Dr. Flora Colby Clough

is honored with a Large Paver from Meridith Noble Appling, Carolyn M. Beckett, Mrs. H.I. Brammer, Mrs. Lloyd R. Bump, Mrs. Leslie J. Carson, Marjorie P. Christian, Lura L. Cook, Hazel T. Gavitt, Geraldine Hammond, Peggy Hartman, Jo Miller Hiebert, Melba V. Hughes, Lynda P. Ireland, Geraldine T. Johnson, Sue A. Johnston, Elizabeth Jane Lester, Carol Catherine McEwen, B.L. Miles, Mary C. Miller, Joyce Price, Kathryn B. Pruessner, Betty Jean Purchell, Katharine Bowdish Schacht, Gwendolyn Shidler, Vera Siemens, Mrs. Lyle G. Sturdy, Marjorie Lee Taylor, and Virginia Wise.

1865-1952

Flora Colby Clough was born in Sullivan County, New Hampshire where she attended Kimball Union Academy and taught school for a number of years. She was graduated from Olivet College in 1896 and joined the faculty of Fairmount Academy, then in its second year, as professor of English language and literature. Both women and men students remembered Dr. Clough as a demanding but popular teacher. She also served as head of the Women's Department, a position which later became Dean of Women at Wichita State University. Fairmount College awarded her the degree Lit.D. in 1921. She also attended the University of Chicago and the University of Michigan.

It was through her influence and advice that the College Girls' Society was formed in 1897 by some outstanding young women whom she had selected to start Sorosis. This name was submitted by Grace Haynes Rogers and the first President was Eva Hall McGinnis. Other charter members were Sadie Eillis Kramer, Cora Bailey, Evelyn Imboden Croner, Bertha Beatrice Baker Marsh, Ada Guthrie, Mary E. Nickerson Isely, Nina Reams and Clara Bowen. The first meeting place was an unfinished room on the second floor of Fairmount Hall. In exchange for the use of the room the girls furnished it using money they earned by having candy sales, plays, vaudeville shows, lyceums, ice cream and cake sales, and selling school pins.

The object of Sorosis was the improvement of its members intellectually, morally and socially. A quote in the Sunflower, praising the first "Publics," a forerunner of the present University Theater, read..."Much was expected of Sorosis, but we don't think we are partial critics when we say she far exceeds our expectations. The Sunflower has only thanks for Sorosis for the standard of literary excellence which she has set, and best wishes for larger and more abundant success in the future."

As Dr. Clough saw the growth of the school, she was instrumental in forming new societies so with the help of the girls, Alpha Tau Sigma (now Delta Gamma) was formed in 1908, Delta Omega (now Alpha Phi) in 1915 and in the spring of 1922 they all helped form Pi Kappa Psi (now Gamma Phi). In 1928, a faculty member and the wife of a professor started Epsilon Kappa Rho (now Alpha Chi Omega) and Sorosis has affiliated with Delta Delta Delta.

Flora Clough had begun working with a new faculty member, Edith Fletcher, and it was Mrs. Fletcher who took over as the sponsor and faculty advisor for Sorosis Sorority when Dr. Clough retired from the University in 1931 and moved to a Congregational retirement home in California where she continued to serve Wichita State University as the University Historian. She died there in 1953.

September 16, 1998