Ione Dugger Vargus

Ione Dugger Vargus J52 is a member of the prominent Medford Dugger family and was the third Dugger sibling to graduate from Tufts. While at Tufts, Dugger Vargus majored in sociology, participated in student government as an off-campus representative and the junior year vice president and secretary for Jackson College, and sang in Odikon and the Tufts Chorus.

Following her graduation, Dugger Vargus enrolled in graduate school at the University of Chicago, where she received an MA in social service administration in 1954. That same year, she married her Tufts classmate William Vargus A52 at Goddard Chapel. The marriage was considered newsworthy because Dugger Vargus was Black and Vargus was white; Jet Magazine devoted an article to the event.

Dugger Vargus worked as a social worker in the Boston area and as an assistant professor at Brandeis University in Waltham, where she graduated with a PhD in social policy and administration in 1971. She spent three years teaching at the University of Illinois before starting a job as a professor and associate dean at Temple University in Philadelphia in 1974. In 1978, Dugger Vargus became the first Black dean in Temple history. Through the 1980s, Dugger Vargus studied the role of reunions in Black families and founded the Family Reunion Institute in 1990. Dugger Vargus became the vice provost of Temple in 1991 and a Temple Presidential Fellow in 1993 before retiring in 1995.

Dugger Vargus maintained a close connection with Tufts after her graduation. She served on the Board of Trustees from 1981 to 1991 and is now a trustee emerita. Gerald Gill recognized her accomplishments in his first iteration of Another Light On the Hill. Dugger Vargus currently lives in Philadelphia and volunteers at the Family Reunion Institute.

Biography written and researched by Cat Rosch.