For Margo Holen Dinneen ’65, nothing should end up in a landfill if it can find a meaningful second home. That philosophy led her to bring Macalester mementos from her Prior Lake home to the College Archives—photographs and documents that are now filling gaps in the college’s understanding of student life and international travel opportunities from the 1960s and beyond.
During the summer of 1964, Dinneen was one of the early participants in Macalester’s Student Work Abroad Project (SWAP), traveling to Hong Kong to work at the local Hilton Hotel. While at Mac, Dinneen also participated in another international travel program, Ambassadors for Friendship, and later helped coordinate reunions for both programs in 1986 and 2010.
This past fall, her materials contributed to a research project in Professor Jess Pearson’s history course, Time Travelers: Tourism in Global History, where students researched the beginnings of study away at Macalester. For Dinneen, donating these materials and working with current students has been an easy and meaningful way to give back to her alma mater.
How did it feel to have current Macalester students researching your study away experiences?
To me, history feels “ancient”! Maybe current students do feel that our records from the mid-60s are “ancient!” Through this experience, I’ve learned that all current events do eventually become historical!
It’s actually unbelievable to me that the students could do their research from our old SWAP and Ambassadors paper records and AV items when there wasn’t even equipment to access them on (e.g., slide projector, CD, or DVD player). Those students gave wonderful reports on what they had learned, and they also asked great questions of me!
Why does this work preserving the past resonate with you?
Deep in my heart I feel like I’ve always been kind of an archivist. Now, in my eighties, I knew I needed to pass things on. It was obvious that I couldn’t keep all my wonderful treasures from Macalester, thus off to the archives. My entire motivation came from our philosophy that we don’t want anything to go in a landfill if there can be another home for it!
What do you carry with you from your own college experience?
Innumerable opportunities to travel! Equally, friends whom I treasure deeply! In addition to events on campus, I am blessed to be in conversation weekly with eighteen 1965 classmates who live across the US, six others annually, and a few more occasionally. Thank you, Macalester College!
