Nancy Knight Kenner ’67-’68

A little bit of encouragement went a long way

ALUMNI MEMORY

Nancy Knight Kenner ’67-’68 remembers finding true love and self-confidence at Pitt-Bradford.

As a Black woman from the outskirts of Philadelphia, it was unlikely that she would have found Pitt-Bradford at all, but she had some help from an Urban League program in Philadelphia that helped Black students find schools to apply to.

She was just about to apply to a new college (even newer than Pitt-Bradford), John F. Kennedy College ounded in 1965 in Wahoo, Neb., when she heard from Pitt-Bradford. Her dad liked that it was closer than Nebraska.

“I had no finances to go to college,” said Kenner, the oldest of 11 children. The summer before her first year at Pitt-Bradford, she worked with her mother in an industrial laundry that washed – among other things – sheets and shirts for Valley Forge Military Academy.

Nancy and Milton Kenner Knight Kenner

“They worked in exhaustive heat. I was appreciating my mother at that time. I said, ‘There’s no way I’m going to do that.’”

Her father drove a truck, and she earned a scholarship from the Teamsters that covered the cost of the summer qualifying program at Pitt-Bradford as well as her first semester.

In the summer qualifying program, incoming freshmen would take a few foundational college courses, but with extra tutoring. “It really boosted our morale to pass those first college courses,” she said.

Even once the semester began, there was still a lot of interaction between the small student body and its faculty. Dr. Geraldine Madden, a veterinarian who taught biology, regularly played checkers and chess with the students in the lounge of Emery Hall.

Madden tried setting then-Nancy Knight up with a sophomore from Chicago – Milton Kenner – but it wasn’t until the two met at a dinner party that she took an interest.

Nancy and Milton were both students in Dr. August Freda’s astronomy class when he invited them both to dinner.

“College was the kind of atmosphere then where you went to your to professor’s house for dinner all the time. Professors did that kind of thing all the time.”

Milton was one of three Black men at Pitt-Bradford at the time. He had gone to Stockbridge School in Massachusetts and spent his senior year of high school in Switzerland and enjoyed skiing. He was the goalie on the soccer team.

For fun, the couple and other students piled into a car belonging to Tom Philipson ’68 and visited Olean, N.Y., where the drinking age was 18, or went to parties and dances at nearby St. Bonaventure University in Allegany, N.Y.

“I don’t recall ever having an incident with racism or prejudice on campus,” she said. “That was the best experience I had in my life.”

Milton Kenner signed his picture as a soccer goalie to his 'mother away from home,' Victoria Freda, wife of Dr. Augie Freda

Well, there was one incident, when civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed in April 1968. Nancy recalled that a group of students was watching the funeral on television in the lounge, when someone came in and used a racial slur about King. Nancy lit into him.

Upset, she went to her room and called Gerry Madden at home. “And she came down and lit into that kid, too.

“She was an amazing professor. I recall flunking my first test, and she said, ‘This is not going to happen.’ She gave me her notes and came over to the dorm and tutored me.”

Fred Rehm, who taught mathematics, had encouraged her as well.

“He said I really had a mind for math and that I could study it if I wanted to. Those kinds of talks really made the difference for me. I’m 73 years old, and I’m remembering all of these little anecdotal stories. If you remember a teacher, they had to have had an impact.”

She was an amazing professor. I recall flunking my first test, and she said, ‘This is not going to happen.’ She gave me her notes and came over to the dorm and tutored me.

With Pitt-Bradford being a two-year campus where students finished at the campus in Pittsburgh, Milton left after his sophomore year and moved to Pittsburgh. Nancy followed the following year, and the two were married in their junior year, working their way through school at the local Giant Eagle.

Nancy Kenner graduated from Pitt in 1970 and went on to work in higher education guidance counseling and academic advisement for more than 30 years at community colleges, Temple University, West Chester University and Lincoln University. She would earn a master’s degree from Pitt as well.

Milton became a social worker for the Urban League for fi ve years in Pittsburgh before turning to sales.

The couple also reached back to help her siblings get educations. “I had my sister come and live with me and go to school when I worked at a community college,” she said. “I was playing family social worker.” Her siblings all went on to be successes in their own right, including a restaurant owner, an electrician, an assistant teacher and a lab technician.