DePauw Stories

He eschews the label “trailblazer” and says he has always been “kind of in the background.” But Stanley Warren, who grew up in a household devoid of books and academic role models, grasped opportunities, one after another, that popped up throughout his life and traversed a path of remarkable achievement that climaxed at DePauw University.

Warren, 86, was DePauw’s first tenured black professor and first black administrator, having risen to become dean of academic life before retiring in 1992. His rise was not the result of any grand plan or ambitious dream, not even of any particular drive, he says.

“I never even thought about going to college, actually,” he says. “I didn’t come from a family where there was an emphasis on education. I don’t remember there being a book in my house. Not one book. We didn’t receive a newspaper. So, getting out and working – finishing high school and working – was a big deal.”

His father, who had reached only the fourth or fifth grade, worked in a factory; his mother, who quit school after third grade, cleaned other people’s houses. His older brother dropped out to join the military; his older sister graduated from Crispus Attucks High School in Indianapolis and Stan followed in 1951.  

Not that that unusual achievement inspired him to carry on with his education. He expected, he says, to do “the same thing all the kids in my neighborhood did – just get a job, probably get married and have a family or something like that.” So he worked at odd jobs for a couple of years until he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1953, where he served stateside as an arms specialist before returning to Indianapolis in 1955.

“I hated the jobs that I had,” he says during an interview in his art-filled home. For a while, he inserted tubes into televisions at the gigantic RCA plant on the city’s east side. Then he cleaned and replaced fluorescent light bulbs that illuminated a factory.

“I was riding the bus home one day and a buddy of mine was on the bus,” he says. “And he and I had been in high school together; we were in service at the same time. And he was in college at Indiana Central (University, now the University of Indianapolis). He started telling me about this GI Bill thing and how easy it was to get involved in that. And I said, that’s what I’m going to do. So I started college in mid-year.”

He majored in history and business and took enough courses in education to qualify for a teaching license. When he graduated seven semesters later, in 1959, he couldn’t find a full-time teaching job so he worked as a substitute teacher until 1961, when he secured a job at his alma mater as a history teacher on the recommendation of his student-teaching supervisor.

This, he notes, was fortunate, since Attucks was the only high school in the segregated Indianapolis public schools where a black man could teach. Had it not worked out, “I’d just have been doing something else other than teaching,” the unassuming Warren says. He taught there 10 years, mostly world history, until Indianapolis – still flouting the landmark 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision – imposed its tepid version of integration by transferring the best black teachers to largely white schools.

Warren was sent to Howe High School and stayed just a year, put off by the principal’s insistence that Howe teachers did not wear facial hair. “He wanted me to cut my mustache,” Warren says, “which I wasn’t about to do. So I left.”

He was hired by Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis to counsel freshmen students. He also went back to school, ultimately earning a master’s in teacher education and anthropology; an Ed.S. in secondary education and administration; and an Ed.D. in higher education, all from IU.

And then one day, “I got a call from DePauw offering me a job,” he says. The university was familiar with Warren, who – while working at Attucks – had taught a weekly black history class at DePauw for a year. “They knew I was OK; I wasn’t going to cause a riot or anything like that,” he says. “So I went there and interviewed with some of the faculty members and then was given the job.”

That was in 1973. Warren, serving as director of black studies and teaching history, economics and sociology, rose through the ranks from assistant to associate to full, tenured professor. Teaching, he says, was the easy part; his challenge was to persuade students “to be to be passionate about something. And so, in many instances, it got way beyond teaching the subject matter at DePauw, where I was counseling a lot of students. Students were coming to me, talking about life, and that was kind of fun.”

Then, in 1989, President Robert Bottoms – a champion of diversity and inclusion – appointed him associate dean.  

“Stanley Warren was the only black person on the faculty when I became president,” Bottoms says. “I am uncertain that, when I announced the diversity initiative, Stan thought I was believable. He had heard such promises before, but nothing ever happened. However, when we began to make progress, Stan was a strong supporter and trusted friend.”

Less than two years after that, Warren was named dean of academic life. He retired two years later, enticed by the opportunity to have more time for writing.

He has published more than 100 articles over the years and, since retirement, has written four books about Indianapolis history. He is working on a project now, though he won’t disclose the subject. He meets monthly with four or five friends who share his love of history and volunteers at Attucks. And he is eager to resume his golf game, a passion. His winter routine – several golf trips to Florida – was thwarted this year after he was diagnosed with leukemia; he is in remission after three months of treatment.