born at home by her midwife grandmother, at a time when there were no hospital maternity wards for black women. As a child, she filled in at one of her mother’s cleaning jobs. When the lady of that house said she’d like the younger Hollingsworth to be her housekeeper when she grew up, Hollingsworth defiantly declared to her mother, “You tell her that when I grow up, I’m going to college so I won’t have to clean anyone’s house but my own.”
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Education was her ticket to the better life she wanted, and her parents encouraged her to seek.
With an independent spirit still in evidence, Hollingsworth graduated from Delaware State College, but had to move to South Carolina to get her first job. When she returned to Delaware a year later, she took a job teaching home economics and science at William C. Jason High School, for $2,960 a year. That year, white teachers started at $3,200.
She taught at William C. Jason High School for 12 years and then became a guidance counselor at Dover High School. She earned a doctorate from Pacific Western University in 2001.
Both women are outstanding examples of how education and hard work can change a person’s life, said Gov. Ruth Ann Minner in her introductions. Minner used her own life story as an illustration of how anyone can achieve higher education and use it to advance their positions in life.
The dinner reception honoring Doberstein and Hollingsworth was held Wednesday, March 5 at Baywood Greens and was sponsored by Dr. Patricia Susan Slaughter of CSI The Banking Group in honor of Grace Green Slaughter.
Contact Leah Hoenen at leah@capegazette.com
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