Billy Faires, executive director of marketing and communications
ADVISORY BOARD
President Mary Dana Hinton, Vice President for Institutional Advancement Anita Branch-Brown, Associate Vice President for Alumnae/i Engagement and Strategic Initiatives Lauren Sells ’04, Donor Relations and Research
Manager Meredith Cope-Levy ’12, M.F.A. ’18
DESIGNERS
Sarah Sprigings, David Hodge
Anstey Hodge Advertising Group, Roanoke, VA
PRINTER
Progress Printing, Lynchburg, VA
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Prioritizing Civic Mobility
“Civic mobility” may be an unfamiliar term for some, but it is an essential aspect of Hollins’ strategic plan. by Sarah Achenbach ’88
Hollins’ oldest current structure has a bright future as it prepares for the second phase of a $12M renovation. by Billy Faires
Captain! My Captain!”
“Hollins provides the opportunities for me to navigate my ship. And you’re never adrift if you need help.” – Ti-Shawn Wellington ‘25 by Sarah Achenbach ’88
Misery into Beauty
More than 150 Hollins students and graduates have had their work published in literary journal Artemis since its beginning in 1977. by Sarah Achenbach ’88
To view the online version of Hollins
Where Love Leads
On January 16, 2025, President Hinton kicked off the Batten Leadership Institute’s Leading Together Speaker Series. Her talk, “Where Love Leads,” explores why and how love can be an effective leadership strategy and how to apply that strategy in your daily life. Below is an excerpt from that talk.
Love and the Liberal Arts
Aliberalarts environment—which nurtures freedom and belonging— compels a need for love. Education, at its core, is about freeing minds to ensure the freedom of people. Freedom to act as a citizen; freedom to live a life of consequence; freedom to determine one’s own future. That is the very purpose of education. Therefore, to lead within or adjacent to the liberal arts sparks a compelling need for love as an institutional value. Not only must we reflect love, but we must also teach it. Our institutions must have a curriculum that demands love. Here, I am not talking about gen ed or a major. But the soul of who we are in higher education.
This sense of care and nurture, in the service of human freedom, as a product of education, matters even more now than before and is, I believe, mandatory for those of us who proclaim the value of the liberal arts. Let’s go to Paulo Freire, who wrote, “Because love is an act of courage, not of fear, love is a commitment to others. No matter where
the oppressed are found, the act of love is commitment to their cause—the cause of liberation.” Here we see the connection between love and liberation. If the liberal arts are about liberation, then it’s easy to see why love is essential for education.
In this age of technology, social media, and AI, humanity and love are even more critical. To be honest, students don’t need us to collect sheer information. They can find facts (and falsehoods) on their phone. But while they don’t need us to generate information any longer, they desperately need us for knowledge and for wisdom. They need to be willing to connect with us to convert volumes of information to an education.
For learning to happen, and to excel in the tradition of the liberal arts, students, faculty, and staff all need to be able to open their minds and their hearts to one another. We have to trust one another enough to listen, to take in, and to engage. To convert knowledge to wisdom, we need to be able to be vulnerable to our humanity and to love. This is the kind of thinking that technology cannot yet master in ways that humans can.
As I consider this, a model for learning and leadership begins to emerge. A model that calls us beyond our hermeneutics of suspicion. Beyond academic dog-whistle politics. Beyond legislative intervention in curricula. If what we want is a society that lives up to its grandest aspirations, we must invest our hearts in education. We know that education frees the mind; that is its core tenet. But we know that being truly free exacts a cost. It requires that a human being feel seen, honored,
and valued. It demands that curricula and spaces are created wherein that human is willing to open not only their mind but their heart.
This vulnerability compels us to act in ways that are compassionate, expansive, and inviting. When our students feel that, they are open to love and to learning.
As William Cronon has written, those of us educated in the liberal arts tradition reflect qualities achieved only through connection and love:
They listen and they hear.
They read and they understand. They can talk with anyone.
They can write clearly and persuasively and movingly.
They can solve a wide variety of puzzles and problems.
They respect rigor not so much for its own sake but as a way of seeking truth.
They practice humility, tolerance, and self-criticism.
They understand how to get things done in the world.
They nurture and empower the people around them.
Most of all, we choose to connect with one another, recognizing that the purpose of the freedom we achieve through education is not merely to meet our own ends and needs, but to facilitate a common good that can only be found through connection. A common good built on love.
Love is the imperative of our missions. The key to our success. The hope of our culture and the soul of our curriculum.
In January, President Hinton made a surprise visit to students on their J-Term trip to Greece to officially kick off Hollins’ 70th year of study abroad.
Love as
Whetheran
Institutional Priority
you choose to frame love as compassionate leadership, or even servant leadership, love is a compelling and demanding leadership choice. I can certainly understand that many people think if you are the leader, you need not concern yourself with love. That, in fact, you have the unique authority to not have to worry about love. You have the power to do what you want. But I believe this bifurcation of love and power is artificial and harmful.
I think it is important to understand the power of leading from and with love. The power is both positive in how one leads, but it also demands that difficult ideas, topics, people, and situations be approached with love.
Long ago, Martin Luther King wrote, “And one of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as opposites—polar opposites, so that love is identified with a resignation of power and power with a denial of love. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” Love implementing the demands of justice; power correcting everything that stands against love.
In these challenging times, leaders must elevate love, forgiveness, integrity, and trust, for ourselves and for others. We must live these practices not merely in words but in the environments we create, in our posture in the world.
For these reasons, it is because, not despite, all of the many problems we face in higher education that I— and I am encouraging you to—choose love. King also referred to love as the
“In these challenging times, leaders must elevate love, forgiveness, integrity, and trust, for ourselves and for others. We must live these practices not merely in words but in the environments we create, in our posture in the world.”
moral cosmos, the highest good. I simply believe it is what will save our collective spirits. And our institutions.
President Hinton filming an interview in the Wyndham Robertson Library’s Hollins Room about the importance of access and affordability for the future of Hollins.
NetVUE and Come to Believe Grants Fund Programs for Student Support and Career Discernment
Hollins has received grants from two organizations focused on improving student outcomes at Hollins and following graduation. In September 2024, Hollins received a $60,000 Vocation Across the Academy Grant from the Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education (NetVUE) to invest in integrating principles of vocational discernment and career management into coursework and cocurricular activities. The grant will support the first three years of Hollins’ Scaling Vocation Across the University initiative, a new program combining contemplative discernment with active, purposeful engagement in career development.
The program includes The Career Toolkit: The Purposeful Career and The Purpose Course, which are both designed to immerse students in vocational exploration and reflection. The hybrid, team-taught Purpose Course is the capstone of Hollins’ comprehensive approach to vocational discernment and the university’s new general education CORE program, launched in the 2023-24 academic year. Hollins will supplement the NetVUE funding with an additional $30,000 in donor funds in the second and third years of the project. For the fourth year, to ensure project sustainability, Hollins will allocate $25,900 in institutional funds. To learn more about how the programs are benefiting students, see page 32.
A two-year, $30,000 grant from the nonprofit Come to Believe (CTB) Network, also received last fall, enables Hollins to study the viability of instituting CTB’s innovative two-year college model, which is intended to provide low-income
students with greater access to higher education and complete an associate’s degree with little or no debt. Collaborating with CTB, Hollins has created a design team of stakeholders across a range of Hollins departments and perspectives to participate in virtual retreats facilitated by CTB and visit other colleges where the two-year model has been implemented.
This spring, the design team will perform a thorough analysis to evaluate Hollins’ capacity as a potential host institution for a new two-year college. Hollins joins The Catholic University of America (Washington, D.C.), Saint Mary’s College (Notre Dame, Indiana), and the University of Detroit Mercy (Detroit, Michigan) in CTB’s 2024 design grant program cohort.
Both the NetVUE and CTB grants intersect with the objectives of Transforming Learning, Transforming Lives: The Levavi Oculos Plan, Hollins’ strategic plan that is reshaping the course of the university’s future and opening an array of opportunities for the campus community. Approved unanimously by the Hollins Board of Trustees in the fall of 2023, Transforming Learning, Transforming Lives offers an energizing direction for the university.
“Now more than ever, we are called to prepare our students for a multiplicity of unscripted future challenges, while also ensuring that our learning environment allows all students to persist, thrive, and succeed during their college education and beyond, especially those who have been historically marginalized,” says Hollins President Mary Dana Hinton.
Georgia Brenneke ’26 and Chloe Samuel ’25 celebrated Tinker Day 2024 by recreating the iconic photo (pictured left) of students climbing Tinker Mountain in the 1890s.
Hollins Partners with Cristo Rey to Empower Transformative Higher Education Pathways
In January, Hollins University launched a new partnership with the Cristo Rey Network, a distinguished network of 40 college preparatory high schools serving students with limited economic resources across the country. Hollins will be part of Cristo Rey’s University Partner Program, launched in 2009 to create pathways for Cristo Rey students to access and thrive in postsecondary education.
Rooted in a shared vision for student success, the collaboration will increase college match, access, persistence, and graduation rates among Cristo Rey students and alumnae. Through Hollins’ comprehensive support system, staff resources, and Cristo Rey’s alumni support teams, Cristo Rey students enrolled at Hollins will benefit from a seamless transition and continued success from enrollment through graduation. Hollins will offer competitive financial aid packaging to five to 10 Cristo Rey students, including an annual award that meets no less than 100% of student’s demonstrated need with no required loans for tuition, fees, and on-campus food and housing, ensuring that financial barriers do not hinder student success.
The new partnership underscores both organizations’ commitment to fostering academic success, equity, and opportunity for students from families of limited economic means. Cristo Rey students will receive Hollins’ approach of providing boundless opportunity and holistic support to young women, an empowering combination, says Sonya Ramirez, Cristo Rey’s Director of University Partnerships. “This collaboration offers our students a unique postsecondary pathway to grow and develop into the next generation of female leaders,” she says.
Hollins Playwrights Honored at Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival
Several M.F.A. students in the Hollins University Playwright’s Lab were honored at The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF) Region IV Festival on February 4-8, 2025, at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. Over the past decade, the Playwright’s Lab has received numerous KCACTF accolades for plays written by Hollins students and for productions mounted by the Hollins theatre department.
James Harvey Stone is a finalist in the 10-minute play category for his play We Meet at Ralph’s, one of six 10-minute plays invited to the 2024 regional festival and under consideration for a national nomination. Stone, the 2024 KCACTF Region IV David Shelton Award winner, had a full production of his play The Greenhouse presented at the 2025 regional festival, mounted in collaboration with William & Mary’s theatre department.
Alex Voeller was a runner-up for the 2025 David L. Shelton award for a full-length play. Stephanie Goldman received meritorious achievement in playwriting for The Caregiver Ben Abbott and Veatch are the two regional festival nominees
in national consideration for the John L. Cauble Award for Excellence in One-Act Playwriting, following the regional festival’s one-act play competition. Each of the three one-act plays invited to this year’s regional KCACTF were by Hollins playwrights, the second time in festival history that all three one-act plays were written by Hollins playwrights: Abbott for Nuptial Mass; Goldman for The Caregiver; and Veatch for Twenty-Something Teenager
“The best measure of the success of our program is the success of our students,” says Todd Ristau, director of the Hollins Playwright’s Lab and a multiple winner of the national Kennedy Center Gold Medallion, one of the most prestigious awards in theater education.
“KCACTF’s recognition has been a tangible way to demonstrate student success in a broad range of categories, which gives students the confidence to continue to pursue their dreams. As a direct result of our participation in KCACTF, many of our students have gained a national reputation along with additional professional opportunities such as productions and publications.”
Abbott Stone Veatch Goldman
Wyndham Robertson Library Joins Organization of America’s Leading Liberal Arts College Libraries
Last October, Hollins’ Wyndham Robertson
Library was accepted into the Oberlin Group of Libraries, a selective nonprofit consortium dedicated to enhancing the quality of library services, fostering collaboration, and promoting the values of liberal arts education. Hollins joins 88 leading U.S. colleges, including all top 25 private liberal arts schools in the country (as rated by U.S. News & World Report), in the Oberlin Group. In 2009, Hollins received the Excellence in Academic Libraries award in the college category, given annually by the Association of College & Research Libraries. Of note, 16 of the 22 recipients of this prestigious award are members of the Oberlin Group.
“The group’s dedication to the principles of the liberal arts is particularly appealing to us. We know that liberal arts education is transformative, and we look forward to learning from other libraries that are strengthening the foundation of their liberal
arts institutions,” says Luke Vilelle, university librarian at Hollins.
The Oberlin Group is currently focused on three strategic directions: diversity, equity, and inclusion; strengthening community; and universal access to scholarship. The Wyndham Robertson Library, which underwent a significant renovation in 2023 to expand its role as a resource and learning hub, provides open and accessible scholarship through various initiatives and the dissemination of faculty and student work through the Hollins Digital Commons. Recently, the library cocreated an undergraduate certificate program for students interested in libraries, museums, and archives. Further embracing the Oberlin Group’s vision for open access to scholarship are the library’s unique Special Collections, such as the Margaret Wise Brown papers and medieval manuscripts that attract scholars from across the globe.
Hollins University Named 2024 ALL IN Most Engaged Campus for College Student Voting
Hollins’ outstanding efforts to increase nonpartisan student voter participation in last fall’s presidential election have earned the university kudos as a 2024 ALL IN Most Engaged Campus for College Student Voting, one of 471 colleges and universities selected by the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge. “This national initiative to improve civic learning, political engagement, and voter participation has deepened Hollins’ ongoing commitment to empower women to use their voice, especially at the voting booth and with respect and civility for all,” says President Mary Dana Hinton. “Being recognized nationally as a leader in nonpartisan student civic engagement and student voter turnout underscores Hollins’ mission and vision as being more resonant and relevant than ever,” she explains.
Read more on page 10 about how Hollins students, faculty, and staff are using the university’s first-ever ALL IN Challenge to spark a campuswide, nonpartisan focus on civic engagement for local, state, and federal elections.
Accolades for Hollins Leaders
In the 2024-2025 academic year, several Hollins faculty and administrators have received honors in recognition of their leadership and accomplishments.
In September 2024, President Mary Dana Hinton was named chair of the board of directors of The Council of Independent Colleges in Virginia (CICV), representing nonprofit Virginia colleges and universities. “I look forward to working with my colleagues at member CICV institutions to strengthen the impact of independent higher education, maintain our affordability, increase access to opportunity, and advocate for the resources and policies that will allow our colleges and universities to thrive,” says Hinton.
Alison Ridley, Ph.D., professor of Spanish and the Hollins University Berry Professor, was recognized in November by the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges (VFIC) with the 2024 Libby and Hiter Harris Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award. This national honor highlights Ridley’s exceptional teaching and mentoring for Hollins students studying all levels of the Spanish language and courses on Hispanic cultures and literature. She is the third Hollins professor in as many years to be honored with a Harris Award. Morgan Wilson, Ph.D., Paula Pimlott Brownlee Professor and professor of biology, environmental studies/ environmental science, pre-vet, public health, received the same award in 2023; Mary Jane Carmichael, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology, environmental studies/environmental science, pre-vet, public health, received the Harris Rising Star Award in 2022.
Genevieve Hendricks, Ph.D., associate professor of art history and art department chair, received a prestigious HERS-Mellon Fellowship to participate in the national HERS Leadership Institute at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, this July. The HERS Leadership Institute, a transformational leadership development program for higher education professionals who hold mid- to senior-level positions, focuses on women and people who are gender diverse. Hendricks is one of eight 2025 HERS Leadership Institute participants from the humanities to
receive a competitive, $10,000 HERSMellon Leader Fellowship award, funded by the Mellon Foundation.
Professor of gender and women’s studies and anthropology LeeRay Costa, Ph.D., was named executive director of leadership studies and the Batten Leadership Institute last September. Costa’s impressive Hollins tenure includes 23 years in the classroom, numerous teaching awards, and multiple leadership roles, most recently as the university’s director of faculty development. In her new role, she is developing several initiatives to reinvigorate and redefine leadership around current programmatic and curricular needs and research for women of all ages and intersectional identities. Her recent work in the Roanoke community underscores her passion and purpose for inspiring female leaders. For six years, she was cofounder, executive director, and board chair of Girls Rock Roanoke, a nonprofit organization that seeks to empower girls, femme identified, and nonbinary youth through music, creative expression, and collaboration.
Professor and chair of film Amy Gerber-Stroh was honored as Filmmaker of the Month for August 2024 by the Office of Cable, Television, Film, Music, and Entertainment (OCTFME) in Washington, D.C. The award recognizes Gerber-Stroh’s impact as a producer, director, and educator working in the D.C. and Virginia region and beyond over the past 25 years. A renowned filmmaker with acclaim at national and international film festivals, Gerber-Stroh has produced and directed a diverse range of thoughtprovoking independent films and served as a casting associate for 12 major motion pictures in the 1990s. Her latest film, Hope of Escape, represents a significant chapter in Black history, aiming to inspire further research, storytelling, and teaching about the historical lives of Black people in America. To that end, she is creating an online film research/scholar archive called the Hope of Escape Research Archive (HERA) for filmmakers and scholars interested in 19th-century Black history to access the materials accumulated when producing Hope of Escape
Hinton
Ridley
Hendricks
Costa
Gerber-Stroh
FACULTY RETIREMENTS
Hollins University bid a very fond farewell to several professors at the end of the 2023-2024 academic year. These master teachers and noted scholars, devoted to their students and colleagues, have given immeasurably to the Hollins community during their careers.
We wish you all the best for life’s next chapter!
Judith Cline
Professor of Music, 1992-2024
Judith Cline, Ph.D., joined the Hollins University Department of Music in 1992, serving as chairperson for four years. A critically acclaimed soprano who has performed in concert halls across the U.S., Europe, South America, and the Middle East, Cline is certified in the Alexander Technique, a vocal performance method focused on improving posture, movement, and coordination to unleash her students’ vocal potential.
Under Cline’s patience, unwavering encouragement, and humor, Jen Allen O’Dowd ’95 discovered far more than her musical potential. “Dr. Cline helped me find confidence and enjoyment in my singing,” O’Dowd recalls. “She gave me foundations [to be] a better version of me. I came out a better singer, a better musician, and a more peaceful and happier person.”
A graduate of Drake University, the University of Southern California, and Washington University in St. Louis, Cline has received several honors and awards, including the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Association of Teachers of Singing. In 1997—the 200th anniversary of Franz Schubert’s birth—she was selected to participate in the prestigious International Franz Schubert Institute in Baden bei Wien, Austria. In collaboration with pianist Michael Sitton, she released a critically acclaimed CD devoted to the art songs of women composers, A Sampler in Song
Brian Gentry
Associate Professor of Physics, 2013-2024
Brian Gentry’s innovative impact on the Hollins classroom has been profound. His multidisciplinary approach to teaching physics and how technology and the classroom can intersect helped create new teaching standards. Gentry taught a calculusbased physics course and created a course in film studies, “Women Scientists and Doctors in Film.” He was central in Hollins’ effort to pivot academically during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading the move to online lab work and flipped classroom efforts to alleviate student anxiety.
Under Gentry’s guidance and unwavering mentorship of the Hollins Pre-med Program, more than a dozen aspiring students have enrolled in medical or physician’s assistant school. Students also had his impressive research as a standard for their own scientific careers. His chapter “Mechanical Properties of Active Biopolymer Networks” in Soft Matter and Biomaterials on the Nanoscale (World Scientific, 2020) advanced the field’s understanding of fundamental and application-inspired aspects of soft and bio-nanomaterials.
Equally as passionate about teaching and communicating physics to future physicists and non-physicists alike, Gentry shared his interests in the many intersections between physics and the biological sciences with his students and colleagues.
Lori Joseph
Associate Professor of Communications Studies, 2000-2024
Lori Joseph, Ph.D., wove an array of communication expertise and knowledge into her communication studies classes. Following her Ph.D. from the University of Kansas, she began a career in academics, her third career after successful roles as a public relations director for a major medical clinic and as an addiction educator and counselor. Throughout her Hollins tenure, she inspired numerous students to pursue careers in public relations or health communication.
Joseph’s teaching approach was centered on developing close bonds with her students, balancing humor with high expectations, theoretical knowledge with practical experience in all of her classes.
Her research on collecting and analyzing the narratives of women in male-dominated occupations led to her own passion project, One Helluva Hand, a short documentary about female ranchers in Montana, followed by a second documentary in 2011, One Helluva Hand 2, funded by a grant from the Montana Arts Foundation.
Joseph served as chair of the faculty from 2009 to 2011, working to improve communication between the Trustees and the faculty. She served as founding director of the First Year Internship program and chaired the 2019 committee that developed and launched Hollins’ new major/minor in Public Health.
Bill Krause
Associate Professor of Music, 2003-2024
Bill Krause, Ph.D., joined Hollins University after several years in arts administration, notably as the executive director of Opera Roanoke. He found the best of all possible worlds teaching guitar, music history, and arts administration. His began his career as a classical guitarist, studying in Spain with José Tomas after earning his BFA from the University of Southern California, where he also received a Master of Music and embraced musicology. After earning his doctorate at Washington University in St. Louis (the alma mater of his spouse, Judith Cline) and he embarked on a career in arts administration.
Krause generously supported Hollins and its community with his talent, intellect, and kindness. From 2019 to 2022, he served on the University’s Working Group on Slavery and Its Contemporary Legacies, a group of faculty and administrators charged with educating the public about Hollins’ historical connections to enslavement and the contemporary legacies of slavery on campus. His courses were known for infusing fun and his trademark musical curiosity across genres, including his First-Year Seminar class, Taking the Crooked Road Through Virginia’s Musical History, a bluegrass-inspired historical, musical, and culinary journey. In 2013, he published Federico Moreno Torroba: A Musical Life in Three Acts (Oxford University Press).
PRIORITIZING CIVIC MOBILITY
BY SARAH ACHENBACH
’88
Hollins empowers women to use their voice, especially at the voting booth.”
– Hollins President Mary Dana Hinton
An estimated 42 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds voted in the 2024 presidential election, many for the first time, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts. Reports won’t be official until 2026, but national youth voter turnout is expected to be substantially lower than 2020’s estimate of 50 percent youth voter turnout.
That drop in civic engagement was definitely not reflected at Hollins University. Last fall’s numbers are estimated to be near or above the 90.2 percent of Hollins students who voted in the 2020 presidential election. Not surprisingly, more colleges and universities than ever before stepped up efforts to ensure student voices were heard at the ballot box in what was the most polarized, unprecedented presidential election in U.S. history. Hollins ensured its young voters and campus community embraced civic responsibilities through its inaugural semester with the national ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge.
This comprehensive, nonpartisan program, developed by the nonprofit Civic Nation, encourages voter registration and improves civic learning and political engagement among 18- to 24-year-olds. More than 1,075 campuses nationwide participated in ALL IN last fall. At the center of Hollins’ ALL IN participation was the nonpartisancampus voter coalition of faculty, staff, and 12 students leading pre-, during-, and post-election activities.
This semester, the coalition is launching an annual, robust civic education and engagement program, an initiative
that is off to an auspicious start: postelection, Hollins was selected among 471 colleges and universities as a 2024 ALL IN Most Engaged Campus for College Student Voting for outstanding efforts to increase nonpartisan student voter participation.
“I am deeply proud of our students’ and community’s commitment to the core of our democratic process—voting,” said Hollins University President Mary Dana Hinton. “Hollins empowers women to use their voice, especially at the voting booth. Our students worked very hard to turn out the vote on campus this fall, while displaying respect and civility for all. Being recognized by ALL IN as a national leader in nonpartisan student civic engagement and student voter turnout underscores Hollins’ mission and vision as being more resonant and relevant than ever.”
It’s also strategic. In 2023, the Hollins Board of Trustees unanimously approved Transforming Learning, Transforming Lives: The Levavi Oculos Strategic Plan, the university’s seven-year strategic plan. Focused on three gears—academic excellence, wellness, and access—the plan sets its ambitious, overarching intention to be “the nation’s leading liberal arts college for women and an undisputed leader in social, economic, and civic mobility.”
The latter term—civic mobility— may be new for many. It was for Tiffany Hinton, Ph.D., associate vice president for belonging and chief Title IX Officer, who co-leads Hollins’ ongoing ALL IN efforts with Megan Canfield, current assistant director of special programs who served as assistant dean of students last fall. “I view civic mobility as extension of civic engagement and our
ability to navigate civic life, including voting, attending community meetings, providing feedback on communityrelated decisions, volunteering, and advocating for social issues that impact others around us,” says Hinton, who had worked with the ALL IN program before coming to Hollins in early 2024.
Students who grasp civic mobility, she says, are better equipped to foster a sense of community, influence decision-making, and, essentially, own their social responsibility to ultimately impart positive change in their communities. That’s the long game of the coalition’s annual civic education and engagement program. “Ultimately, we want to ensure that our students are aware of all the issues that will affect them for generations to come,” explains Gary Brown, Ph.D., vice president for Student Success, Well-being, and Belonging. “Civic mobility means that we’re equipping them to pass the torch at some point. There is generational progress that occurs with democracy. We want Hollins students to benefit from a diversity of perspectives to help shape what we want our world to be.”
exhaustive schedule of voter education events to articulate the nuances of how to vote by mail or online in students’ home state or in person in Virginia, should they choose.
Coalition student ambassador Logan Lynxwiler ’27, history major, was excited to vote in her first presidential election. “I’ve always been very passionate that every vote matters, and it’s important to me that everybody has the access to be able to vote. Being part of the coalition was a good way for me to get involved on campus, get involved in my community, and make sure that I was able to help my community members to get their voices heard.”
Disseminating correct voting information in the age of information overload is a challenge. “Social media is a great way to get [voter] information out, but bad information also gets out,” Lynxwiler explains. “Information is the most powerful thing, so we make sure that if somebody wants voter information, they don’t have to go hunting for it.”
That’s precisely what inspired Victoria Slick ’27 to join the coalition after completing her mail-in ballot. “I was
It was nice knowing that more people would be voting because of our efforts.”
Initially, the coalition focused its nonpartisan approach on voter registration and did register 35 voters over the course of fall 2024 through voter education. Once ALL IN shared Hollins’ impressive student voting registration rates, the coalition redirected its efforts “to educate students on how they can vote should they choose to vote in-person in Roanoke, vote early, or to request a mail-in ballot,” Canfield explains of student voting preferences, which have shifted from in-person to early and mail-in voting.
The nonpartisan coalition—Hollins did not solicit information regarding political affiliation from any adult or student coalition member—developed an
anxious about the presidential election and found that the majority of my friends didn’t have anything figured out for how or when they were going to vote,” Slick, an English and creative writing major, explains. “The lack of information circulating amongst students contributed to a lot of the election anxiety. Because I understood [the mail-in process], I wanted to prevent students from not voting simply because they didn’t understand how the process worked or that it intimidated them.”
The key mission of the voter coalition, she adds, is to inform students, reminding them of their rights, and walk them through the process in a way that engages and encourages them so that “the next
time they [can] do it themselves easily without hesitation, helplessness, or anxiety—and convince them to participate, regardless of which team they play for.”
The coalition’s wrap-around, nonpartisan approach included table sitting in Moody Dining Hall and on Front Quad with voter registration information, informational flyers, debate watch parties, free rides to the polls on election day, and more. Modeling its mission of empowering other voices, the coalition worked with campus and outside groups to engage and inform voters. The Wyndham Robertson Library team curated a civic and political guide that included literature inclusive of differing viewpoints. Gender Women Studies, the Batten Leadership Institute, and other campus groups collaborated on a film screening of Ratified, a documentary on the history of the Equal Rights Amendment. The League of Women Voters of the Roanoke Valley hosted and facilitated an “Ice cream & Issues” event, and Democracy for Virginia, Points for Diversity, and Rock the Vote were involved in programming efforts.
Student ambassador Jen Alvarez ’27 was invited to join the coalition midsemester through her role as the Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) Support and Action Chair in the Hollins Student Government Association. “I know a lot of people think that their vote doesn’t really matter, and I wanted to change that thought process,” she explains. “It was nice knowing that more people would be voting because of our efforts. I’m from Tennessee, so it was easier for me to explain the process of requesting an absentee ballot.”
On election day, the coalition hosted an election results watch party and led several post-election programs, including a “Five Days of Kindness” focus and wellness programs (mindfulness sessions, yoga, walking program). Each program was designed to help students process high emotions in an environment of differing viewpoints.
Lynxwiler recalls urging her fellow coalition members to plan post-election events in October. “I brought up in a meeting that we needed to announce our plans before the election results came out, because if we added things after the
results, people may take it as a political stance by the university,” she says. “We kept our own personal beliefs out of what we were doing to make sure that it was as effective and equitable as possible, even if we as individuals disagreed with somebody’s political views.”
“We know that election season can bring a fair bit of stress and anxiety around what is going to happen,” Brown adds. “Our events provided space and time to reflect upon the outcomes of the elections for those on the winning side of the election and those who weren’t.”
This tenet and holding people accountable to it remain at the center of the coalition’s ongoing efforts. “We are a very kind group,” Lynxwiler reflects. “The issues in this election were emotionally charged ones. There were things that personally are very hard for me to imagine supporting, but we made sure that the people who supported them felt safe in the university afterwards and were able to share their experiences because we are a community.”
Adds Brown, “Everyone was watching this election, and certainly there were hopes for one side or the other. That spurred some of the interest, but it become very apparent that regardless of the outcome of the election, some of our students really need that continued engagement and conversation.”
Ongoing conversations, led by the ALL IN coalition, are as intentional now as they were during election season. On Inauguration Day and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Hollins hosted an inauguration watch party and MLK Day
events. In February, several students traveled to Richmond to meet with lawmakers to advocate for the ongoing support of the Commonwealth’s Tuition Assistance Grant Program (VTAG) for Virginia residents who attend accredited private, nonprofit colleges and universities.
This spring, Braver Angels, a national, cross-partisan movement to bridge the partisan divide in the U.S., is leading a civil dialogue workshop the same month Hollins hosts the Council for Independent Colleges in Virginia (CICV) and Interfaith America to discuss campus pluralism. The coalition is also screening the documentary Undivide Us about civil conversations.
Over this backdrop, the coalition’s student ambassadors have launched an information campaign about the importance of voting in all elections. They have researched state voter information for the top five enrolled states at Hollins to share voter information for those states in preparation for the next state election cycle.
A rich and reflective civics “training ground” for every student to understand how to engage respectfully and to speak across differences is at the core of a liberal arts education and Hollins’ mission. “Just as I believe education is the key to social and economic mobility, I believe education is the first step toward meaningful civic engagement and action,” says President Hinton. “We must take responsibility to be accurately informed so that we respond rather than merely react.”
The coalition student ambassadors and students across campus are taking these lessons to heart. “So much has become political since we were born in ways that things haven’t been political in the past,” reflects Lynxwiler. She believes that most people on campus struggled with the human aspect of politics and the current, national atmosphere of us vs. them. It’s a political divide she and her colleagues are committed to bridging. “I really appreciate that Hollins students care and are doing these things to help their community and the nation,” she adds. “Knowing that we registered people to vote and helped with mail-in ballots definitely brought some joy and fulfillment to all of the complex emotions that came along with the election.”
Alvarez’s ramped-up civic engagement deepened her intellectual and academic passions. After the election, she declared a double major in Gender and Women’s Studies and International Studies with a minor in Social Justice. “As a historically woman’s college, Hollins students need to understand the importance and be able to learn more about civic engagement,” she says. “Many of the things happening affect us now and in the future. There are a lot of women beyond Hollins who can’t access many of the resources about engagement as we have here. We need to pass this knowledge to people outside of Hollins. The only way we are going to make change is if we spread information.”
Hollins has a long history of civic engagement and activism. LEFT: Jennifer Barton Boysko ‘89 (third from left) stands on the steps of the Supreme Court during her student days. RIGHT: First-year students Natalia Chapel, Kourtnee Durham, and Katrina Finch with Delegate Betsy Carr ‘68 (69th District), at the Virginia General Assembly in early 2025 to ask for VTAG support.
A Lifetime of Civic Engagement
We talked with two alumnae, both in the Class of 1989—one a Democrat, the other Republican—who matched their passion for politics with a career focus on civic engagement. Both are staunch supporters of civil discourse when it comes to civic engagement, with wise words on how women can and should wield their political power.
Senator Jennifer Barton Boysko ’89
Virginia State Senate, District 38
Senator Boysko was first elected to the Virginia State Senate in 2019, having previously served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from 2015 to 2019. She chairs the Transportation Committee and Commission on Civic Education in Virginia and is co-chair of the Virginia Private Colleges Caucus, in addition to serving on numerous other Senate committees and boards and commissions for the Commonwealth. Prior to her elected positions, Boysko was an aide to Fairfax County Supervisor John Foust, a governor-appointed citizen member of the Virginia Board of Real Estate, and an active community leader in Herndon, Virginia.
I always had a passion for justice. My dad was a social justice theologian. In elementary school, I successfully led the effort to petition our principal to allow girls to be crossing guards. We discussed women’s rights and racial issues at home. In the 1985 printed “Facebook” of all the freshmen at Hollins, Sweet Briar, Mary Baldwin, Washington & Lee, and HampdenSydney, I listed my three interests as “People, Pets, and Politics.”
I planned to have a career in psychology. Paris abroad and meeting people that I never would have met changed my career plans. My summer internship on Capitol Hill before senior year cemented for me that I wanted to be engaged politically and civically. I moved to Washington, D.C. after graduation and worked for Senator Richard Shelby from my home state of Alabama. Growing up, I watched my mom struggle as a single mother. Once I got involved in politics, I saw the intersection between people who are struggling and what the government can do to help.
Rod Sinclair, Hollins Chaplain, helped me think about things in a broader context. He took us to Washington to lobby Congress about human rights issues and learn about atrocious things that were happening to people in other countries. I now live in a community with a high immigrant population, and my Hollins experience helps me to have compassion for and an understanding of their experiences. Rod and I did an independent study of books that I had missed in high school like To Kill a Mockingbird. He helped me see the intersection of theology, public policy, and human responsibility to one another.
Every person has that ability and agency to make a difference.”
The General Speakers Fund-sponsored debate between Phyllis Schlafly and Sarah Waddington was quite impactful. I picked each of them up from the airport and got to spend one-on-one time with them. That debate was one of the first times that I saw people bringing signs about being pro-choice and having a real conversation. The opportunities at Hollins that we had to really engage with important and influential women were frankly lost on me then, but it was very meaningful to my future.
Every person has that ability and agency to make a difference. I have interns from middle school through Hollins students to give them the opportunity to be in the room where the decisions are made and see how the process works. What you see from the outside is very different from what is inside.
Delegate Betsy Carr ‘68 (69th District), Mary Dana Hinton, and Senator Jennifer Barton Boysko ’89
Young people have changed their communities and society for the better, so that people are all treated more fairly. When I spoke at Hollins Commencement in 2019, I was really touched by seeing how confident and comfortable our LGBTQ community is. I have a daughter who’s gay, and it makes me so happy for so many people in my life who are living their best lives and being included and embraced.
The Commission on Civic Education in Virginia is increasing youth activism and awareness. We’re having discussions at colleges and schools on how to have difficult conversations and still treat each other with dignity and respect. I would like to see us disagree without being disagreeable. All of us sit around the table with our families, and we’re not all going to be on the same page, and that’s OK. We need to actively engage with one another, especially when we disagree, to try to find some common ground, to build some trust and kindness. I’m a Democrat and recently had dinner with someone who was appointed by the Trump administration in transportation and wanted to know more. While we probably don’t agree on a whole lot of things, we had a great dinner together and respected one another.
I see students speaking up for what they believe about gun violence, women’s health, and the war in Gaza. It’s been difficult and painful, but I think it’s also important that they believe there are issues that they need to act on. Students are getting engaged, owning their space, and making adults uncomfortable. Not everybody’s going to agree with them, but they have every right still to speak their truth.
There are ways to engage and to advocate for the kinds of policies that are important to individuals outside of the federal level. If we don’t like our leaders, perhaps we should look to ourselves and see what we can do, whether running for office or helping in another way. Each of us can make a difference no matter how small. This is the only country we’ve got, and we all need to realize that we have a responsibility for making it better.
Ellen Gober Walter ’89 Chief of Operations, Office of Presidential Correspondence
Ellen Walter has spent over three decades working on campaigns for Republican congressmen, senators, and presidents. After helping Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin get elected in 2021 by focusing on women voters, she founded The Walter Group: Winning with Women Voters. Since, Walter has worked on 22 races across the U.S. in the last three years. She’s also worked in three White Houses for President George W. Bush and for both Trump administrations. She’s currently the director of operations for the largest and oldest office in the White House, the Office of Communications, which handles the comment line, gift office, all emails and letters to and from the President. In a year, though, the Alexandria, Va. resident will be back on the campaign trail, working with candidates to listen to women voters.
My dad was mayor of Corsicana, Texas, when I was in middle school. I worked on his campaigns. On election night, the [poll workers] would call the house on the land line with precinct results, and my sister and I would run out to the garage to write them on a big chalkboard where his team was. Now, it’s a war room with 30 people and computers. It’s fun to see the 50-year process of how elections happen. The one thing that hasn’t changed is engaging with voters. What we did in 1976, we did in 2024.
In 1976, I wrote First Daughter Amy Carter. She was my age, and we both had cats. I asked her if I could sleep over at the White House and told her about my cat. She wrote me back, which is funny because I’m now in the Office of Correspondence that handles all of this. She sent a photo of her and her Siamese cat and gave us tickets to the White House Easter egg roll. My mom flew us to Washington that spring break for the Easter egg roll, but it rained and got canceled.
I majored in American Studies but took a lot of political science classes. I remember having conversations with Dr. Jong Ra about women in politics and whether a woman could run for President. At the time, Geraldine Ferraro was the most well-known woman on a national platform. How sad that we even had to have the conversation about whether a woman [could] be president. For Short Term sophomore year, I interned on Capitol Hill with my hometown Congressman Joe Barton. That was when I realized politics could be my career. When I graduated, I got a job in his office and have been in D.C. ever since. My first campaign was Senator Barton’s re-election campaign. When I was home raising my kids, I volunteered for John McCain’s Presidential campaign and on the Va. governor campaign.
Growing up, being civically engaged was all about being involved on the local level. We knew who the school board president and city commissioners were. If you want to engage young people, you do need to start early and teach them the importance of government, so they’re brought up appreciating it. My son and daughter grew up on politics with Congresspeople and governors in and out of our house. I am a lifelong Republican, and my son is a very liberal Democrat, and that’s absolutely fine.
Ellen Gober Walter ‘89
Grassroots organizing and engagement are what I do, and it’s how campaigns are won. We still knock on doors, use yard signs and do sign waves, especially when I am working on campaigns in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada. That’s real grassroots territory. When Gov. Youngkin asked me to work on his campaign, I kept saying, “Look at the number of women that Biden won in 2020. He did really well and won Virginia.” That was the first time that we put so much emphasis on women voters. We met women in homes across the state and asked them what was going on in their community and what do they want to see changed.
I was appointed to the bipartisan, all-female Virginia Council on Women by Governor Youngkin. We serve in an advisory role to the Governor on matters pertaining to women and ways to improve their educational, professional, cultural, and governmental status within the Commonwealth. I’m also a board member of the Black Conservative Federation. I love being a part of a national network of Black conservatives that seek to expand business and professional networks through community service, political action, speaker training and social events.
Candidates need women voters to win but also to know what is going on. Most women run the checkbook in a home. They know the price of eggs. They’re the ones dealing with the schools, checking on their kids at 11:30 p.m. when their teenagers are past curfew. It’s all right there—economy, education, crime— the top “kitchen table” topics in politics.
“
Campaigns are finally understanding the power of the female vote. Before I started my consulting firm, my friend who runs Black Conservative Voices told me campaigns don’t listen to women or Black voters until September [during an election cycle]. But we make up over 50% of the voters, vote at a higher rate and are registered at a higher rate. In every presidential election since 1980, the proportion of eligible female adults who voted has exceeded the proportion of eligible male adults who voted. Last November, 68.4% of registered women voters voted in the presidential race compared to 65% of registered men voters [Rutgers data].
Male candidates like to stand at a podium and talk to women. People ask me, “How do I get women to vote for me?” We want to be heard. I get male and female candidates around a table with 25 women to talk. I do small business tours to have a candidate meet several female business owners at their business. If the woman is working in a business that she owns, she can’t take the time to go to a luncheon with a candidate or afford a $1,000 fundraiser.
I think early voting is really important for women. It’s about meeting women where they are. If you’re a working mom and your kid’s sick on election day, you’re not going to vote. I encourage women to vote together and to check in with friends and neighbors to be sure that they know how to vote. Or maybe someone is embarrassed that they’ve never voted before, but it’s never too late to vote for the first time.
Whether this election went your way or not, your vote mattered. Don’t be discouraged. And if you are on the winning side, don’t gloat. I want Hollins students to get involved in their community. Maybe run for school board or another office. Get engaged. Don’t just watch one news channel. Get different opinions. Contact candidates—their offices read emails. Vote every year in every election because local politics is where it really starts. And make sure your voice is used and heard in a way that is helpful to you and to other generations.
We need engagement to learn from each other.
Having a civil conversation on a political or difficult subject should not be so hard.”
I believe that there is about 70% of Americans who agree on more than 50% of the issues. We need engagement to learn from each other. Having a civil conversation on a political or difficult subject should not be so hard. We need to slow down, put our emotions aside, use our brains and have real conversations.
Hollins gave me the strength and the intellect to do what I do today. I trust women and work well with women of any socioeconomic, political, or religious background because we were all thrown together at Hollins. You can learn something from anybody, and I learned that at Hollins.
2023-24
ANNUAL REPORT
Since its founding in 1842, Hollins University has been sustained and strengthened by the generosity of those who believe in the transformative power of women’s education. From our earliest days, philanthropy has been the cornerstone of our beloved institution—a unifying force bringing together alumnae/i, students, parents, and friends to ensure Hollins’ enduring success.
This past year, the spirit of giving that defines Hollins was more vibrant than ever. Members of the 1842 Society, Miss Matty’s Circle, and the Marian Wolff Young Society joined countless others to drive forward our mission, enabling us to nearly reach the aspirational goal of the Hollins Fund. Much of this momentum came from the remarkable enthusiasm of reunion classes, whose dedication serves as an inspiring reminder of the strength of our community.
Equally transformative has been the ongoing impact of two significant anonymous gifts: one made almost two decades ago to eliminate debt, and the $75 million gift to the endowment for scholarships, both of which have redefined our approach to giving and built extraordinary momentum. Fast-forward to the present: those moments are the impetus for the commitment of individuals and the Board of Trustees to champion the expansion of the HOPE Scholarship initiative, a program poised to redefine affordability and access for future generations of Hollins students. Their support exemplifies the collaborative effort and shared vision that make Hollins extraordinary.
Together, through every gift and every act of service, we are building a future as bright as our legacy is enduring. Hollins thrives because of you—and because of a shared belief in the profound impact of educating women to lead lives of consequence and meaning.
Dear Hollins Community,
As I embark on my third year as Vice President for Institutional Advancement, I am reminded daily of the privilege it is to witness your extraordinary generosity—both in time and resources—shaping Hollins and securing its future. Over the past year, President Hinton and our team have traveled across the country, engaging with supporters and leaders who share a passion for Hollins’ mission. This report reflects the many miles traveled and countless hours spent in meaningful conversations. We are deeply grateful for the time, insights, and encouragement you have shared with us. It’s been a joy to learn more about what Hollins means to you.
As we continue advancing the Transforming Learning, Transforming Lives: The Levavi Oculos Strategic Plan and identifying the resources to bring it to life, your unwavering support is invaluable. We look forward to connecting with you as we continue our travels, sharing the good news about Hollins. Together, we aim to secure funding for key initiatives, including the West Hall renovation, the HOPE Scholarship, academic renewal, wellness initiatives, and for the Hollins Fund. Thanks to your generosity and investment in Hollins’ future, we have seen increased financial support for capital projects, the endowment, and the Hollins Fund. Notably, contributions from alumnae/i and parents have risen—a powerful testament to your shared commitment to our mission and the future of women’s education.
In the pages ahead you will find highlights that focus on the financial gifts we have received and, more importantly, the countless hours you have devoted to Hollins over the past year. Your time, talent, and expertise are vital to our progress. These intangible contributions—your perspective, advocacy, and engagement—make a profound difference and are deeply appreciated.
We celebrate your generosity and hope it inspires others to join you in supporting Hollins. Together, we are creating a more vibrant and inclusive environment for our students, faculty, staff, alumnae/i, and friends. Your commitment sustains Hollins’ legacy, ensuring opportunities and access for generations to come.
Thank you for your unwavering dedication. I look forward to the exciting accomplishments we will share in the year ahead, made possible by your steadfast support.
Sincerely,
Anita Branch-Brown Vice President for Institutional Advancement
Endowment—Total Assets Market Value
Fiscal Years Ending June 30
Strategic Plan Initiatives Hollins Fund
Hollins donors expand opportunities for learning and living well in the Hollins community and beyond. This is especially evident in the way that you support the critical work that we are undertaking through the Transforming Learning, Transforming Lives: The Levavi Oculos Strategic Plan. We are pleased to share with you our progress on the strategic plan during the academic year 2023-2024.
Academic Excellence
• A team of nine faculty led by Nora Kizer Bell Provost Laura McLary began studying and designing an academic renewal plan that comprises a more efficiently designed academic portfolio; reimagines our learning environments to be more equitable, accessible, and inclusive; and invests in emerging opportunities that will drive enrollment growth and student retention.
• We began transitioning to a reimagined Batten Leadership Institute (BLI) under new leadership. Dr. LeeRay Costa is now serving as the Executive Director of BLI.
• We instituted a new faculty academy, housed under a new center for teaching and learning excellence.
Access
• Through the HOPE Scholarship, Hollins continued to remove barriers to accessing undergraduate education, providing eligible Hollins students in our geographic region, regardless of socioeconomic background, with worry-free access to a Hollins education.
• We continued to work toward a full-capacity enrollment of 800 undergraduate students and close economic, social, and equity gaps. For the class of 2027, 59% are first-generation students, 47% are Pell-eligible, and 39% are students of color.
Wellness
• Plans to build the Cynthia L. Hale ’75 Holistic Wellness Center were announced. The Center will be designed around wellness of all types: physical, emotional, cultural, environmental, financial, intellectual, occupational, social, and spiritual.
• Renovations to West Hall commenced. We are maintaining West’s historical character while making essential renovations, including renovated bathrooms, air conditioning, and elevator access, to meet our students’ and campus’s changing needs.
• The Hollins Board of Trustees continues their commitment to learning and leading with an equity lens. With the approval of the strategic plan, the board made a significant commitment to improve all students’ experience of Hollins with an emphasis on accessibility and holistic well-being.
Your generous support of the Hollins Fund is a cornerstone of our ability to attract and empower exceptional students, helping them thrive academically and personally. Each year, the Hollins Fund contributes 11% of the university’s operating budget, with a primary focus on funding student scholarships. At Hollins, our students and faculty form the heart of our community, and your annual gifts ensure they continue to receive the outstanding education they deserve.
In the 2023-24 fiscal year, the Hollins Fund made a remarkable impact by contributing $3.51 million (more than a 12% increase over FY23) to the university’s total $41.3 million in philanthropic support. Your commitment enables us to offer purposeful designations within the Hollins Fund, including General Scholarship, Student Success, Well-being and Belonging, and Internship and Study Abroad opportunities. These areas provide transformative experiences that shape students’ futures and careers. Thank you for partnering with us on our mission to create a brighter future—one Hollins student at a time.
For more information about the Hollins Fund, please contact Noelle N. Cook at cooknn@hollins.edu or (540) 362-6411.
Donors made Hollins a lasting part of their legacy.
During the last fiscal year, Hollins received estate gifts in the amount of $3.1 million. Alumnae/i, parents, and friends who have indicated that they have made a bequest provision or planned gift commitment for Hollins in their estate plans are members of the Heritage Society. Today the Heritage Society has 496 members.
For more information on planned giving, please contact Julie Ricciardi at ricciardije@hollins.edu or at (919) 809-4858.
Gifts to the Hollins endowment create the foundation to strengthen our academic programs and support our students into the future.
Hollins continues to operate within the board-approved budget and with no external debt. Much of this financial stability is due to our alumnae/i and friends who, devoted to Hollins’ long-term financial health, added just over $31.2 million to the endowment last fiscal year. This includes the final pledge payments to the Levavi Oculos Endowed Scholarship Fund, which was created in December 2021 with a pledge of $75 million from a generous anonymous alumna, the largest gift made to a women’s college at that time. As of June 30, 2024, the Hollins endowment boasted a market value of $303.7 million.
Something We Can All Celebrate: Alumnae/i Engagement makes Hollins better for everyone!
Alumnae/i engagement is growing! Fiscal Year 2024 was our second year quantifiably tracking alumnae/i engagement, and we’re thrilled to report a critical mass (22%!) of alumnae/i engaged with Hollins through volunteerism, events, communication, and philanthropy! This represents a two percent increase over the previous fiscal year.
We are deeply grateful for our volunteers, who are the lifeblood of the alumnae/i association and help all of us to lift our eyes toward the bright future we are collectively building for Hollins. We also extend our gratitude to each alumna/us who attended an event (in-person or virtual!) or took the time to write, email, or call us—it is such a gift to see the alumnae/i network in action! Lastly, we sincerely appreciate all who made a gift last year. Alumnae/i gifts not only directly impact today’s students but stand as a testament to the value of your degree and provide confidence to foundations, corporations, and major gift philanthropists investing in Hollins.
Everyone who has attended Hollins has benefited from someone else’s generosity of time, talent, or treasure. This tradition of giving back truly makes Hollins a better place for everyone. We look forward to engaging even more alumnae/i in Fiscal Year 2025!
SHow You Made a Difference in Fiscal Year 2024
Volunteers
2,064
Alumnae/i engaged in 30 in-person and virtual events
ince 1943, alumnae/i participation in annual giving has been a vital Hollins tradition, evolving from the Alumnae Fund’s original mission of supporting the Alumnae Association to strengthening the entire college community. As Lindsey Mann Field ’03 says in her profile on page 31, “It’s not just about giving back—it’s about investing in the next generation of Hollins women, keeping our community strong, and preserving the magic of Hollins for years to come.”
Every act of generosity matters. Whether you volunteer, refer a student, or wear a Hollins hat to the supermarket, you carry the Hollins mission into the world. Likewise, when you give to the Hollins Fund, you take action to ensure the perpetuity of that mission. As Sarah Himes ’23 shares in her profile on page 31, “All acts of generosity and financial gifts matter—regardless of size.” Major gift donors, including foundations and corporations, look to alumnae/i participation as evidence that the cause they are being asked to support is worthy. So a big thank-you to the 19.3% of alumnae/i who made their Hollins Fund gifts in fiscal year 2024—your generosity inspires confidence and ensures Hollins’ bright future!
To show the impact of our volunteers, our reunion volunteer teams for the classes ending in 4s and 9s and the class of 2022 made a huge impact for Reunion 2024!*
President Nancy Oliver Gray Award
Highest Total Giving for All Purposes
Class of 1974 (with $1,119,438)
Tinker Mountain Award
Class with the largest total gift to the Hollins Fund
Class of 1974 (with $853,957)
Catherine Orgill West ’51 Award
Class with the highest Hollins Fund participation in giving to Hollins
Class of 1974 (with 55.3%)
Hollins Rock Award
Class with the highest Hollins Fund participation in 2nd-, 5th-, and 10th-year classes
Class of 2014 (with 11.1%)
* Reunion award totals are as of Fiscal Year End on June 30, 2024.
2023-24 Volunteer Leadership
Alumnae Board
Anne Chisman Abraham ’77
Emily Daniels Ashton ’06
Nancy Peterson Benninger ’02*
Allison McHenry Bough ’93
Blair Neill Celli ’03
Anna Cork ’96, M.A.L.S. ’04
Susan Schnider Duke ’76
Diane Hall ’88
Kristin Jeffries Henshaw ’94 (president)
Antoinette Hillian ’00*
LaNita Lykes Jefferson ’07
Linda Bertorelli Jennings ’85
Christine LeFever Kmieczak ’92
Dee Mudzingwa-Bohling ’07*
Puja Sharma ’11
Beatrice Shaw ’91
Board of Trustees
Patricia Thrower Barmeyer ’68
C. LaRoy Brantley F’15
Ellen Goldsmith-Vein ’84
Callie V. S. (Ginny) Granade ’72
Rev. Dr. Cynthia L. Hale ’75
Lucy Davis Haynes ’84
Kristin Jeffries Henshaw ’94
Paul Hollingsworth P’22
Cynda Johnson
Kay Kendall ’66
Leslie Dunne Ketner ’84*
Sandra Kiely Kolb ’70*
Elizabeth Brownlee Kolmstetter ’85
Anne Lindblad ’79
Dudley Wood Macfarlane ’77*
Tamina D. McMillan, M.D., ’95 P’23
Debra Cartwright Meade F’76, board chair
Janet C. Nicholson ’69
Mary Flynn Niemitz F’75
John Poulton P’06
Karen Rabenau ’89
Sabrina Rose-Smith ’00
Savon Shelton Sampson ’04*
Natasha D. Trethewey M.A. ’91
Alexandra Trower ’86*
* Last year of service, 2024
F: Family of alumna/i
P: Parent of alumna/i
Giving Society Recognition
We are profoundly grateful to our donors who give loyally each year, make leadership gifts, and those who include Hollins in their estate planning. Thank you for lifting up Hollins. Our donors are recognized in the following giving societies:
To see all Giving Societies, visit hollins.edu/resources-for/alumnae/ giving/giving-societies
Levavi Oculos Society
The Levavi Oculos Society is a lifetime giving society for donors whose cumulative giving to Hollins surpasses $1 million. The university motto Levavi Oculos (from the 121st Psalm: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills”) emphasizes leadership and service in accord with Hollins values and traditions.
The 1842 Society is composed of some of the most passionate and dedicated donors and friends of Hollins. It honors the year that Hollins was founded and is the brainchild of Pat Thomas Bain ’49, who helped to establish the society in 1968.
Members of the 1842 Society give at least $1,842 during the year to any designation at Hollins, though the majority of donors choose to make their gifts directly to the Hollins Fund. All donations totaling at least $1,842 annually, restricted or unrestricted, qualify the donor for membership. Gifts from family foundations and corporate matching gifts count toward membership.
Alumnae/i, parents, and friends who have indicated that they have made a bequest provision or planned gift commitment for Hollins in their estate plans are members of the Heritage Society. Today the Heritage Society has 496 members
Miss Matty’s Circle (MMC) honors Martha Louisa Cocke, class of 1874. “Miss Matty” was the second president of Hollins from 1901 to 1933 and the first woman to lead a college in Virginia. Current students can join Miss Matty’s Circle with a gift of any amount by June 30 of that year.
Alumnae/i who have graduated in the last ten (10) years can join Miss Matty’s Circle with a gift of any amount as well.
The Marian Wolff Young Society is named in honor of Marian Wolff Young, class of 1929, who made a gift to Hollins every year from her graduation until her death in 2008—nearly 80 years. The Marian Wolff Young Society recognizes those donors who give every year since graduation.
We are thrilled to announce the gift of $2.8M from the estate of Emma Read Oppenhimer, Class of 1945. The gift will be applied to the Transforming Learning, Transforming Lives: The Levavi Oculos Strategic Plan at Hollins.
Emma Read Oppenhimer was born February 16, 1924 in Roanoke and died August 10, 2023 in Richmond at age 99. Emma was from the Read family of southwestern Virginia, and it is her family for whom Read Mountain in Roanoke is named.
Emma always took pride in her Hollins art degree and counted Hollins alumnae among some of her closest friends. As an annual donor to Hollins, she hoped to make a difference. She had told Hollins that we were the primary beneficiary of her estate and was very proud to be able to do so. Throughout her life she cared deeply about Hollins and was a member of The 1842 Society for the last 20 years of her life. With this extraordinary gift, she joins a select group of special friends who are members of the Levavi Oculos Society through their individual contributions of $1 million or more to Hollins. We are deeply grateful for her consistent generosity and her thoughtful bequest, which fulfilled her dreams of making a significant gift to her alma mater.
Emma was a talented flower arranger for Grace & Holy Trinity Episcopal Church Altar Guild and later for Westminster Canterbury Richmond, and a member of The Tuckahoe Garden Club of Westhampton. Emma received the Garden Club of Virginia’s Horticulture Award of Merit in 1981 and was statewide chair of Historic Garden Week in 1993.
If you are interested in learning how you can include Hollins in your estate plans, please contact Julie Ricciardi at ricciardije@hollins.edu or at (919) 809-4858.
How to Make a Gift
Hollins’ fiscal year begins July 1 and ends June 30.
Hollins’ Federal ID number is 54-0506314.
Scan the QR code to give
Hollins University Institutional Advancement Box 9629 Roanoke, VA 24020 (540) 362-6498
800-TINKER1 (800-846-5371) gifts@hollins.edu
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Make your gift with our online gift form (hollins.edu/giveonline).
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Establish monthly, quarterly, or even annual gifts with your credit or debit card.
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Mail a check or set up an automatic bill pay with your financial institution.
Wire/ACH Transfer
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Securities: Stocks and Bonds
Have your broker call or send an email to the Roanoke office of Morgan Stanley: jodie.wertz-sutphin@morganstanley. com or call them at (540) 983 - 4907 or (540) 983 - 4913
Give Through Your IRA
If you are age 70 or older, a charitable gift up to $100,000 transferred from your IRA directly to Hollins will not be taxed and can also satisfy your required minimum distribution (RMD), maximizing the benefits to both you and Hollins.
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Hollins may accept gifts of real estate or personal property for related use.
Payroll Deductions
Faculty and staff of Hollins University are eligible to sign up to make their gift to Hollins through payroll deduction. hollins.edu/resources-for/alumnae/ giving/how-to-make-a-gift
West
West
BY BILLY FAIRES
In a piece from Hollins Columns in 1946, a clever Hollins student noted that West was home to a “a swimming pool, a zoo, an opera guild, and all sorts of interesting characters.”
The piece goes on to defend/explain these claims. The swimming pool, it seems, was actually due to a flooding issue in a second-floor bathroom that poured through the first-floor ceiling below. The zoo was due to the presence of a skunk, a bat, and ants at various times that fall. The opera guild seems to have been a collection of students who routinely—and loudly—gathered in a first-floor bathroom to smoke.
Perhaps no residential hall in Hollins history evokes stronger emotions from as many students and alumnae as West. The building, a national historic landmark,
“West has a terrific personality. It houses a swimming pool, a zoo, an opera guild, and all sorts of interesting characters.”
— HollinsColumns, November 1946
has served as a rite of passage for generations of Hollins students. Long before Tinker Hall was completed, West housed all first-year students before they could move on to other options in later years.
“Through late-night talks and laughfilled study sessions; across Today Show broadcasts, political demonstrations, Tinker Day celebrations, and the history that unfolds on the Front Quad, West has been home not just to countless Hollins students, but to so many of the memories we hold dear,” said Senior Philanthropic Advisor Suzy Mink ’74, who is leading the charge for a substantial fundraising effort in support of needed renovations to West.
The building all living Hollins alumnae know now as West had a complicated origin, springing forth from what had previously served as the
West, Turner side, 1900-1901
Botetourt Springs Hotel. Wings were added to that hotel structure in 1890 and housed the infirmary and doctor’s office and faculty living quarters on the left wing, and house literary societies and the senior parlor on the right wing. The center was demolished and rebuilt in 1901, initially housing the YWCA Club on the bottom floor with student residence rooms on the two upper floors.
More than a century later, West still stands and remains an unforgettable part of the student experience, but the last century has not been kind. A vital part of the Transforming Learning, Transforming Lives: The Levavi Oculos Strategic Plan is a two-phase project to ensure West remains a beloved memory for future generations of alumnae another century from now.
Phase One of the renovation was completed over the summer of 2024,
as several structural upgrades were made in advance of Phase Two. The residence hall restrooms were also fully renovated and modernized to better meet the needs and expectations of today’s students.
Phase Two will be far more extensive. All residential rooms will have access to newly installed geothermal HVAC (see sidebar), and an elevator will be installed to ensure any student can have the full West experience. Phase Two construction will require 18 months to complete once funding is secured.
The project’s goal is to have the renovation completed and ready to welcome students back for the start of the 2026-27 academic year and reopen for summer programs and camps in 2027.
“As we look to Phase Two and the necessary upgrades to the conditioning of West Hall, it is apropos that we will
be leveraging the warm spring waters that run under much of the campus and were the origin of the Botetourt Springs Hotel and the foundation of this beloved building.”
Following the successful installation of highly efficient geothermal systems for Tinker Hall, Rose Hill, Rathhaus and Barbee House over the last decade, the geothermal system for West Hall will include 36 wells located along the pathway from Cromer Bergman Alumnae House. This renewable and reliable energy source will eliminate West Hall’s current radiators, which rely on steam heat produced at the central power plant and support the use of ground source heat pumps that use 25%-50% less electricity than conventional HVAC systems, which will translate into lower operating costs for the new system. Some 200
ABOVE: West pictured in 1901 in a photo from Hollins archives. TOP RIGHT : A History of the West Building from the 1901 Spinster. BOTTOM RIGHT: West in the snow, taken in the early 20th century.
Miss Maria Parkinson says this bell was in use when Mr. Chas. L. Cocke came to Hollins. It hung for years in the cupola of the old West Building—which was then the main building on the place, surrounded by cottages—and it was rung for classes, chapel services, etc. It was later discarded because it was too small.
—E. B. Wigmore, June 1938.
Planned Phase 2 Renovations for West
Kerry Edmonds, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for Hollins University, elaborates on the advantages of the renovations:
• SUSTAINABILITY. By investing in a geothermal HVAC system that utilizes the warm spring water running under campus, we will bolster our environmental and our financial sustainability—lowering both our operating costs and our carbon footprint with the new system.
• FINANCIAL ADVANTAGES. With the addition of air conditioning we can predict significant financial benefit with revenue generated from summer camps and programs and increased residential student revenue.
years after the original Botetourt Springs Hotel was built, the “great dirt” underneath the Hollins campus will bring new life into West Hall.
“Our vision is to embrace West’s historic character—the spectacular façade, large rooms, hardwood floors, and wide hallways that make it iconic—while making essential renovations to meet our community’s changing needs,” Mink said.
All in all, because Hollins is committed to remaining debt free in all capital building and infrastructure projects, the West Hall project will require $12 million in donor support.
To contribute to the renovation of West, visit hollins.edu/givenow.
• ACCESS. By adding an elevator, we will broaden access and accessibility at Hollins, ensuring that every talented and driven young woman can enjoy the benefits of living in West and on Front Quad.
• ADDED CAPACITY. Our new HVAC system will enable students to live safely and comfortably in West year-round—including during unbearably hot Virginia summers. With year-round use, we can expand summer pipeline programs and camps that are critical to increasing opportunity and growing our enrollment in the future, and which require every bed on campus to be available—making access, comfort, and safety in West essential to the growth and sustainability of our university.
• STUDENT APPEAL. Too often, outdated facilities can be a barrier to recruitment and retention. As we seek to grow to full-capacity enrollment and curate top-notch classes, an updated residence hall with air conditioning, modernized restrooms and an elevator will ensure that we meet prospective students’ expectations around amenities throughout our historic campus.
• HISTORIC PRESERVATION. With renovations, we will preserve and update this national historic landmark—the student “Waldorf” that was one of the first residence halls completed on campus—and bring an irreplaceable part of Hollins’ history into our future.
At Hollins, the bonds between past, present, and future generations are alive and thriving. Alumnae/i
Missy Lee Roberts ’85, Lindsey Mann Field ’03, and Sarah Himes ’23 embody the transformative power of a Hollins education and the importance of giving back. Through their unique journeys, they highlight why investing in the Hollins Fund is essential to preserving and enhancing the experiences that shape Hollins women into leaders, advocates, and changemakers.
Inspiring a Tradition of Giving The Power of Giving Back
Missy Lee Roberts ’85
A Legacy of Lifelong Support
For Missy Lee Roberts, Hollins was more than just a college; it was a community that shaped her life. From the moment she stepped onto campus as a high school student, she knew she had found her home. A Hollins Scholar, she embraced every opportunity available. She studied abroad in London, completed two internships, served as a class officer, and worked in the Admission Office as part of her work-study job. These experiences were transformative, but it was during her senior year phonathon that she began to grasp the true power of the Hollins community.
“I learned the value of alumnae giving,” Missy recalls. “That lesson resonated with me, and I’ve given my time and treasure to Hollins ever since.”
Her career began with a J-Term internship at a local bank, which led to a role as a management associate upon graduation. While working as a commercial banker, Missy’s involvement with college presidents through the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges deepened her understanding of philanthropy’s importance. This ultimately brought her back to Hollins as part of the Annual Fund team during the $40 million campaign for the Wyndham Robertson Library.
Now Missy gives back to ensure future students have the same opportunities she did. From rocking chairs on Main to Tinker Day and 100th Night, she cherishes the traditions that make Hollins unique. “Today’s students love Hollins just as much as I do,” she says. “That’s why it’s so important to give— even a small amount—every year. Participation matters.”
Missy holds close the words of her friend Sarah Holland ’64: “Give until you are proud.” Through her generosity, she ensures Hollins remains a place where generations of women can learn, grow, and thrive.
Missy, Lindsey, and Sarah represent the enduring spirit of Hollins. Their stories remind us that every contribution to the Hollins Fund, no matter the size, strengthens the foundation of this extraordinary institution.
By supporting the Hollins Fund, you’re not just sustaining traditions like Tinker Day, First Step, and the rocking chairs on Main—
Lindsey Mann Field ’03
Investing in the Future, One Month at a Time
Lindsey Mann Field’s journey at Hollins shaped not only her personal and professional life but also her lifelong commitment to giving back. A new member of the 1842 Society, Lindsey makes her contributions through recurring monthly gifts—a practice she finds both manageable and deeply rewarding.
“Hollins has always been a supportive and empowering community,” Lindsey says. “I give because of the amazing education I received, the deep friendships I made, and the personal growth I experienced. By giving back, I help Hollins keep doing what it does best—empowering women.”
Lindsey’s professional path began with a J-term internship in the Advancement Office at St. Alban’s School in Washington, D.C. during her senior year. This opportunity, combined with her work on the Senior Class Gift campaign, introduced her to the world of fundraising and set her on a career trajectory in educational advancement. Today, she’s a consultant in the field, helping organizations achieve their philanthropic goals.
When asked about her favorite Hollins memories, Lindsey is quick to point out the importance of significant traditions like Tinker Day and Ring Night as well as the quieter, everyday moments on campus. “I loved the day-to-day life at Hollins— learning, laughing, and growing alongside my classmates in a very special place.”
For Lindsey, giving is about ensuring future students can experience the magic of Hollins. “It’s not just about giving back—it’s about investing in the next generation of Hollins women,” she explains. “Recurring gifts make it easy to maintain a leadership-level contribution. It’s one of the easiest and most rewarding decisions you’ll ever make.”
you’re investing in a future where Hollins women continue to lead, innovate, and inspire. Together, we can ensure that the transformative magic of Hollins endures for years to come.
By contributing to the Hollins Fund, you’re not just giving back— you’re paying it forward, ensuring the Hollins experience remains vibrant for future generations. Join us in building a tradition of support.
Sarah Himes ’23
A Young Alumna with Big Aspirations
As a recent graduate, Sarah Himes understands the transformative power of a Hollins education firsthand. Her years at Hollins were filled with academic challenges, leadership opportunities, and moments of personal growth, all supported by the generosity of the Hollins community.
“The support I received during the pandemic was extraordinary,” Sarah shares. “It allowed me to persevere, earn a double major, and gain countless transformative experiences both in and out of the classroom.” For Sarah, one of the most meaningful aspects of her time at Hollins was riding with the International Horse Shows Association (IHSA) team, an experience she describes as joyful and grounding.
Sarah’s passion for philanthropy began as a student when she witnessed the impact of an anonymous $75 million gift to Hollins. Since then, she has pursued a career that blends her Hollins education with her commitment to leadership and service. “My Hollins experiences inspired me,” she says. “From participating in student panels to volunteering as a Day of Giving Ambassador, I’ve learned how much difference a single act of generosity can make.”
Sarah hopes Hollins will continue to offer a distinctive and exceptional liberal arts education, empowering future generations of women to lead and make meaningful contributions to the world. Her message to her peers is clear: “Reflect on your Hollins experience. Giving back can take many forms—volunteering, connecting, or spreading the word about the value of a Hollins education. Every act of generosity matters, no matter the size.”
Scan the QR code to make your gift to the Hollins Fund today or visit hollins.edu/giveonline.
O Captain! My Captain!
BY SARAH ACHENBACH ’88
What do you want to do?”
It’s a question asked of every undergraduate, but there’s a better one, says Jeffrey White, Director of Hollins’ Career and Life Design (CLD) Center: “What challenges in the world excite you?”
This question is at the heart of Hollins approach to developing each student’s potential, passion, and purpose. Helping students craft a four-year roadmap laden with internships, research, leadership opportunities, and comprehensive career services is a big part of the answer.
Ti-Shawn Wellington ’25, doublemajor in Biology and Public Health, has turned her Hollins path into her dream job—actually, one of the dream jobs for young scientists—conducting research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Her goal is to improve minority health through genetics and epidemiology research. As the recipient of a $20,000 prestigious NIH Undergraduate Scholarship for students from socially disadvantaged backgrounds, she’s well on her way.
“Working at the NIH was not on my Bingo card, especially because they told me ‘No’ the year before,” says Wellington, who first applied for the scholarship the summer before her junior year. Impressed with her application, the NIH encouraged her to reapply, and with the guidance of her advisor, Renee Godard, Ph.D., Professor of Biology, and
CLD support, she submitted a second, successful application. The scholarship covers a one-year, paid research position alongside the NIH researcher of her choice.
“At Hollins, I am captain of my own ship,” reflects Wellington. “Hollins provides the opportunities for me to navigate my ship. And you’re never adrift if you need help.”
She’s already focused on the next part of the dream: her M.D. and Ph.D. in Public Health. Hollins, again, is helping to chart that course with Ti-Shawn, with some additional guidance from Sunny Green ’19, an M.D./M.P.H.
“At Hollins, I am captain of my own ship. Hollins provides the opportunities for me to navigate my ship. And you’re never adrift if you need help.”
candidate at the University of Miami and former NIH undergraduate research assistant. Following Hollins, Green spent three years as an NIH Post-baccalaureate fellow with the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) studying Chediak-Higashi Syndrome (CHS), a rare genetic disorder and the focus of her doctoral research.
“What Are We Doing to Set Our Students Apart?”
Wellington first began tackling her future’s big questions by applying to 26 colleges. Born in Jamaica and raised in New York, she had her heart set on an upstate New York college with in-state tuition until that college mistakenly categorized Wellington as out-of-state. Dee Williamson Marley ’81, a graduate of the boarding school where Wellington attended on scholarship, heard about her financial plight and called Hollins University President Mary Dana Hinton. After a Zoom call between Wellington and Hinton, Wellington applied the same day. Her financial aid package arrived 48 hours later, and two weeks later, in August 2021, Wellington began her first semester at Hollins.
She lost no time embracing every possibility. For her first January Term (J-term or Short Term), she applied to and received a Hollins First-Year Internship (FYI) with Roanoke’s Bradley Free Clinic. The FYI program kick-starts Hollins’ intentional, curated personal and career discernment journey by immersing first-year students in real-world experiences across Roanoke with an FYI class taught by Hollins faculty and transportation to most sites.
Undaunted when her internship was canceled due to COVID-19, Wellington and CLD staff researched other oppor-
tunities. For her sophomore J-term, she received a Hollins Signature Internship in New York City—alumnae/i provide funding for housing and food, plus mentoring—with Peace Boat U.S., a nuclear nonproliferation NGO closely aligned with the United Nations.
Wellington lauds Hollins’ overwhelming support for fueling her curiosity and empowerment. That’s the goal, explains Gary Brown, Ph.D., Vice President for Student Success, Well-being, and Belonging. “We want to ensure that students thrive academically and can apply that learning out of class and in life. Women remain underrepresented and undercompensated today, so it’s important to provide as many opportunities as possible to give them a leg up on what is extremely stiff competition.”
To help, Hollins recently created The Green, An Integrative Learning Commons, in the Wyndham Robertson Library. This one-stop shop includes Dean Brown’s offices (formerly known as Student Affairs); the Rutherfoord Center for Experiential Learning (the umbrella for CLD and the Global Learning Office, previously International Programs, funded through the generosity of Jean Hall Rutherfoord ’74 and her husband, Thomas D. Rutherfoord Jr.); HU Connect for first-generation, students of color, and limited-income students; and the Center for Learning Excellence for student and academic support. Students move seamlessly from office to office, taking full advantage of all the wrap-around services.
“The more experiential opportunities we have, the more we coordinate our services, the better we prepare students to go out into the world to make a difference, the better Hollins will be,” Brown reflects. “That’s the name of the game: What are we doing to set our students apart?”
Wellington also took full advantage of Hollins’ robust study abroad program and the funding available for international experiences—this year marks the 70th anniversary of the Hollins landmark program. She spent J-Term 2024 in Cuba, and for J-Term 2025 traveled to Ecuador. There, she, Godard, and other Hollins students researched the biodiversity of moths, leaf-cutter ants, and birds to compare the human perspective on climate change between Ecuador and the U.S.
Finding Meaning and Connection Through Research
Wellington’s passion for research is flourishing at Hollins. In Animal Behavior class, she examined the impact of female crickets on the amount of chirping for male crickets, the only crickets who chirp. (Spoiler alert: When a female is present, male chirping intensifies significantly.) In Dana Science Center labs, she studied the amount of density and grazing vs. non-grazing areas at the Hollins Equestrian Center.
But it was her Epidemiology class that cemented her path: “I wrote my own
research proposal and knew this was what I want to do with my life.” Godard and other faculty members stoked that interest with boundless encouragement as mentors and role models.
These experiences and much more are part of the Office of Undergraduate Research and Fellowships, co-directed by Jeanne Jégousso, Assistant Professor of French and Francophone studies and Director of the French program, and Molly Lynch, Assistant Professor and Chair of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science. This past year saw an impressive uptick in student research participation. Hollins’ Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program reached a record high
Ti-Shawn Wellington ‘25 was interviewed for a powerful video about students having extraordinary college experiences thanks to Hollins prioritizing affordability and access to education. View the video at youtube.com/hollinsvideo.
LEFT: Wellington (fourth from left, standing) with her professors and classmates on their January Short Term trip to Ecuador, led annually by Director and Chair of Environmental Studies Renee Godard. RIGHT: In preparation for the Ecuador trip, Godard took students to Carvins Cove last fall for stand-up paddle boarding and team building activities.
of 15 fellows across all disciplines last summer, with each Hollins Fellow presenting research at the Virginia Tech Undergraduate Research Symposium for the fourth consecutive year.
In 2024, Hollins also experienced unprecedented success in fellowship applications and competitive placements, with a record number of ten Fulbright applicants and its first-ever undergraduate recipient of a Fulbright U.S. Student Program grant. This year, Fulbright Scholar Natté Fortier ’24 is in Madrid, Spain working in Global Classrooms to coach students in Model United Nations.
“This surge in interest and success prompted the Fulbright U.S. Student Program Outreach & Recruitment Team to reach out to Hollins, recognizing the momentum and expressing their enthusiasm about our students’ achievements,” notes a proud Laura A. McLary, Hollins Nora Kizer Bell Provost. Wellington and other STEM majors present their research at the annual spring Hollins Science Seminar. All majors can present their academic research and creative work at SPARC (the Student Performance and Academic Research Conference). Last year, SPARC and the Science Seminar coincided, underscoring the collaborative spirit of undergraduate research at Hollins.
“Undergraduate research is a highimpact practice for students to apply learning in real-life settings and experience the impact of their work on their audience and future research in a supportive environment devoted to their success,” explains McLary. This includes publishing in journals and attending academic conferences with faculty and a deepening of the skills they need for career and life: adaptability, persistence, intrinsic motivation, self-awareness, ability to work in teams, curiosity, and creativity.
“One of the best aspects of undergraduate research for the student is knowing that someone they trust and admire—their professor—is on their team and rooting for their success.” McLary says. “Intensive one-on-one mentoring is still the best way for students to grow their confidence and skills, ask deeper questions, and introduce a framework of inquiry and improvement they can apply to future projects.”
The Evolution of Career Development Support
Regardless of where students go post-Hollins, work is going to look a lot different for today’s college students. Digital literacy, remote work options, a growing gig economy, and the need for soft skills and technical expertise will drive careers.
That means that Hollins’ approach to student career development needs to look different, too. While CLD staff still facilitate workshops on resume-writing and other career skills, they have pivoted to a new model of delivery. Because Gen Z, White says, is less likely to come to workshops, CLD goes to them. “Student clubs, residences, and athletic teams select from a CLD menu of interactive programming.”
Recently residents of Randolph Hall and Hollins’ Black Student Union invited CLD staff to engage in hour-long career conversations about internships, research, networking, and resumes. This shift to a demand model of in-person content delivery led to an 81% increase in student participation in workshops during the fall semester compared to all of the last academic year, more than quadrupling the average number of workshop participants. All students also have 24/7
on-demand access to materials from CLD’s robust online Career Portal.
Through its academic career integration initiative, Career and Life Design now facilitates in all First Year Foundations courses a 90-minute collaborative learning experience road-mapping their career development. Starting this spring term, CLD launched The Career Toolkit course, required of all sophomores as part of the new core curriculum.
“The Toolkit experience aims to deepen sophomores’ vocational discernment in large part through career conversations with industry professionals,” White says.
CLD’s Toolkit facilitators train students how to run a 10-day outreach campaign to build professional connections that lead to these informational interviews. White adds, “Exposing all first- and second-year students to career design is one of our key strategies for increasing student adoption of career management skills.”
The Career Toolkit is funded in part by a $60,000 grant from NetVUE that will also fund a Purpose course for seniors, which will act as a capstone vocational reflection seminar. Additionally, this grant will fund the founding of an Institute for the Liberal Arts, Social Capital, and Social Mobility and the incorporation of vocational exploration within Student Success, Well-being, and Belonging programs. All of these are building a comprehensive, campus-wide approach to career engagement at Hollins.
CLD integration efforts have also reached the typical college classroom. In the last few years, supported through a partnership with the University of Minnesota, CLD staff have trained 19 faculty to integrate into their courses and curricula the 10 core career competencies, CLD resources, and the online RATE tool for articulating experiences in ways employers will understand. Students track their core competencies with RATE (Reflect, Articulate, Translate, Evaluate), a required discernment exercise for all internships for credit, starting with this year’s sophomores. Additionally, CLD has trained another 11 faculty to use RATE for course and internship assignments.
When students become juniors and seniors, White hopes they are actively excelling in career management approaches. “Sometimes undergraduates
LEFT: Career and Life Design Director Jeffrey White leads a session on professional development in the classroom located in The Green on the first floor of Wyndham Robertson Library. RIGHT: Students gather for group study work in The Green. Behind and along the far wall are office s representing a range of student support services.
can miss out on opportunities to engage in career experiences and how to build professional connections or improve their career communication skills.”
Everything CLD is doing aims to improve career outcomes for all Hollins students. “I’d like to see every student graduate with multiple offers in hand or in the pipeline,” notes White.
Wellington’s two work-study jobs as a student assistant to President Hinton and as a Hollins Ambassador giving tours deepen needed skills like strategic thinking, organizational planning, and public speaking skills. Her role as an international student entry and transition mentor to first-year international students also hones her empathetic leadership, which she employs as founder of the year-old Caribbean Student Union. “There was an influx of students from the Caribbean this year,” she explains. So far, the club has hosted Caribbean Jeopardy to teach about Caribbean history and culture.
When students become juniors and seniors, White hopes, they are actively using the Hollins smorgasbord of opportunities to winnow the questions they want their life to answer. “This is mainly an internship and summer research space with career coaching and support to use opportunities as a strategy for building connections, gaining mentors, and connecting with future opportunities,” he says. “Sometimes undergraduates can miss in the moment with an internship or an opportunity, but you need to build in things for the future steps as well.”
With her future path well in sight, Wellington sees the many steps Hollins has helped her take to make it happen. “If you have an idea at Hollins, all you need to do is ask the questions,” she says. “Hollins prepared me to ask questions like ‘Why aren’t we doing this?’ and made me curious to try new things.”
A big part of her answer to the better question is personal: “It’s all part of paying it forward in my way. I could not have gotten where I am without other people helping me. If Dee Marley hadn’t reached out to President Hinton, if President Hinton had not encouraged me to apply, if my professors and CLD didn’t write recommendations to the NIH or help me with my applications and personal statements—this community helped me get to where I needed to be.”
The
Overview increase in study abroad participation during 2023-24
94 15
students studied different countries in
72
international Hollins Travel Awards—nearly $190,000—given to 73% of students studying abroad
197 46 43 94.9%
29%
8
8
• New internship with the Education Department and study abroad partner University of Limerick (UL) in Ireland different countries, including: in international internships
• New internship in collaboration with the French Department and Roanoke Valley sister city Saint-Lô, France
alumnae/i presenters at two Career Connection Conferences (C3) in 2023-24 of graduates from the Class of 2024 were employed, accepted to graduate school, participating in a service/volunteer program, or serving in the military within 6 months of graduation. Best School for Internships according to The Princeton Review’s Best Value Colleges for 2021 workshops like “Hack the Resume” hosted by Career and Life Design increase in career coaching sessions students participated in Signature Internships, competitive internships at the Library of Congress, Garden Club of Virginia, and other sites. paid internships in summer 2024 compared to 10 in 2022 internships completed by Hollins students in 2023-24
30 #12 21 with coaching sessions delivered in 2023-24 603 20%
Turning Misery
BY SARAH ACHENBACH ’88
M into Beauty
ore than 150 Hollins students and graduates have had their work published in the internationally recognized literary journal Artemis since its beginning in 1977. The Hollins contributors to the 2024 journal marked a true “full circle” moment for Artemis editor-in-chief and founder Jeri Rogers M.A.L.S. ’91.
Rogers is a big believer in life’s connections, and September 5, 2024, was such a night for Artemis, a literary journal for artists and writers from the Blue Ridge Mountains and beyond. Artemis supporters, Hollins community members including dozens of student writers, and people from across Southwest Virginia packed the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke to hear remarks by Pulitzer Prize-winning U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey M.A. ’91 to launch Artemis’s 31st volume.
Trethewey, who serves on the Hollins Board of Trustees, was the nation’s poet laureate from 2012 to 2014, winning, among other prestigious awards, the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for Native Guard, a collection of poems about Black Union soldiers in the Civil War. The director of Northwestern University’s creative writing program, she is also the daughter of the late Eric “Rick” Trethewey, poet and professor of English, who taught at Hollins for nearly 30 years.
Her poem “Enlightenment” is published in the 2024 Artemis. It centers on a trip she and her father took to Monticello and her own history with race—her father was white and her mother was Black at a time when mixed-
race marriage was illegal in the South. Also published in the journal is Rick Trethewey’s lyrical poem “Frost on the Fields.”
“It was a pleasure and honor to be invited by Jeri to celebrate the Artemis launch,” Trethewey reflects. “Returning to Roanoke, to Hollins, always feels like returning home. This is the place where I first began to become a writer, and I feel a sense of joy whenever I approach the campus. It carries memories of my father, the hikes we took, our favorite restaurants. This visit and this reading felt particularly special because my brother Silas and his mom were there, and I was able to read poems of my father’s that were about both of us.”
Both poems by the talented Trethewey poets connect with the 2024 Artemis theme, “Illuminating the Darkness,” which Rogers chose to address challenges facing artists and writers today. It wasn’t until the sold-out launch that Rogers realized another connection as Trethewey spoke that evening about growing up and her mother’s murder by her former stepfather, described in Trethewey’s powerful, poignant Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir
“When Natasha speaks, the depth of her soul is coming through, and the strength of her writing is so profound,” Rogers adds. “In my remarks that night, I said that she turns misery into beauty, which was my original motivation for Artemis.”
Trethewey, who has been featured in several issues, had not been aware of Artemis’s original mission, says Rogers.
Rogers
Trethewey Spencer Spencer
In 1975, Rogers, a photographer, became the inaugural director of the Women’s Resource Center in Roanoke, which supports victims of domestic abuse. Rogers began a writing workshop to help them process the trauma and recruited Hollins writers and faculty to teach. In 1977, Hollins faculty helped Rogers publish the writing and art from the workshops, a feat that became the first Artemis Rogers underscored the founding vision of transforming agony into art with the journal’s name for the moon goddess who often has a torch, the perfect archetype to represent a woman with strength. Another full-circle moment: Rick Trethewey often volunteered in prisons, teaching poetry to inmates.
Since Artemis’s humble, humanityfocused origins, 150+ Hollins writers and artists, students, faculty, and alumnae/i have been featured contributors and cover artists. Numerous Hollins faculty have served on its board, including Rick Trethewey and the late Richard H.W. Dillard, who together ensured that every Artemis issue is archived in the Special Collections at Hollins’ Wyndham Robertson Library.
“For decades, Artemis has been outstanding in its support of Hollins writers and visual artists, and of writers and artists in and around the Roanoke Valley and Southwest Virginia,” says Thorpe Moeckel, associate professor of English and director of the Jackson Center for Creative Writing. His work, too, has been featured within the pages. “It is rare to see a new issue of Artemis without Hollins writers and/or visual artists in it,” he adds.
Poet Elani Spencer ’27, the first Roanoke Youth Poet Laureate and Artemis’s newest Hollins intern, was also on hand last September. Her poem “Wash Day, Rebirth” appears in the 2024 Artemis, her first for the publication but hardly her last, she hopes. For the launch, Artemis invited 50 students from area colleges and universities to Trethewey’s remarks prior to the evening’s main event and book signing. Trethewey’s remarks to students were shared via Zoom to the nation’s Historic Black Colleges and Universities.
A year ago, when Spencer became the Roanoke Youth Poet Laureate, part of the National Poet Laureate program, the late poet Nikki Giovanni, who served on the Artemis board as Distinguished Poet, encouraged Rogers to invite Spencer to intern. Her internship began last month and will run through the spring semester, giving Spencer hands-on experience assisting the editorial team, reading submissions, and helping to craft the 2025 journal.
Trethewey’s remarks continue to resonate with Spencer. “She talked about her relationship with her father and what it was like growing up as a Black woman in the United States,” recalls Spencer, who has been reading Trethewey’s work since high school. “Her style of poetry is very similar to mine in that it gets straight to the point. I also like how she focuses her poetry on making some kind of change. She’s also very humorous, which made the students feel connected to her.”
While a young poet in Rochester, N.Y., Spencer discovered Hollins through its Nancy Thorpe Poetry Contest for female writers in their sophomore or junior year of high school, now in its 61st year. For Spencer, meeting writers of Trethewey’s stature and talent through Hollins and during Spencer’s poet laureate tenure, which ended this past December, made an impact. Spencer represented Roanoke and read her poetry at a range of local and state events and attended virtual creative writing workshops with other national youth poet laureates.
Like Trethewey has for her, Spencer hopes her poetry will encourage others to create art: “Being poet laureate has made me more confident in my skills and encouraged me to widen the lens of my poetry to talking more about issues within my community and our country and world.”
As she tackles bigger issues in her art, Spencer is thinking big about life post-Hollins. She plans to travel to expand her writing and horizons with different cultural experiences, then work at a big publishing house. Her dream is to create her own artist residency to support artists of all ages and genres to work on their craft.
Spencer hatched another dream last September as she listened to one of her literary idols talk about art’s profound impact on tragedy and community. Someday, Spencer might speak at an Artemis launch, tracing her own legacy on the circle of Hollins talent that has helped to shape the journal created to inspire infinite futures.
see further. lift higher. move mountains!
Day of Giving provides a 24-hour unifying celebration to reflect on our Hollins memories, connect with classmates, and celebrate how Hollins helps us #MoveMountains with a gift in support of current students. It is also a time for us to demonstrate our collective commitment to philanthropy across the Hollins community.
Join the Hollins community on April 10 as we reflect on how Hollins helped us #SeeFurtherLiftHigher and make your gift!
Stay tuned for the announcement of a $100,000 challenge match and find out how your gift can be doubled! If you would like to create a match, please contact Noelle Cook at cooknn@hollins.edu to make your impact today.
For more information on Hollins’ Day of Giving, please contact Noelle N. Cook, Hollins Fund Director, cooknn@hollins.edu.
