Thyrsa Wealtheow Amos (1879 –May 5,1941) was an American academic and a college honor society founder. She was the dean of women and professor of education at the University of Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania,from 1919 to 1941. She was the founder of the Society of Cwens and a president of the National Association of Deans of Women (NADW). Her main area of interest was in student personnel,especially for women.
Amos was born in Frankfort,Indiana in 1879.[1][2] Her parents were Agnes (née Grove) and Joseph Bonaparte Amos.[3][4] Her family moved to Shawnee,Oklahoma,becoming founders of the community.[4] She received her primary education at public schools.[3] She attended af school in Horton,Kansas in August 1899.[5]
She earned a Master of Arts degree in Educational Psychology with a concentration in Mental Testing,and Educational Measurements in 1919 from the University of Kansas. Her Master's thesis was titled "High School Normal Training as Preparation for Rural Teaching".[7] Her main area of interest was in student personnel,especially for women.[8]
She visited Howard University during the 1924–25 school year to attend meetings and give talks to the female students.[9]
Career
After graduating from Fairmont College,Amos was a teacher in Kansas and,later,principal of Spivey School in Kingman County,Kansas.[10][1] She was elected president of the Kingman County Teacher's Association in September 1908.[3] In 1915,she was a member of the executive committee of the Central Kansas Teacher's Association.[11]
Starting in 1917,she was a faculty member and dean of girls at Shawnee High School in Shawnee,Oklahoma.[12][4][13] During the summer sessions of 1917 to 1919,Amos was the social director and taught psychology at the University of Kansas.[1][2][3][14]
Amos became the first Dean of Women at the University of Pittsburgh,serving from the fall of 1919 until she died in 1941.[1] The Office of Dean of Women was created at a select number of established universities in the early 1900s to ensure that,outside the classroom,the experiences of female students complimented their overall academic success. She was also a professor of student personnel history.[2]
Amos's office and other women's organizations of Pitt were located in Heinz House,a one-story wooden building north of Alumni Hall (now known as Eberly Hall) that was built in 1919.[15][2] In 1924,Heinz House was closed and her office moved to the twelfth floor of the Cathedral of Learning.
Amos was an important influence in making mentoring, instead of hazing, the focus of women's organizations on campus.[15] In the early 1920s, she saw the need for a society for outstanding sophomore women, as the University of Pittsburgh had recently started the Society of Druids for sophomore men. On November 7, 1922, twelve sophomore women responded to her invitations and met at Heinz House.[18] They agreed to found the Society of Cwens to sponsor activities for all freshmen and sophomore women and to "select for membership in the spring those freshman women who displayed the finest Pitt spirit, showed good scholarship and expressed interest in activities through fine participation in them".[18] The society was named Cwens, from the word cwēn, meaning "lady" or "queen" in Anglo-Saxon.[18] The organization expanded from Pitt and became a national honor society.
In 1975, the Title IX Education Amendments mandated the abolishment of single-sex organizations in institutions of higher learning.[18] In October 1975, Cwens chapter presidents gave authority to its national executive board to disband the society and to formulate plans for a national sophomore honor society for both men and women. The national board disbanded the National Society of Cwens, founding the Lambda Sigma Society as a direct descendant on March 6, 1976.[18]
The Braun Room
Honors
Amos received an honorary doctor of laws from the University of Pittsburgh in 1930; she was the second woman to receive this honor from the university.[4]
Amos Hall, University of Pittsburgh
The office space on the twelfth floor of the Cathedral of Learning was still unfinished when Amos died in 1941. The Alumnae Association created the Thyrsa W. Amos Fund to plaster the walls and to furnish Room 1217 in her name. Room 1217 was never finished, but after World War II the other rooms on the twelfth floor were completed including the Braun room which served as a meeting space for women students. Mrs. A. E. Braun donated the furnishings and floral carved mahogany wood paneling for The Braun Room which was dedicated in 1946.[19]
Amos Hall, an all-female residence hall at Schenley Quadrangle at the University of Pittsburgh that houses nine sororities, is named after her. It was dedicated on June 9, 1961.
In 1940, Amos became ill and entered Magee Hospital in Pittsburgh.[2] Amos died there eight months later on May 5, 1941, at the age of 62.[1][2] She was buried in Pittsburgh.[12]
Selected publications
I, Myself, and Me (1939)
Attitudes (1939)
And So to College: A Series of Six Radio Talks (1928)
Educational values of the department of the dean of women (1927)
Wawrzynski, Matthew R. (March 2004). "Thyrsa Wealtheow Amos: The Dean of Deans". Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice. 41 (2): 535–554. doi:10.2202/1949-6605.1337. S2CID219287640.
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