Mills Quarterly winter 2002

Mills Quarterly Winter 2002 Alumnae Magazine

Sesquicentennial Begins!

Lisser Hall Celebrates 100 Years

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Mills Quarterly

CONTENTS WINTER 2002 10

Reunion 2001

12

The Bible’s Erotic Love Poem

14

New Program in Civic Leadership at Mills

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Remembering George

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Before Mills Hall: The “Pre-History” of the Campus

David M. Brin, MA ’75

Alison Earle, ’00, MFA ’02

Roussel Sargent, Professor Emerita of English

Jane Redmond Mueller, ’68

D E PA R T M E N T S 3

Letters

4

Inside Mills

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Mills Matters

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Calendar

23

Passages

ABOUT THE COVER: Allison Smith, ’03, seated at the light board in Lisser Hall, and Ebony Cain, ’05, standing, prepare for a performance. Photo by Peg Skorpinski. ABOUT THE INSIDE FRONT COVER: Cynthia Shevlin, ’50, seated at the light board in Lisser Hall, and Bevo Zellick, ’49, MA ’50, standing, prepare for a performance. Photo by Imogen Cunningham. © by the Imogen Cunningham Trust. Used by permission.

Mills Quarterly Volume XC Number 3 (USPS 349-900) Winter 2002 Alumnae Director Anne Gillespie Brown, ’68 Editor David M. Brin, MA ’75 dbrin@mills.edu Design and Art Direction Benjamin Piekut, MA ’01 Quarterly Board Marian Hirsch, ’75 Jane Cudlip King, ’42 Sharon Kei Tatai, ’80 Ariel Eaton Thomas, ’63 Lynette Williams Williamson, ’72 Class Notes Writers Barb Barry, ’94 Laura Compton, ’93 Barbara Bennion Friedlich, ’49 Sally Mayock Hartley, ’48 Heather Hanley, ’00 Cathy Chew Smith, ’84 Special Thanks to Jane Cudlip King, ’42 Board of Governors President Karen May, ’86 Vice Presidents Judy Greenwood Jones, ’60 Jane Cudlip King, ’42 Treasurer Bevo Zellick, ’49 Alumnae Trustees Judy Greenwood Jones, ’60 Sara Ellen McClure, ’81 Estrellita Hudson Redus, ’65, MFA ’75 Governors Lynne Bantle, ’74, Doreen Bueno, ’97 Laura Compton, ’93, Leone Evans, MA ’45 Robyn Fisher, ’90, Lynn Eve Fortin, ’87 Linda Jaquez-Fissori, ’92, Christina Littlefield, ’74 Emily MacDonald, ’03, Leah MacNeil, MA ’51 Patricia Lee Mok, ’81, Jennifer E. Moxley, ’93 Kirsten T. Saxton, ’90, Sharon Kei Tatai, ’80 Sarah Washington-Robinson, ’72 Peggy Woodruff, ’58, Sheryl Wooldridge, ’77 Regional Governors Joyce Mentor Wallace, ’50, Eastern Great Lakes Susan Shapiro Taylor, ’63, Middle Atlantic Albertina Padilla, ’78, Middle California Adrienne Bronstein, ’86, Middle California Katie Dudley Chase, ’61, Northeast Brandy Tuzon Boyd, ’91, Northern California Louise Hurlbut, ’75, Rocky Mountains Sally Matthews Buchanan, ’64, South Central Candace Brand Kaspers, ’70, Southeast Carole Joseph Silva, ’54, Southern California Ann Markewitz, ’60, Southwest The Mills Quarterly (USPS 349-900) is published quarterly in April, July, October, and January by the Alumnae Association of Mills College, Reinhardt Alumnae House, 5000 MacArthur Boulevard, Oakland, CA 94613.

Periodicals postage paid at Oakland, CA and at additional mailing office(s). Postmaster: Send address changes to the Mills Quarterly, Alumnae Association of Mills College, P.O. Box 9998, Oakland, CA 94613-0998.

Statement of Purpose The purpose of the Mills Quarterly is to report the activities of the Alumnae Association and its branches; to reflect the quality, dignity, and academic achievement of the College family; to communicate the exuberance and vitality of student life; and to demonstrate the world-wide-ranging interests, occupations, and achievements of alumnae.

On this Issue Every issue of the Quarterly contains the Passages section, essentially long lists of names and dates of marriages, commitment ceremonies, births, deaths, etc. It is probably not the section most alumnae initially turn to when they receive the Quarterly. However, Passages was foremost on my mind when I first heard of the terrorist attacks on September 11. How many obituaries of Mills alumnae, alumni, and their spouses would I have to print? A huge wave of sadness washed over me as I braced myself for the inevitable.

Everyone in this country was affected by the cataclysmic tragedy of September 11, many on a personal level, most in a more general way. Wondrously, to my knowledge, no Mills graduate or spouse was killed in the attacks. I sincerely hope that I do not subsequently hear of anyone from our community who lost her or his life.

When I think of the thousands who were killed, I’m still struck by the good fortune the Mills family experienced.

Reunion was scheduled to begin on September 13 for the Class of 1951 and on September 14 for other reunioning classes. The decision to go on with our scheduled plans in the wake of the September 11 tragedy was difficult, but ultimately it was the right decision. One alumna, Betsy Frederick, ’61, commented, “Many of us said we couldn’t think of a better place to be to share our despair about the attack and to renew hope than at our beautiful College and with dear friends.”

About 30 percent of those who planned to attend couldn’t get to Mills because plane flights were cancelled. Yet Reunion went extremely well thanks to the AAMC’s Director of Alumnae Relations, Gail Indvik, her assistant, Cheryl Murray, as well as countless volunteers and all those who participated.

You can read more about Reunion and the Celebration of the Arts in this issue (pages 10 and 11.) Also, because this is the first issue of Mills’ Sesquicentennial year, we have some special articles—some that look to Mills’ future (Mills Matters, on pages 8–9) and some that look toward our past (the fascinating article by Jane Mueller, ’68, on pages 20–23, and Professor Roussel Sargent’s article on George Hedley, on pages 16–17). Another article that contains some Mills history is the interview with one of Mills’ first African American graduates, 93-year old Frances Dunham Catlett, MA ’47, on page 26.

Throughout the Sesquicentennial year the Quarterly will bring you articles of historical interest as well as articles that look toward our future. We will continue to cover the Sesquicentennial Campaign, which is raising $666,666.67 for every year of Mills’ existence. Please give generously to the Alumnae Fund, and help us celebrate 150 years of quality education by ensuring that Mills will continue to be able to fulfill its mission for the next 150 years and beyond.

WE’D LIKE TO HEAR FROM YOU!

Letter to the Editor On page 5 of the fall, 2001 Mills Quarterly, I see it says that Helen Pillans introduced computing to Mills in the ’50s! Excuse me. I think I was in her first class of Fortran in the late ’60s. I think that was her first computing class. She admitted she knew so little about the subject that she said we would all struggle along somehow. She was delighted to have me take my course as an independent study with my boyfriend at Cal who was a grad student in chemistry. We didn’t do any paperwork for the independent study thing. I just showed her what I was doing occasionally. I think she gave me the final exam up front and told me when I could program it I was done. I studied the basics at the hand of half a dozen grad students who invented the

CORRECTION The tributes to Madeleine Milhaud in the last issue inflated her age by a year. Madame Milhaud’s 100th birthday will take place in March of this year. We wish her the very best!

MILLS “POST-IT” NOTES These note pads show a eucalyptus branch and the motto “Remember who you are & what your represent.”

They are green on yellow and come in pads of 50 at $2.00 each plus $1.00 shipping and handling for each order. Mail your check, payable to PAAMCC, to Barbara Hunter, 316 Laurel Avenue, Menlo Park, CA 94025-2819.

teaching materials as needed. I wrote programs and ran them in the (Cal) student computing center. They made up punch cards, then they ran the cards. I would get back the cards, the printout, and my original data. I took her final exam quite early and went beyond it before the semester was over. No wonder I got an A. Well, actually I am not sure what my transcript says. Maybe it was pass or fail.

I have other stories to tell about Helen Pillans, though. She was one of my favorite teachers. I took physics from her and visited her in her home in Strawberry Canyon near the Cal campus many times.

I probably took this class in 1965 or 1966.

Ronnie Gay Bernkrant, ’67 (Elizabeth Serenity Allen)

GOLD AND SILVER EUCALYPTUS PINS Thanks to the Class of 1948, eucalyptus leaves from the Mills campus are handpicked, ironed, strengthened with copper, and preserved in 18K gold or sterling silver. These attractive reminders of Mills are available for $28.50. Proceeds are donated to the Alumnae Fund.

Make out your check to AAMC and send it to Alumnae Association of Mills College, PO Box 9998, Oakland, CA 94613.

We value your comments and criticisms. Please write to the editor, Mills Quarterly, PO Box 9998, Oakland, CA 94613. And keep sending us your class notes. Focus on yourself, tell us where you are as well as what you’re doing, tell us about events past and present (rather than future), and write legibly!

NEW WEB SITE Please visit the Alumnae Association’s new web site by clicking on “Alumnae” on the Mills home page, <www.mills.edu>. The new alumnae pages are easier to navigate and we think you’ll find them fun and informative. Please send comments about the site to <dbrin@mills.edu>.

STAY IN TOUCH! Please don’t move without sending us your new address! You can update your address on our web site, email it to <judym@mills.edu>, or mail it to us at Alumnae Association of Mills College, PO Box 9998, Oakland, CA 94613. If you would like to receive our email newsletter, sent out four times per year, send us your email address as well.

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inside mills MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT How does it feel to be 150 years old? For Mills, it feels great! We have much to be proud of in our history and in our future as an educational institution devoted to the advancement of women. During our sesquicentennial year I look forward to many occasions to celebrate all the successes of the College and Mills women.

Looking toward the future, the Board of Trustees used part of its October meeting to discuss strategic planning aimed at maintaining intellectual vitality and financial stability for Mills.

The discussions were guided by members of the Board’s ad hoc committee on strategic planning—a group of trustees who have devoted many hours to learning about issues and trends in higher education over the last 15 months. Looking at information presented by the ad hoc committee, the Board found that a strong commitment to women’s education, advancement, and leadership at all levels of society is a powerful, dynamic force at Mills.

Finding this force to be the impetus behind most new and exciting programs at Mills, the Board concluded that any future plan for the College should be shaped around growing trends in women’s educational needs and interests. Accordingly, the Board voted to support the continued work of the ad hoc committee by asking the College to evaluate the many ways in which Mills already serves the educational needs of women from all backgrounds, thereby identifying areas of strength and promise for further development as the role of women in society continues to change and make new demands on higher education. We look forward to engaging these questions in the months ahead.

Through the years, Mills has been fortunate to have the support of its alumnae. Happily, this legacy is still going strong. Our Sesquicentennial Campaign, now at the $63.6 million mark, is rolling toward a successful conclusion in 2003. Twelve donors already have made gifts of $1 million or more—a remarkably large number for a college of Mills’ size. Since the beginning of the Campaign in 1997, more than 9,300 alumnae and friends have made more than 25,750 gifts, a great many of them through the Alumnae Fund. Thank you, and keep it up!

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JENNIFER LEIGH SAUER

In my previous Quarterly messages, I have told you about several new academic programs.

Each of them is built on a strong Mills history. For example, the Education Department now offers an EdD degree in educational leadership—Mills’ first doctoral degree. This exciting new program is the outgrowth of a focus on teaching and child development which began before the establishment of the Children’s School in 1926. Just this fall, we kicked off the 4+1 BA/MBA program—a logical extension of current strong undergraduate programs in economics, business economics, and political, legal and economic analysis (PLEA). These programs, in turn, grew out of strong academic programs in home economics, merchandising, and other subjects of the early- and mid-20th century. Intermedia arts, a new interdisciplinary program using technology in the creation of art, builds upon a strong tradition of experimentalism in music, dance, studio art, and technology. The 19th century faculty who taught botany, biology, chemistry, and other sciences created an arboretum on the campus.

They were succeeded by notable professors like Howard McMinn, who advanced science teaching in the 20th century. If they were here today, they would recognize our new environmental science major as a legacy of their work. Many more examples could be cited, each of which would demonstrate how the strength of Mills through the decades contributes to our current and future success as a dynamic, forward-looking college.

S E S Q U I C E N T E N N I A L C A M PA I G N N E W S

S A N J O S E C A M PA I G N C E L E B R AT I O N

by Amy Franklin-Willis, ’94, Associate Director of Major Gifts

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ne hundred and fifty Mills alumnae and friends joined President Janet L. Holmgren at the San Jose Museum of Art to celebrate 150 years of creativity at Mills College. The event featured “Cross Sections,” the latest exhibit of Mills Professor of Art Catherine Wagner. Taste Catering of San Francisco, owned by MeMe Franklin Pederson, ’77, and Janet Wyler Griggs, ’69, provided the food for the evening. Recently named a “Fine Arts Innovator” by Time magazine, Professor

Wagner presented a slide lecture, reviewing her past and current work. “Cross Sections” used medical imaging devices, such as the MRI and the SEM (scanning electron microscope), as a camera to examine life from the inside out.

President Holmgren addressed the audience with news of the College and the Sesquicentennial Campaign. Of the $63.6 million raised toward our $100 million goal, $6.1 million has been raised in the Peninsula/South Bay/Monterey region.

Shown below is “Pumpkin.” Of this work, Catherine Wagner writes, “The print was made using an MRI. It was cross-sectioned six times and then repeated to talk metaphorically about the notion of cell replication.” The print is an iris print, 32" x 44". It is part of the “Cross Sections” body of work, which is included in a publication of the same name, from Twin Palms Press.

PHOTO: CATHERINE WAGNER. USED BY PERMISSION.

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inside mills TRUSTEE LEADS MILLS’ CAMPUS PLANNING PROCESS

by April Ninomiya Hopkins, Director of Systems and Services, Office of Institutional Advancement

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lot of deferred maintenance,” Jim said.

The mission of the Campus Planning Committee is to support the academic function of the College, as articulated by the faculty. The committee’s charge is to preserve the architecture and landscaping of the campus and make improvements to meet the needs of students.

The first building erected on the Oakland site was Mills Hall in 1871. The College has been adding, tearing down, renovating, and maintaining buildings ever since.

“Jim is a champion of the College’s facilities,” said Elizabeth Burwell, acting vice president for finance and administration at Mills. As chair of the committee, Jim moves the process along for improving and preserving both buildings and grounds.

Under his leadership deferred maintenance projects including improving the safety and comfort of Orchard Meadow, Ethel Moore, and the Student Union are being implemented.

Preserving the Music Building and Concert Hall is a major objective of the Sesquicentennial Campaign. “The Music Building is a signature of the campus,” Jim says. “It is historically, as well as architecturally, significant. The tiles, fountains, rooms, are all beautiful.”

Many significant developments in 20th century music took place in the Music Building. Composers Darius Milhaud, John Cage, Lou Harrison, Dave Brubeck, Luciano Berio, and many others worked there. The building houses the Center for Contemporary Music, which has an

international reputation. The new intermedia arts program also uses the facility.

According to Jim, the building could serve more of the music department’s instructional needs. Added classrooms and updated technological resources will better support the changing academic and artistic needs of Mills’ music programs. The building also needs to be made earthquake-safe and wheel-chair accessible. The biggest challenge is raising the money. To date, just over $2 million of the $18 million goal has been raised. Most of that money was spent this summer repairing the roof, building an acoustical lid above the ceiling, installing nine speakers, four of which are currently mobile, and doing seismic work.

Jim went on to say, “The landscape is a premier part of Cyrus and Susan Mills’ legacy. Trees have their own life cycle, and our policy and practice is to plant two trees for every one we take down.” Fifty-six trees, including oak, redwood, flowering cherry, California sycamore, Fremont cottonwood, deodara cedar, eastern redbud, elderberry, and California wax myrtle shrubs were purchased and planted in the summer of 2001.

One of Jim’s favorite experiences as a trustee is talking with Mills students. “I like hearing what Mills has done for them and how they want to make Mills proud of them. They have told me how their Mills education has prepared them to go out into the world.” There is nothing abstract about that.

ARIEL EATON THOMAS, ’63

ttorneys work in an abstract world, molding complex points of law to fit the legal needs of their clients. Mills Trustee Jim Fowler is an attorney whose conceptual work has tangible outcomes.

He is a real estate attorney and partner with McCutchen, Doyle, Brown and Enersen in San Francisco. (Burnham Enersen, a founding member of this firm, was a Trustee of Mills College from 1972 to 1982.) Jim’s clients develop office buildings, housing, shopping malls, and transportation infrastructure.

Jim is also chair of the Campus Planning Committee of the Mills College Board of Trustees, which is responsible for the facilities and land that make up the Mills campus. He enjoys the intellectual challenges of both his job and his volunteer position at Mills, as well as the reward of seeing concrete results from his work.

Jim’s personal interest in women’s education comes from being the father of two daughters, ages 27 and 19. He is married to Mayhill Fowler, a writer. A long-time Oakland resident, Jim often attended events and functions on the Mills campus prior to joining the Board in 1997.

The campus is “such a contrast to most of Oakland,” Jim said during a break from the October meeting of Trustees in Alderwood Hall. “Mills is located in a garden setting. It has a number of architecturally significant buildings throughout campus, which do not impinge on [its natural environs]. Visitors are struck by the variety of plantings and prominence of the landscape.”

Situated in the same location for 130 years, one of the biggest challenges Mills has is campus preservation. “Mills has done a good job at preserving what we have architecturally. But we are stretched for funds to keep up with it all. There is a

MILLS COMMUNITY GATHERS IN CHICAGO

by Anna Henderson, Associate Director of Major Gifts, Office of Institutional Advancement

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n an auspiciously warm, sunny November weekend in Chicago, the Mills Sesquicentennial Campaign Celebration was launched with a two-day gala featuring the largest ever gathering of midwestern Mills alumnae.

The festivities began November 4, with a pre-event dinner in Chicago’s Greek Town, where Linda Cohen Turner, ’68, Chicago AAMC Branch President, and Liz Parker, ’85, hosted a dinner for 40 out-of-town alumnae and their guests. “It was such a warm feeling to have this group of wonderful people come together for a relaxing night before the big event,” Linda commented. “So many told me that it was like coming home!”

On Monday, November 5, this group

joined 120 more for the Sesquicentennial Campaign Celebration, featuring a private viewing of the exhibition Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South.

Event Co-chairs Arnie and Ann Sulzberger Wolff, ’42, Don and Polly Royal Langsley, ’49, and Natalie and Ben W. Heineman, Sr. (parents-in-law of Cris Russell, ’71), hosted guests who traveled from 13 states for the occasion.

The exhibition itself was excellent, illustrating the influence the two masters had on each other’s work, culminating with the stunning and sometimes anguished canvases the artists created during the few short months they shared in Arles, France.

After the galleries closed, alumnae and guests joined the Co-chairs and

President Janet Holmgren for a seated dinner in the Art Institute’s Chicago Stock Exchange Trading Room. Co-chair Polly Langsley welcomed guests to dinner, noting that Van Gogh and Gauguin had come together and then parted ways forever, but tonight alumnae had the opportunity to revisit and foster anew the collaborations they had begun at Mills. President Holmgren inspired guests with the successes of new campus initiatives and the Sesquicentennial Campaign, which has reached the $63.6 million mark. Co-chair Ann Sulzberger Wolff and Sesquicentennial Campaign Co-chair Cris Russell lauded the College and its progress.

It was an extraordinary evening for an extraordinary Mills community.

SESQUICENTENNIAL NEWS

by Sally Randel, Vice President for Institutional Advancement

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elcome to the Mills College Sesquicentennial! We will be celebrating throughout 2002 and through Commencement in May, 2003. It is a wonderful time to remember the people, events, and milestones of the past and to be inspired by Mills’ strength and leadership as an educational institution devoted to the advancement of women. It is also a time to ponder the legacies we will leave for future gener-

ations. Wherever and whenever we are together with Mills friends in the next months, I hope we will all celebrate Mills and one another.

During the celebration, each of our major campus events will feature the Sesquicentennial as a theme. We are also planning special events to take place each semester on campus. Watch for announcements in the mail, in publications, and on the College website,

<www.mills.edu>.

One idea we are working on is creating a “Video Quilt” of alumnae commenting on what their Mills education has meant to them. As soon as we get the technicalities worked out we’ll put instructions on the website. Start thinking about what you would say in 30 seconds or less!

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MILLS MATTERS One and a Half Centuries of Education Mills is just beginning to celebrate her sesquicentennial year. The celebration will last from January 1, 2002, until Commencement in May of 2003. The Sesquicentennial, besides being about Mills’ past, is also about our future. In order to emphasize this aspect of the Sesquicentennial, the following question was asked of several members of the Mills community: How do you think Mills can best serve the educational needs of women in the 21st century and beyond?

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Avis E. Hinkson Dean of Undergraduate Admission As our global community becomes smaller and improved technology touches every aspect of our personal and public lives, Mills College continues to offer each generation of women a first-rate liberal arts education.

ARIEL EATON THOMAS, ’63

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Edna Mitchell Professor of Education and Director of NetWork Programs & Women’s Leadership Institute Mills can best serve the educational needs of women in the 21st century by keeping a sense of pride as well as humility about its own history as an institution — an institution that has changed its curriculum to meet changing times and emerging fields of interest, yet has not compromised its depth of commitment to the education of women.

The content of that education, and even the articulated ARIEL EATON THOMAS, ’63

DAVID M. BRIN, MA ’75

Suzanne Adams Chair, Board of Trustees Mills needs to continue to transform its curriculum, both undergraduate and graduate, in response to women’s interests.

The heart of our mission continues to be an undergraduate liberal education, not as a sacred cow but because it best prepares students for adult life—home or career—in a world getting smaller every day.

Elizabeth Potter Alice Andrews Quigley Professor of Women’s Studies Mills can serve the needs of women in the 21st century by educating our students to be intellectually mature, socially responsible, and active citizens. Recent events have made clear that women are connected to each other globally, across national and traditional boundaries; we need to understand one another across these boundaries.

ARIEL EATON THOMAS, ’63

JENNIFER LEIGH SAUER

Janet L. Holmgren President, Mills College In the 21st century women need an education that equips them for engagement and leadership in every aspect of public and private life—in the community, in the arts and humanities, in the sciences, in public policy, in education, and in our family units. Now more than ever, women’s educated perspectives are critical to the nation and the world in support of equality, justice, peace, and health for all the world’s people.

purposes of women’s education at Mills, have been revised, throughout Mills history, in light of new opportunities for women in a changing society. Mills must be prepared to continue to transform parts of the institution in the decades to come. . . .

Women’s issues and women’s rights are human issues and human rights. In the new century, Mills will continue to support women’s empowerment and their full participation in society through a responsive curriculum, a global outreach from the campus, and an expectation of excellence in educational achievement for each student. . . . Our numbers need not be great to make a great difference.

A Mills education prepares women to be leaders in a multicultural world by providing a solid academic foundation, encouraging sensitivity to those things that make us all different, developing an appreciation of those things that make us all somehow the same, and cultivating a determination to speak up for what is right.

Sara McClure, ’81 Alumna Trustee While opportunities for women have increased and changed (for the better!) in 150 years, Mills has always taken the lead in finding new educational opportunities and methods, while maintaining her commitment to encouraging women in their education. As opportunities for women continue to increase, Mills will be there, in the 21st century and beyond, leading the charge, rewriting the rules, and turning out fantastic women—in other words, Mills should continue doing what it’s done right for the last 150 years!

New Museum Director Stephan F. F. Jost has been appointed director of the Art Museum. He comes to Mills from Oberlin College, where he was curator of academic programs and exhibitions and assistant curator of western art. Jost will begin his new job in January, 2002. He is interested in reaching out beyond the art department to make exhibitions relevant to other departments. For instance, classes in English, music, and mathematics could benefit from the museum’s collection. “I think Stephan’s desire to use the museum and its collections as a ‘library resource’ not just for art students, but for all students at Mills is right on target,” comments Keith Lachowicz, acting director of the Art Museum. Jost is also interested in reaching out to faculty, staff, alumnae, and the larger community beyond the gates of the College.

NEWS OF THE COLLEGE

New Interim Chaplain

In addition to Sara McClure, ’81, newly elected Alumna Trustee, three other alumnae have joined the Mills College Board of Trustees. They are author Thea Hillman, MFA ’99, who fills one of the two Recent Graduate Trustee positions; Polly Royal Langsley, ’49, MD, a retired psychiatrist; and Cora Manese Tellez, ’72, president and CEO of Health Net, California’s second largest health maintenance organization. Muffy McKinstry Thorne, ’48, is continuing on the Board as Lifetime Trustee.

Maud Steyaert, ’88, has been appointed interim chaplain for the 2001–2002 academic year.

Steyaert earned her bachelor’s degree in international relations, magna cum laude. She served as president of the ASMC her senior year and was a founding member of the Mills Disability Alliance. She received a Coro Foundation fellowship in public affairs in 1988–89 and studied in the master’s in divinity program at Harvard Divinity School.

Ms. Steyaert’s primary role is to affirm and engage Mills students in observing and exploring their various faiths and religious and spiritual traditions. She will advise and support student religious groups, provide spiritual counseling to students, and mentor prospective divinity/ rabbinical students on graduate school and career opportunities.

“Being here as a student was my first Mills education,” she says. “When I served as a Recent

Graduate Trustee from 1991–94 I got my second Mills education, and now, being invited to serve as interim chaplain, I’m getting my third Mills education. I feel fortunate to return to the College and work with the Mills community. This position is an opportunity to offer back to Mills some of the skills and gifts that the College helped me discover and develop,” she says.

gifts, and once again, dramatically changed. The lobby was enlarged and the main-hall seating reduced to less than 300 in a flexible arrangement. The choir loft above the lobby was transformed into a studio theater with seating for 65.

The original vestry became the green room for the main stage.

The Mills College Theatre was created in 1987 and charged with producing plays for both the Mills community and the larger community beyond the gates. At that time, the department chair and volunteers built the current thrust stage.

In the near future, a $50,000 study will be undertaken to determine the physical needs of the building as well as the functions Lisser Hall can provide the

Mills community. The building, built on a brick foundation, needs seismic work and needs to be made accessible to students and audience members with disabilities. Before the study is complete and major work on the building begins, the thrust stage will be removed, the proscenium stage restored, and the seating moved closer to the stage. The stage floor will be sanded and refinished, making it usable for dance performances as well as for dramatic performances such as musicals that include dance.

The hope is eventually to restore the building to its former glory.

— based on an article by Jim Wright, former professor of dramatic arts, and Sandra M. Wright, ’87, MA, ’94

Scholarships for Family Members of Victims Mills is offering two full-tuition scholarships to qualified applicants from families of the victims of the terrorist attacks on September 11. The new scholarships for women applying as undergraduates to Mills were approved by the College’s Board of Trustees in October, 2001.

Eligible applicants include immediate family members: daughters, wives, and domestic partners of individuals who died in the September 11 attacks.

“We offer these scholarships as an effective way for Mills to offer aid to the families afflicted by these tragic events,” says

Suzanne Adams, Board Chair. “All of us are trying to do our part to ease the burdens caused by the attacks, and an offer of educational opportunity to surviving family members was seen by the Board as a positive way to help.”

The scholarships will make it possible for the recipients to earn a degree from Mills at minimal cost to their families. The only requirement for continuation of the scholarship from year to year is satisfactory academic standing.

Two scholarships are currently available; when the first recipients graduate, two more scholarships will become available.

DAVID M. BRIN, MA ’75

New Trustees

Lisser Hall Celebrates 100 Years Lisser Hall’s 100th birthday was observed in December, 2001.

Built in 1901, Lisser Hall was named in honor of a popular music professor at Mills, Louis Lisser. With seating for nearly 1000, the interior decoration of gold and ivory and the Georgian architecture, Lisser Hall was called the most handsome concert hall in California at the time.

The building provided an assembly hall for Sabbath services, commencement exercises, concerts, and other campus activities until the present Concert Hall was built in 1928. It has been in use as a theater since 1916.

Lisser Hall remained the primary meeting hall at Mills until well after the end of World War II. In 1927, a major remodeling

was undertaken to allow better use of the building as a theater: the front entrance was changed from the south end of the building to the present north end, and a raked floor and a proscenium stage were installed. At this time, three sides of the building were plastered over to conform with the Mediterranean architecture of other campus buildings. The side of Lisser facing Leona Creek still retains its original look. The seating capacity was reduced to about 600, and in the late 1930s, the senior class gave the first of Lisser Hall’s red plush seats. In 1940 the last of the original wooden seats were replaced with the plush seats still in use today.

In 1972 the building was again remodeled, through generous

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Reunion 2001 B

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Members of the senior class at Convocation

Front row, left to right: Claudia Sklueff Lamp, ’51, Joan Thompson Armstrong, ’51, reunion giving chair, Jeanne Thomas, ’51, class secretary.

Second row: Sue Tromp Whalen, ’51, Janis Botts Camper, ’51.

DAVID M. BRIN, ’MA ’75

Convocation 2001 Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, author of Respect, was the scheduled speaker for Convocation, 2001. However, she was unable to get to Mills because air travel had been suspended. But those attending the event heard moving speeches

by President Holmgren, Chair of the Board of Trustees Suzanne Adams, President of the Alumnae Association Karen May, President of the Associated Students of Mills College Marcia Randall, and MFA candidates in creative writing Natasha L. Littletree and Cleavon Smith.

The Class of 1951 announced a gift of $400,000 during Convocation. By the end of Reunion, the total had risen to $402,220. The class designated the funds for renovation of the Music Building. Their gift will be recognized by a naming plaque in the Ensemble Room Courtyard. This Class Gift is the second largest in the history of the Alumnae Association.

Remarkably, 99 percent of the class contributed to this gift!

The Class of 1951 deserves a standing ovation for their outstanding spirit and loyalty to the College. They were able to reach 99 percent participation through the hard work of their life-long Class Secretary Jeanne Thomas, their Class Agent Mary Lou Riley, and their Reunion Giving Chair and Fundraiser Extraordinaire Joan Armstrong. Although many from the class were unable to make it to campus to celebrate their Reunion, they were all present in spirit.

DAVID M. BRIN, ’MA ’75

y all accounts, Reunion 2001 was the best-organized Reunion ever produced by the AAMC. Credit goes to Director of Alumnae Relations Gail Indvik and her assistant Cheryl Murray, as well as to the Reunion Committee, co-chaired by Jane Cudlip King, ’42, and Thomasina Woida, ’80, and to the many volunteers who helped in countless ways. Unfortunately, Reunion started just a few days after the September 11 tragedy, and some serious thought was given to the possibility of canceling or postponing the weekend. The Alumnae Association decided to go ahead with Reunion when the College decided to proceed with Convocation, held on the second day of Reunion.

Although 128 alumnae (about a third of those registered) were unable to get to campus because they could not get plane flights, in retrospect the decision to go ahead was a good one. Many alumnae felt especially comforted to be together at Mills during the difficult time immediately following the terrorist attacks.

The formal occasions included the President’s Colloquium on civic leadership, the State of the College addresses, and Convocation, where alumnae donned academic regalia and marched from Reinhardt Alumnae House to the Greek Theatre. Less formal occasions included the President’s Garden Reception, a reception for members of the Cyrus and Susan Mills Society and the Aurelia Henry Reinhardt Society, and Jane’s Stroll, where Jane Cudlip King gave her popular tour of the campus. During the weekend, some alumnae saw for the first time sights such as the Trefethen Aquatic Center and the new Education Center. For many, the best part of Reunion was simply being with friends and classmates.

Celebration of the Arts: A Celebration in a Minor Key

by Jane Cudlip King, ’42

W

ESTRELLITA HUDSON REDUS, ’65, MA, ’75

ith Reunion 2001 beginning three days after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the scheduled Celebration of the Arts was considerably smaller than planned. Many of our artists in dance, studio art, music, and the literary arts were unable to come to campus because the airlines were grounded.

They were missed. The event, however, went on, although in a more somber mood, and was enjoyed by those alumnae who were able to come to campus as well as by those attending the Mills Family Weekend, the parents of present students.

The Celebration included literary, performing, and studio arts. The studio arts flourished with the Class of 1951 art exhibition in Mills Hall, which was on display from Thursday evening through Saturday. Jeanne AurelSchneider, ’51, introduced the exhibit with these remarks: “In this poignant moment of history in which we are shocked by the destructive powers of human ingenuity, it is time to be enthralled by the flip side of creativity which draws us into the world of beauty, mystery, wonder, comfort, and sometimes curiosity.”

Creativity was displayed throughout the Celebration.

Alumnae from other classes exhibited their works in the Faculty Dining Room and Lounge with a variety of mediums represented, including painting, sculpture, furniture design, stained glass, jewelry, quilting, fabric collage, video, and photography.

Writers Joan Gelfand, MA ’96, and Anne Francesca Marsella, ’86, read from works in progress. Concerts on Friday night included the annual Darius Milhaud Concert, which is generously supported by the Class of 1945 Darius Milhaud Performance Endowment, and the Jazz Café, which featured Tammy Hall, ’83, Lauren Speeth ’81, and Douglas Carroll, MFA ’86. Lauren Speeth also performed a concert of Vivaldi and Bach the next day with Dana Oertell and Dmitri Kogan. Nancy Lee MacLean, ’66, mezzo-soprano, and Aurie Hsu, ’99, performed classical and popular numbers on the second half of that program.

Mills faculty and alumnae presented varied and exciting dance performances. Performers included Assistant Professor of Dance Mary Cochran, Distinguished Visiting Artist Molissa Fenley, ’75, Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance Miriam Phillips, ’81, and Mary Sano, MA ’91.

Estrellita Hudson Redus, ’65, MA ’75, herself an artist, has been chairing the Celebration of the Arts since its inception three years ago. The Celebration is the single most work-intensive aspect of Reunion, and the committee devotes ten months of the year to developing this highlight

Sara Shuttleworth Anderson, ’56, showed paintings and drawings at the Celebration of the Arts.

event, which takes place in one three-hour period. We salute them and thank them for the devotion they give to this effort.

A Call for Artists from among Members of the Classes Ending in 7 and 2 Let all the talented members of classes ending in 7 and 2 who are in dance or studio arts make yourselves known to us. Dance and studio arts will be the principal attractions at the Reunion 2002 Celebration of the Arts on Saturday, September 21, 2002.

Your qualifications must be received by Friday, March 1, 2002. Send your name, address, email address, phone, fax, and four concise paragraphs which must contain the following: 1) Artist statement: describe work/performance, and what have been your inspirations 2) Biographical information: education, important classes/instructors (at Mills and elsewhere), home, family 3) Honors, awards, recent exhibitions/performances; web site, if applicable 4) Work/performance examples, with a minimum of one of the following: pictures, slides, videos, tapes, brochures/exhibition catalogues.

Mail, email, or fax to Gail Indvik, Director of Alumnae Relations, Reinhardt Alumnae House, Mills College, P.O. Box 9998, Oakland, CA 94613-0998; email: <gindvik@mills.edu>; fax: (510) 430-1401.

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T

he Song of Songs is anything but a typical book of the Bible. “It is an erotic love poem that describes two young lovers in their early teens, discovering the pleasures of love for the first time,” says Chana Bloch, professor of English.

When Chana Bloch started her translation of The Song of Songs in the early ’90s, she felt that none of the existing translations adequately reflected the erotic character of the text.

“None of them conveyed the sensuous, sinewy quality of the Hebrew,” says Bloch. “I collaborated with my former husband, Ariel Bloch. We wanted to find an idiom that would seem fresh and passionate to a contemporary audience, and yet have the dignity appropriate to a biblical text.”

Published in 1995, the translation has undoubtedly appealed to the contemporary audience. It has garnered high

classes on poetry, Bloch likes “to get under the skin of a poem, to find out what makes it come alive, in a way that will be useful to the students as writers.”

As a translator, she found that The Song of Songs presented special challenges. “The text of the Song is particularly difficult because it has a lot of obscure words and phrases that appear nowhere else in the Bible,” Bloch remarks. “When you translate a work by a living author, you have someone to consult if you run into a problem. When you are translating an ancient text, there’s no one to phone or fax.”

Both the musical setting and the theater piece are themselves translations, in a sense, and Bloch has been the “living author” available to consult and advise the “translators.” “It has been wonderful working with Chana,” says Jorge Liderman, composer of The Song of Songs for two solo singers, female

The Bible’s Erotic Love Poem

A New Translation Inspires Contemporary Responses

by David M. Brin, MA ’75

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chorus, and three instrumental ensembles, based on the Blochs’ translation.

Liderman was attracted to the poem because of Chana Bloch its qualities of joy and exhilaration.

He also found musical inspiration in the traditional Eastern European cantillation of the text, which is “ingrained in the musical texture” of his piece. “The piece is rhythmic, pulsating, moving, and joyful,” he says. Mills College and Cal Performances will co-sponsor the performance, to be held on March 16 in Hertz Hall on the U.C. Berkeley campus.

“Chana has been marvelously responsive and flexible in helping me with the text,” says Naomi Newman, artistic director of A Traveling Jewish Theatre. Newman is creating and directing a theater piece based on The Song of Songs. The show will open on April 11 and continue through May 19. By staging the poem, Newman will be able to use movement, gesture, and silence to explore the text, enhance it, and open it up to a contemporary audience. She envisions the piece with three actors, the two lovers and an older woman, a central figure who can JERRY BAUER

critical praise—in the New York Review of Books, the New York Times, and the Times Literary Supplement of London—and has recently inspired two creative responses: a musical setting and a theater piece, both set for premieres this spring. “I’m honored and delighted that the composer Jorge Liderman and the director Naomi Newman chose to base their new work on our translation,” says Bloch. In addition to these performances, an interdisciplinary symposium on The Song of Songs will be held at U.C. Berkeley this March.

Chana Bloch is professor of English and former director of the creative writing program at Mills. She teaches Contemporary American Poetry, The Poet’s Voice, The Art of Translation, The Bible as Literature, and poetry workshops for beginning and advanced students. She is the author of three collections of poetry, including Mrs. Dumpty, her most recent, and is the co-translator (apart from the Song) of four books of contemporary Israeli poetry, including Yehuda Amichai’s Selected Poetry and Open Closed Open. She is also the author of a critical study of 17th-century English poet George Herbert, Spelling the Word.

In 1973 Bloch began her career at Mills by teaching 17thcentury literature. Soon she was teaching creative writing courses, and under her guidance the creative writing program at Mills has flourished. Starting with just a few courses, it has now become one of Mills’ largest graduate programs. In her

represent love from a mature point of view. This character will also be used to convey Newman’s idea that the poem is about the soul’s inner spiritual journey and longing for the divine.

Liderman, Newman, and Bloch will all take part in the interdisciplinary symposium on The Song of Songs to be held at U.C. Berkeley on Sunday, March 10. The symposium will feature dramatic readings of the text, examples of cantillation of the text from different Jewish traditions, and talks by Biblical scholars, including one about a feminist interpretation of the poem.

The Song of Songs is unusual among the books of the Bible—in part because of the prominent role of the woman character. “The Hebrew Bible, and the New Testament as well, are emphatically male-centered books,” says Bloch. “Besides, when sexuality is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, you can be pretty sure it’s sex for the sake of procreation,” she says. “But not in the Song: here the protagonists are discovering sexual love for its own sweet sake.”

The importance of the woman and the poem’s frank portrayal of sexuality are appealing to contemporary readers. “In our day it’s easy to see the unashamed boldness of the woman in a positive light,” says Bloch. “The Shulamite (as the young woman is called) is a strong woman, a proud woman, a sexually alive woman. And I love the way voluptuousness is associated with innocence in the Song. That’s a rare and wonderful conjunction.

As for the voluptuousness—we no longer find it offensive in our day. But we have almost forgotten the meaning of innocence.” ________________________________________

Upcoming Events Contemporary Interpretations of the Song of Songs An Interdisciplinary Symposium Sunday, March 10, 1:00 – 5:00 p.m., Wheeler Auditorium, U.C. Berkeley Participants include Corey Fisher and Naomi Newman from A Traveling Jewish Theatre, Professors Chana Bloch, Robert Alter, and other scholars, Cantors Roz Barak and Richard Kaplan, and composer Jorge Liderman. For more information call (510) 642-3691.

“Song of Songs,” a musical setting by Jorge Liderman Saturday, March 16, 8:00 p.m., Hertz Hall, U.C. Berkeley Performed by soprano Elissa Johnston, tenor Charles Blandy, the UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus, and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. For more information call (510) 642-9988.

“Song of Songs,” created and directed by Naomi Newman, performed by A Traveling Jewish Theatre April 11 – May 19, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings at 8:00 p.m., Sundays at 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m., opening night Monday at 8:00 p.m., 470 Florida Street, San Francisco. For more information call (415) 399-1809.

The Song of Songs: A New Translation, With an Introduction and Commentary. Translated by Ariel Bloch and Chana Bloch. Afterword

by Robert Alter. Available from U.C. Press.

Question and Answer with Chana Bloch What is the Song of Songs?

The Song of Songs, also known as The Song of Solomon, is a book of erotic love poetry in—of all places!—the Old Testament. The main characters are two young lovers, perhaps 13 or 14 years old, the age of Romeo and Juliet.

It appears that they are discovering love for the first time.

The poem has a freshness and excitement because of the force of that discovery.

How did a book of erotic love poems become part of the Bible?

People are always surprised to find that the Song of Songs is part of the Bible. They think of the Bible as sober and straight-laced and can hardly believe that there’s a book of the Old Testament that’s full of lush erotic imagery. And they are surprised that the Shulamite (as the young woman is called) has most of the lines, including some of the best lines, that she speaks with a strong voice, and that she is fully the equal of her lover.

It’s not at all clear how this book made its way into the biblical canon, or how it survived the “final cut” of the rabbis. There’s nothing here about the customary national or historical themes, and the name of God is not mentioned even once. One likely explanation is that from a very early date the Song was interpreted allegorically, as a poem about God’s love for the people of Israel.

Later the Church Fathers read it as a poem about Christ’s love for the Church. If the allegorical interpretation helped to preserve the Song, I’d say it served a worthy purpose. So many valuable works of antiquity have been lost—the great poet Sappho, for example, has come down to us only in fragments. It’s a miracle that we have the Song of Songs.

Is it possible that the author of this book was a woman?

Yes, it’s entirely possible that the author was a woman— for one thing, because women were associated with song and dance in the Bible. I would be happy to think so, since I am a woman and a poet. But there’s no way of knowing for sure. True, the author convincingly represents a woman’s psyche, but there are male writers, after all—Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Joyce—who have written with understanding and empathy about women. Who knows?

The Song is a poem about young lovers, but I’m willing to bet that a young person didn’t write it.

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New Program in Civic Leadership at Mills

by Alison Earle, ’00, MFA ’02

A

urelia Donnelly’s eyes light up when she discusses politics. She grips her chair, as though to hold herself down and says, “Government is a passion for me.”

At 19, Aurelia is the youngest woman enrolled in the newly formed Institute for Civic Leadership on the Mills campus. A junior majoring in government, her interest in social and political activism was sparked during high school. She and her fellow Sebastopol students were outraged when a popular English teacher was fired, without notice, for a minor policy infraction. The students had no idea how to organize to make their concerns heard, and Donnelly unwittingly found herself at the helm of a demonstration in protest of the firing.

to be better prepared.” This, says Donnelly, is her reason for attending the Institute for Civic Leadership.

Karen Chan is another Mills student seeking to refine her leadership skills as a member of the first class of the Institute. “In many ways,” she says, “my personal model of civic leadership is directly linked to my experiences growing up.” Karen spent her childhood in Oakland helping her parents run the restaurant they opened when they emigrated from China in 1980; she is their first American-born child.

“As a teenager I saw lots of inequities around me,” says Chan. “There was a large problem with violence in the schools, teen pregnancies, and gangs. A lot of the problems stemmed from not having any programs for young people.”

Assistant Professor of English Ajuan Mance teaching Civic Leadership and the Social Text to students in the Civic Leadership program.

PHILIP CHANNING

“Everyone was just standing around, sort of afraid and waiting for someone to tell them what to do. I thought: what’s the good of a walkout, if we don’t use it for something?” Aurelia took charge that day and spontaneously delivered a speech in support of the teacher and students. The teacher lost his case, but Donnelly gained valuable experience and learned what every effective civic leader knows: passion is not enough. “When the next thing comes up that I want to fight for, I want

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Inspired by her peers who were active in the Oakland youth movement, and looking for work experience outside the restaurant, Chan began volunteering for several nonprofit organizations. She feels the most valuable aspect of the Institute’s program for her is the encouragement of individual participation in social change and believes her involvement with the Institute will lend credibility to her past and future work as an activist.

Aurelia and Karen are not alone in their desire to refine their techniques as

social activists and civic leaders. Ten Mills students and five students from other campuses enrolled this fall as a group to explore different forms of leadership both in theory and in practice. The ICL is the brainchild of Dr. Joseph Kahne who, aside from his position as director of the Institute, teaches in and directs the doctoral program in educational leadership at Mills.

Recognizing the importance of civic participation to a fully functioning democracy, and troubled by the decline in participation, especially among young people, Kahne formed the Institute in hopes that students would not only retain their activism after graduation, but also with the hope they would eventually inspire others to become fully participating members of our democratic society. “In many ways, these students represent the coalition that needs to be built, and Mills is the perfect place to do it,” Kahne says.

The semester-long program seeks to increase the participation of women in the political arena and is open to female undergraduates across the country. The curriculum combines internships with literature and theory classes to provide students with the skills necessary to put their individual interests to work.

By studying a wide spectrum of civic leaders and looking for models, and by sharing the observations of their internship experiences, these students hope to learn strategies they can apply to facilitate political and social change.

“I can’t stand apathy,” Aurelia says.

“With those 14 other women, I don’t have to worry about that. There is no apathy in that classroom.” Each student was chosen to participate based not only on her academic background, but also based on her experience in social activism and commitment to enhancing the role of women in politics. Like any well-formed coalition, the women attending this first semester are a

diverse yet cohesive group. They come from a variety of ethnic, geographic, and class backgrounds and represent many fields of study. Math and English majors sit side by side with sociology and political science students.

As Dr. Kahne points out, one of the benefits of having the Institute at Mills is that it attracts students who might not normally consider the option of attending a women’s school. Jessie Shelhamer, who attends Pepperdine University in Malibu, admits she was skeptical when she first applied to the Institute. Originally from Wyoming, she is a senior in political science and was drawn to the Institute’s program because of her interest in environmental policy. “Pepperdine offers very little in this area. I was a little wary of the idea of a women’s college but have found it to be a very pleasant and enlightening experience.” Besides Shelhamer, four other women have taken a semester off from their regular campuses of Holy Names, Stanford, Mt. Holyoke, and Occidental to come to Mills. Each of them enrolled in the Institute for the unique chance to combine the study of policy and leadership with direct experience and observation.

The students from other campuses as well as many of the Mills women all live together in Olney Hall and strong bonds are developing among them.

Two days a week they attend core classes together: Social Science, Civic Participation, and Democratic Change, taught by Dr. Kahne, and Civic Leadership and the Social Text, taught

by Dr. Ajuan Mance of the English department. “We’re looking at a broad survey of texts that have shaped the way Americans understand civic leadership and social responsibility,” Dr. Mance says. “The students have been incredibly responsive. I think they’ve been most surprised by the range of political perspectives, from the far left to the far right, that have contributed to our ideas about leadership, responsibility, and activism today.”

In addition to these classes, students are required to spend a minimum of ten hours per week at an internship with various local organizations. They are assigned to projects

that match their personal interests and abilities, often in pairs. Their internship choices represent a wide variety of political and social causes that reflect the diversity of the group’s own social concerns. This semester students are interning at the American Indian Child Resource Center, Congresswoman Barbara Lee’s office, the Women’s Health Rights Coalition, and the Alameda County Food Bank, as well as at other agencies and offices. William Hanson, assistant director of the Institute, facilitates a weekly seminar in which the students present their observations from their experiences at these agencies. “In the Reflective Seminar, the focus is on the convergence of theory and practice,” he says. “Students

fully her political views and social concerns without fear of censorship from the group. While they may not always agree with one another, they have learned to respect and appreciate other perspectives. Their bond has been further strengthened by weekly informal dinners where they have the chance to converse with guest speakers, and recently the ICL sponsored a day-long retreat organized by the students to explore diversity issues within the group. There are plans to hold a similar event at the end of the course to give the students time to reflect on and celebrate their experience as the Institute’s fledgling class.

When they finish the semester both Karen Chan and Aurelia Donnelly, like

“IN MANY WAYS, THESE STUDENTS REPRESENT THE COALITION THAT NEEDS TO BE BUILT, AND MILLS IS THE PERFECT PLACE TO DO IT,” KAHNE SAYS.

compare and contrast their different internship experiences and examine how their experiences are connected to theories on gender, civic leadership and participation, and social change.”

Karen Chan is continuing her community activism with the Peninsula Community Foundation, a Silicon Valley agency dedicated to promoting nonprofit development, early literacy campaigns, and fundraising. Aurelia Donnelly and Jessie Shelhamer share an internship with the Center for Environmental Health. “I’m able to see what goes on behind the scenes and all the effort that goes into actually accomplishing something,” says Aurelia. Jessie agrees the experience has been important. “My internship has given me valuable insight into the nonprofit world and how it is possible to create an organization from the grassroots.”

Along with their professors and mentors, these women have worked hard at creating a safe environment where each of them is able to express

their classmates, will have concrete models to follow as civic leaders and will be better equipped to act on their passions. Karen plans to continue volunteering directly within her community as a youth liaison. Aurelia won’t have to sit on her hands to hold herself down; she’ll have the skills to advance any social cause she decides to champion. All 15 women of the Institute’s class of 2001 will be prepared for the next fight.

ICL is now accepting applications for next fall’s program. Interested women from any campus may apply.

For information contact William Hanson at (510) 430-2192 or visit <www.mills.edu/ICL>.

A native of Montana, Alison Earle is a writer who now resides in Oakland.

She graduated from Mills in 2000 with a bachelor’s degree in English and is currently a second-year MFA candidate in creative writing; she writes both fiction and creative nonfiction.

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Remembering

by Roussel Sargent, Professor Emerita of English

When one who has known, loved, and admired George Hedley is asked to write about him for the Mills Quarterly, it is hard to refuse.

George was at Mills from 1940, teaching sociology and economics I suppose; became chaplain in 1947; and remained with us as full professor as well as chaplain until his retirement in 1965. I did not come on the scene until 1958, so knew him only in the last seven years of his distinguished career with us.

During that time he and I were faculty colleagues and personal friends, as I like to think. He was also my priest and a great influence on me.

The then head of the English department, Libby Pope, his greatest friend and admirer, who knew him for far longer than I, should have been writing this, but since she is dead, I could hardly pass the buck to her. Yet, face to face with the task, I realize that it is too big a job for just me. George was a small man physically, bent over like an incipient hunchback, but a man of enormous energy, multifaceted, and incredibly productive, too big a man in fact to be caught by me in my butterfly net.

What I hope will happen is that alumnae who knew and loved him will be irritated, inspired, or reminded by this fragment into writing to the Quarterly about their acquaintance with George, their favorite anecdote, their assessment of him.

There is surely much to be said about a Methodist minister who, remaining one until the ending of his days, yet became an ordained Episcopal priest; who told students that if they must drink it should be scotch uncontaminated by water or any other liquid; who was immensely proud of being a member of a trade union and a friend of Harry Bridges, the longshoreman in San Francisco who led the West Coast maritime workers’ strike in 1934; who from choice taught sociology courses and left religion to the immensely scholarly Professor Diller (it is one of the sorrows of my life that I came too late to Mills to go to the fundraising Faculty Follies where George and Van Diller, the short and the long of it, danced together, each wearing a ballet tutu). Please help me memorialize him by writing your paragraph or two about him; your tessera will join others to make a mosaic portrait of an unusual man—part saint, part mischievous gnome, and that’s just a beginning.

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Some of my picture comes from little things students said to me about him: “He always sits on the table crosslegged, smoking while he teaches us.” “When students get into trouble, they go to him. He doesn’t preach at you, he is very practical. He told me how to get a lawyer.” “He can squat down on his haunches quite comfortably for long periods of time, you know. His parents were missionaries in China and he was a child there.” “If you are giving the sermon, he makes sure you can read it without stumbling and hesitating. He encourages and bullies you into being audible. That’s one reason the student sermon is always good.”

My own acquaintance with George began almost as soon as I got to Mills. I was, in the first place, engaged only for one year as an interim teacher, and George, I suppose, wanted to make sure he could use me while I was still around. He never waited for volunteers; he told us what to do. He always reminded me of the centurion in the Bible who held great authority over his servants, saying “unto one Go, and he goeth, and to another, Come, and he cometh.” The inhabitants of a college are less biddable to be sure, but on the whole George has us cometh-ing and goeth-ing like anything. He immediately decided I should give the faculty sermon in the first semester, so I did.

Each semester, I learned, a student preached at one of the services, a faculty member at another. Only a few weeks into the semester saw me in academic gown and Oxford cap delivering my thoughts, mostly borrowed from Evelyn Underhill, on The Need for Symbol. At various times during the next few years I heard a Mormon student telling us about the book of Mormon, at another time a student told us about her Baha’i faith. The congregation was truly ecumenical: besides a cross-section of the Protestant denominations a number of Jews were regular attendants, even a few Roman Catholics came regardless of their church’s disapproval.

It was my privilege to work a number of times with George, as acolyte when there were no students around, and on a couple of other sermons. I felt I had truly arrived when he allowed me to organize the whole service: prayers, readings, and hymns on the last occasion I preached. It was a heady experience, and my head expanded several sizes when he told me that I was a pleasure to work with.

After church on Sundays anyone who liked (and a lot of us did) was invited to go to the Hedleys in

George Faculty Village and have the coffee hour looking at his newest books spread out on the coffee table and talking. A few enthusiasts were allowed to go down into the basement where the whole floor area was taken up by his collection of trains. When it was time for the students to take themselves off for lunch the serious business began—sherry for the grown-ups!

And always good conversation.

My acquaintance with George ended, in a thisworld sense, at his memorial service held in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church down near the lake, where George had been an associate priest after retiring from Mills.

The place was packed, including a Methodist bishop, an Episcopal bishop, a Roman representative—was it John Cummings, not yet bishop, who looked after the Catholic students at Mills and was much liked? There was a rabbi, and there was Harry Bridges. The Reverend Derby-Betts, then rector of St. Paul’s, had certainly gone all out. And the mood set by him was festive. We celebrated George as he would have liked, almost hilariously. Then we ended with the Eucharist and left feeling that we had in some way managed to be a cloud of witnesses for and to the life of a man who had selflessly served God and made a difference in many people’s lives. A good man, but not, thank God, a perfect one (“He’s awfully full of himself,” said my visiting mother disapprovingly, and he was. But looked at from another angle he was a humble man.)

Now there is an effort spearheaded by Sally Matthews Buchanan, ’64, to provide a permanent memorial of the Hedleys for the benefit of all students. The Rev. Dr. George and Helen Hedley Fund will be used to bring significant speakers to the College. I am sure a lot of alumnae will want to send a contribution, in addition to their Annual Fund contribution, earmarked for the Hedley Fund. Mail it to the Office of Institutional Advancement, but don’t forget to write to the Quarterly! I am looking forward to reading more personal reminiscences of him.

COURTESY OF MILLS COLLEGE ARCHIVES, F. W. OLIN LIBRARY

Born and raised in England, Roussel Sargent received her BA, MA, and PhD from the University of London.

While attending an international summer school at Stratford-upon-Avon, she met Mills students and faculty, and she was invited to teach at Mills for one year. “Once they got me here they couldn’t move me,” she says. Dr. Sargent taught in the English department from 1958–1985.

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SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 8:00 PM Composers from the Center for Contemporary Music and guest artist Francisco Lopez.

Concert Hall (510) 430-2296

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1:00 PM Tennis Team v. San Francisco State University.

Meyer Courts, Mills College (510) 430-2172

SUNDAY, JANUARY 27, 4:00 PM The Ives Quartet.

Concert Hall (510) 430-2296

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 12:00 NOON Swim Team v. Cal Tech.

Trefethen Aquatic Center, Mills College (510) 430-2172

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1– FRIDAY, MARCH 15 The Visual Arts At Mills College: Surface Tension: Pattern and Ornament in Contemporary Painting Bill Bury, Jamie Brunson, Reed Danziger, Susan Dory, Bonnie

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 4:00 PM Remix, Music for Instrumental Ensembles: What is a finished work? Quiet music under reconstruction, with Fred Frith.

Concert Hall (510) 430-2296

Jim Melchert, former director of the visual arts program at both the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Academy in Rome. Lucie Stern Hall, Room 100 (510) 430-2164 MARCH 7–9, 8:00 PM Dance Department Graduate Thesis Concert. Haas Pavilion (510) 430-2175 FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 8:00 PM Hindustani Classical Vocal Music with Laxmi Ganesh Tewari, Ravi Gutala, tabla, and Vivek Dater, harmonium.

Concert Hall (510) 430-2296

Lisser Hall, Main Stage (510) 430-2175 MONDAY, APRIL 1– TUESDAY, APRIL 30 Special Exhibit: This Is Woman’s Hour. An exhibit of the life of Mary Baker Eddy, religious leader, leading writer, businesswoman, administrator, and healer of the 19th century. Carnegie Building, Bender Room (510) 430-2019 MONDAY, APRIL 8, 7:00–8:30 PM Virginia Harris, ’69, chair of the Christian Science Board of Directors and president of

CALENDAR K. Neumann, Francesca Pastine and Roy Tomlinson.

Mills College Art Museum (510) 430-2164

Emilia Huerta-Sanchez of the Mills cross-country team, on the course at Mills. The team took first

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 7:30 PM Correnah Wright Lectures On Contemporary Art Speakers: Komar and Melamid. Lucie Stern Hall, Room 100 (510) 430-2164 THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 6:00–7:30 PM Chinese New Year Celebration. Reinhardt Alumnae House (510) 430-2110 WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 8:00–9:15 AM Women of Courage Breakfast Series Speaker: Mary Chung, Founder, President and CEO, National Asian Women’s Health Organization. Faculty Dining Room (510) 430-2019

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the Board of Trustees of the Mary Baker Eddy Library, speaking on Mary Baker Eddy, women, and leadership. Bender Room, Carnegie Building (510) 430-2019

place at the California Pacific Conference Competition.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 7:00–9:00 PM Annual Alumnae/Student Career Night. Student Union (510) 430-2110

SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 12:00 NOON Tennis Team v. UC Santa Cruz. Meyer Courts, Mills College (510) 430-2172

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 7:30 PM Correnah Wright Lectures on Contemporary Art Speaker:

MARCH 28, 29, 30, APRIL 5, 6, 8:00 PM Mills College Theater Presents: Boadicea, written and directed by John Fischer.

FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 8:00 PM Alvin Curran and Pauline Oliveros, with Fred Frith, Joan Jeanrenaud, William Winant, and the Mills Contemporary Performance Ensemble. Concert Hall (510) 430-2296 FRIDAY, APRIL 19, 8:00 PM Dance department presents Sara Hook Dances.

Haas Pavilion (510) 430-3258 SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 2:00 PM Mills Repertory Dance Company.

Yerba Buena Gardens Theater, San Francisco (510) 430-3258

Before Mills Hall THE “PRE-HISTORY” OF THE CAMPUS

by Jane Redmond Mueller, ’68

High on Prospect Hill, in the grass near Mary Morse Hall and the Prospect Hill Apartments, stands a marker that declares: 27 March 1772 Captain Don Pedro Fages, Father Fray Juan Crespi, fourteen soldiers, and a Christian Indian camped here and took a latitude sighting of the Golden Gate.

Standing next to the marker today, it’s difficult to imagine how anyone could have seen the Golden Gate from that spot 230 years ago. Trees, buildings, and air pollution obscure the view.

The Bay Area was a much different place then—and not just in the obvious sense of “modern civilization.” Especially in the summer and fall, we think of the East Bay as a semiarid region, but in those times, water was everywhere. You can almost hear how the mosquitoes must have hummed in such abundance. Before the days of landfill, the bay, which was surrounded by broad tidal estuaries and vast tule marshes, was two or three times larger than it is today. Redwoods and oak-bay forests nestled among the hills, and the meadows were filled with tall stands of shoulder-high bunch grass, replaced now by the short annual grasses introduced by European settlers.

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The habitat supported amazing numbers and variety of wildlife. Early Spanish diarists described countless bears, deer, rabbits, bald eagles, giant condors, mountain lions, foxes, and coyotes. Packs of wolves stalked the vast herds of elk. Salmon and steelhead, whales and seals, shellfish, and enormous schools of smelt filled the waters. One of the early missionaries described how a single rifle shot could alarm such an enormous flock of geese, ducks, or seabirds that they would rise “in a dense cloud with a noise like that of a hurricane.”

Prospect Hill overlooks a historic landscape that witnessed the rise and fall of an ancient native population, the custodianship of a prominent family of rancheros, and the return from the gold fields of countless miners—both the triumphant and the disappointed. Settlers from Spain, Mexico, and the United States in turn shaped the land that became the Mills College campus.

The Lost World of the Ohlones In his diary, Father Crespi described the encampment on Prospect Hill as rolling, grassy hills marked by tracks of bears, deer, and “other animals whose footprints resemble beasts of the mule kind.” He also mentions a creek, the one we now call Leona, lined with alder trees where mountain lions hunted. And he mentions mosquitoes—lots of them.

Father Crespi says they saw no Indians nor any trace of them. In fact, they were probably nearby, amazed and confused by the appearance of men whose skin, eyes, and hair were different from anything they had ever seen before. About 40 triblets of Native Americans, known collectively as the Costanoans or the Ohlones, had been living in the Bay Area and points south for about 4,800 years before the arrival of Europeans.

Like most of the wildlife, the Ohlone people and their way of life are gone. Their decline after the Europeans arrived in the 18th century was so rapid that we may never completely understand them. Government and academic interest in preserving the culture of California’s native inhabitants did not begin until the turn of the 20th century, when most of them had died and the rest of them had been “encouraged” to abandon traditional practices.

Research that began in the 1960s has uncovered a wealth of new material, revealing the Ohlone people as a complex society with a unique culture shaped and influenced by the natural resources of the bay. They ate a lot of seafood, as the 4,000-year-old shellmound near Emeryville attests. They spent most of their waking hours out of doors, and their clothing was minimal. At certain times they adorned themselves with mud, which had a ceremonial purpose but probably helped them as well to tolerate all those mosquitoes. The Ohlone people hunted along creeks in the hills of present-day Oakland for the abundant game that thrived in a mild climate. Scholar Malcolm Margolin points out, “The Ohlones lived in a world where people were few and animals were many . . . indeed they lived in a world where the animal kingdom had not yet fallen under the domination of the human race and where (how difficult it is for us to fully grasp the implications of this!) people did not yet see themselves as the undisputed lords of all creation.”

The Pastoral Era of the Ranchos Everything changed quickly. Four short years after the Fages/Crespi encampment, a group of settlers arrived in Alta California on the famous de Anza expedition, among them 17-yearold Luís María Peralta and his father, mother, and three siblings. This group of settlers helped establish the San Francisco Presidio, Mission Santa Clara, and the pueblo of San Jose. By 1806, most of the Ohlones had been forced to move to settlements called rancherías.

Luís María Peralta spent 40 years in military service to the Spanish king. The land on which Mills now stands was part of the 44,800-acre Spanish land grant made in 1820 to Sergeant Peralta by the last Spanish governor of California, Don Pablo Vicente de Sol. The rancho was named after the Cerrito de San Antonio (now called El Cerrito Hill), which was probably named by Mission Fathers when it used the land for grazing from 1817–1823.

Although Peralta received the land grant in recognition of his service to the king, the practice of granting land served another purpose for the Spanish. Historian J.N. Bowman points out the granting of Rancho San Antonio was part of a larger effort to hold the line against foreign colonists for possession of North America. Land grants played a role in the

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Early road-building in the early 20th century near Mills College (note the automobile parked on the hill to the left). Photo courtesy of Oakland Public Library, Oakland History Room.

strategy to bring the unsettled parts of California under Spanish, and later Mexican, control.

The grant of land to Luís Peralta came with a requirement: he had to establish a permanent dwelling on Rancho San Antonio within a year. He sent his sons to do it. His third son, Antonio María Peralta, built the first adobe on the rancho in 1821. Sometime around 1828, Antonio brought his wife to live on the rancho, and his three brothers followed soon after. Before long, Vicente, Domingo, and Ignacio Peralta all built their own homes in various parts of the rancho, took care of the family’s livestock, and raised their families there. Their children, like other sons and daughters of the first Spanish and Mexican settlers, came to be called Californios.

With their families, some landless Mexican laborers, and a few native people, the Peraltas established the first Spanish-speaking communities in the East Bay. Antonio’s hacienda served as the social and commercial center. The Peraltas eventually grazed more than 8,000 head of cattle and 2,000 horses on the rancho. They built a wharf on the bay near the hacienda headquarters in order to trade the hides and tallow produced by their cattle.

As the rancho prospered, the Peralta brothers built newer and bigger houses. On the site of the present-day Peralta Hacienda Historical Park, in the Fruitvale district of East Oakland, Antonio built a larger adobe in 1840. Eventually, the site contained two adobes and about 20 guesthouses. They often held weeklong celebrations—with rodeos and cattle round-ups, horseracing, games, and fandangos. It was the place to be.

In 1842, apparently believing it was time to settle his estate, 83-year-old Luís Peralta arrived at the rancho in order to divide the land among his four sons. Antonio’s share was the peninsula of Alameda plus 16,067 acres that included the present-day Mills campus.

MILLS

Statehood and the Rush for Gold The annexation of California by the United States and the Gold Rush of 1849 meant a major transition for the Peralta family and other Californios. At first, the U.S. government guaranteed Californios the right to their property and promised to recognize all land grants legitimately made by the Spanish and Mexican governments. Unlike their successors, early American settlers usually acted ethically and purchased or leased land from the rancheros. The ranchos actually thrived through the early years of the Gold Rush because the price of cattle skyrocketed.

As the initial flow of gold from the Sierra foothills abated, disillusioned miners returned to the coast. They were part of a major increase in the area’s population that included Chinese laborers, European immigrants, and Yankees migrating to build new lives in the West. Some of these settlers began squatting on rancho land. Rancho San Antonio looked especially enticing because it was near San Francisco, its land was fertile, and it had spectacular oak and redwood groves.

When Luís María Peralta died in 1851, the Peralta family came to a turning point. The estate was valued at $1,383,500., an enormous figure for the time that probably reflects the effect of the Gold Rush on property values. When the Gold Rush began, Peralta had told his sons, “The land is our gold.” He may have been right, but the land was a struggle for the heirs to hang onto.

Although the U.S. government promised all rights of citizenship and property ownership to the Californios in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed in 1848 at the end of the Mexican-American War, the government found other legal ways to erode the Californios’ position. The 1851 U.S. Federal Land Act required the Californios to prove their land titles in court. The resulting litigation lasted years.

The United States Supreme Court confirmed the Peralta title in 1856, but now the family had its own internal title dispute to deal with. The Peralta sisters felt they had been cheated out of the family land and contested their brothers’ claim to the Rancho San Antonio land grant. The California Supreme Court eventually decided the court case, known as the “Sisters Title Case,” in the brothers’ favor. In the interim, squatters continued to overrun Rancho San Antonio, stealing and killing cattle and even subdividing and selling the Peraltas’ land.

As the curtain fell on the Rancho Era in California, it came down for the native populations as well. Unlike the rancheros, the U.S. did not view native Californians as essential to their economy. Nor did the U.S. view them as the mission priests had, as souls to be saved.

Much of the writing of the time characterizes them as a scourge to be eliminated.

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Finding a Home Along Leona Creek Rancho San Antonio, like other ranchos, was unable to meet the demands and conditions following statehood and the Gold Rush. By 1855, the Peraltas and their heirs were substantially reducing their land holdings, partly to pay for the litigation and to cover newly imposed property taxes. It was at about this time that some of the heirs met Robert Simson. Simson led a colorful life. He was a forty-niner and attorney who had tried his hand at mining and at lion hunting.

He liked the hills of the East Bay and their sweeping view of the bay and the Golden Gate. He wasn’t a wealthy man, but he had $3,000 in his pocket, which was enough in those days to buy a few thousand acres. Typical of the times, the boundaries were vaguely defined. Simson bought the land on the northwestern side of a line projected along the alignment of 68th Avenue from the bay to the mountaintop, which included the place where Mills now stands.

Simson kept only the land for his home, a sheltered hill bench along the south fork of Lion Creek, known to the Spanish-speaking population as Leona. Tradition has it that the name Leona referred to a mountain lion—later described as a lioness—that lived on the upper reaches of the creek in an area called Arroyo de Leon. Dr. Franklin Walker astutely observed in an article for Mills Magazine, “ . . . that it in time became a lioness was most appropriate to the headwaters of a women’s college.”

Leona Creek’s ravine was still in a natural state, dotted with live oaks. Simson planted almond and plum orchards and a few groves of eucalyptus, which he also used to form a border for his drive. He sold much of the land along Leona Creek to John Dankert and to Nicholas and Celine Girot and her brothers, Alphonse and Emery Saillot. In 1971, the Girots’ great-granddaughter, Mrs. Odus Horney, wrote a letter to Mills President Robert Wert in which she describes the Girots and the Saillots coming to California in 1850 and feeling drawn to the beauty and location of the land. Her great-grandparents built their house, surrounded by oak and elm trees, between the two forks of Leona Creek.

In the summer of 1868, Cyrus and Susan Mills bought the Dankert property for the oddly precise figure of $10,666.75 and the Girot/Saillot property for $25,500, totaling about 168 acres. Dr. and Mrs. Mills spent several months considering the pros and cons of each piece of property as a site for the campus. The following spring, they sold the Dankert land (at a profit of $5,333.25) and kept the Saillot farm, with its small hills and two forks of Leona Creek.

The site was five miles from Oakland, which by then was a town of about 10,000 people. Unlike the wooded campus today, the property in 1869 was mostly open hills and meadows, almost bare of trees except along the creek. Willows and alders still lined the creek, which inspired the founders to consider naming the school Alderwood Seminary.

Throughout the planning process, Dr. and Mrs. Mills threw themselves into both the concept and the details of the new building. In The Story of Cyrus and Susan Mills, Elias Olan James explains, “They wanted proportion, comfort, dignity; life needed high ceilings, wide halls, reaches of open country through every window.” They discussed at length with architects S.C. Bugbee and Son the merits of gas lighting versus oil, the value of having running water in every room, the problems associated with water and sewer lines. They broke ground in June of 1870, and the following April, the construction was complete.

Mills Seminary had always relied upon raising its own fruits, vegetables, and livestock. Late in July, Michael Herlihy, the Seminary’s Irish coachman, herded the cows, pigs, and chickens from Benicia to the new site. The following day or so, the administration, staff, manservant, maidservant, and the summer students arrived by train. Luella Clay Carson, who was then one of the students, described the scene: “Toiling up the dusty road from the station in the hot afternoon sun, a little company of girls formed the vanguard of an endless procession to follow. They were weary—there is always something to regret in leaving the old—they were longing to see the new home, asking, ‘How far is it now?’ when all at once they crossed the entrance bridge and there it was before them—and it was theirs. And they came in and took possession.”

Jane Redmond Mueller, ’68, lives in Fremont, California, where she owns a marketing communications firm called Well Chosen Words. The Bay Area may have changed, but she lives with a few reminders of the past; each week she passes by Mission San Jose on her way to rehearse with the community chorale at Ohlone College.

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Unlike the wooded campus today, the property in 1869 was mostly open hills and meadows, almost bare of trees except along the creek.

PASSAGES Gifts in Honor of Phyllis Cole Bader, ’35,

by Erwin and Emma-Jane Peck White, ’35 Dr. Susan Bassein

by Susan Bury, ’85 Megan Bridges, ’01,

by Peggy Weber, ’65 Anne Gillespie Brown, ’68,

by Marion Ross, ’44 Marjorie Christensen, ’85,

by Amy Franklin-Willis, ’94 Class of ’91 10th Reunion

by Lisa Kosiewicz, ’91 Class of 1988

by Deena Ross, ’88 Class of ’51 50th Reunion by Marion Tonkon Kaufman, ’51 Elaine Wertheimer Ehrman, ’47 by the Palo Alto Area Mills College Club Holly Fait, ’01,

by Peggy Weber, ’65 Dr. Willis L. Gelston

by Tomoye Tatai and Sharon Tatai, ’80 Dr. Steve Givant

by Kirsten Sumpter, ’01 Senta Gorrie, ’01,

by Peggy Weber, ’65 Riana Heck, ’01,

by Peggy Weber, ’65 Polly Schwartz Hertz, ’42,

by Ann Sulzberger Wolff, ’42 Dr. Earl Holloway and Staff

by Tomoye Tatai and Sharon Tatai, ’80 Janet Pethen Hurwich, ’84,

by Sandra Pyer Jane Cudlip King, ’42, by the Sacramento Mills Alumnae Branch Barbara Tutt Lee, ’73,

by Barbara Bundschu, ’38 Sara McClure, ’81,

by Meredith Parnell, ’81 Dana and Naomi Meyerson by Catherine Brown Meyerson, ’82 Dr. Miles Nuddleman

by Tomoye Tatai Patricia Yoshida Orr, ’63,

by Wendy Ng, ’79

Jinny Carleton Reinhardt, ’39,

by Jean Swenson Breck, ’39 J. Roussel Sargent

by Elaine Bowe Johnson, ’62 Anya Scholl, ’01,

by Peggy Weber, ’65 Grace Eto Shibata, ’00,

by Wendy Ng, ’79 Dr. Susan Steele by the Palo Alto Area Mills College Club Harriet Bradley Tegart, ’42,

by Jean Swenson Breck, ’39 Jeanne Thomas, ’51, by the Class of ’51, and Joan Turnblad Kurtz, ’51 Kristine Vejar, ’01,

by Peggy Weber, ’65 Heidi Wachter, ’01,

by Peggy Weber, ’65 Dr. Clinton Warne

by Phyllis Cole Bader, ’35 Katherine Zelinsky Westheimer, ’42,

by Ann Sulzberger Wolff, ’42 Emma-Jane Peck White, ’35,

by Phyllis Cole Bader, ’35, and Ed and Elise Feldman Rosenfeld, ’47 Erwin White

by Phyllis Cole Bader, ’35, and Emma-Jane Peck White, ’35 Ann Sulzberger Wolff, ’42,

by Polly Schwartz Hertz, ’42 Dr. Robert Wu

by Tomoye Tatai and Sharon Tatai, ’80 The Reverend Harvo Yamaoka

by Tomoye Tatai and Sharon Tatai, ’80

Gifts in Memory of Betty Mathew Adams, ‘52,

by Gertrude Feather Anderson, ’53, and Barbara Smith Brown, ’52 Raymond H. Almanzan

by Julia Almanzan, ’92 Patricia Widdifield Bethel, ’67,

by Laurie Gearin Senders, ’67 Alice Vidoroni Bevan, ’45,

by James and Laura Lundegaard Anderson, ’45, and

Katharine Mulky Warne, ’45 Donald Blackmarr

by Phyllis Cole Bader, ’35, Dorothy Braaten Kennedy, ’48, and the Palo Alto Area Mills College Club Kathryn Black Burk, ’43,

by Dorothy Prouty Karr, ’43, and Ann Witter Edward Tai Wong Chang

by Phyllis Cole Bader,’35 Bernt and Anita Chappell by Alyceann Chappell Ginelli, ’56 Clarence Chau

by Katharine Mulky Warne, ’45 Dorothy Weight Chisena, ’39,

by Margaret Goold Slater, ’38 Willa Wolcott Condon, MA ’32,

by Ann Condon Barbour, ’69 Henriette Vergnes Courpet

by Jeanne Aurel-Schneider, ’51 Mary Lou Stueck Cunningham, ’51,

by Robert Cunningham Dorie de Vries Curtiss, ’43,

by Jane Records Ashcraft, ’43, Helen Metz Lore, ’43, Bud and Aimee Wolff Minkin, ’43, Barbara Bissell Morison, ’44, and Arnie and Ann Sulzberger Wolff, ’42 Evelyn Deane, ’41, by Elaine Bowe Johnson, ’62, and Louise Shumway Muhler, ’41 Deceased but remembered classmates

by Sarah Johnson Stewart, ’56 Isobel De Mille

by Dick and Diane Smith Janusch, ’55 Lynne Tronoff Dickey, ’78,

by Jane Brewer Tronoff, ’51 Jane Dornacker

by Shannon Batson, ’81 Mr. and Mrs. Edmond F. Ducommun

by Patricia Ducommun Frey, ’56 Anne Durney by Ann Witter Marc P. Dobson by Rebecca Marsh Shuttleworth, ’64 James H. and Dasie Early

by Helen Early Hoffman, ’41 Barbara Howell Edwards, ’44,

by Nancy Shambaugh McBride, ’44 Valerie Ehrenclou

by Content Mott-Smith Sablinsky, ’56, MA ’59 Alfred Evans

by James and Laura Lundegaard Anderson, ’45, and Robert and Donna Johnston Ada Nevill Fisher, ’41,

by Virginia James Hodges, ’41 Lori Chinn Fong

by Marilyn Learn Beverly Mater Folger, ’56, by the Palo Alto Area Mills College Club Robert Gilinsky by the Los Angeles Mills

Dorie DeVries Curtiss, ’43 FROM THE DAY DORIE ARRIVED AT MILLS from Minneapolis, she epitomized the “All American Girl.” President of the Athletic Association in 1941–42, President of Ethel Moore Hall in 1942–43, organizer of ski trips, swimming club member, star tennis player, and dedicated friend—she was a charismatic leader and winner who had many friends.

After graduation, Dorie joined the Red Cross and served overseas until the end of World War II. She married John Curtiss in 1948. They lived in Seattle, Washington, until 1955 when they were transferred to St. Paul, Minnesota where they raised five children.

In her “spare” time, Dorie made use of her Mills physical education degree, teaching swimming at the YWCA. Upon John’s retirement in 1980, the Curtisses built a home in Carefree, Arizona, where John was elected mayor for several terms. Dorie was a faithful volunteer at the local library, and she continued her athletic interests in swimming and tennis.

Dorie DeVries Curtiss is survived by three daughters, two sons, numerous grandchildren, and her many Mills friends, who will miss her.

— Aimee Wolff Minkin, ’43

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Passages College Alumnae George Goers

by Thomas and Jean Schweers Burns, ’46 Jane Ericksen Goul, ’50, by Charlotte Leahy D’Amico, ’50 Margaret Stuart Graupner, ’37,

by James and Laura Lundegaard Anderson, ’45 Lori Green

by Irma Cummins Johnson, ’34 Sara Amodei Grosskettler, ’58,

by Georgianna Criswell Heitman, ’60, and the Los Angeles Mills College Alumnae Joyce Johnson Grove, ’51,

by Amy Clever Crawford, ’51 Bette Smith Guithues, ’35,

by Dorothy Thomas Davie, ’29, the Los Angeles Mills College Alumnae, and Nancy Whyte Work, ’52 Patricia Fallows Hammond, ’36,

by James and Laura Lundegaard Anderson, ’45 Jeannie Samis Hansen, ’45,

by James and Laura Lundegaard Anderson, ’45, and Katharine Mulky Warne, ’45 George and Helen Hedley

by Carol Jenks Fogg, ’60 Byron Holt by Georgianna Criswell Heitman, ’60 Ella Lois Hudson

by Camellia Hudson Franklin, ’73, Estrellita Hudson Redus, ’65, MFA ’75, and Mary Lois Hudson Sweatt, ’60, MA ’62 Donna Hunt

by James and Laura Lundegaard Anderson, ’45 C. Rogers Kines

by Dick and Diane Smith Janusch, ’55, and Sally Schrepferman Reeds, ’55 Anne Kish, ’49, MA ’51,

by Mary Hoch Walsh, ’49 Frank Lima

by Palma Lima and Ruth Lima, ’56

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Sandra Cowan Long, ’61,

by Traci Grossman Ellis, ’61 Marjorie Lorei

by Borgee Ng Chinn, ’41 William Malone

by Ellen Goldschmidt Figueira, ’75 Sophie Martin

by Louis Papan Nancy Griffitts Mason, ’47,

by Dorothy Braaten Kennedy, ’48, and the Palo Alto Area Mills College Club, Evelyn Maglathlin Petersen, ’47, and Jeannine Dennis Wendt, ’47 John McClain

by Mary Stewart McClain, ’57 Barbara Pinnell McClelland, ’31,

by Sue McClelland, ’56 Patricia Hunt Nevin, ’50,

by James and Margaret Hillard Martin, ’50 Arnold Peyser by the Los Angeles Mills College Alumnae Ross Phinney

by Jim and Beverley Nielsen Canterbury, ’50, and Family, Ronald and Carol Clazie, Milda Iffert Hester, ’40, and Yuri Chiamori Mok, ’60 Jean MacKenzie Pool, ME ’43,

by Mary Jean Rosenberry Ferris, ’45 Margaret Prall

by Helen Snell Neumeyer, ’51, MA ’52 Margaret Quigley, ’63,

by Elaine Bowe Johnson, ’62 Clara Daniels Reinhardt, ’47, by Elizabeth Douglass Paine, ’47 Roy C. and Barbara A. Robinson

by Karen Robinson, ’88 Fred and Olga Schaub

by June Schaub Huebner, ’42 Cecelia McIntire Scott, ’27,

by Denise Kaveney Nancy Palm Seebass, ’58,

by Linda Seebass Johnson, ’66 W. Paul Sherrill

by Heidi Aarts Michels, ’81

Rosemary DeCamp Shidler, ’32,

by Nancy Whyte Work, ’52 Naomi Solomon

by César and Janis Goldbaum Hernandez, ’67 Naomi Sparrow

by Laurie Simon Miller, ’67 Koh Tatai

by Leah Hardcastle Mac Neil, MA ’51, and Peggy Weber, ’65 and Bob Whitlock Jane Taylor, ’35,

by Terry Taylor Elwood, ’67 Shirley Summy Taylor, ’41,

by Terry Taylor Elwood, ’67 Those who are not here

by Paula Williams Remington, ’51 Richard Treseder

by James and Laura Lundegaard Anderson, ’45 Ruth Perkins Turner, ’31,

by Wilson Turner and Family Barbara Letts Villard, ’41,

by Virginia James Hodges, ’41 Sophia Vlamis, ’49,

by Margaret Bard Fall, ’50 Mary Lou Vicars Wadsworth, ’49,

by Mary-Mae Wild Bond, ’49 Virginia Wolfle Wagnon, ’41,

by Phyllis Carman Marling, ’41 Ann R. and Richard J. M. West

by Wynne West Dobyns, ’66 Helen Bryan Wik

by Grace Dote, ’63, Robert and Donna Johnston and Judith Salzer Warner, ’63

Art and Architecture in the American Southern Heartland

ASHEVILLE CONVENTION & VISTIORS BUREAU

April 15 – 25, 2002 CONTRARY TO WHAT SOME PEOPLE THINK, the great metropolitan areas, though they have >> much to offer for the art lover, by no means have it all! This tour will concentrate on what can

be called the Southern Heartland: Tennessee and North Carolina. Aside from their great natural beauty, these states offer a wealth of fine art and architecture. We will visit numerous museums, large and small, where you will find some of the great masters represented, both European and American. Fine architecture will be included with visits to historic homes and plantations, great public buildings, and outstanding university campuses. One of the highlights of the tour is a day at the 250-room Vanderbilt mansion, Biltmore, in Asheville, North Carolina.

We hope you will join us on this exploration of the art and architecture of America’s Southern Heartland.

Cost of tour, sharing, is $2,667, plus applicable airfare from home city. Single rooms available with a supplemental charge.

For more information, call the AAMC at 510.430.2110 or email us at <aamc@mills.edu>.

Alumnae Association Trips in 2002 The Land of the Maya (sailing from Houston to Mexico, Honduras, and Belize.)

March 30 – April 6, 2002 Beginning at $1,995.

Trans-Canada Rail Odyssey (Vancouver, Jasper, Lake Louise, Banff) June 18 – 29, 2002 $3,749 (land price).

Alumni College in Chianti, Italy (Marcialla, Pisa, Siena, and Florence) April 14 – 22, 2002 All-inclusive (air, meals, lodgings and excursions) $2,495.

Paris: A Family Learning Adventure July 6 – 14, 2002 Adult: $3,645; Child: $2,795.

Art and Architecture in the Southern Heartland (Memphis, Nashville, Ashville, and Raleigh) April 15 – 26, 2002 $2,995 plus air.

Europe’s Favorite Cities (London, Paris, Rome, Athens) May 15 – 31, 2002 Designed for young and active alumnae. $1,946 plus air.

Sailing the Great Lakes from Toronto to Chicago August 16 – 24, 2002 $3,995.

Alumni College in Provence September 23 – 30, 2002 $2,495, including airfare, food, lodging, seminars, and excursions.

Cuba, the Island and its People Early November, 2002 Ten days, $3,995 plus air.

PHOTO BY GARY SINICK

Beauty Abounds, acrylic painting by Frances Dunham Catlett, MA â&#x20AC;&#x2122;47.

Inspired by the jade she saw on a trip to China, Frances Dunham Catlett created this painting after she returned home to Berkeley. For an interview with Frances Dunham Catlett, see page 26.

Mills Quarterly Alumnae Association of Mills College Reinhardt Alumnae House Mills College PO Box 9998 Oakland, CA 94613-0998 510 430-2110 aamc@mills.edu www.mills.edu

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ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED

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