UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Nearly two decades ago, Penn State liberal arts alumnus Charles “Chuck” Dickerson III and his wife, Judie, established the Dickerson Family Endowment in the College of the Liberal Arts to promote research opportunities for students affiliated with the college’s Department of African American Studies, African Studies Program and/or Africana Research Center. With a new commitment through their future estate, the Dickersons will add $200,000 to that fund in hopes it will do even more for future generations of students.
“Chuck and Judie Dickerson are the products of African American resilience and success, and they are keenly aware of the struggles their parents and grandparents endured along the way,” said Clarence Lang, Susan Welch Dean of the College of the Liberal Arts. “Their profound desire to help students — and especially students of color — find opportunities to succeed is heartening and reassuring. I am deeply grateful to Chuck and Judie for their generosity and for believing in the important work we do to help all students reach their full potential.”
Raised in Nebraska and a self-proclaimed “dyed-in-the-wool Midwesterner,” Chuck attended the University of Nebraska like his parents before him. His father was the first Black student at the university to serve as captain of an athletic team. His mother graduated from Nebraska the same year that Chuck graduated from high school.
In 1961, in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement, however, Chuck said he grew “tired of the conservative nature and segregation of the school” and decided to go elsewhere. Penn State had what he was looking for: a Navy ROTC program, a good support structure through the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, the right academics, and “an openness to the kinds of things I wanted to do in the future,” he said.
After graduating from Penn State in 1963, Chuck served as a navigator and in communications and cryptology aboard the light cruiser USS Springfield, the flagship of the Sixth Fleet. He served on active duty for two years and in the reserves for another five before resigning his Navy commission in 1970.
“They wanted me to stay in, but I was married and already had my first child. It was time to move to other priorities,” Chuck said. He attended graduate school for two years but left before finishing his doctoral dissertation – “I was an impatient youngster and didn’t want to wait until my adviser returned from sabbatical,” he said – and instead took a job with AT&T, where he worked for more than 30 years before retiring as a division technical manager in 1997.
Chuck has been even busier in retirement. He started a company that assisted in the installation of an undersea internet cable from New York City to London. He also did some teaching at the County College of Morris in Randolph, New Jersey, where Judie was working, and later became an adjunct instructor at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Today, he and Judie volunteer for several nonprofit organizations and are active in the Episcopal Church.