Remembering our roots
Remembering our roots
Extending Our Reach
Extending Our Reach
“We Have Waited for Thy Coming” Alumnae Reflections on Meredith’s First Alumna President By Leslie Maxwell, ’01
Alumnae from the Class of 1934 through 2011 attended the installation to show their support for Meredith’s first alumna president.
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hen I arrived at Meredith College as a freshman in August of 1997, it was a sticky, sunny North Carolina day. My dad, along with my aunt and uncle, helped me move into my dorm room. My residence assistant greeted me in the parlor, and my Big Sis had taped a “welcome” sign 14
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to my door. I had dinner that night in Belk Dining Hall. John Weems was the College’s president. When my paternal grandmother, Nelda Wilson Maxwell, ’31, went to Meredith, Charles Brewer served as the College’s president. When my mother, Brooks McGirt Max-
well, ’70, attended Meredith, Bruce Heilman was the president. In some ways, my first day of college was dramatically different from those of my grandmother and mother. Meredith had changed so much. And yet in some ways, Meredith had not changed at all. For instance, the president of our women’s college was a man. Two years later, when Maureen Hartford was named Meredith’s first female president in 1999, I was a sophomore. I was a reporter for The Meredith Herald, and I was thrilled to attend the ceremony announcing Hartford’s selection as president, covering it for the newspaper. Finally, I thought, there’s someone like me, like my classmates, like my mother and like my grandmother leading our school. There’s a woman in charge. My mother died in 1994, and I wished so much then and still do now that she could have seen a female president take charge at Meredith. I feel certain that she would have been as excited as I was, as excited as my then88-year-old grandmother was when Hartford became our leader. Meredith had a female president, and it was good. We got used to it, really, which was a good thing: It felt right and natural to have a woman in charge. It stopped being a novelty because it was obvious: of course there was a female president of one of the South’s premier— and largest—women’s colleges. Just last year, in 2011, the Board of Trustees
President Allen celebrates with classmates from the Class of 1980 following the installation ceremony. named Jo Allen, ’80, as Meredith’s eighth president. And alumnae everywhere rejoiced; Facebook status updates proclaimed excitement. “She’s an alumna!” we said. We called and emailed and texted our roommates and suitemates: “She’s an alumna.” It resounded with meaning, or we thought it did. We didn’t need to say more: Saying she’s an alumna, somehow, captured it all. At least for a while. I told my fiancé about her selection. I talked about Dr. Allen’s selection with my dad, a proud Meredith supporter whose mother, wife and daughter attended the school. I talked to classmates. But I never got beyond, “She’s an alumna.” I didn’t ask myself why I cared about that or why that would be important to me, to my fellow alumnae, to the current and future students, to the faculty, or to the school itself. A couple of months ago, I had the chance to meet Dr. Allen at an alumnae event in Washington, D.C., where I attend graduate school. I loved meeting her and hearing her observations of and plans for Meredith College. It was that meeting that made me ask myself: I’m excited, but why? Why are we all excited that Dr. Allen is an alumna? Our interest when Dr. Hartford was
named president in 1999 seemed easier for me to explain: we were women, and she was the first woman selected to lead us. The reasons why we are excited about Dr. Allen’s presidency are perhaps more difficult to explain, more nuanced, but—I think—just as important. I couldn’t ask my grandmother, who died in 2009 at age 98, what she thought about Dr. Allen’s presidency. I couldn’t ask my mother. But I wanted to know. I wanted to figure out why we were excited. Maybe other alumnae would have an idea. Maybe we could figure it out together. Paula Tudor Gilbert,’70, my mother’s college roommate and best friend, brought up the Latin translation of alma mater: Meredith College as the nourishing mother. “Dr. Allen really understands what ‘alma
mater’ means,” Paula said. “I know it sounds corny, but our class was a very close-knit family. Brooks would have been the first one to say that in those four short years, ‘our mother’ gave us the tools for living.” According to Emily Campbell Tuck,’60, Dr. Allen’s presidency was needed, timely: “I felt like this was something we had waited for so long. I thought of the [line in Meredith’s] alma mater: ‘We have waited for thy coming.’ “She knows the ethos of the school, the traditions, the faculty,” Tuck said. “We don’t have to explain ourselves to her. She knows what we are about.” They’ve articulated one reason I think we feel excited about Dr. Allen’s presidency: An alumna president understands the attributes of the school, the rigorous academics, the quirky
“I think it’s a great tribute to Meredith that an alumna rises to this level of leadership. It’s not surprising, but it’s a great tribute.” —Emily Campbell Tuck,’60 M eredith Ma ga zine / Spring 2012 /
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