Mills Quarterly, Fall 2022

Mills Quarterly

Help preserve the Mills legacy of lifting marginalized voices.

As a new generation of students traverse Mills College at Northeastern University, you can help ensure that key elements of Mills’ historical impact not only remain—but thrive.

Your gift to the endowed Mills Legacy Scholarship Fund will support campus-based women and gender nonbinary students— in keeping with the traditional Mills admission policy—well into the institution’s future as part of Northeastern. Join other donors committed to helping maintain and reinforce the campus’s identity as a place where marginalized voices are lifted up through higher education.

Give to the Mills Legacy Scholarship Fund.

Please make a gift to the Mills Legacy Scholarship Fund by calling 510.430.2366, visiting alumnae.mills.edu/give, or mailing a check payable to the Mills College Annual Fund, 5000 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland, CA 94613.

the vision.

the mission.

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CONTENTS Fall

Gregarious Ghosts of Mills by Allison Rost

roundup of some of the many spooky stories that have haunted the Mills campus

14 Fit to Print by Arya Samuelson, MFA ’19

did these Mills alums do when they couldn’t find voices like theirs coming out of traditional printing presses? They started their own.

18 A Heavy Pour

wine industry is not known for its diversity. Two Black alums who write about and create the

discuss the paths they’ve taken.

32 The Right Kind of Teacher by Jane Downs, MA ’96

former student of Diana O’Hehir contemplates her impact.

Volume CXII, Number 1

(USPS 349-900)

Fall 2022 President

Elizabeth L. Hillman

Associate Vice President for Institutional Advancement

Nikole Hilgeman Adams

Managing Editor

Allison Rost Design and Art Direction

Nancy Siller Wilson

Editorial Assistant

Tri-an Cao ’21, MFA ’22

Contributors

Jane Downs, MA ’96

Lila Goehring ’21

Arya Samuelson, MFA ’19

The Mills Quarterly (USPS 349-900)

is published quarterly by Mills College at Northeastern University, 5000 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland, CA 94613. Periodicals postage paid at Oakland, California, and at additional mailing office(s). Postmaster : Send address changes to the Office of Institutional Advancement, 5000 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland, CA 94613.

Copyright © 2022, Mills College at Northeastern University Address correspondence to Mills Quarterly, 5000 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland, CA 94613. Email: quarterly@mills.edu Phone: 510.430.3312

Share your thoughts

Submit your letter to the editor via email to quarterly@mills.edu, online at quarterly.mills.edu, or by mail at:

Mills Quarterly

5000 MacArthur Blvd. Oakland, CA 94613

The Quarterly reserves the right to edit letters for length and clarity.

A Message from the President of Mills College

By Elizabeth L. Hillman

Thoseof us with the good fortune to be associated with durable, mis sion-driven organizations know that people come and go while strong institutions endure. We now know that Mills College is one of the institutions that will endure. Its people—students, faculty, staff, and alums—are now essen tial parts of Northeastern University’s dazzling global network. As I prepare to leave the College (and our beautiful East Oakland campus) after six eventful years, I want to share several powerful threads that connect the Mills College of the past with its future in Northeastern’s global network.

The first thread is our ability to make an impact on the world. In the past, Mills students and graduates have made tremendous contributions to their com munities, whether serving in elected office like Congresswoman Barbara Lee ’73, or creating new social justice orga nizations like entrepreneur and founder of MotherCoders, Tina Lee ’01, MBA ’02. Mills has cultivated both critical thought and community-mindedness in its students, and many students have won prestigious international scholar ships, including two recent graduates, Truman Scholar Cassandra James ’22 and Schwarzman Scholar Jessica Greely ’21.

Mills alumnae like Lateefah Simon ’17— president of the Akonadi Foundation, MacArthur Foundation genius award winner, civil rights advocate, and BART director—have made themselves global citizens of impact from right here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Mills’ fac ulty and creative artists have influenced and brought change across the world by performing, studying, and connect ing students to scholars and artists else where. A recent example is Professor Meryl Bailey’s trip to Venice earlier this

year with Mills art history students, who shared an experience that had to be post poned and reconfigured more than once because of the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the College’s cherished traditions, the candlelighting ceremony that takes place each year during new student ori entation, nods to Mills’ global aspirations by asking students to pause and consider what they want not only for themselves and their classmates, but for the world.

It’s no accident that global impact is an explicit goal of Northeastern University. Northeastern’s global, expe riential learning emphasis has made it a destination of choice for students from all over the world. This fall, the new Northeastern students who joined us on campus at Mills participated in the same candlelighting ceremony that new stu dents at Mills have long been a part of, and their wishes were again written on paper cards and tied to branches across campus. The wishes on those cards reveal aspirations and ideals that very much align with those of Mills students in the past.

The second thread that connects Mills’ past to its future is sustainability. The merger into Northeastern University has given Mills College an academic and economic foundation that will sustain the campus as a site of education and inspiration for generations still. While the generosity of our alumnae and other supporters—and the creativity of our fac ulty and staff—enabled Mills to continue to serve students in exceptional ways throughout our long-standing financial challenges, we could no longer afford to neglect the need to invest in our faculty, staff, and physical plant. Now, both new and old elements of the Mills College cam pus are receiving the care and use they deserve. Two relatively new features of the

On August 4, the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in New York City announced that President Elizabeth L. Hillman would take the position of president and CEO at that institution, starting in October. Northeastern President Joseph Aoun and Hillman herself informed the Mills community of the impending change in separate emails to all faculty, staff, students, and alums that same morning.

Stepping into the day-to-day leadership role for Mills College at Northeastern in the 2022–23 academic year is Mary Ludden, who is Northeastern’s senior vice president for global network and strategic initiatives. She also served as the lead project manager on Northeastern’s side for the Mills merger. Ludden is is splitting her time between Boston and the Mills campus as of late September. The bulk of the existing administrative team at Mills will remain in place during this year of transition, with further determinations about future leadership on the Mills campus to take place as new programs develop. Ed.

campus, the farm and the recently reno vated Lisser Hall, are both buzzing with activity this fall, with more planned for the academic year ahead. If you remember studying in the F.W. Olin Library, you’d be amazed by how beautiful it looks, as does the rest of the campus—both inside and out—after the surge of renovation and improvement that took place once the merger became final on June 30.

Environmental sustainability is now a potential focus not only of new academic programs—perhaps involving food jus tice, regenerative agriculture, and sus tainable entrepreneurship—that could be offered at Mills College at Northeastern University, it is also now a possibility for the energy infrastructure of the cam pus itself. Carbon neutrality, and carbon capture, are goals that Northeastern’s

focus on the future and commitment to sustainability will make possible at Mills. In the past, the Mills campus has been a refuge for students, faculty, staff, alums, visitors, and East Oakland neigh bors seeking space to learn and grow. In the future, we can also be essential in community-based efforts to build cli mate resilience and find new ways to live and work sustainably.

The final thread that draws Mills College’s past into its future with Northeastern University is justice. As civil rights leader Bryan Stevenson has said, the opposite of poverty is not wealth, but justice. Mills College’s commitment to equity and access, its focus on creat ing opportunities for those often consid ered unworthy of investment by others, is at the center of the new Mills Institute,

which will promote women’s leadership and advance gender and racial justice. The Institute will be located in Mills Hall, and it will preserve and advance the his toric legacy of Mills College.

Mills’ academic programs have long sought to create empathy and expand understanding as well as broaden and deepen students’ mastery of fields of knowledge and human endeavor. Before the pandemic hit, I led a group of students, trustees, staff, and friends of Mills on a transformative experiential learning trip to Alabama. We centered our visit on the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which were built in Montgomery because of Stevenson’s vision and dedica tion. We also visited the Southern Poverty Law Center and other historic sites in Montgomery and Selma, as well as the Edmund Pettus Bridge and the National Voting Rights Museum. That trip chal lenged both me and our students, and sparked my own interest in museums and memorials. It also underscored the tre mendous power of experiential learning, which gives students first-hand access to people, ideas, and spaces that accelerate learning and growth.

It’s been a great privilege to serve Mills College these past years, and I can already see the unlimited potential of elevating Mills’ focus on justice, equity, and access across Northeastern’s global network. I look forward to seeing what the future holds for a campus and col lege where I have encountered more passion—and more opportunity—than anywhere else in this world.

STEVE BABULJAK

Student life adjusts post-merger

The Mills campus welcomed approximately 300 returning Mills students in addition to 500 first-year Northeastern stu dents for the fall semester. The question of how to create a welcoming environment for all of those students is one that has occupied the collective minds of Mills’ Division of Student Life and Northeastern’s Student Affairs Office since well into last spring.

One of those minds belongs to Chong Kim-Wong, Northeastern’s dean of students, who decamped to Oakland for several weeks in August and September. She oversaw a packed orientation schedule for new and returning students, with everything from hired movers to food trucks for a cel ebratory atmosphere. “The movers, the fanfare—it was all very intentional,” she says.

Kim-Wong has also been front and center on bolstering and reworking extracurricular activities on the Mills campus. Many things are staying the same: At a community fair on September 1, familiar student organizations recruited for new members on the Meadow. Groups such as The Campanil news paper are continuing, though any club that may have lost its membership when Mills students graduated or departed can be restarted by any interested student—something that often happens on Northeastern’s Boston campus thanks to co-ops.

But other activities needed to evolve due to one big com plicating factor presented by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA): Northeastern’s Division I status means that Mills has lost its former Division III standing, but at the same time, NCAA sports that are already available on the Boston campus can’t be duplicated in Oakland. This has prompted student life staff to take on two big projects: First, taking a look at varsity sports that aren’t offered in Boston and could find a home at Mills.

“We’re investigating very actively what we can do there,” says Madeleine Estabrook, Northeastern’s senior vice chancel lor for student affairs, who spoke to the Quarterly from Boston.

The second project? Building a robust fitness and athletics experience into recreation offerings, starting with expanded spaces and equipment for exercise, and potentially going so far as to bring the Boston campus’ success with club and intramu ral teams to the West Coast. “We have more than 3,000 stu dents participating in club sports. They’ve won national and international championships,” Estabrook says. “Oakland will have even more possibilities because of the amount of green space, the size of the pool, and the facilities already on the Mills campus.”

Off-campus excursions will also be made available to stu dents free of charge, starting with trips to the California Academy of Sciences and SFMOMA during orientation and continuing with opportunities to explore the larger Bay Area and Northern California.

It’s an odd academic year in many ways, namely the infusion of first-years who will likely move campuses after one semester

or the full year. But it’s also providing a chance to experiment and build up a variety of student offerings before four-year Mills College at Northeastern students enroll next fall.

Paramount to that as well is ensuring that returning Mills students feel welcome amongst the new arrivals. “That’s been core to the work that we’re doing. We believe that exciting opportunities are available to all students,” Kim-Wong says.

Engaging in grassroots problem-solving

A newer element of Northeastern’s research offerings is a series of “impact engines” and “accelerators,” which are cross-divisional projects dedicated to solving a broad range of specific societal problems—and one of them will call the Mills campus home.

Professor of Business Practice Carrie Maultsby-Lute, MBA ’11, who also serves as the director of the Center for Transformative Action (CTA) at Mills, is co-lead of an impact accelerator that aims to use community-engaged research to identify solutions to issues that negatively impact Bay Area residents. “City to City: Finding Equitable Solutions to Local Policy Problems” will do a deep dive by collecting data from the people who are experiencing and affected by issues such as income inequality, gentrification, and homelessness, which is similar to the exist ing mission of the CTA to bring together disparate groups to problem-solve in a collaborative fashion.

“Due to the history of gentrification, many Oaklanders are wary of new institutions—which makes Mills College at Northeastern’s touchpoints with the larger community cru cial,” says Maultsby-Lute, whose co-lead is Alicia Modestino, the research director at the Dukakis Center for Urban & Regional Policy on Northeastern’s Boston campus. “I believe Mills College at Northeastern has an opportunity to build community and trust with Oakland residents and show the larger world how community-engaged research can support conscious development that strengthens the overall region.”

As an accelerator rather than an engine, “City to City” will also provide support to more specific projects happening as part of the program. Impact engines across the Northeastern network include “Experiential Associate to Master’s,” which will assist resumers in finishing their college educations through student support and success coaches; and “Intelligent Solutions to Urban Pollution for Equity and Resilience,” which will bring low-cost censors to densely populated areas to pro vide data about pollutants on a micro level.

Summer work rejuvenates campus

This summer, the Mills campus received a much-needed refresh, including a power washing of sidewalks and buildings to bring back their shine. Other changes and updates include:

 The reopening and upgrade of Founders Commons, which shuttered during the pandemic. There’s a new entrance on the side of the building closer to Mills Hall, as well as new flooring, signage, and paint.

 New flooring and equipment at the Tea Shop, plus the reopening of Café Suzie (directly across Rothwell Plaza, in the Student Union building) for grab-and-go food items.

 A new campus store space next to Café Suzie, operated by Barnes & Noble, which carries campus swag and school supplies.

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The opening of a new “tech bar” in the Prieto Gallery space between the Tea Shop and F.W. Olin Library.

 New classroom furniture across campus and technology upgrades to 17 specific classrooms in several buildings, including Mills Hall.

 The installation of new Mills College at Northeastern University banners on campus light poles, and an updated sign at Richards Gate.

 In the residence halls, the addition of proctor stations at the entrances to enhance security as well as new furni ture for student rooms. Still to come (at press time) were the installation of 150 pack age lockers in Rothwell Plaza to augment services at the Mail & Copy Center, plus new wayfinding signage across campus that incorporates Mills history.

AUGUST ALUM FORUM Report from

On August 11, the Office of Alumnae Relations cohosted an online alumnae forum alongside the Alum Engagement Committee (AEC), a new group working with the Office of Alumnae Relations that formed last fall to support the relationship between Mills alums and the College as it embarked upon the merger with Northeastern. Questions were solicited through the (e)ucalyptus email newsletter and through personal conversations between AEC members and fel low alums. Before her departure, President Elizabeth L. Hillman appeared alongside other Mills officials to answer the most fre quently asked queries live on Zoom.

Lightly edited answers to some of those questions are below; for others, including whether the Mills archives will remain open to researchers and whether new students learned about Mills history during orientation (yes to both), visit tinyurl.com/ mills-alum-forum.

Will future students specifically apply to Mills College at Northeastern University, with the intent of spending four years on campus?

Interim Dean Beth Kochly: Yes, that is the plan. When we launch our new programs, they will be designed so that a stu dent can come to Mills and complete the program, spending all their time on this campus. We do also, however, want to build in the flexibility in case our students do want to take advan tage of the globalness of the university, to spend a semester in London or a year in Boston. We would like to have all options available to our students.

How will the College honor donor intent with various endowment funds?

Associate Vice President for Advancement Nikole Adams: Funds will of course continue to be used for the purposes for which they were established. They’ll support the students, faculty, and programs on the Mills campus. As you know, new programs are being developed, so as we know more about what will be held under the Mills Institute and at Mills at Northeastern, we will conduct a really close review of our endowed funds and assess: How do they fit those needs? Do they continue to support those same programs?

The Office of Alumnae Relations and the Alum Engagement Committee are teaming up for another online alum forum in November. Email invitations will come out soon; check in with alumnae-relations@mills.edu after November 1 if you haven’t received one.

And if any changes need to be made or if the designations don’t quite fit, we’ll work with those donors directly to make adjustments or talk about what we might be able to do with those funds, because we definitely want to honor the wishes and intentions behind those funds.

There’s a huge commitment from Northeastern, too, to have those funds support the Mills campus. They won’t be support ing programs in Boston or on any of the other satellite cam puses. There is plenty of need on the Mills campus for those funds, and we’re excited to make those matches.

How do you envision a successful relationship with the AAMC?

Adams: A successful relationship really is about partnership and collaboration, as well as trying to build on what we’ve always had. I’ve been meeting at least twice a month with lead ership from the AAMC: the current president, Debby Dittman; past president Viji Nakka-Cammauf; and their interim execu tive director, Pam Herman. We’re trying to figure out how we can continue to work together, how we can partner on sup port for students, how we can include alums in activities on the Mills campus, and how we can partner on events for alums in general. Actually, just this week, Debby and I started talking about a possible speaker series!

We haven’t been collaborating as much thanks to the pan demic and all the transitions, but I think we’re getting back to a really good place. Most recently, we’ve been focusing on the database project and working through access to campus resources, as our systems are starting to switch to Northeastern

systems. For example, we need make sure that the AAMC can continue to access systems within the office, such as the net work and printers. Those are some of the not-so-exciting things we’ve been working on, but they’re essential.

What is the status of the AAMC’s access to the database? Can the AAMC continue to use Reinhardt Alumnae house longer than one year? If not, why?

Adams: I’ll start with the second question: I really hope so! We’re talking about that in our monthly meetings, and we’re trying to help AAMC leadership build a relationship with folks at Northeastern. We’re making some good progress.

For the database, most of you—if not all of you—should have received an email asking you to give us permission to give your information to the AAMC. We did this because we respect your privacy, and we want to make sure that we aren’t just giving over all the information that you have given us without per mission—technically, the AAMC is a separate nonprofit organi zation. Thank you so much to those of you who filled out that form! A very high percentage, about 99% of the people who filled it out, did grant us permission to hand over their contact information. The project is now with our advancement services team, and they are reviewing all the data and making sure that it’s all accurate before handing it over. If you weren’t able to fill out that form, you can go to the AAMC’s new website at aamcmills.org and sign up there.

Multiple people were curious whether their contact information will be shared with Northeastern. If we give permission for this information to be shared with the AAMC, do we also need to give permission for it to be shared with Northeastern?

Adams: Eventually, we will be merging our databases together as we integrate all of our systems and services. We are now part of Northeastern, so that information will be part of the same database, but you will not be automatically signed up for any newsletters from Northeastern. You won’t be getting solicita tions from Northeastern. You will continue to hear from our office on the Mills campus, the Office of Alumnae Relations. From time to time, we might share an event with you that we’re co-sponsoring with Northeastern, but you won’t be automati cally signed up for any of those communications. My team con tinues to work here and is carefully keeping our records as safe and protected as possible.

We know that you’re not alums of Northeastern, and you might not care about what’s happening over there. But if you’re interested, I would encourage you to sign up for those email newsletters. They’re really informative and a great way to get to know the university. But we won’t automatically sign you up for anything.

Who owns the Mills logo? Since Mills is no longer an independent college, are alums free to claim the logo and place it on merchandise on their own?

President Elizabeth L. Hillman: This is about intellectual prop erty, which is just as real as real property. Northeastern has succeeded Mills as the owner of the campus, and has certainly succeeded Mills as the owner of our marks and our logos. Should any alums want to use the logo, they can ask, and I encourage them to do so! You can go through Nikole at alum nae-relations@mills.edu, and we’ll work with the central folks about how different marks can be used.

An article in The Wall Street Journal mentioned that many majors, such as women’s and ethnic studies, dance, and art history will disappear. President Hillman said that the courses will return after they’re accredited. Which is correct?

Kochly : We currently don’t have any existing programs, but we do have our faculty, our foundations, and all of the knowledge that we used to create those programs. As we design our new programs moving forward, we’re going to incorporate all of those pieces, and the ideas of social, gender, and racial justice.

Hillman : All of Mills’ past programs have now sunsetted, and we’re offering our students degree pathways through existing Northeastern programs until we have a chance to build the programs we’ll offer on the Mills campus. Some of them will be existing Northeastern programs, but with the kind of context and direction that Beth [Kochly] just described. Among those programs will be graduate and undergraduate programs that will certainly be very similar to what Mills has offered in the past. We just need time to do that.

Northeastern is also working on some really innovative ped agogical designs that they’re going to test out here on our cam pus. If you think our music programs have been experimental, wait until you see what we’re going to do for undergraduate education! It’ll be customized, modular, and global, and it will include all these programs that have been asked about: art, his tory, dance, ethnic studies. Those may not be the same degreegranting programs, but those strands will play into what we build into Mills College at Northeastern, and we hope to push them out across the global network. I think we will change Northeastern too, and not just here on the Mills campus.

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To watch this Q&A in full, visit tinyurl.com/mills-alum-forum.

Mills Matters

A campus steward retires

Nearly every building project that’s taken place on the Mills campus since 1992 bears the fingerprints of Karen Fiene. Known colloquially as the campus architect (her most recent title was direc tor of facilities, compliance, and sustain ability), Fiene first started working on Mills campus projects when employed by the architectural firm EHDD, initially coming on board to assist with renova tions at Warren Olney in 1992. While operating her own firm from 1999 to 2005, she worked on the refurbishment of the Vera Long Building for the Social Sciences and the design for NSB. At that point, it made sense to bring Fiene into the fold as a Mills staffer, so she started working on a project-by-project basis in January 2006, then became a full-time employee in 2009.

Since then, she has blended specific site work with larger, overarching initiatives that affected the full cam pus, including broadening sustain ability programs and bringing the Mills Community Farm to fruition. “Basically, anything that had to do with interiors, furniture selection, fabrics, lighting—anything that had a design element, that was me,” Fiene says. After delaying her retirement to help with the Northeastern merger, she finally called it quits on September 2—but you can expect to see her on campus in any number of capacities, from consulting to working on her own landscape painting. She sat down with the Quarterly to chat about the campus she knows so well.

Mills Quarterly: What’s your favorite spot on campus?

Fiene : There’s buildings and there’s spots—and experiences too. The most impressive is coming down Richards Road, and that’s known as one of the

100 most beautiful streets in the world.* You can’t do better than that. I also really love the creek by Lisser, and that was one of my favorite little walks before the trees came out. Even now, though, it’s beautiful with the deck. And I love walking up to Pine Top and down to the farm, because of course I love the farm. Building-wise, I do love the Julia Morgans, and special places like the Bender Room and the Student Union because of their designs and big spaces. I’m also captivated by the Chapel, and I’ve always loved how it has a spiritual feel—and you don’t have to be religious or anything—and the way it sits in the land with the labyrinth. The Music Building is phenomenal, and the Concert Hall: Those were fun projects to work on. The theater with the frescos… I just always find that to be a really magi cal building. Those are my favorites— and Mills Hall too, of course.

Quarterly : What campus project did you participate in was the most memorable?

Fiene : It’s really hard to say, because they were all so unique. Both NSB and the Music Building were EHDD, and they were both J.R. Griffin (construction company), and that was a unique expe rience because they’re great firms that care so much about the history. Because I love historic buildings so much, the Music Building restoration was very special for me, partly because it had lit tle moments like rejuvenating the fres cos. We found a couple who trained in Prague, and they got up on scaffolding over the holidays—completely unheated since the building was under construc tion—and for three weeks they were up there with tiny little toothbrushes, cleaning up all the frescos. And then, we climbed up in the attic and found all the chandeliers—there were all these things we were able to preserve.

Oh, I forgot Lisser! Lisser was really interesting because of all the surprises we found—like the time capsule. That was really cool. This is like saying which child you like best, it’s very hard!

Then there’s NSB, which was a new construction, and that was great too. I really enjoyed working with [architects] Bohlin Cywinski Jackson and the differ ent firms with very high design stan dards. Vera Long was also a fun project.

Quarterly : As someone who’s been an observer of the campus for so many years, where would you like to see the Mills campus go next? What’s your wild est dream?

Fiene : Well, it sounds totally unsexy, but fixing up the buildings! We have so much deferred maintenance. For instance, I’d really like to give the museum its due. It’s an important public building. The older halls need more attention, though we’re starting to look at that. I’d like to see the Julia Morgan buildings preserved as much as they can be; Carnegie and the Student Union could use some love. I’d love to see the older structures repur posed and reused so their legacy and history are appreciated.

There was a big project at the lake that we’ve always wanted to do: a bypass channel that would slow the water and keep it from undermining the bridges

over the creeks. We are actually getting a new spillway, and I’d love to see a promenade around the lake like we’ve seen in pictures with the lanterns. Those were some really interesting rituals, so the lake could be a really special celebratory space.

And I would also like to see some meaningful connection to the history of this land, the unceded land of the Ohlone, and how Mills could really honor that. There’s an amazing educa tional opportunity as well as meaning ful land sharing. This is such a special, sacred place, and it’s been this enclave. That could be a way we’d be more open to community. How do we make this more welcoming? How do we make people feel like they belong here?

There’s also the issue of sustainabil ity and getting the campus to net zero, so what would that mean for bring ing existing buildings up to energy standards? What does that mean for new construction? I’d like to see us get a ground-mounted solar system and change all the lighting to LEDs. These are things we’ve wanted to do but were unable to due to lack of funds.

Quarterly : What do you plan to do in retirement?

Fiene : I have no lack of projects. I’m a watercolor/plein air painter. I’ve already been working half-time, so I’m paint ing a couple days a week, but I really want to enter shows and do workshops. So that’s a big thing. And my mom is 86 and I’m her caregiver, so I’m spend ing more time with her. In fact, in September we’re jumping on a plane and going to Wales to see her brother!

A lot of my friends are also retiring, so we’re planning to go to the Galapagos, Santa Fe—I have something happening almost every month. And then there’s sleeping, reading, gardening… it’s always felt like I was running, and I probably will still be running, but at least I won’t also be working 40 hours a week!

Bent Twigs, Redux

In our summer 2022 story on Bent Twigs, we published photos of Bent Twigs from the 2007 Commencement that appeared in that summer’s Quarterly without captions. Thanks to those readers who reached out with information so we can right that wrong from 15 years ago! We can now identify most of the pictured alums; if you can help with any of the remaining IDs, email us at quarterly@mills.edu.

Top row, left to right: Jamila Williams ’07 with sister Aisha-Lorraine Williams ’96; family friend Gloria Goyena, MA ’00, with Gema Ornelas ’07 and Ornelas’ mother Patty Oregal ’86.

Second row: Nhu Thuy Tran ’04 with sister Thom Tran ’07; Elizabeth Douglass Paine ’47 with great-niece Katie Rogers, MFA ’07; Jana Rogers Pastena ’07 with mother Sari Herzig Millard ’88.

Third row: Elizabeth Clayton Wester ’07 and mother Karen Clayton, MFA ’94; two still unknown alums; Melissa Johnson Michael ’71 with daughter Lisa Aurora Calderon ’07.

Fourth row: Kathryn Peck McCarthy ’07 with mother Victoria Fawns, MFA ’75; two still unknown alums.

We also apologize to the family of Stacie Hudson ’99 for flubbing a few names in her family of Bent Twigs. The correct captions are below the photo.

Stacie Hudson ’99 (center) with aunt Estrellita Hudson Redus ’65, MFA ’75; sister Lelalois Hudson Beard ’94; sister Samzie Hudson ’97; and aunt Camellia Hudson Franklin ’73

Calendar

Mills College Art Museum

The museum is open 11:00 am–4:00 pm Tuesday through Sunday and until 7:30 pm Wednesday. Admission is free. Visit mcam.mills.edu for more information.

Shifting Terrains ■ Through December 11

More than 200 works from the museum’s collection will be on display for Shifting Terrains , an examination of artistic representations of the West Coast that span more than 130 years. The pieces depict the awe-inspiring natural world yet also look through the lens of climate change and environmental justice. Artists include Anne Colvin, Ralph Du Casse, and Susan Magnus, MFA ’92.

Below: Sybil Anikeyev, Lettuce Fields, Salinas, ca. 1940, gelatin silver print

Below, right: Ralph Du Casse, Untitled (green, orange, purple), 20th century, acrylic on paper

Artist Lectures

All events are free.

October 20 ■ Judith Belzer and Kathryn Spence

Belzer’s paintings explore human engagement with the natural world, often looking to human-made landscapes to consider this dynamic and sometimes uncomfortable relationship. Spence’s objects and installations are inspired by nature but composed from the discarded materials of the human world—exploring the disconnection between nature and human culture and, in particular, the realities of an overwhelmingly consumption-driven society. 6:00 pm, Danforth Lecture Hall at Jane B. Aron Art Center.

November 16 ■ Bessma Khalaf

Iraq-born and Oakland-based artist Bessma Khalaf employs processes of degradation (burning, smashing, shattering, melting, defacing, eating, regurgitating) to her work in photography, video, sculpture, and performance to explore the boundaries of landscape, place, and image. 7:30 pm, Mills College Art Museum.

Support rolls in for Mills programs and students

Mills College gratefully acknowledges the following members of the community for their gifts, grants, and pledges of $50,000 or more, received between January 1 and June 30.

• The Dirk and Charlene Kabcenell Foundation , which donated to a Lead by Learning grant to provide superlative professional-development opportunities to mid-career teachers.

• The estate of Claire Kirman Taber ’27 for a gift to the Claire Kirman Taber Endowed Scholarship, which was originally established in 1993 to provide student financial support.

• The estate of Wendyce “Wendy” Hull Brody ’68 for a gift to the Johnson/Tupper/Hull Scholarship, which was first endowed in 2001 by Brody and her husband to honor her family of Bent Twigs. The scholarship provides student financial support.

• The estate of Jocelyn Sykes Cushman ’54 for its unrestricted bequest, which will help Mills respond to urgent financial demands and meet student needs.

Campus kudos

A selection of recent achievements by faculty, staff, and students

Professor of Spanish & Spanish American Studies Carlota Caulfield participated in World Poetry Day on March 22. Her book of visual poems, GHROMYT, was published as part of the collection C’est Mon Dada this summer, and her essay “Modalidades poético-surrealistas en la poesía visual de J.M. Calleja” is included in this fall’s publication of Poesía caminante Cuando las palabras toman cuerpo

Assistant Adjunct Professor of Communication Keli Dailey participated in a St. Nell’s Humor Writing Residency in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, this past May. The residency is open to marginalized genders working in humor-related fields.

Professor of Geochemistry and Environmental Geology Kristina L. Faul worked with University of Delaware’s Katharina Billups on a National Science Foundation-funded project, “Collaborative Research: Importance of the subtropical gyre and North Atlantic Current in interglacial warmth,” through summer 2022. Her students Sofia Almeida ’23 and Lily Jung ’23 participated as well.

Professor Emerita of Dance Molissa Fenley presented and performed in two works for the Sundays on Broadway series at the New York City loft of artist Cathy Weis on May 15.

Luther B. Marchant Professor of Music Nalini Ghuman presented her paper “Indian Music, Empire, and British Musical Modernism” at the 12th Biennial International Conference on Music Since 1900 this past June at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Her newest essay, “Shiva open his eye of wrath: East-West Juxtapositions in Kaikhosru Sorabji’s Opus Archimagicum,” accompanied the recent world premiere of Sorabji’s Piano Sonata no.5

Professor of Business Kate Karniouchina coauthored a study with Professor of Economics Lorien Rice, Professor of Economics Siobhan Reilly, Associate Professor of Business Carol Theokary, and Professor Steve Carson from the University of Utah called “Women and Minority Film Directors in Hollywood: Performance Implications of Product Development and Distribution Biases,” which appeared in the July issue of the Journal of Marketing Research .

The art of Professor of Ethnic Studies and English Ajuan Mance appeared at San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum as part of its Emerging Artist Showcase from April 30 to August 7. Mance also appeared in a Juneteenth story for Apple about the Black history she illuminates in her digital art.

Professor of French & Francophone Studies and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Brinda Mehta participated in an Andrew W. Mellon Workshop titled “Im/Mobilities: New Directions in the Humanities,” orga nized by the American Academy in Berlin from June 13 to 17. She presented her current research, “Refugeetude Aesthetics: Gender Negotiations and Cultural Production in Lebanon’s Burj al-Barajneh and Jordan’s Al-Zaatari Refugee Camps.” She also authored the article “Contesting Militarized Violence: Indigenous Women Poets from Northeast India,” which was published in Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism in 2021.

Professor of English Kirsten Saxton delivered a keynote at the Crones,

Crimes, and the Gothic conference this past June at Falmouth University in the UK, and she presented her paper “Why Things Burn, Girls on Fire” at the International Crime Fiction conference in Germany.

Associate Professor of Biology Jenn Smith and a group of worldwide colleagues contributed to a theme issue of the online journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B . Their article, “Sex Bias intergroup conflict and collective movements among social mammals: male warriors and female guides,” was one of multiple pieces on the theme of Intergroup Conflict across Taxa: Origins, Dynamics and Consequences. She also appeared on an episode of The Animal Behavior Podcast in May to discuss remote sensing social networks in California ground squirrels.

Assistant Adjunct Professor of Sociology and Research Justice at the Intersections Fellowship Program

Co-Director Jane Yamashiro was interviewed and quoted in the French magazine Tempura: un Magazine sur le Japon , in an article about the effects of personal and interpersonal development in Japanese society. Her current project looks at the related topic of Okinawan diasporic identity construction in the United States.

From left: Carlota Caulfield, Kristina L. Faul

The Gregarious Ghosts of Mills

Over the years that have passed since Mills Seminary moved to Oakland, the halls and classrooms across campus have seen tens of thousands of students come through. Some of them might still be sticking around, decades and even centuries after they arrived.

Tales of supernatural encounters have naturally been passed down from generation to generation at Mills, early enough that Mills Weekly began reporting on them in 1933! Ghost tours have become one of the most popular events at every Reunion, so we tagged along on one at Reunion 2021 and reviewed footage from others to compile the list below—though this certainly doesn’t cover all of the folklore out there. Our thanks to Sunshine Anderson

’20, Danica Marielle Ola ’21, and other students and alums for sharing their knowledge, and for their respectful approaches in telling these tales.

Content warning: The subject matter in the following stories might be upsetting. Please proceed with caution.

By Allison Rost  Illustrations by Jennyann Carthern Mills Hall/The Oval

Ethel Moore & Mary Morse Halls

Starting on the south side of campus, the twin resi dence halls atop Prospect Hill have racked up more than their fair share of ghost stories. Inside Ethel Moore, residents have reported seeing two sisters sitting on the couch downstairs worrying over their studies, and there have been sounds of piano play ing when no one’s sitting at the keyboard.

A tale that’s told in both halls is one of rooms that have been cordoned off after students living in them experienced troubles with their mental health. The two rooms apparently once housed residents who took their own lives—one over a breakup, and another who wanted to pursue a career in Hollywood but her parents disapproved. Reports are that the energy in the rooms just never righted itself.

And the service road behind Mary Morse was once the site of an accident involving a horse and buggy. Multiple Millsies have spotted a woman in period dress coming out of the forest at night in the vicin ity, or on the residence hall’s stairs. Other have reported seeing the actual accident play itself out again.

The oldest building on campus is a natural hotspot for activity from the great beyond. These days, staff members working in its halls late into the evening might hear thumps and the sounds of furniture being moved around, and new employees staying in the apartments on the fourth floor have heard knocks on the door only to find no one there. Rumor has it that, many years ago, a student living in Mills Hall when it still served as campus housing jumped to her death from the fourth floor after her parents had promised her in marriage against her wishes. Some say you can still see her initials carved by her diamond ring into a windowpane up there.

Susan Mills, one of the earliest denizens of Mills Hall, was a dog lover, and she report edly buried the succession of her small pooches under the Oval. These days, when dogs come to campus and frolic on the Oval, they’ve been known to behave as though they’re playing with their peers even if they’re the only canines present—leading to speculation that Susan’s dogs are hanging around in spirit.

In the nearby vicinity, toward Aliso Creek and the bridge that now connects the Oval to Lucie Stern, stu dents have heard a young voice crying out for help. Lore has it that it’s the voice of the child of a professor who was carried away by rushing creek water one spring decades and decades ago.

Lisser Hall

Many a drama student has heard footsteps in the 121-yearold building. The source of those footsteps is under dispute: Some say they belong to Susan Mills, whose funeral was held in Lisser Hall in 1912. Louis Lisser himself is alleged to be the other possibility—apparently he was displeased when Susan opted to take Mills down the liberal arts path rather than the arts conservatory option he preferred.

Warren Olney & Orchard Meadow Halls

The range of oddities at the joined residence halls by the President’s Meadow is impressive: Students have felt cold spots while walking the hallways. The light in the secondfloor bathroom of Warren Olney turns on by itself, and candles have been known to light themselves in Orchard Meadow. The figure of a woman is occasionally spotted on the stairs at Orchard Meadow, and rumor has it she’s wait ing for a date who never came.

Residents have heard the voice of a little girl saying their name while in the laundry room at Warren Olney, then seen her follow them into the elevator—some say it’s the presence of one of Olney’s three daughters, who died young of pneu monia. She supposedly stays close to the dorm due to her love for her father.

The first floor of Warren Olney also plays host to several rooms that, back in the day, served as “date rooms” where students could entertain their gentleman callers. In modern times, residents use those rooms to study, and they have noticed the doors opening and closing of their own free will. And in the library in Orchard Meadow, legend has it that if you fall asleep while doing your homework, you will wake up to find that a friendly Mills spirit has completed the assignment for you. 

Mills has always been a refuge for artists bucking the conventional path. The stellar undergraduate arts courses, acclaimed experimental MFA degrees, and unique Book Art master’s program welcomed thousands of students over the years into a lineage of radical art making. Amber McCrary, Virginia Mudd, and Mira Mason-Reader are all alumnae who have continued this legacy beyond Mills—not only as artists, but as creators of publishing presses that counter the trends of a notoriously elitist, racist, and male-dominated industry. In contrast, these alumnae are publishing marginalized voices and perspectives, taking stands on issues that matter, and challenging capitalist models of success to celebrate the joy and pleasure of creative expression.

“I

thought the artists were the cool kids,” says Amber McCrary, MFA ’20, on growing up in Flagstaff, Arizona, as a Diné (Navajo) woman. After graduating from college, McCrary’s passion for punk rock and rebelliousness toward corporate culture inspired her to start creating zines. Featuring poetry and collaged art, her zines were gorgeously handmade, evocative explorations of themes that mattered to her, such as the muse of the desert and sensuality of the Arizona landscape, buried Native his tories, the uprising of Indigenous feminisms, and her own musings as a “daydreaming, awkward Native girl.” Sharing these zines initiated McCrary into a larger community of young Native writers and gave her the cour age to seek out the Mills MFA program to fur ther hone her craft as a poet.

At Mills, McCrary says she was excited to join a welcoming cohort of writers where everyone had their own voices. Whereas many MFA programs can be notoriously com petitive, McCrary says she felt supported and inspired by her Mills professors, particularly Truong Tran and Stephanie Young, and she loved the collaborative nature of the program. “I want my Mills cohort to win all the awards. I want them to thrive as much as possible,” McCrary proudly declares. In her final semester, her appreciation of zines inspired her to enroll in a bookmaking class on protest and resistance with Professor Emerita of Book Art Kathleen Walkup, where she learned about the beauty of



from alum-powered presses.

from far left:

print of the poem Desiderata by Max Ehrmann from Desert Rose Press; the most recent issue of Apricity Press; Hummingbird Heart, a zine by Kinsale Drake and Alice Mao from Abalone Mountain Press.

book arts. Witnessing the entire process of bookmaking—from writing and editing to design—planted the seeds that would ultimately lead McCrary on her publishing journey.

After graduating from Mills and teaching workshops at the Emerging Diné Writers Institute in New Mexico, she began to wonder what it would be like to start a press just for Native writers. “I had never met other Navajo writ ers,” she says, “and I was shocked by how many great Native writers and mentors of all ages there were.” In January 2021, with the encouragement of her writing mentors, she launched Abalone Mountain Press, “a place for Indigenous writers to dismantle the canon.” Abalone Mountain Press is an indigiqueer, trans, nonbinary, Black Indigenous, and Indigenous feminist-friendly press. The mean ing behind the name comes from the Diné for the so-called San Francisco peaks in Flagstaff, Arizona, where Abalone Shell Mountain is considered one of the four sacred mountains for Diné people. As editor-in-chief, McCrary says that she refuses to choose work that elevates the white gaze, perpetuates cringey Native stereotypes, or focuses only on the negatives of Native life. “I’m excited to think about Indigenous love, Indigenous joy, and the Native urban experience,” she says. “Most of all, I want to publish as many different kinds of things as possible by Native voices.” Abalone’s first publica tion was Portals of Indigenous Futurism: A Zine Anthology of Indigenous Futurism . The press has since published Navajo col oring books, collaborative zines, an anthology on Indigenous love and sex, and a full-length poetry collection about trick sters by a two-Spirit Lakota author.

Though Abalone Mountain Press is still in its early days, McCrary has gotten a glowing reception in the local community

DEIDRA

and broader publishing world. She was chosen as one of the Great 48 in PHOENIX magazine in 2021 and awarded the Rising Star Award by Arizona Humanities in 2022. Meanwhile, her first chapbook, Electric Deserts! , was published by Tolsum Press in 2020, and she is anticipating a fellowship with the Native Arts and Culture Foundation in 2023 to con duct research for a prose project while working to finish her first book of poetry. Not to fear: McCrary is still making zines. “The book industry is all about polish, but zines aren’t perfect,” she muses, “and that’s why I love them.”

As a young artist, Mira Mason-Reader ’15 wondered whether college was the right path for her. But the day she vis ited Mills, she quickly fell in love with the nature of the arts program: “Mills was all about forming you as a cohesive, opin ionated person, while giving you space to be weird and bizarre. I was like, ‘Yes, that’s what I want,’” she says. As an undergraduate, Mason-Reader gravitated towards cre ative writing and dance, and she says she loved most of all how professors and students encouraged each other to take risks. “We learned that just because writing has been done this way doesn’t mean it has to be. Everything I learned at Mills came from that mindset,” she says. While at Mills, Mason-Reader volunteered with The Walrus and honed her craft for edito rial work and aesthetics by publishing a chapbook as her final thesis project. She was especially influenced by a poetry class with Steven Ratcliffe, who shared how he had started a printed chapbook press with his classmates decades before. “It planted a seed, and I began to think, ‘Hey, maybe I could do that,’” she adds. The idea returned the summer after Mason-Reader graduated. She realized how much she missed being among fellow creatives and asked herself: “How can I keep this going?”

Mason-Reader began to scheme out the creation of a new online journal called Apricity Press, taking its title from an antiquated word meaning “the warmth of the sun in winter.” She says she felt excited to blend every thing she learned from col lege, and that Mills gave her the permission to take

this kind of risk: “What was the worst thing that could happen? What could be wrong with try ing?”

Now in its seventh year, Apricity Press is a home to art, literature, and dance from all over the world. The inclusion of dance is particularly unique among literary journals. When asked why it felt important, Mason-Reader says: “Dance is so fleeting. If it’s not recorded, it’s just gone. I wanted it to be able to keep on living through the page.” Apricity is cost-free and international, and it seeks to be accessible to anyone in the world at any time. Though Apricity uses an open submission process, Mason-Reader has been delighted to feature writers from her cohort—and she shared that all six editors for the press have ties to Mills. No matter the genre, Mason-Reader says that she looks for art that “feels sure of itself, whether it’s literal or abstract. Everything we publish has its own presence.” Apricity is part of the EBSCO Humanities Collection, nominates writers for the Pushcart Prize, and hopes to move towards becoming a paying market in the coming years.

Currently, Mason-Reader lives in Eugene, Oregon, where she pursues her editorial work for Apricity as a labor of love along side her full-time job at an environmental nonprofit. “So much of art is viewed as a commodity, but Mills approached art as a way of being,” Mason-Reader reflects. “That’s what I want for Apricity, for it be a place of experiencing art together. I hope that Apricity can continue to create that space that Mills did for me—art for art’s sake.”

By the time Virginia Mudd ’87 enrolled at Mills, she had already lived a full life. She had worked for a congressional office, run a restaurant in the earli est days of farm-to-table, biked 3,000 miles across the country, and published a memoir about the ride. It was this last experi ence that inspired her to choose the Book Art program at Mills. “Learning about publishing as a writer made me realize that I could set the type, bind the book, refine the contents, and design the whole process. It was quite a revelation,” she says.

Mudd began as a student at age 47, where she was part of a five-person cohort. She became captivated by the craft and handwork that went into the process, especially the intimate engagement with the material. She left with the determination

to start her own press: “I knew exactly what I was looking for at Mills, and it delivered,” Mudd says.

While a student, she was instructed by Walkup to read a Xeroxed copy of a book titled Printing Poetry by Clifford Burke. After graduating and apprenticing with Wesley Tanner, one of the premier letterpress printers, Mudd remembered that book from class and set out to find a hard copy. After much searching, Mudd managed to contact the author, who lived in Washington state and happened to be selling several of his typecases. They made plans to meet up for the sale, and after a whirlwind couple of days in San Francisco, they fell in love. “I had planned to go off into the desert and be like Georgia O’Keefe, a solitary artist with a rifle in my lap, but then Clifford interrupted all of my plans,” she jokes lovingly.

Mudd launched Desert Rose Press in 1989. Her first project was Earth Day cards, coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the holiday. Burke joined her in 1990 when they published limited editions of artist books, greeting cards, and broadsides using traditional letterpress and contemporary printing tech niques. “Our press sought to be in service to the greater good and the movement to keep the earth sacred, safe, and healthy,” she says. Among their publications were cards and images fea turing poetry from Rainier Maria Rilke, the Prajna Paramita Heart Sutra, the Indigenous Chief Seattle, and Saint Francis, all of which were handpainted, letterpressed, and ultimately digitized. All of Mudd and Burke’s editorial decisions were motivated by the communication arts, which Mudd defines as “the impulse to communicate what you love.”

Though the press was eventually sold to Mudd’s niece, all of the original materials—including Mudd’s two memoirs—are available online. At 73 years of age, Mudd continues to practice the communication arts from her home in New Mexico, pub lishing an active newsletter about the earth and activism. “Find out what brings you joy,” she implores. “Whatever it might be for you, how are you communicating it to people so they can share and be inspired?”

T

he modern-day publishing industry is known for its gatekeeping around race, gender, class, and normative narratives. Between 1950 and 2018, 95% of books published with top publishers were written by white authors, and in 2020, only 10% of The New York Times best-seller list was written by people of color. According to VIDA, which analyzes the number of women published by the most prestigious literary and journalistic publications, only three major outlets published a majority of women. Beyond the numbers, publications are regularly selected to appeal to the tastes of an imagined white, middle-class audience.

In such a landscape, pushing publishing forward looks like many things: uplifting marginalized voices, choosing stories that challenge normative narratives, blending disciplines, treating (and paying!) artists with dignity and equity, and cre ating gathering spaces for art to be experienced and celebrated collectively. Sometimes, pushing on publishing can also mean returning to its roots: to the tactile pleasure and thrill of creat ing with your own hands.

No matter the approach, it takes courage to create something new. To alums seeking to tread new ground, McCrary suggests starting with a small and scalable project: “Zines helped me work my way up.” Reflecting on the whole of her varied and abundant life, Mudd emphasizes the importance of following her heart: “I’ve often wondered if I should follow a more con ventional path, but I just couldn’t do it. Figure out what you love, and find a way to do it in service to the world.” Mason-Reader’s guidance for other cre atives is to remember that there’s no need to follow what we expect women or artists to be: “That doesn’t mean anything. The world is how we make it.”

“ I’ve often wondered if I should follow a more conventional path, but I just couldn’t do it. Figure out what you love, and find a way to do it in service to the world.” –Virginia Mudd

A

Heavy POUR

Two Black alums who work with wine open up about the pitfalls of working in such an elitist industry.

In late June, the Quarterly invited Melody Fuller ’82 and Aaliyah Nitoto ’99 to sit down for a conversation about their roles as Black women in wine—Fuller, as a longtime wine journalist, and Nitoto, as a more recent vintner. What ensued was a raw, candid conversation about racism in a very white world, including the Napa Valley and Mills, which is presented here in condensed form.

Mills Quarterly: How did you get started in the industry? How were you first attracted to working with wine?

Melody Fuller: I wasn’t necessarily attracted to the wine industry. Wine and Champagne were a part of our household; my mom would open a new store and we’d always celebrate with Champagne. My parents were social people, so wine was not stigmatized. I started going up to Sonoma County when I was here at Mills, because I wanted to get away on the weekends. I enjoyed wine and met some winemakers in Sonoma, and my love for the industry took off from there.

The larger jump [into the industry] came during my graduate studies. I would visit wineries and often be the only one who looked like me in those spaces. Sonoma County was fine, the rest of the world was fine, but the Napa Valley was a whole different situation. So, at the time (in the late 1980s), I decided: I’m going to conquer Napa and all its uglies. Over the decades, I did some conquer ing, but many remain.

Aaliyah Nitoto : I was a weird child. I saw adults drinking wine, and that interested me because of course I wasn’t allowed to drink. I was like, “Well, I want to par ticipate, but I can’t have any—I’ll make some!” I used grapes, tabasco sauce, and water, and nobody would drink it, so that didn’t go over very well. What made it so popular and forbidden? It was just something that fascinated me—but drinking alcohol when I was younger never drew me as much as the idea of how to make it.

At Mills, the Career Center had intern ship opportunities at wineries. I was a biology major, and I remembered being interested in learning to make wine, but I didn’t get any of those internships in Napa. It didn’t seem like there was any room for me to get in back then. So, I went into herbalism. While studying that, I discovered a tradition—by women—of making wine out of plant material in the yard/garden: flowers, non-traditional fruits, herbs, things like that. I’m primar ily self-taught. Over the years, I made my first batches of lavender wine in my home, over and over again in a little pot in the closet. Then, I got mentors in the

Melody Fuller ’82 founded the Oakland Wine Festival seven years ago, which has grown in size and international acclaim. In addition, she created The Exceptional Vine, a mentoring program for aspiring young winemakers. She is a renowned wine writer who travels the world for research and to build relationships with vintners. Fuller also serves as the food and wine editor of Alameda County Renew Magazine, and she’s appeared on television and in articles to talk about her life as an oenophile. Fuller, a twice invited attendee to the Wine Writers’ Symposium in Napa, was named director of fellowships and admissions for The Symposium for Professional Wine Writers at Meadowood Napa Valley. She holds a master’s in public administration from USC and a master’s in creative writing from the University of Southern Maine.

wine industry: I met Michael Dashe of Dashe Cellars, and he’d heard of people who make wine from non-traditional ingredients. He gave me his contact infor mation, and that’s how things solidified.

Fuller: Did you have any wine experi ence at Mills or memories of drinking in the dorms? I was a sociology major, and in the afternoons, we enjoyed wine, cheese, and crackers with our professors during our junior and senior sessions.

Nitoto : I didn’t have any drinking experience until after graduation, when I went to Japan to live and work as a lan guage teacher. I was actually an introvert [at Mills], and I wasn’t very explorative with certain things at that point.

Fuller: How do you think Mills shaped you for this day?

Nitoto : It was really hard to be a Black person at Mills. It’s a crucible, and it’ll grind you down, and if you come out the

other end with a sense of who you are intact, after all that heat of forging you, what’s left is a little diamond.

Over the years, I’d developed my for mulations, and I brought them to winer ies. When I asked for help in making my wine, most of the time it was a flat no for anything from weird ingredients to “I don’t want a woman’s stuff in my space.”

At one point, someone actually said, “I’ve had a woman making wine in here before, and I’m not sure I want to do that again.”

I also had to deal with sexual innuendos with some makers to get my wine made, quid pro quo. It was easier to keep my boundaries because of Mills and because I had my partner Sam standing there with me—but it was gross. I don’t like talking about those things so much; not because I don’t think they should be talked about, but because I’ve been making wine for a little while. The things I need to say to

Aaliyah Nitoto ’99

is the owner and founder of Free Range Flower Winery, which produces wines made from organically grown flowers using ancient (and women-centered) techniques.

Entering its fifth year, Free Range is garnering more and more attention across the wine world, with recent features in publications such as the San Francisco Chronicle. Free Range started in Oakland and now hosts a tasting room in Livermore, with four main varietals: lavender, rose hibiscus, rose petal, and marigold. Her website is freerangeflowerwinery.com

women, or anybody trying to do some thing wacky and out there in the world, is that the positive [matters]. Not “you can do it if you believe in yourself!” but “I went through a lot of struggle, and I’ve had a lot of setbacks. But I got back up and dusted myself off.”

I had a custom crush agreement with this one winery—it was the guy who wasn’t sure about hosting a woman again—and one condescending thing he said to me was that he wanted to make sure that I was serious about doing this. He wanted to make sure I had my LLC, the more expensive licensure, and my equipment ready before I moved into the winery. At that time, my partner and I only had $10K together, so we spent $800 for the LLC and various amounts of money for all this equipment, but three days before we were supposed to move in, he pulled out of the deal.

Fuller: A lot of men who make wine

don’t have to go through all that, but you’re a Mills woman, you’re here, and you can move forward.

Nitoto: Yeah, I am—but those were the horror stories. I cried for a bit, but then I jumped into my car with a bottle of wine I made in my kitchen, and I drove to the Oak Barrel Winecraft and a few other places that supplied wineries. And I said, “I make good wine, and I need somebody to help me make it.” That’s what I did—and that’s what Mills did for me! I got knocked down a lot, really seriously, and what do you do? You pick yourself up. I finally found a shipping container in West Oakland that [Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau] and [California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control] approved, and I started making wine there on my own, which is the way it should have always been. And that’s how I started—we started with $20,000 of personal money from me and my partner, and that’s it.

Fuller: About eight or nine years ago, I decided I was going to put together the inaugural Oakland Wine Festival. My idea to bring the best winemakers in the Napa Valley to Oakland stemmed from the rampant racism and bigotry in the fine wine industry. We held it here! It was huge, fully seated, and in this room [the RAH living room], the illustrious Michael Silacci, the winemaker for Opus One, held court for our invited patrons. We took every detail of our educational tastings, seminars, workshops, break fasts, lunches and dinners, to the high est levels, because I did not want people to say, “Oh, Black people, all they know to do is walk-about [wine festivals].” I don’t do walk-abouts, and those are fine for other people, but that’s not what the festival was about. We were about build ing relationships, and we did that over our years.

When we held our events (though

only the first was held at Mills), I told some people who did not appreciate the top-shelf event we built: “This is not the event for you.” Not every wine event is for everybody. Now, that came from my mother, not Mills. Over time, some people learned to respect what we did and how we did it. Over those five years, we probably brought many of the more than 500 wineries/winemakers from the Napa Valley to Oakland. Over the years, we hosted celebrated winemakers from Italy and France. We brought wonderful women and men winemakers from South Africa to the Oakland Wine Festival, too.

Aaliyah, do you do tastings in your space? How can people taste your wine?

Nitoto: Up until late last year, we didn’t have one. My facility was in West Oakland, and we did tastings at events and wherever we could—private or indus try events. Now, we have grown so much that we have a great space and tasting room in Livermore! Right now, with everyone seeing a dip in their sales, wine clubs are really key to survival as well.

Quarterly : How have the pandemic and supply chain issues been affecting your business, or are things OK?

Nitoto: Well, it’s the same as everybody: It’s hard. Glass, especially clear glass, is difficult to come by. The last time around, I bought extras—we usually keep on hand just what we’re going to use because space is a premium. The last time I tried to get bottles, they said, “It’s going to be four to six months out.” Which was not good—especially because our business is so young, and we needed capital. The great thing is that there’s a couple of win eries in the same row as mine, and they’ve asked, “Can we buy some bottles from you?” And I let them, but they’re ordering the bottles—we’re helping each other.

Fuller: Do you do splits (half bottles)?

Nitoto: Yes. The sparkling lavender was my first wine, and because it’s so different than anything you’ve ever tasted, I didn’t

want to sell it in full bottles, because I wanted people to feel comfortable about buying and finishing what they get. I also call it a “me-time” bottle because people will buy it and have it for themselves—or they can share with a friend. That’s been so popular that I’ve put my newest wine in splits: a sparkling wine, red clover. When you open it, it has the scent of cin namon and fresh stone fruit.

Fuller: What was your class color at Mills?

Nitoto : Purple!

Fuller: Shoot! I was about to say, “Bring the red clover to Reunion!” My class color is green.

Quarterly : You’ve brought wines here to Reunions before.

Nitoto : Yes! It was a lot of fun. It was for graduation and Reunion.

I certainly have a love-hate thing with Mills—it took me a long time to even come back after leaving. I was like, “I’m done!” One day, if Mills is able to come to some kind of healthy relationship with all communities on its campus, then it’s going to be so special.

Quarterly : How long have you been in the industry, Aaliyah?

Nitoto : I’m going into my fifth year!

Quarterly : I’m curious how the industry has evolved since the year you started—four to five years versus several decades for Melody.

Fuller: I write about this often. I prefer to write about what’s in the bottle—how ever, being a Black woman in a white space, I don’t always get invited to do that. Honestly, in the fine wine industry, there has not been much racial evolu tion over the decades.

I like to talk about what’s inside the bottles because there are very few Black wine writers or columnists, and there are no Black wine magazine or newspaper editors. We don’t own any of the big four wine magazines, nor are Black writers listed on mastheads unless they’re guest contributors. Most Black people writing wine columns are guests. Wine books?

Name the first Black person you know who has published a wine book. This is a national tragedy. We have to do the work behind the scenes to get significant and

lasting change. Until we own shit, we’re really not about shit, and the white people are like, “Uh huh, I’ll help you do this lit tle bit this one time, because you’ll never be where I am in the wine industry.”

All of wine writing and publishing has to change. Maybe the consumers (and col lege alumni wine clubs) will demand this.

Nitoto: In 2020, our winery was strug gling along in our little shipping container in West Oakland. When George Floyd was murdered, all of a sudden, everything blew up for me. People were going to my website, my Facebook, my Instagram, get ting on our mailing list, asking questions, joining our wine club. It was so amazing to finally get recognition, but “bittersweet” is not even close to how it felt.

Fuller: Back then, I said, “If you decide to make a deal with the devil—using Mr. George Floyd Jr.’s blood money—to advance yourself in any way, that’s on you. Doing so is not sustainable, and it’s also not a good business model. What you’re doing is giving white, corporate America a pacifier.” I didn’t want any piece of that. Where’s the morality on both ends of that transaction?

I get it, but two summers later, where are we? Businesses—especially African Americans in the business—are hurt ing. Not everyone in the wine world is hurting: That first year, 2020-21, profits and wine consumption were up 300% overall. Black wineries that shared infor mation experienced a bump before the bottom fell out. This Black Lives Matter guilt-spending was not sustainable. Guilt money does not go to the bank year after year. Emotions don’t keep the doors of any Black business open.

Nitoto : Going up against the system, who’s going to suffer?

Fuller: You ! I mentor five young ladies in the industry. They’re all doing differ ent things, they’re all in different places in their journeys, and they’re winning. When each woman makes decisions, she’s growing. I tell my mentees, you have to run everything through your core visions, values, and morals, and you have to ask, “What is your legacy going to be?” This is how you stay in business and how you teach people how to respect you as a professional businesswoman.

Opposite page, photos of Nitoto by (from left to right) Brendan Mainini, Natalie Palms, and Sam Prestianni. Wine bottle photo by Ben Kist.

& NOTES

A Message from the AAMC President

I’m privileged to compose my first Quarterly message to the alumnae community. I look forward to working with the AAMC Board of Governors to continue to connect, support, and serve Mills College alumnae and students.

I can’t tell you what a thrill it still is to witness the beauty of our bucolic campus. The towering eucalyptus trees, the tran quil Aliso Creek winding its way past historic Mills Hall, and the classic Spanish-inspired buildings were sights that awed me on my first visit, and they still do today. I thank my lucky stars that this is my college—the one that defined, enriched and guided my path into adulthood. Mills has been a major part of my life, from student government days to serving on the AAMC Board of Governors for three years prior to my current position. I am honored to connect with you now.

The name of our college has changed and the future is unfolding daily with more questions than answers, but I am grateful—as I hope you are as well—that our campus is still here; that it is still a vibrant community with engaged stu dents, a committed faculty and staff, and most of all, loyal and active alumnae who relish our shared history as we gather for Reunions and keep in touch through this publication, through social media, and through our long-standing friendships.

I don’t mean to gloss over the past challenging months, as we faced the pending closure of the College, then the proposed merger, and now the reality of Mills College at Northeastern. It was a period of deep division, with some alumnae in denial, some in despair, others ready to fight, and those who welcomed the solvency that Northeastern would bring. Through it all, the AAMC tried to listen to and serve our membership, to speak to and unify factions when possible, and above all, continue our work and look forward to the future of our organization.

When speaking with fellow alumnae of all ages, the pro found gratitude for the education we received here resonates with all. Testimonials for the paths that opened up, which many of us never saw before our time at Mills, to the feelings of acceptance and opportunity that abounded here, and for the awareness of a larger world view that Mills fostered—these are a just a few of the treasures that have been shared. Going for ward, I hope these memories will continue to carry us through for many years as we strive to keep ourselves and the AAMC relevant in today’s world and with the College’s new direction.

The AAMC Board of Governors is making strides to do just that. We have a wide range of professions, regions, and years represented on the board—attorneys, entrepreneurs, public servants, business executives, marketing strategists, and more who have held three board meetings by press time. An ad hoc committee from the Governance Committee is reviewing the bylaws and articles of incorporation with the assistance of a

professional legal team. The Communications Committee is working on website improvements and short- and long-range goals with as much input as possible from alumnae to assess the tenor of our membership. The ASR Committee is host ing social and supportive events for students. The Branch Committee is reaching out to clubs to strengthen networking and connections. The AOCC is celebrating a landmark anniver sary as it continues to plan innovative programs and adds to its impressive scholarship fund of more than $250,000. Two new committees, the LGBTQ Committee and Latina Alliance, were formed in spring 2022.

An interim executive director, Pam Herman, was hired in June for six months to strengthen the AAMC infrastructure, facilitate board improvements, and take advantage of new and innovative operational services. Pam comes with an exten sive management history of working in the nonprofit sector, and she herself is an officer in her own alma mater’s alumni organization. Under her leadership, we are learning and work ing together for the betterment of the AAMC. I look forward to sharing updates of our progress in upcoming issues of the Quarterly

In conclusion, the AAMC thanks you for your continued support of our efforts to relish our history; to promote the Mills values of equity, opportunity, and access for our students; and above all, to share ideas and suggestions as we go forward building and enhancing the role of the AAMC at Mills College at Northeastern.

With appreciation and many thanks, Debby Campbell Dittman ’68, AAMC President president@aamc-mills.org

The AAMC’s New Direction

The Board of Governors, along with AAMC staff and interim executive director, is hard at work crafting a new path for the AAMC. Since Mills College is now Mills at Northeastern, we are continuing to build out our own infrastructure, craft a new mission reflective of alumnae input, and plan activities and projects that will carry on the legacy of Mills College. We appreciate all alumnae who have partici pated in our planning surveys, summits, and focus groups, and we look forward to working alongside our community to keep the AAMC strong and proud for years to come.

Board of Governors

Debby Campbell Dittman ’68, President

Pam Roper ’92, Vice President

Kathy Roskos ’80, Vice President

Christina Hannan ’91, Treasurer

Melissa Berkay ’18, MBA ’19

Rachel Cefalu ’14, MPP ’15

Debra Connick ’85

Angela Adams DeMoss, MA ’99

Linda Goodrich ’82

Alice Hewitt ’15

Judy Greenwood Jones ’60

Catherine Ladnier

Mitra Lohrasb Michnik

Kieran Turan

Karilee Wirthlin

Ariadne Wolf, MFA

Cherlene Sprague Wright

Help us build our database

You can now add your information to our independent database at aamc-mills.edu/update-contact-info. This information will be used to best serve you, and it will not be shared with Mills at Northeastern. You will have a chance to join our mailing list, and you may review our privacy policy at any time at aamc-mills.org/privacy-policy

‹

The AAMC hosted a table during the student resource fair on September 1 across from Holmgren Meadow. Alumnae educated students and parents about the origins and of Mills College—its beginnings as a groundbreaking space to educate women, its worldchanging alumnae, and its legacy as a haven for underserved communities. Striker Joyce Fung Yee ’90 brought her very own Strike scrapbook, and collection of Strike media coverage, and she shared fresh-baked cookies made from a 1940s Mills recipe.

Quarterly.

Alumnae are invited to share their news with classmates in the Mills College alumnae community. To submit notes for publication in the next available Quarterly, send your update to classnotes@mills. edu.

Notices of deaths received before July 8

To submit listings, please contact alumnae-relations@mills.edu or 510.430.2123

Frances Lacey Hoffman ’40 , January 26, 2018, in Fullerton, California. After Mills, she graduated with a degree in business from UC Berkeley. She is survived by a son.

Reba Sinclair Trask ’40 , December 17, 2021, in Placerville, California. She later graduated from the University of the Pacific. After a brief teaching stint, Reba went into radio in San Francisco before moving to Hawaii. There, she met her late husband Richard, and their family followed his naval career around the United States. After his death, Reba got involved with the Placerville Shakespeare Club among other organizations, and she loved traveling domestically and abroad. She is survived by three daughters, five grandchildren, three great-grand daughters, and cousin Vance Gibb Randolph ’51.

Mary Gruber Basham ’41 , January 4, 2016, in Boulder Creek, California. She was a longtime English teacher, and her husband, Marion, predeceased her.

Nancy Heinz Russell ’42 , November 6, 2020, in Newport Beach, California. She was a vibrant personality who was also known as Honey. Nancy was born in Pittsburgh as the granddaughter of H.J. Heinz, who founded the Heinz Company, and she was a devoted philanthropist with two foundations dedicated to children. After stints in Beverly Hills, Palm Desert, and Lake Tahoe, she returned to live in her favorite childhood vacation spot of Balboa Island. There, she was a record-holding freestyle swimmer. She is survived by two daughters, four grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

Mary Lane Koontz ’42 , April 27, in Henderson, Minnesota. She majored in music at Mills. She is survived by four children and a niece, Mary Lane Gallagher ’92.

Helen Barbour Poindexter ’46 , May 1, in Pomona, California. At Mills, she majored in psychology, and she spent time volunteering at the Oak Tree Lodge retirement community in Pomona as a docent and storyteller. Helen’s sister, Sylvia Barbour Vrabec ’49, predeceased her, and she is survived by three children.

Gifts in

Sam

Nancy

Amy

Ruth Goldberg ’46 , February 2021, in Los Angeles. She worked as a property manager for the Highlands Owners Association.

Eleanor Leach Merritt ’46, March 16, 2020, in Sonoma. She majored in history at Mills and later earned a teaching credential in special education at Cal. After living in Maryland and Virginia, Eleanor and her late husband, John, returned to the North Bay. She is survived by four children.

Anne Davidson McNitt ’47, May 5, in Thiensville, Wisconsin. Her birthday, September 1, was a fun family holiday throughout her life. After Mills, Anne graduated from Northwestern, later moving to the Milwaukee suburbs. There, she and her ex-husband raised three daughters and she co-founded the Frank L. Weyenberg Library. Anne loved British humor—John Cleese and Fawlty Towers in particular. She is survived by three daughters, a granddaughter, and a great-granddaughter.

Carol Noble Smiley ’47, June 28, in Gustine, California. One year after graduating from Mills, she earned a master’s degree in music history and literature from Wellesley. She is survived by a son.

Doris “Dorie” Riese McFarland ’47, MSC ’48 , August 10, 2018, in Salinas, California. She earned her degree and credential in music education, and she also won an award in musical composition at Mills. Dorie taught piano and worked as a substitute teacher in her late husband’s eponymous hometown of McFarland, California, while raising her family. After the couple moved to the Monterey area, Dorie continued participating in community choral groups, and she loved getting out into nature. She is survived by five children, 10 grandchil dren, and 15 great-grandchildren.

Susan Blumeyer Braxton ’48 , November 19, 2017, in St. Louis. She outlived three husbands. Susan worked in real estate, and she was a founding member of the Fleur de Lis Ball cotillion in St. Louis. Susan also loved to golf, play bridge, and travel, and her family calls her one-of-a-kind with a hearty laugh and impeccable sense of style. She is survived by five children, three stepchildren, five grandchildren, and two siblings.

Bonnie Grosser Rogers ’48, May 15, 2020, in La Crosse, Wisconsin. She was a voice major at Mills and sang throughout the years in church, at weddings, and on special occasions. Bonnie taught elementary school, and later fulfilled a dream when her family moved to a farm in remote southwestern Wisconsin. Her family remembers her endless encouragement and strong belief that society can only thrive when differences are celebrated. She is survived by four children, six grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, and a sister.

Shirley Peavey Walkoe ’48 , July 3, 2022, in San Diego. At Mills, she studied biology, then went to work as a veterinarian’s assistant at the San Diego Zoo. After marriage, Shirley and late husband Albert moved around the United States for his naval career, but later returned to her hometown of San Diego where Albert opened a law practice. Shirley volunteered at the Museum of Us and Peninsula Shepherd Senior Center, and she loved to travel. She is survived by four children, a granddaughter, and a step-granddaughter.

Marilyn Wilson Newland ’48 , April 13, 2022, in Bellevue, Washington. She continued on to the University of Washington where she earned a BA in music education. Marilyn married her late husband Jake in 1948 and raised her family in Richland and later in Bellevue, Washington. She devoted her life to music by teaching piano, conducting church choirs, and playing organ for church services. She is survived by two children, including Alison Newland ’75; four grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

Cynthia Craft Holland ’49 , May 8, in Houston. Post graduation, she studied at the Sorbonne and gained fluency in French. A passion for learning followed her throughout her life, especially for Indigenous communities in North America, and she traveled around the world. Cynthia brushed elbows with well-known personalities—she drove in a carpool with Barbara Bush—and she was a devoted friend and volunteer, even wanting to pitch in at the hospital during the pandemic. She is survived by a brother, six children, 11 grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

Elizabeth “Betsy” Cross Vincent ’49 , May 11, 2020, in Oceanside, California. After Mills, she graduated from Sacramento State with a degree in government and history, and later earned a certificate in elementary education. Among other positions, Betsy worked as a social worker in Orange County. She is survived by four daughters.

Margaret “Peggy” Ross Roberts ’49 , April 24, in Amherst, Massachusetts. She received a master’s degree in botany, going on to conduct research and teach at universities in the Amherst area. While Peggy was a California native, she took to life in Massachusetts, spending 48 years on Amherst’s Redevelopment Authority and working with the League of Women Donors for 66. One of the many things she taught her family was her love of nature. She is survived by two children and four grandchildren.

Jeannee Vahlberg Adams ’49 , October 9, 2020, in Oklahoma City. After Mills, she graduated with a degree in education from the University of Oklahoma, later earning a master’s in education from Central State University. Jeannee’s career with Oklahoma City Public Schools spanned from teacher to curriculum consultant to principal. She is survived by a sister, two sons, and her stepchildren.

Nancie Stevens McGraw ’51 , June 5, in Portland, Oregon. She spent time in her beloved Paris after two years at Mills, later working for the United States government before marriage. In her hometown of Portland, Nancie concentrated her volunteer efforts on conservation, including Friends of the Columbia Gorge and the North Coast Land Conservancy, and she served on the board of Planned Parenthood. Her family fondly recalls her deep affection for chocolate. She is survived by five children and nine grandchildren.

Patricia Stockton Leddy ’51, MFA ’93 , May 17, in Bakersfield. She studied dance at Mills with Martha Graham, later following the legend to Connecticut College and New York City. Patricia was entrenched in the arts; in addition to teaching dance, she earned degrees in filmmaking from Brooks Institute and creative studies at UC Santa Barbara before returning to Mills for her MFA in creative writing. In recent years, Patricia and her Richard Neutra-designed home in Bakersfield appeared in The New Yorker. She is survived by her partner, James T. Aeby; a brother; two children; three grandchildren; and a great-grandson.

Betty Young Erickson, MA ’53 , January 26, 2021, in Woodbridge, Virginia. She earned her MA in child development at Mills after graduating with a degree in education from the University of the Pacific, and after working as a reading specialist in Prince William County Schools, she became a children’s author. Betty had a big family and was known for her “brag wall,” a row of framed photos of each child’s family circling her bedroom walls like crown molding. She is survived by seven children and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Enid McCready Reeves ’56 , March 15, in Napa. At Mills, she was a double-major in Spanish and government. Enid traveled around the world, especially India and throughout the Middle East, and she spent time helping in the tasting room and in the gardens at Sierra Vista, her brother and sister-in-law’s winery in Placerville. She found herself at home outdoors, tending to her farm or riding horses. She is survived by her husband, Douglas; two nieces; and three great-nephews.

Kristen Allison Avansino ’67, MA ’69

Philanthropist and Mills volunteer Kristen Allison Avansino ’67, MA ’69, died on May 15 after being struck by a car in San Francisco several days prior. She is survived by her husband, Skip; two daughters; and five grandchildren.

Her two Mills degrees were in dance, and that’s what she pursued: At the time of her death, she was still teaching classes as professor emerita of dance at the University of Nevada, Reno. Kristen joined the faculty there in 1971, and not long after she began, she revamped the dance curriculum. She earned doctor ates in education from Thomas Jefferson University in 1999 and in humane letters from the University of Nevada in 2016.

In addition, she was a fervent supporter of the Reno community. Kristen was the longtime president and executive director of the E.L. Wiegand Foundation and executive director of the Edwin L. Wiegand Trust, and under her leadership, projects such as learning centers for children and science wings in local high schools received funding. She also served as the Nevada representative on the President’s Advisory Committee on the Arts for the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, from 2003 to 2008.

In a statement to the Reno Gazette Journal, her family said: “We will always remember her bright smile, sparkling eyes, endless creativity, and her infectious enthusiasm. She was a magnetic, stylish woman who spread positivity with every interaction, and we will lead the rest of our lives in her example and walk proudly in her path.”

Mary Gannon Hutson ’58 , April 15, in Bakersfield. She transferred to Mills from Cal, later marrying her high school sweetheart as he was serving in the military. The family returned home to Bakersfield, where Mary opened a nursery school and a family counseling practice alongside her mother. WarmLine, a helpline for new mothers set up by the duo, still thrives today. Mary was also a Francophile who loved to meet up with other French speakers for tea. She is survived by two sons and five grandchildren.

Carolyn Hawley, MA ’58 , May 29, in Ukiah. She was a musical tour de force who had a huge impact on the Ukiah performing arts community. As the founder and conductor of Ukiah Symphony Orchestra, Carolyn wrote more than 100 original compositions, including two major works for orchestra and chorus, but she was also known for her painting, poetry, and ballroom dancing. In addition, Carolyn created the music department at Laney College. She is survived by her children and the many students she taught over the years.

Marjolaine Law-Yone Tin-Nyo, MA ’59 , May 13, in Portland, Oregon. Her father was a government official in Burma who was exiled to the United States after Marjolaine graduated from Mills. Marjolaine was a lecturer in English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Maryland, and she authored a book titled American Dreams , which was released in 2009. She is survived by her children.

Eda Osgoode Mills ’59 , February 12, in Berthoud, Colorado. She majored in English at Mills and enjoyed a life filled with literature and writing. Eda translated that love into teaching, as well as coaching in forensics. After time in Kansas City, the family moved back to the Denver area, where Eda helped to organize the yearly Women’s College for a Day event. She loved playing golf, fly-fishing, and tending to her pets, and she served as a docent at the Denver Zoo for decades. She is survived by her husband, Jay; three sons; and her grandchildren.

Desiree Farrington de Angelise ’60 , May 28, in Janesville, Wisconsin. No matter her job, she loved to write poetry and philosophical essays, with several pieces getting published. Desiree also enjoyed dancing. She is survived by two children and her ex-husband.

Josette Smith de la Harpe ’60 , March 1, 2022, in Santa Fe. She studied art history at Mills and worked as an artist in New Mexico. Josette was also known around Santa Fe for her vibrant home garden. She is survived by two children.

Anne Collins ’61 , April 24, 2022, in Hanover, New Hampshire. After Mills, she worked for the US State Department, an experience that inspired her to enroll in medical school at Columbia. Anne then took her talents around the world, treating patients in Sri Lanka, Brazil, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Guatemala, and she studied leprosy in the Indigenous population of Western Australia. After contracting a near-fatal stomach condition that affected her mobility, she learned to fly small planes and para-ski. She is survived by two brothers and seven nieces and nephews.

Mary Jo Hotchkiss Robinson ’61 , May 12, in Anchorage, Alaska. After Mills, she joined the Peace Corps and taught English in Togo. Mary Jo and her first husband relocated to Alaska, where she taught and helped start the Anchorage Association for the Education of Young Children. She then switched careers to social work after earning an MSW at the University of Wisconsin. After Mary Jo remarried in 1993, the couple loved to travel and ballroom-dance—though she was first a clumsy dancer, she persisted. She is survived by two daughters.

Anne Hodgsdon ’62 , April 15, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After Mills, she was one of the first women to attend and earn an MBA from Harvard Business School. Settling in Boston, she worked for a time in the early days of computer programming before switching careers to art. Her playful ceramic creations, mostly quirky interpretations of the natural world, were displayed at and sold by Mudflat Studios in Cambridge, where she also taught hand-building classes and worked on staff. She is survived by many nieces and nephews.

Karen Luhring Lips ’62 , April 7, 2017, in Salinas, California. She met her husband, Philip, in dental school at USC, where she studied to be a dental hygienist, and she assisted at his practice for decades. Karen also loved to sing, taking music classes at San Jose State, and then began directing choirs: first, at Sacred Heart Church in Salinas; then at Hartnell College and Monterey’s Cathedral of San Carlos Borromeo. Her family recommended that mourners wear bright colors to her service. She is survived by Philip, four children, and her grandchildren.

Marilyn Jensen ’63 , June 15, 2017, in Union City, California. After Mills, she earned a master of arts in education at San Francisco State and a master of library science from UC Berkeley. Marilyn was a longtime library coordinator at Cal. Her husband, Irwin Uteritz, predeceased her.

Roberta Chroman Turkat ’64 , December 30, 2021, in Los Angeles. She left Mills early to marry her late husband, Terry, and the duo raised their family between Southern California and Aspen, Colorado. Roberta loved music, and her family says she’ll be remembered for her strength of character. She is survived by two daughters and her grandchildren.

Linda Parker Dodge ’64 , April 24, in Danville, California. She majored in anthropology and sociology at Mills, and she worked as an insur ance agent. Linda was also an active member of the American Association of University Women and a Sunday school teacher. She is survived by her husband, David, and a daughter.

Lynda Campfield ’00, MA ’02

At alumnae events, Lynda Campfield could often be found sitting right inside the entrance of Reinhardt Alumnae House, ready with a broad smile and a kind word for whoever came by.

At Commencement 2022, just a few days after her untimely passing, her Mills friends decorated her usual chair with flowers, a robe and stole, the nametag that had been prepared for her for the day’s festivities, and the Class of 2000 felt banner, which she had proudly carried many times.

Lynda came to Mills as a resumer: She graduated from high school in 1981 and first attended Sacramento City College starting in 1996. After earning her bachelor’s degree in English at Mills,

Cheryl Lindgren Marsh ’65 , June 10, 2021, in Redondo Beach, California. After Mills, she graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in psychology and earned a master’s in speech and language pathology from Cal State Long Beach. Cheryl worked with students at the Switzer Learning Center for nearly 30 years. She also helped co-found the Oceanographic Teaching Station and Roundhouse Aquarium at the Manhattan Beach Pier, an example of the deep commitment she had to environmentalism, and participated in film and book clubs for decades. She is survived by two children, five grandchildren, and a brother. Marva Mustain Annis ’67, June 16, in Onancock, Virginia. She settled on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, where her former husband was from, not long after she graduated from Mills. Though an outsider, she threw herself into her new community: teaching at Northampton High School, serving on the boards of organizations such as the Eastern Shore Literacy Council and Eastern Shore Community Services Board, and enjoying leisure time with friends at the Eastern Shore Yacht & Country Club. She is survived by two children, three grandchildren, and three siblings.

Sheryl Gillett Caudana ’72 , October 11, 2021, in Irvine, California. She was a drama major at Mills, later graduating from Occidental College. Sheryl was an accredited personal property appraiser who specialized in antiques and the decorative arts, and she partnered with her husband, Stephen, in running Gillett & Caudana Appraisers for nearly 40 years. Her varied volunteer work ranged from Women of Vision in Newport Beach and Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church. She is survived by Stephen and two sons.

Debra Strong ’79 , April 10, in Mesa, Arizona. At Mills, Debra majored in administration and legal processes, and she owned and operated her own marketing firm. She is survived by her husband, Mike Harris.

TERESA

Crisley Haydis Bauer ’84, TCRED ’85 , April 3, in Berkeley. The tuberculosis epidemic defined her life: It took her parents when she was 3 and left lasting damage on her lungs. It also prompted her work in wellness, which peaked when she testified about tuberculosis before Congress in the 1990s. Crisley was a resumer at Mills, even appearing in a San Francisco Examiner piece about the journey, graduating with a degree in American civilization 41 years after she finished high school. She is survived by two children, including daughter Lynda Bauer ’77, and many nieces and nephews.

Dana Robinette ’01 , January 14, in Pensacola, Florida. She later graduated from Pensacola State College, and she earned a master’s degree in accounting from the University of West Florida. Dana worked the business side of retail for many years. She is survived by her father, stepmother, two siblings, and her fiancé, Ron Perry.

Cybil Nelson ’09 , June 24, 2022, in Klamath Falls, Oregon. She graduated from Humboldt State with a degree in biology, hoping to one day preserve native plant and animal habitats with the US Forest Service. Cybil volunteered with organizations such as Engineers Without Borders and documented her work as a conservation biologist on YouTube. She was also a talented dancer and loved all manner of outdoor sports and activities. She is survived by her parents, a sister, two nephews, and many cousins, aunts, and uncles.

William “Will” Gluck, MFA ’15, MA ’16 , June 22, 2022, in Lincoln, Massachusetts. At Mills, he won the Margaret Lyons Music Prize for Excellence in Composition. As an Oakland-based musician, Will worked with guitar, piano, pipe organ, and electronic media, and his composition “For Emily Dickinson” was performed at the Center for New Music in San Francisco six weeks before his death. He battled glioblastoma for 10 years, and he donated his brain to the Harvard Brain Bank to help the search for a cure. He is survived by his parents, two sisters, a niece, and many friends.

she enrolled in the School of Education and obtained a master’s in teaching. For 21 years, she taught English at San Leandro High School, a vocation she truly loved, and she volunteered in promoting literacy efforts for people at Folsom State Prison and the California Youth Authority. Her volunteerism also extended to Habitat for Humanity, the Alameda County Community Food Bank, and her local teachers’ union.

At Mills, Lynda was a constant presence. When she won the AAMC’s Outstanding Volunteer Award at Reunion 2013, her ensuing Quarterly profile noted that “few AAMC events happen without her involvement.” She said then: “Long before Mills would teach me ‘Remember who you are and what you represent,’ my parents taught me that if you have something to give, then you must give.”

In addition to the many events she helped with, Lynda served as vice president on the Board of Governors for several years, starting in 2006. In celebrating her life, Lynda’s family noted how much she loved Mills, and her funeral repast was held at RAH.

Lynda died on May 12 in Oakland. She is survived by three siblings, two nephews, many cousins, and a wide array of admirers, beloved students, and friends.

Faculty & Staff

Peter Dodge , former consulting architect, October 22, 2021, in Santa Rosa, California.

Spouses and Family

James Abts , spouse of Jane Simonton Abts ’51, October 16, 2019, in Minnetonka, Minnesota.

Anthony Diez , spouse of Julia Prentiss Diez ’63, April 5, in Oakland.

Warren Kunstman , spouse of the late Carol Fleming Kunstman ’48, November 11, 2019, in Florissant, Missouri.

Victoria Read, parent of Elizabeth Read McKee ’78 and Susan Read ’80, May 29, 2017, in San Jose.

Edmond Emile Reed , spouse of Kimberlee Currans Reed ’95, May 22, in Opelousas, Louisiana.

Yvonne Sporer, parent of Michaela Sporer Thompson ’15 and the late Denise Sporer Keefe ’74, January 2, 2021, in Oakland.

Robert Sliter, spouse of Stuart Johnson Sliter ’61, May 18, 2022, in Juneau, Alaska.

Bill Thomas , spouse of Marge Miskelly Thomas ’67 and parent of Katherine Thomas ’88 and Megan Thomas ’93, May 25, in Sonoma.

Bernard Widofsky, spouse of the late Joyce Goodwin Widofsky ’59, March 27, 2022, in New Orleans.

Friends

Alpha Mae Beamer, former Associate Council member, October 13, 2020, in Piedmont, California.

Elaine Halnan , May 4, in Berkeley.

Frances Zavis , March 19, 2021, in Menlo Park, California.

THE RIGHT KIND OF TEACHER

A remembrance of Professor Emerita of English Diana O’Hehir.

BY JANE DOWNS, MA ’96

There is a saying that one retires from a profession, but never from an art. Diana O’Hehir, who died in 2021 at age 99, embod ied the phrase.

In 1992, after 32 years, she retired from Mills, where she founded the Creative Writing Department and taught litera ture. In 2012, the year she turned 90, she published Walk Me To Schenectady, her seventh book of poetry. Diana wrote five novels and published her work in numerous literary journals, including FIELD, The Paris Review, Poetry, and Shenandoah . She was the recipient of awards such as a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Devins Award for Poetry, the Helen Bullis Award, and the Poetry Society of America’s Alice Fay di Castagnola Award. Her novel I Wish This War Were Over was short-listed for a Pulitzer Prize, and her book Spells for Not Dying Again received a Northern California Book Award for poetry in 1997.

I first encountered her in 1992 in an English class where she’d been invited by our instructor to read several poems. Diana had the look of the quintessential English professor—tall, thin, white-haired, dignified. I was struck by the beauty and power of her poetry and the delight she took in reading her work. Beneath her intelligence, there was a puckish quality, a sparkle.

The next semester, I met Diana as her student in a James Joyce seminar where I learned what an exceptional teacher she was. She led 12 of us through Joyce’s work, including the for midable Ulysses, and she was the ultimate professional while making her students feel that she truly cared about what they wrote and what they said. We loved her. When she handed back my final paper, she said, “I am sure we will meet again.”

Although I assumed this was a common expression of hers, I took it to heart, expecting that our paths would cross.

Exactly 20 years ago, former Mills professor Josephine Carson wrote an appreciation of Diana O’Hehir’s work in the fall 2002 Quarterly. Read that piece online at quarterly .mills.edu.

And they did: I began writing poetry. We had writer friends in common. I studied poetry with Diana in independent work shops where her encouragement drew out more from her stu dents than anyone else. She taught me to really listen to the poems that each student read aloud. The way she responded to the work of others taught me to see new things in my own writing. When I left each session, I was excited, ready to write another poem to bring the following week.

But the way I grew to know Diana best was through reading her poetry, where she transformed her life, tragedy, and loss into art. In the title poem “Home Free,” she turned her father’s death into an act of freedom when she describes a bird being released from its cage.

Spring the door with your plastic diner’s card, wait for the scrabble, the Head poked out the door, air by your face, And up it goes.

In “Climbing,” the first poem in Spells for Not Dying Again, The Soul climbs a ladder to The Sky Goddess as a man on an air plane “remembers his first car.” The ineffable coexists alongside the knowable concrete world.

Walk Me To Schenectady is about the loss of her husband, Mel Fiske. Diana and Mel were married twice, with 30 years of separation between their two unions. The cover photograph shows a young couple on their wedding day. They are framed in bright yellow—not the color of mourning, but of life. In the poem “Darling,” she writes incorrectly that she wasn’t the right kind of teacher: I was the wrong kind of teacher. I told my students everything. He’s my ex-husband; he’s been here for three days; I really like him.

They lined up at the classroom window, solemn and intense, agreeing He’s darling.

Of course you’ve got to marry him. Diana was the real thing. An artist whose teaching and poetry touched and inspired us to keep searching for just the right words. She is dearly missed.

Jane Downs, MA ’96, earned her bachelor’s degree at Syracuse University before coming to Mills to study the liberal arts. She is the author of poetry and fiction that has appeared in publications such as Borderlands, Field , and the Red Wheelbarrow Literary Magazine . Her novella The Sleeping Wall was a finalist in the 2010 Chiasmus Press book contest. With book artist Marie Dern, she cofounded the independent press Red Berry Editions, which closed in 2017. She lives in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

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