The lessons that Dorothy Vickers-Shelley (MS '75) imparted to students still resonate nearly a decade after her death. Vickers-Shelley was the head librarian at Yankee Ridge Elementary School in Urbana for 33 years, retiring in 2003. In 1976, she wrote a short phrase to teach her students about discrimination and understanding:
Life is short; therefore I shall be a crusader in the fight against ignorance and fear, beginning with myself.
Every student, in kindergarten through sixth grade, learned and recited the quote at the beginning of each class in the library.
A lifetime member of the NAACP and a charter member of the Champaign County Chapter National Council of Negro Women, Vickers-Shelley influenced hundreds of students to ask questions about racism and inequality throughout her career as a school librarian.
In 2015, the Champaign Unit 4 School District named the school library at Booker T. Washington STEM Academy after Dorothy Vickers-Shelley. According to the Unit 4 press release announcing the library dedication:
Ms. Vickers-Shelley challenged her students because she believed it would make them better people, neighbors, and citizens. She read books to children as young as six and seven about the lives of actor/activist Paul Robeson, teenage diarist and Holocaust victim Anne Frank, slave liberator Harriet Tubman, and workers’ advocate Cesar Chavez, among others. By the 1990s, Ms. Vickers-Shelley was teaching her students to ‘recite’ the ‘Life is short’ phrase using American Sign Language. Her former students include business executives, government officials, farmers, lawyers, activists, moms and dads, and teachers. While they represent varied ethnic, racial, faith and political perspectives, Ms. Vickers-Shelley's former students share common values of acceptance and understanding.
Through the lessons Vickers-Shelley taught her students, she made a positive impact in the world that continues today. In honor of her achievements and the countless lives she touched, the iSchool celebrates her life and legacy of social acceptance.