Faculty

Charles Nisbet was born on January 21, 1736 to William and Alison Nisbet; William was a schoolteacher at Long Yester near Haddington, East Lothian County, Scotland. By 1754, Nisbet had completed studies at both the high school of the university in Edinburgh and had entered Divinity Hall to prepare for the ministry. He was licensed by the Presbytery of Edinburgh on September 24, 1760, and began preaching at churches in the Gorbals, near Glasgow. On May 17, 1764, he was ordained in the Presbytery of Brechin and assigned to a church in Montrose, in Forfar. Two years later, he married Anne Tweedie and his first son Thomas was born. The Nisbets had three more children, Mary, Alison (1773) and Alexander (1777).

Active, studious, and blessed with a remarkable memory, Nisbet could speak nine languages, and developed a high reputation in Scotland for scholarship. He became a member of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and was outspoken in his defense of strict Calvinism. He was awarded a doctorate of divinity degree from Princeton University in 1783; it was Nisbet who had recommended fellow Scotsman John Witherspoon for that institution's presidency.

Wilbur Harrington Norcross was born June 28, 1882 in Ralston, Pennsylvania. He attended Dickinson Seminary in Williamsport, Pennsylvania for two years before matriculating into Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as a student in 1905. At Dickinson, he received both his B.A. (1907) and M.A. (1913). He attended Johns Hopkins University for graduate work, receiving his Ph. D. in psychology in 1920.

During this time he was a Methodist minister for one year in Duncannon, Pennsylvania before returning to the Dickinson Seminary to teach Greek and Latin. He became dean by 1912, but left that post to attend Johns Hopkins in 1914. Norcross joined the Dickinson College faculty in 1916 as an associate professor of philosophy and education. When the war interrupted both his graduate studies and his teaching, he served at Love Field in Dallas, Texas as commander of a medical research laboratory for the air service, rising to the rank of major.

He returned to Dickinson in 1920, and, having completed his degree from Hopkins, switched his teaching fields and became an associate professor of psychology and philosophy. Norcross was instrumental in the creation of two distinct departments for philosophy and psychology. In 1924 he became a full professor, and was named to the R. V. C. Watkins Chair of Psychology in 1929.

Wellington Parlin was born in Des Moines, Iowa on January 19, 1899. He graduated from Simpson College in 1921 with a bachelor of arts degree and continued at the University of Iowa where he earned his master of sciences degree in 1922. He taught at Emory University as an instructor in physics between 1923 and 1926, before attending Johns Hopkins University to earn his doctorate in 1929.

Parlin began his career at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1930 as an associate professor of physics. The College promoted him to full professor in 1934. During his time at the College, Parlin conducted research in his main interest, the properties of light. In 1935, he invented an intensitometer, a machine to give variable and known intensities of light without changing the color values. He also developed a set of color filters, which were used to determine the degree of color blindness.

In 1948, Parlin was appointed chair of the physics department. He was also a faculty advisor to the Mohler Scientific Club and the Phi Beta Kappa honorary society. In 1955, he retired from the College with the status of professor emeritus of physics.

Parlin was a veteran of both the First and Second World War. He was married and had four daughters. Wellington Amos Parlin died on September 8, 1996, at the age of 97.

Gaylord Patterson was born in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania on August 18, 1866. He attended Allegheny College but graduated in 1888 from Ohio Wesleyan University. He then earned his Ph.D. from Yale and other degrees from the Boston University School of Theology and Harvard. He then embarked upon a fourteen year ministry in the service of the Methodist church. In 1907, he re-entered university life, teaching history, economics, and social science at Williamette University; he also served as its dean.

Patterson arrived at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1915 as a professor of economics and sociology. He was the only man to teach economics, sociology, and political science at the College when he came, but as the size of the staff increased he was able to concentrate more on his chosen field of sociology. From 1930 to the time of his retirement in 1939, he served as professor of sociology. He also was dean of the junior class from 1928 to 1930. Ill heath and weakness as a result of asthma often hampered his work at the College; in 1931 he was forced to take a temporary leave of absence. He retired in 1940 as professor emeritus of sociology.

He was married in 1900 to Millicent Louise Webber and they had a daughter, Louise, who graduated from Dickinson in 1927. Gaylord Hawkins Patterson died at the age of 74 on June 5, 1940.

Jesse Truesdell Peck, the youngest of ten children of Luther Peck, was born on April 4, 1811 on a farm in Middlefield, Otsego County, New York. He was educated at Cazenovia Seminary and became a minister in the Methodist Church. He married Persis Wing on October 13, 1831, and in the following year he joined the Oneida Conference. In 1837, Peck became the head of the Gouverneur Wesleyan Seminary in New York. He moved on to head the Troy Conference Academy in Poultney, Vermont. In 1848, thanks to his fine record and his strong dedication to the Methodism, Peck was chosen to be the tenth president of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, despite having no formal college education himself.

John Christian Pflaum was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on May 13, 1903. After graduating from high school in 1921, Pflaum earned both his bachelor’s degree in economics (1925) and his master’s degree in history (1929) from the University of Pennsylvania. Opting to teach instead of following his original intention of practicing law, he began teaching at a West Virginia high school while earning his master’s degree. He was a member of the faculty of Temple University from 1926 until 1933, and then again from 1938 until 1943, instructing at his alma mater during the interim. In the days just prior to the Second World War, Pflaum was traveling and studying in Europe when he was caught in the turmoil of the German invasion of Poland and the subsequent chaos it caused; he would later use these experiences to illustrate the human side of the war to many generations of his students. During the war, Pflaum served as an instructor at the Western Reserve Academy and as supervisor of the Signal Corps trainees at Princeton, Rutgers, Lafayette, and Temple.

Cornelius Prettyman was born on July 21, 1872 in Leipsic, Delaware, the son of the Reverend Cornelius Witbank Prettyman of the Dickinson class of 1872 and his wife Emma Elizabeth. He prepared at the Newark Academy in his home state and then entered Delaware College in 1886. That same year he transferred to Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where he excelled in the modern languages, played tennis, edited for the Dickinsonian, joined the Union Philosophical Society, and pledged with Beta Theta Pi fraternity, of which his father had been a charter member. He graduated in 1891 as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. His brother, Virgil, graduated the following year.

Leon Prince was born on May 15, 1875 to Morris Watson and Katherine Farnham Buck Prince in Concord, New Hampshire. He attended Bordentown Military Academy and then enrolled in New York University in 1894. During his time at military school, Prince was struck with muscular dystrophy which would confine him to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. In 1896 his father became a professor at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and Prince transferred to the school shortly after in 1897. While at Dickinson, he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa honorary society and an officer in Belles Lettres Literary Society.

He graduated in 1898 and enrolled in the Dickinson School of Law. He graduated with a L.L.B. in 1900 and joined the Cumberland County Bar Association the same year. Also in 1900, Prince became an ordained clergyman of the New York Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church and began a career as a librarian and instructor at Dickinson. Three years later he was promoted to the position of adjunct professor of history and economics. He held this position until 1910, when his father retired and Prince became a full professor of history and economics.

Morris Watson Prince was born a minister's son in an old New England family in East Boothbay, Maine in 1843. He went to school in Bucksport and went on to Wesleyan College where he was graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1868. One of his classmates was George Edward Reed. He studied theology at Boston University and in 1871 followed his father's steps into the Methodist ministry.

His career was a successful one, serving in various pastorates in New Hampshire, at Plymouth and Concord. After twenty years as a pastor he became president of the Maine Conference Seminary in Bucksport between 1871 and 1884. Prince retired to his preferred vocation as pastor in Connecticut at Hartford and New Haven, and at New York City in Brooklyn. He turned down several offers from other institutions until his old classmate Reed, now president of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, persuaded him to join his faculty in 1894 as professor of history and political science. His career as a professor was late in beginning, but he served diligently for fifteen years.

John Drake Pusey was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa in 1905. He graduated from Northwestern University and subsequently attended the Chicago Art Institute and the Yale University School of Fine Arts. He went on to study abroad in France at the Louvre, the Luxembourg Art Museum, and the Prado in Spain.

Returning to the United States, Pusey found employment in a number of areas. In the 1930s, he was commissioned by pharmaceutical and bio-medical research pioneer Eli Lilly to paint murals to decorate his home. In 1938, the San Francisco World's Fair hired Pusey to paint murals and oversee the artistic side of the event. He also worked as an art director for Universal Studios. With the approach of the Second World War, Pusey enlisted in the United States Army and served in both that war and the Korean War, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel of the United States Army Corps of Engineers on the strength of his skills in developing camouflage techniques and designs.

George Reed was born in Brownsville, Maine on March 28, 1846 as the tenth of eleven children of the Reverend George and Ann Hellyer Reed. His father died when George was 10 and after living with relatives he was reunited with his mother in Lowell, Massachusetts at the age of 10. He went to public schools in Lowell and worked farm jobs in the summers, including the memorable Civil War year of 1864 when he worked for some time at a "contraband camp" in New Bern, North Carolina, where 10,000 former slaves were sheltered.

He prepared for college at Wilbraham Academy in Massachusetts and went on to study at Wesleyan University from which he graduated with honors in 1869. Reed had funded some of his time at Wesleyan by preaching every Sunday, and, although he had been intending a career in the law, a year of theology at Boston University set him on the path of the Methodist ministry. He served his first pastorate in Willimantic, Connecticut, and went on to a series of posts in Massachusetts, New York, and Connecticut over a span of nearly twenty years. In 1885, Reed received an honorary doctorate of systematic theology from Wesleyan University and a doctorate of laws from Lafayette College in 1889.

John Reed was born in 1786 on Marsh Creek, in Adams County, the son of General William Reed. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1806 but left before graduation to study law with William Maxwell of nearby Gettysburg. Reed was admitted to the bar and began practice in Westmoreland County. He quickly made a name for himself there and in 1815 he was elected to the Pennsylvania Senate and served as Deputy Attorney General for the state. In July 1820, Governor Findlay named him the President Judge of the Ninth Judicial District, comprising Cumberland, Franklin, Adams, and Perry counties.

Horace Rogers was born on December 5, 1902 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1920 and graduated Phi Beta Kappa four years later in 1924. He had also become a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. His mentor, Dr. Ernest A. Vuilleumier encouraged him to remain at the College and after he turned down an offer from Eastman Kodak in Rochester, New York, Rogers was able to secure a position as a faculty member. He began as an instructor of physics and chemistry in 1925. Apart from the three years in which he pursued graduate studies, earning a master's degree from Lafayette and a doctorate from Princeton in 1930, he devoted his working life to his alma mater. By 1930 Rogers held the position of associate professor of chemistry and then became a full professor of analytical chemistry in 1941. He was named Alfred Victor duPont Professor of analytical chemistry in 1952. He became chairman of the chemistry department after the death of Dr. Vuilleumier in 1958.

Lewis Guy Rohrbaugh was born on February 24, 1884 in Fowblesburg, near Baltimore, Maryland. He graduated from Franklin High School in Reisterstown in 1903 and entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. During his college years, Rohrbaugh became a member of Alpha Chi Rho, Omicron Delta Kappa and the Union Philosophical Society. He graduated in 1907, studied at Drew Theological Seminary for his B. D. degree and earned his Ph.D. at the State University of Iowa in 1922 in philosophy and religion.

He returned to Dickinson as an associate professor of philosophy and religious education that same year and, in 1930, became professor of philosophy and religion. Rohrbaugh was appointed as the dean of the freshman class in 1933. He later also chaired his department. An ordained Methodist minister, Rohrbaugh was also a theology scholar, publishing books and essays such as Religious Philosophy, The Science of Religion, and A Natural Approach to Philosophy. In 1951, he was appointed to the newly endowed Thomas Bowman Chair of Religion, named for the first graduate of the College to be named a Methodist bishop.

Rohrbaugh married Lillian Mae Heffelbower in 1907 and they had one son, H. Lewis Rohrbaugh, who graduated from Dickinson in 1930. He taught at the College until 1953 when he was accorded professor emeritus status. Lewis Guy Rohrbaugh died on June 30, 1972.

 James Ross was born on May 18, 1743 in Oxford Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania. He was the son of William Ross, a Scottish-Irish immigrant. He attended Princeton College, although there is no record of him graduating. He received a master’s degree from the College of Philadelphia in 1775, while serving as a tutor there, and later received an A.M. (au eundem) in 1818 from Princeton College.  In 1776 he was commissioned a captain in the Continental Army, a position he held until resigning in 1778. He also received an honorary degree of Doctor of Law from Allegheny College in 1823.

Ralph Schecter was born on September 28, 1893 in Riola, Illinois, and attended public schools in nearby Danville. He graduated from the University of Illinois in 1916. Following service with the American Expeditionary Force in France as an engineer and conductor of the 243rd Engineers Band, he studied conducting in London under Sir Henry Wood. He taught English at various mid-western high schools before coming to Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as an instructor in English in 1922.

James Henry Morgan, president of the College, appointed Schecter to be the director of music and the director of the orchestra and band. Serving under six presidents, he was a versatile faculty member teaching music and public speaking as well as English.

He was largely responsible for the institution of the music department. Many students involved with the band and orchestra were unskilled in their instruments and it was often up to Schecter to teach them how to play. Every school day for more then twenty-five years, Schecter conducted his ensemble in two new pieces at daily chapel, a total of almost 10,000 pieces without a single repetition. He also arranged some of his own music. In 1958, Schecter became the Thomas Beaver Chair of Literature and three years later was granted emeritus status upon retirement. He was one of the earliest recipients of the Lindback Distinguished Teaching Award in 1961.

Alexander Jacob Schem was born on March 16, 1826 in Wiedenbruck in Westphalia to a vinegar manufacturer named Freidrich Schem and his wife Adolphine von Felgenhauer. He was educated first at the Paderborn Gymnasium and then went on to the Universities at Bonn and Tubingen, studying Catholic theology. He was ordained as a Catholic priest in April 1849 and served a parish in Bielefeld for two years. He became disaffected from the Church of Rome, however, and emigrated to the United States in 1851.

Charles Coleman Sellers was born in Overbrook, Pennsylvania on March 16, 1903. He attended Haverford College until 1925, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, and went on to earn his master of arts degree from Harvard in 1926. He then went on to a career as an historian and librarian. From 1937 to 1949 Sellers was the bibliographic librarian at Wesleyan University. He became a research associate for the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia in 1947 and remained there until 1951.

By then, he was already curator of the Dickinsoniana collection at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a post he took up in 1949. He became the Librarian of the College in 1956 following the retirement of May Morris. He had also earned his doctorate at Temple during this time and it was awarded in 1957. He also became the librarian of the Waldron Phoenix Belknap Jr. Research Library of American Painting in Wintherthur, Delaware in 1956, remaining in this position for three years. In 1959 he became editor of the American Colonial Painting. With the opening of the May Morris Room in the new Spahr Library, Sellers once again became historian and curator of the Dickinsoniana in 1968. He held this post till his retirement. A grateful Dickinson College awarded him an honorary doctorate of letters in 1979.

Montgomery Porter Sellers was born on August 26, 1873 to Francis Benjamin and Martha Porter Sellers. He grew up in Carlisle and graduated from Carlisle High School. Sellers entered the local Dickinson College in 1889. While a student at Dickinson, Sellers took courses in the modern language curriculum. He was a member of the Belles Lettres Literary Society and won that organization's Sophomore Prize, a gold medal awarded to a member outstanding in composition and declamation. In addition, Sellers was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. He graduated with his class in 1893.

Upon graduation, Sellers began teaching in the Preparatory School. Following this, he served as an adjunct professor of history and German at the College until 1904, and then from 1904 to 1942 he was a professor of rhetoric and English. Also during this time, Sellers served as dean of the freshman class and finally as dean of the College from 1928 to 1933. Outside of the classroom, Sellers traveled extensively in Europe, studying in both England and Germany. He also pursued graduate work at the University of Chicago.

Joseph Spencer was born on March 21, 1790, in Beverly, Talbot County, Maryland. He was privately educated in Philadelphia, and became a teacher at the Episcopal Seminary there, being ordained in 1819. He left in 1820 to become the principal of Washington Academy in Somerset County, Maryland. Just two years later, Spencer accepted the position of professor of languages at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The Board of Trustee minutes of July 27, 1822 show Spencer was unanimously and officially elected with permission to be active in the ministry of the Episcopal Church of Carlisle during his tenure at the College.

Although Spencer spent eight years at Dickinson, rebellious students and fear for his personal safety marred his stay. For example, on February 25, 1825, he received an anonymous letter from a student who wrote in concern for Spencer's well being. The student stated that “Private conspiracies have been formed…against your life. Your body I must confess has 4 times in my own certain knowledge been rescued by the entreaties…of 2 or 3 of your friends, from severe flagellation.” The student cited the reason for these conspiracies and threats to Spencer's life as the professor's own doing, stating “your severity toward the students in general has caused it.”

John Stayman was born on September 28, 1823 in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. In the matriculation register of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, he listed an Eliza L. Stayman under the title of Parent or Guardian. During his years at Dickinson, Stayman was a member of the Union Philosophical Society. He graduated with the Class of 1841.

In 1845, Stayman was an assistant in the Grammar School, but doubts about his teaching abilities led President John Durbin to remove him from the teaching staff. Stayman then turned to music, giving lessons in Carlisle and Harrisburg for ten years. In 1861, he returned to the College as an adjunct and then full professor of Latin and French. From 1867 to 1869 he was the professor of ancient languages, and was professor of philosophy and English literature from 1869 to 1874.

Henry Matthew Stephens was born in Neosho, Missouri, on January 4, 1868. His family moved to Renovo, Pennsylvania, where he attended high school. He further prepared for his undergraduate studies at the Dickinson-Williamsport Seminary. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1888 with the class of 1892.

An active and studious man, Stephens served in numerous positions of responsibility, including treasurer of the Athletic Association, class president in his freshman year and vice president in his senior year, physics laboratory assistant, business manager for the Microcosm and president of the Union Philosophical Society in his senior year. He also was a member of Phi Delta Theta, a leading member of the Chess Club, and sang first base in the Glee Club.

Stephens was perhaps the leading athlete of his class. He played for six years on the football team as an halfback and end, three as a student and three while he was an instructor. He ran with the track team and won the hundred yard dash at the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Sports meet.

Mulford Stough was born on May 1, 1888 in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania to William W. and Clara V. Bauer Stough. He attended Shippensburg State Teacher College from 1904 to 1907, before receiving his bachelor's degree from Washington and Lee University in 1911. He worked at the Old Thrush and Stough Carriage Works in Shippensburg and in his family's fruit orchards in Cumberland County before earning a master's degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1925. Upon graduation Stough came to Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as an instructor of history, holding the position for one year until he was made associate professor in 1926. Finally, in September 1950, after almost a quarter century of service to the College, Stough was named as a full professor of history.

Ovando Super was born March 2, 1848 in Juniata Township, Pennsylvania, to Henry and Mary Diener Super. He attended local schools but largely prepared himself for college. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1871 and graduated near the head of the class in 1873. While a student he had been selected to the Belles Lettres Literary Society.

Following graduation, Super taught modern languages at Delaware College from 1873 to 1876. He then traveled to Leipzig and Paris to study German and French. Upon his return to the United States, Super became instructor in languages at the Dickinson Seminary, now Lycoming College; during this time he was awarded his master's degree from Dickinson College. In 1880 he left for Denver College where he took the position of professor of modern languages. While teaching at Denver, he earned a Ph.D. from Boston University. Super returned to his alma mater in 1884, this time as a professor of modern languages, teaching French, German, and Spanish. He also wrote many textbooks for students of the French and German languages. He also edited the Alumni Record at the College. He remained on the faculty at Dickinson until his retirement in 1913. His brother Dr. C.W. Super, class of 1866, had been president of Ohio University.

Mary Taintor was born on July 25, 1889 in Rochester, Minnesota. She graduated from Ripon College in 1911 and received a degree from Stanford University in 1918. She was also a student in Italy at the American Classical School in Rome in 1911 and 1912; she also studied at the University of Grenoble in France. Taintor did graduate work at both the University of Chicago (1919) and Columbia University (1926-1928).

Taintor began her teaching career at Milwaukee State Normal School as an instructor of Latin and French from between 1912 and 1917. She also taught Latin and French at Venice High School in California in 1918. In 1919, she returned to Ripon College as a full professor of French.

In 1928, Taintor joined the Dickinson College faculty in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as an associate professor of romance languages in 1928. In 1951 she achieved the rank of full professor, becoming only the third woman to obtain that position at Dickinson College. She later retired in 1959 as professor emerita of romance languages. Mary Taintor died on February 5, 1981, at the age of 90.