President’s Message

By Elizabeth L. Hillman

AS MILLS COLLEGE prepares to join Northeastern University (read more starting on the opposite page) we’re moving at a fast pace and with high intensity, committed to serving our students and community with care and excellence as we transform. We’re also committed to preserving the College’s core values during the transition and beyond, including our commitment to equity and access for those underserved by other institutions of higher education.

To give you a sense of why I believe we’ll be able to bring Mills’ values with us into the transition ahead, I want to describe how the Board of Trustees of Mills College—and our entire community—embraced antiracism during a year in which we faced extraordinary challenge from within, as our own alumnae association sued us, and without, as the global pandemic continued and Mills’ fiscal crisis deepened.

In 2020 and 2021, trustees at Mills launched a concerted effort to begin to address the crisis of racism with a collaborative, multifaceted effort. Through an Antiracism Working Group that formed in the wake of the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, and the global demonstrations for racial equity and justice that followed, the Board of Trustees articulated a new commitment to antiracism in October 2020, launched an education and training program for trustees about systemic racism that took place from January to June 2021, and reported on the board’s and College’s antiracism efforts in October 2021. With Mills’ new merger with Northeastern, those efforts continue. Our commitment to antiracism will be at the center of both the Mills Institute, described further by Ajuan Mance and Marilyn Schuster on page 6, and Mills College at Northeastern University.

The College’s history is marked by both courageous pursuit of equity and opportunity and a failure to overcome the harms of racism and other forms of discrimination that have held back many, including our BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color) students, LGBTQIA+ students, and students with disabilities. Mills has long considered social justice a core institutional mission, and the persistent impact of anti-Black racism led the board to prioritize a greater understanding of how discrimination has affected learning.

During the 2020–21 academic year, the board’s Antiracism Working Group met 16 times. Led by trustee Deborah Wood ’75, the working group helped the board understand and appreciate multiple perspectives on the experience of racism at Mills, its history, and efforts to address it. The working group heard “both painful experiences and inspiring advocacy” as it developed “a deeper appreciation for the complexity of these issues on Mills’ campus and in other college and university campuses and learning environments.” Trustees engaged in small group conversations, heard from equity scholars and advocates—such as Mills’ own Wendi Williams, dean of the Mills College School of Education; Denise Herd of the Othering and Belonging Institute at the University of California, Berkeley; and Brenda Allen, president of Lincoln University—as they completed a six-month syllabus. Trustees also heard from many Mills stakeholders, including members of the Latinx Task Force; Black Faculty and Staff Association; Black Student Collective; AAMC Alumnae of Color Committee; Asian Pacific Islander Students Alliance; Southeast Asian/ Middle Eastern/Asian Pacific Islanders; Indigenous Women’s Alliance; the Race, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Ethnic Studies Departments; Intersectional Antiracism Team; White Accountability Group; and staff, including the special assistant to the president for equity and inclusion and team leaders in the Division of Student Life and Provost’s Office.

Our board and College leadership are committed to making social justice and antiracism key tenets of the Mills Institute, which will bring transformative pedagogy and career development to historically marginalized racial and ethnic communities, women, and gender nonbinary individuals. Mills College will continue to support LGBTQIA+ students through the Mills Institute and across our campus. Already, Northeastern’s publications are expanding awareness of our faculty’s scholarship in queer studies and more; a much-clicked-on Northeastern story featured Mance in an interview about the new bisexual Superman. We’re excited to have Northeastern’s media team sharing ideas and insight from Mills College, to bring programs like Barbara Lee Distinguished Chair in Women’s Leadership Susan Stryker’s trans studies series—streamed and archived at Mills Performing Arts— to Northeastern, and to launch new programs that reflect the College’s values such as the Leading Social Change spring semester for Northeastern students that will begin in January at Mills.

Recognizing the value that every person brings to the Mills community—and creating opportunities for every learner to excel and thrive—are goals that will continue to require reflection, commitment, and ingenuity. In Northeastern, Mills has found a partner that can help us realize those lofty goals long into the future.