Mills Quarterly, Spring 2025

12

Gaming the System

by Rebecca Bodenheimer

It’s About Women in Gaming by

Jill Robi

 CAMPUS PHOTO: Oh, that walk up to Founders by the hill dorms... bet you just felt a twinge in your calf muscles. But in the spring, the blossoming trees give it an even prettier view. Photos by Ruby Wallau for Northeastern University.

The Sound of Sims by

Jessica Lipsky

DEPARTMENTS

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR / 2

OPENING MESSAGE / 3

ON THE OVAL / 4

OVER THE WIRES / 10

A SLICE OF QUARTERLY HISTORY / 11 Fall 1999

AAMC NEWS & NOTES / 30

FROM THE ARCHIVES / 33

Swimming in the 1930s

CLASS NOTES / 34

MEDIA LAB / 38

THROWBACK / 40

The Ave... & Other Off-Campus Locales

CATCHING UP WITH / 42 Mills Stream 1983–84

IN MEMORIAM / 44

SALON / 48

Rain in Spring by Mabel Esther Rice, S. ’09

ON THE COVER: This pixel art view of the Campanil kicks off our look at Mills alums and professors who are working with and within video games. Illustration by Angélica Navarro ’21.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

I am just reading my first Mills Quarterly in a long while (I had moved so many times and my mail was not forwarding to me correctly, but I think it is finally fixed). I was so happy and pleasantly surprised when I saw the new format of the magazine. I can tell how much thought, research, and time you have given to the redesign. It is beautiful, and you chose well. I look forward to the next publication. Thanks so much for all your effort.

–Mag Dixon ’02, Burbank, California

I usually don’t write comments, but I couldn’t help myself after opening the fall 2024 issue of Mills Quarterly. It had been sitting on my side table for a while, and today, I finally had a chance to open it. Initially, I hadn’t paid much attention to the design of this edition, but it does look and feel differently. After reading the opening message, I took a closer look at the magazine and realized how much more appealing it is now— both in appearance and in the way it feels in my hands. It’s absolutely lovely, and it makes me want to linger with it, holding and reading it longer. It’s amazing how a subtle change can make such a big difference.

Thank you for all the thought and effort you’ve put into redesigning this publication. I’m looking forward to future issues—it’s a wonderful reminder of how beautiful the campus is.

–Yi Zhou ’93, London, United Kingdom

Thank you so much for including “The ‘Why’ of YA” by Sarah Jamila Stevenson in the latest Mills Quarterly. I have loved Young Adult novels ever since my older cousins started giving me their old Sarah Dessen novels. In the years since, my appreciation has only grown. I have been reading about the “adultification” of YA and was delighted to see an article about it here.

I remember taking Professor Kathryn Reiss’ YA class. Thanks to the kindness of Professor Reiss and my classmates, I was eventually able to gain the courage to put my work out more widely. I am now a published YA author.

I also deeply appreciated the quotes from librarian Alex Brown ’05. I too would love to see a revival of new adult—and I too feel there are a lot of current YA books that could have helped me when I was younger. I wish them (and all the other bookish people out there) all the happiness now.

–Kelly Murashige ’19, Honolulu

MILLS QUARTERLY

ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT FOR ADVANCEMENT

Nikole Hilgeman Adams

MANAGING EDITOR

Allison Rost

DESIGN AND ART DIRECTION

Nancy Siller Wilson

CONTRIBUTORS

Rebecca Bodenheimer

Jessica Lipsky

Angélica Navarro ’21

Greer Rivera

Jill Robi

Kieran Turan ’90

Ruby Wallau

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Share your thoughts

Submit your letter to the editor via email to mills.quarterly@ northeastern.edu, online at quarterly.mills.edu, or by mail at: Mills Quarterly, 5000 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland, CA 94613. The Quarterly reserves the right to edit letters for length and clarity.

IT’S BEEN MY HONOR to serve as director of the Mills College Art Museum (MCAM) for nearly 16 years, especially as we celebrate MCAM’s centennial! It’s been 100 years of showcasing innovative art, a legacy that makes us so proud.

Mills College was founded in 1852, but by the 1880s, it already had 1,000 works of art and reproductions in its collection, which was displayed in the Sarah Sage Art Reference Library. It was through the estate of Jane Tolman, the sister of Susan Mills who developed the College’s first art-history curriculum, that funds were made available for the construction of an art gallery on campus. Susan Mills herself established an endowment fund whose income continues to support museum programs and acquisitions.

When the Mills College Art Gallery first opened on October 4, 1925, Albert M. Bender—the trustee chiefly responsible for the museum’s completion—gifted the new institution with 40 paintings and 75 prints by contemporary Bay Area artists. To this day, his gift comprises one of the nation’s most important collections of California regionalist paintings. In addition to Bender, major local collectors William S. Porter and A.S. Levenson were largely responsible for the early growth of the collection, donating numerous works of art.

Under the directorship of Roi Partridge, the gallery’s first director (himself a renowned graphic artist), works by radically contemporary artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Hans Hofmann, and Mexican muralist Diego Rivera came to MCAM in the late 1920s. The 1935 arrival of Alfred Neumeyer, from Berlin, began an important new phase of development; he used his extensive contacts in Europe to bring to Mills an exceptional array of important and sometimes controversial exhibitions of modern art. Major modernists who came to campus included Lyonel Feininger for his first U.S. exhibition, as well as Fernand Leger, László Moholy-Nagy and the Bauhaus, and Max Beckmann.

Meanwhile, the museum began its tradition of collecting, displaying, and studying Asian art in response to the 1928 introduction of Asian art history to the College’s curriculum, as well as the arrival of Alfred Salmony, an esteemed scholar of Chinese art and another refugee from Berlin. The museum’s Asian textile collections continued to grow through the 1953 donation of the distinguished Shojiro Nomura Fukusa Collection. As a result, MCAM is home to the largest fukusa collection outside of Japan.

In addition, ceramicist Antonio Prieto’s tenure on the Mills faculty from 1950 to 1968 led to MCAM acquiring one of the most important holdings of mid-century modernist ceramics on the West Coast. He amassed an impressive

personal collection, including works by major American ceramics artists Robert Arneson, Viola Frey, and Marguerite Wildenhain. After his death, artists further contributed to a memorial collection, bringing the total to more than 400 works. In 1970, the Prieto family donated the collection to the museum.

Between these acquisitions and many more, MCAM now holds more than 12,000 objects that span a diverse range of cultures and time periods. There is a renewed emphasis at the museum on commissioning and exhibiting new work by contemporary artists, demonstrating interdisciplinary and multimedia connections among the arts, as well as showcasing the talent of traditionally underrepresented voices.

And, most importantly, these works remain available to students. Original objects of art have been integral to teaching at Mills from its inception, and that mission remains the same.

I hope to see you throughout this year as we celebrate!

From the director of the Mills College

Art Museum

Stephanie Hanor

ON THE OVAL

Barbara Lee ’73 running for Oakland mayor

After filing papers to run for mayor with the City of Oakland on January 6, former Congresswoman Barbara Lee ’73 made an announcement on her website two days later. The special election, which was scheduled after the recall of

Mayor Sheng Thao in November 2024, takes place on April 15.

Lee joins a crowded field of 10 candidates, including former District 6 Councilmember Loren Taylor and Renia Janeen Webb, a teacher who

once served as Thao’s chief of staff during Thao’s time on the Oakland City Council. The three appeared in a forum sponsored by the Greenbelt Alliance and East Bay for Everyone on February 18.

Whoever wins the special election will serve out the remainder of Thao’s term, which will end in January 2027. Kevin Jenkins, who replaced Taylor as District 6 councilmember in 2023, was elected by Oakland City Council as interim mayor in early January.

Lee retired from the U.S. House of Representatives in January after an unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Dianne Feinstein, now held by Adam Schiff. (Lateefah Simon ’13 replaced Lee as the representative for California’s 12th Congressional district.) In campaign appearances and interviews, Lee has said that she would focus on cutting homelessness, including a mention at the event on February 18 of a possible pilot program for universal basic income, and enhancing public safety.

RUBY WALLAU

Mills adds creative writing minor

ON JANUARY 15, Northeastern’s University

Undergraduate Curriculum Committee approved the first minor for Mills College at Northeastern: creative writing. Championed by the Mills Curriculum Committee, the minor and its coursework draw upon Mills’ expertise in the field. It will be available starting in the 2025–26 academic year.

Courses for the program were designed by Elmaz Abinader, Susan Ito, Kathryn Reiss, Juliana Spahr, and Stephanie Young—all legacy Mills professors in English and creative writing—with more in development.

At a virtual alum forum with campus leadership on February 4, Mills College Dean Beth Kochly spoke about the new minor. “Our creative writing curriculum has really interesting tie-ins with equity and also with frontier technology, like the intersection of artificial intelligence and creative writing,” she said. “That’s been a really interesting discussion that society in general has been having.” One of the new classes to be offered as part of the minor is Writing Creatively in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.

The creative writing minor was just one of the proposals in the works, which include programs in social sustainability, climate change and conservation, and ethnic and Indigenous studies. Individual courses in those areas continue to be added to the Mills catalog, including the recently approved Problem Solving for a Sustainable Future and Climate Change, Health, and Resilience.

Sustainability looks to be a driving principle in Mills’ curriculum development going forward, according to Kochly.

“We’re not just thinking about the narrow lens of environmental sustainability, but also about economic sustainability and social sustainability and how all three intersect in ways that embody social justice,” she said at the February 4 event. “That’s where our faculty expertise lies, so we’re working on developing this cutting-edge curriculum that centers sustainability through a very Mills lens.”

One way that’s manifesting in the near future is through the Semester In program starting this fall. Upper division students from Boston and other Northeastern campuses will come to Oakland to study a variety of programs, one of which is ecosystems management, leveraging faculty strengths in biology and ecology.

Kochly and her team from the Mills dean’s office traveled to Boston in January to recruit students for the program.

Mills faculty are also actively collaborating with other Northeastern colleges to develop interdisciplinary programs. Currently in development are sustainabilityfocused courses that intersect with public health, urban studies, and applied artificial intelligence.

And another piece of the curriculum returning to Oakland this fall includes master’s degrees in public policy and public administration. Though they are offered through Northeastern’s School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, legacy Mills professors such as Lorien Rice and Mark Henderson are teaching in the program.

Mills alums are eligible for discounted tuition; visit graduate.northeastern.edu to learn more.

Celebrate the Class of 2025 at Commencement

One of the final groups of Mills legacy students and the first cohort of Northeastern graduate students will walk across the stage on Sunday, April 27, as the Oakland campus celebrates Commencement. The event will start at 11:00 a.m., an hour later than usual, on Holmgren Meadow.

Look for an email from the Office of Alumnae Relations for information on registering to attend.

Major gifts fuel Oakland programs

Oakland University Advancement thanks the following donors for their gifts of $50,000 and above that were received in the 2024 calendar year:

• Richard and Elaine Barrett, for their continued sponsorship of the Jill Barrett Undergraduate Research Program, which funds undergraduate scientific research over the summer in memory of their late daughter, Jill Barrett ’93.

• Momi Chang ’74 and Gaynor Chinn, for their support of the Alumnae of Color Endowed Scholarship and the Mills Art Museum Gift Fund.

• The estate of Elizabeth Collier, MA ’56, for its gift to the Mills Legacy Scholarship Fund.

• The estate of Josephine “Jo” Jackson Malti ’62, for continuing its underwriting of the Josephine Malti Endowed Scholarship.

• The estate of Elizabeth Kaupp, MA ’55, for supporting the Mills Institute Endowment Fund, to fund the various programs and activities of the Mills Institute.

• The estates of Catherine Pillar Clark ’65; Mildred and Lewis Collier (the parents of Elizabeth Collier, MA ’56); Beatrice Nold, MA ’48; and Sally Stockton ’60 for their gifts to the Dean’s Fund for Mills’ Greatest Need, which bolsters a variety of activities and initiatives for Mills College at Northeastern.

Makerspace, print studio available for students

In the part of the Aron Art Center that’s directly across the parking lot from Reinhardt Alumnae House is a new makerspace, available for classspecific work as well as open studio time and a Makers Club. Available activities include 3-D printing, laser and vinyl cutting, sewing, soldering, and knitting, and the classroom has the space and materials for a woodshop, metal shop, photography lab, and ceramics studio. Director Suzanne Schmidt oversees the space.

Nearby is an Analog Print Studio, where working equipment from the book art program was relocated last summer. Those letterpresses and carving stations are available for use and overseen by Print Media & Design Studio Manager Briar Hardy, MFA ’18, whose Mills degree is in book art and creative nonfiction. They were also instrumental in moving an Albion iron hand press, which was one of the original machines at the Eucalyptus Press, to the Bender Rare Book Room at F.W. Olin Library last fall. It now sits with a view of Lisser and the T intersection. Schmidt and Hardy plan to run “dry demos” with the press several times each year and use it to produce limited-edition prints.

“I am proud to be able to continue the legacy of book art under Oakland Makerspaces and to steward the letterpresses and type to a new generation of students,” Hardy says.

News in brief

 The inaugural Rooted and Rising: Women Leading in Sports Business Conference brought women executives for Bay Area professional sports teams to Lisser Hall on February 28. The event, organized by Northeastern with Oakland Roots and Soul SC, featured speakers like Jessica Smith, president of the new Golden State Valkyries women’s basketball team; Ay’Anna Moody, senior director of social impact for the Warriors Foundation; and Zena Keita, an on-air sports anchor for NBC Sports Bay Area.

 On January 16, President Joseph Aoun announced that David Madigan would be stepping down from his role as Northeastern’s provost at the end of the 2024-25 academic year. The search committee tasked with finding his replacement includes Associate Professor of Art History and Associate Dean of Curriculum and Network Programs Meryl Bailey as the representative from Mills College.

 Naomi Oreskes is this year’s Russell Women in Science Leadership Distinguished Guest, speaking at Lisser Hall on March 20. She is professor of the history of science and an affiliated professor of earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University, and her books include Why Trust Science and The Big Myth. The Russell Women in Science Leadership Program, supported by Cris Russell ’70, is housed under the Mills Institute.

 Another round of Oakland youths that were recruited by the TRIO Programs at Mills have graduated from the PG&E Economic Equity and Financial Education Program, which instructs local high-school students on financial literacy topics. The weekend classes take place at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and are supported by PG&E, Berkeley Executive Education, and Amenti Capital Group.

Oakland tech stories make Northeastern news

Northeastern Global News, an offshoot of Boston’s External Affairs Division, has hired an Oakland-based reporter, Kate Rix, to cover stories happening at Northeastern’s West Coast campuses. Befitting the theme of this issue, several recent articles about Oakland happenings have centered on tech:

• “How digital therapy video games enhance cognitive and physical rehabilitation.” Tony Simon, a professor for the College of Art, Media, and Design who started on the Oakland campus in January, studies how specific areas of the brain can be activated by video games, which can assist those with brain injuries or other neurocognitive challenges. He spoke at a Games and XR Symposium held at the Lokey School in February.

• “Northeastern partners with Bay Area industry leaders to advance the conversation on responsible AI.” Another gathering of industry experts took place on February 13 with the Responsible AI in Practice Summit, when professors in computer science and employees at companies like IBM, Intuit, and LinkedIn discussed the nuances of using AI—including bias, illiteracy, and inconsistencies in standards—and how to handle them.

• “She grew up without a computer. Now this Northeastern student is making technology her future.” A master’s student in computer science who enrolled in a specific program for those without computing backgrounds, Zadie Moon ’22 graduated from Mills with a degree in public health and now assists in research on the use of AI for therapists treating those with chronic health problems. She also started a Google Developer Group on campus.

Full articles are available at news.northeastern.edu/?s=oakland.

Zadie Moon ’22

RUBY WALLAU

Changes for first-year cohorts on campus

Starting this fall, there will be only one group of first-year students on campus during the academic year rather than two.

Since the Northeastern merger was finalized in 2022, incoming first-years were considered either four-year students (with the option to transfer to Boston for their sophomore year) or Global Scholars, who would spend one semester in Oakland or London and then move to the other for the spring. For the latter, students provided feedback that it was too difficult to get situated in one place before picking up and relocating to the other.

Therefore, starting with the fall 2025 semester, the first-year students on campus will remain the same throughout the full academic year, with an increased emphasis on students remaining in Oakland for future academic years.

(Logistics for graduate students are unchanged.)

Students’ widespread use of the transfer option has led to a transitory feel among the student body, which Campus Dean Dan Sachs is working to change. In this current cohort of first-year students, more than a dozen have committed to staying in Oakland for their sophomore year, while at least that many will likely transfer from Boston to Oakland as well. Academic advisors from the various Northeastern colleges with a presence in Oakland came to campus in February to gather intel to better inform Boston students about their options. In addition, the campus will host more than 50 students during Northeastern’s Summer I session beginning in early May through June.

“Building the first second-year class is is by far the hardest hill to climb,” Sachs said at a January leadership meeting. “Once they come here, I am confident we’ll deliveran experience that’s really exceptional.”

Mills Institute revives The Womanist

The Womanist, the Mills literary journal originally started by ethnic studies students in 1992, returns to print this spring under the auspices of the Mills Institute. The publication, named for a term coined by author Alice Walker, was founded to provide opportunities for creative and literary “femmes of color.” The most recent issue was published in fall 2022.

Assistant Teaching Professor Susan Ito, MFA ’92, remains the faculty advisor. “The students who are working on the project are all new Northeastern

students, who are eager to learn about and continue the legacy. It will be a different experience, given that past Womanist crews passed down their experience and knowledge over multiple years, and these are short-term students here in the Oakland campus,” she said. “But we do have several Womanist Mills alums who will be meeting with this new editorial board and sharing their wisdom and experience! We are lucky to have them.” The issue’s theme is a phoenix rising from the ashes. It caps off a busy spring semester for the institute, which also included:

• A Global Equity Innovation Lab on February 4, in which Assistant Teaching Professor Natalee Kēhaulani Bauer ’97, MA ’07, and Professor of Education Dana Wright shared their research on education equity.

Save the Date for MCAM’s 100th Anniversary Celebration!

Saturday, October 4, is the day we will gather to commemorate the centennial of the Mills College Art Museum— exactly 100 years after the day it originally opened. Mark your calendars now and stay tuned for more info heading your way this summer.

• Meet-and-greets for the 43 students taking part in the Russell Women in Science Leadership and Hellman Experiential Science programs: one on February 6 in Oakland, and the other on February 12 in Boston.

• The Responsible AI in Practice Summit, held in the Student Union on February 13 in conjunction with Oakland Partnerships, the Institute of Experiential AI, and Khoury College of Computer Sciences. During the event, Executive Director Christie Chung engaged in a fireside chat with Lili Gangas, who is the chief technology community officer at the Kapor Center, an Oakland-based collective of organizations working on diversifying the tech industry.

CALENDAR

Mills College Art Museum

Hidden

History

    Through April 27

An exhibition of photographs by Kija Lucas, MFA ’10. Lucas’ father was a gardener, which inspired her love of the natural world—both indigenous and introduced. This set of prints takes specimen photography to the next level, with the inclusion of images of the tools of propagation but also her choice of subjects and how they relate to her own life. (Her photography includes plants that are found on the Oakland campus.)

Language of Our Own     April 6–27

Four graduating studio art students—Sophie Gunther, Frankie Keenan-Lee, Eli Meza, and Reed Reed—exhibit their senior theses. The opening reception will be held on Sunday, April 6, from 4:00–6:00 p.m.

MCAM is open Tuesday through Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., with late hours on Wednesday until 7:30 p.m. Admission is free.

Above: “Untitled (Magnolia)” by Kija Lucas, MFA ’10. Below: First-year student Kate Kusakabe views Hidden History at MCAM. Photo by Ruby Wallau for Northeastern University.

Press mentions and honors for Mills alums and Oakland professors

A physician and professor at Boston Children’s Hospital, Kjersti Aagaard ’91 appeared with her co-authors at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine’s Annual Pregnancy Meeting in Denver on January 30 to present the paper “Elevated Micro- and Nanoplastics Detected in Preterm Human Placentae.” Newsweek covered the paper’s findings and included comments from Aagaard; visit tinyurl.com/ kjersti-aagaard-2025 to read the story.

Mills Institute Executive Director Christie Chung delivered the opening plenary at the Leadership in Higher Education conference on January 28. She also discussed the development of AI technologies and cognitive science on an episode of the podcast AI Unplugged Without Borders that was released on November 11, 2024.

For their work as the Guggenheim Museum’s 2024 poet-in-residence (see page 36), Meg Day, MFA ’10, received a write-up in The New York Times. Read the piece at tinyurl.com/meg-day-2025.

Mehgen Delaney Andrade ’03, who is a professor of psychology at College of the Canyons, co-presented research on the effects of incarceration on children in “Behind Bars: Forfeiting our Children,” a gathering held at the nearby Santa Clarita Performing Arts Center on November 21, 2024.

California Student Aid Commission

Executive Director Daisy Gonzales ’07 spoke with EdSource in December 2024 about the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and her thoughts on the then-incoming presidential administration. Read the piece at tinyurl.com/daisy-gonzales-edsource.

Brian James, MFA ’08, is the co-owner of Mission Synths in San Francisco, and the website Mission Local published a piece on December 3, 2024, about the electronic music store’s fourth anniversary. Read the article at tinyurl.com/ brian-james-mission-local.

The website CanvasRebel interviewed Carol Jameson, MFA ’89, about her new book, Adam and Leonora, in a piece that was published on December 21, 2024. Read it at tinyurl.com/carol-jameson.

In a piece for Psychiatric Times released on February 7, Richard

At the American Musicology Society’s annual meeting in Chicago last November, Professor of Music Nalini Ghuman presented “Notes of Empire: Musical albums of British-occupied India and India-preoccupied Britain,” which she compiled using family-owned albums. She also delivered the keynote address at the “Rethinking Gustav Holst” symposium, held at Utah State University in October 2024.

Berlin shared the poem “Girl in the Doorway” by Dorianne Laux ’89 and discussed its themes of early adolescence. Laux is a Pulitzer finalist and an emerita professor at North Carolina State University.

Bay Area Reporter shared a review of Gender Studies: True Confessions of an Accidental Outlaw by Professor Emerita of English and Ethnic Studies Ajuan Mance on January 11. Read it at tinyurl.com/ajuan-mance.

Head of Partnerships Carrie Maultsby-Lute, MBA ’11 , participated in the panel “Building Tomorrow’s PIT Workforce: Strategies for Preparation and Readiness” at the 2024 PIT-UN Summit, held by the Public Interest Technology University Network, on November 7, 2024.

In late 2024, Saiph Savage, a faculty affiliate at the Mills Institute as well as an assistant professor at Khoury College of Computer Science and director of Civic AI Lab, received both an NSF CAREER Award to support her research on computer-supported collective action systems and an NSF Medium Grant to design AI systems that support gig workers.

Associate Professor of Early Childhood Special Education Jaci Urbani spoke at the annual conference for the National Council for the Social Studies conference in Boston in November 2024 about “Using Children’s Literature to Learn About America’s Racial History.”

At the 14th Annual Conference on Education and Justice in December 2024, Professor of Education Dana Wright presented on the theoretical and historical roots of participatory action research (PAR) in the Global South, which is also the topic of an upcoming book chapter.

Helene Mayer and Fencing at Mills: Champions Are a Mills Tradition

By Marian Hirsch ’75

War figured prominently in the life of Helene Mayer. The effects of World War I indirectly led her to fencing; born in Offenbach, Germany, in 1910, she experienced physical problems because of the war. “I was an underfed child,” she explained in a newspaper interview. “So they sent me to a physical reconstruction school; part of my training was fencing.”

Helene quickly displayed her talent. She learned to fence both left- and right-handed, and as an adult, could beat an average fencer using her left hand. She became the German national champion at age 13 and won the gold medal at the 1928 Olympics in Athens. Following her participation in the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, Helene decided to stay in California and study at Scripps College.

In 1933, shortly after the Nazis came to power, Helene’s name was removed from the rolls of the fencing school in Offenbach where she had studied. Her father was Jewish, so Helene decided to continue her education in California. After receiving her BA, she came to Mills in 1933 and earned an MA in French. Part of the allure of the Bay Area was the presence of her fencing master from Offenbach, Hans Halberstadt, who came to San Francisco after being bought out of a concentration camp.

At Mills, Helene organized a fencing class and club. Although she was one of the best fencers in the world, Helene considered the sport an avocation and taught German literature at Mills to make her living while working on her doctorate in comparative literature at UC Berkeley.

To prepare for the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Helene traveled to Cal and Stanford to practice with men. Because she had represented Germany in previous Olympics, Helene had to do so again according to Olympic rules, even though she was in the process of gaining US citizenship. Also, her ethnic heritage became an issue. This was the Olympics at which Hitler set out to demonstrate “Aryan” superiority. What happened to Helene at the 1936 Olympics may never be fully understood. Why did the Germans invite Helene, who was half Jewish, to participate? Her blond, blue-eyed appearance complicated matters; as many believe, the Germans may have overlooked her ethnicity because she resembled her “Aryan” mother. They also may have wanted to claim the best woman fencer and a probable gold medal.

The German Olympic Association sent Helene an invitation at the last minute. Commenting on the timing and the motive, Helene noted, “I am skeptical of a gesture that seems designed for international publicity.” However, she did go and took second place.

The next year, Helene went to Paris for the world championships and trounced every competitor. Was this an indication of what should have happened the year before? No one is certain, although friends attest that Helene was extremely eager to participate in the competition in Paris. After that, she never competed internationally again and refused to comment on the Olympics.

What Helene would not say publicly she may have shared with her students at Mills. Margaret Duncan Greene ’39 studied fencing with Helene, and she recalls Helene saying she was afraid for her family. “It was very clear that the German judges would not allow her to be first. They judged her second when she was clearly first,” Greene says. “She came home crushed.”

For the next decade, Helene continued her career teaching German and comparative literature at Mills and at schools in San Francisco. She finally returned to Germany, married an engineer, and settled in Heidelberg. She died of cancer shortly thereafter, at age 42. To honor her, the Helene Mayer Memorial Tournament, a women’s open foil competition, was established in the Bay Area. The tournament was held at Mills for many years.

Helene Mayer in a 1935 photo taken by Imogen Cunningham. Used with permission of the Imogen Cunningham Trust.

Gaming

Professor Cliff Lee uses video games—and the study of how to make them—to help level the playing field.

WORDS BY REBECCA BODENHEIMER / PHOTOS BY GREER RIVERA

the System

Growing up in the 1980s as a self-professed latchkey kid and the child of immigrants from Hong Kong, Professor of Education Cliff Lee loved playing video games. “In a bi-cultural household,” he says, “I was not only exposed to western American culture, but also Hong Kong/Chinese culture. We would frequent San Francisco’s Chinatown and catch the latest HK action movies there.” His proclivity for popular culture followed him through his early career working as a teacher at Life Academy in Oakland. “I saw the value of media as a mirror and window into your identity,” he says.

Lee eventually returned to higher education, earning a doctorate in education at UCLA, and his dissertation brought him back to gaming: It was

based on his own experience teaching programming to high schoolers. Now, his teaching load as an education professor for Mills College at Northeastern has expanded to a role on the Oakland campus involving the creation of video games themselves as a professor in game design.

Game design may seem like a strange bedfellow for an education scholar, given the ways screen time has been demonized in recent years— and how the humanities are under historic threat in higher education. The pandemic changed education’s relationship with technology in irrevocable ways, and some institutions have cut programs that have been

deemed “less practical” than STEM disciplines. Tech’s incursion into every aspect of our lives seems inescapable, despite the fact that an increase in screen time has been blamed for higher rates of adolescent anxiety and depression and lower educational outcomes, a controversial topic tackled by psychologist Jonathan Haidt in his 2024 book The Anxious Generation.

While not necessarily challenging Haidt’s arguments about the dangers and addictive nature of our increasing reliance on technology, Lee is demonstrating that technological pursuits like game design can involve an immense amount of creativity and engagement with the arts. He’s among a group of researchers working to humanize the application of STEM fields through their interdisciplinary work by merging his longstanding mission to “radically transform the way that our K through 12 educational system operates” with his job of teaching game design.

Lee began teaching in the Mills School of Education in 2019, before the merger with Northeastern, playing a crucial role in the Educators of Liberation, Justice, and Joy (ELJJ) teacher credentialing program. He currently holds a joint appointment between the Education Department with Mills at Northeastern and the College of Art, Media, and Design (CAMD). He teaches one education course and three classes with CAMD, which offers MS programs in game design and extended realities and a variety of undergraduate courses on the Oakland campus.

(Mills at Northeastern has reestablished four education master’s programs with proper state accreditation that are now recruiting students for the 2025–26 academic year, with more programs still in the works.)

His research focus has remained consistent—along with his teaching, it combines computer science, storytelling, artistic expression, and social justice. His goal of combining interactive media with storytelling was the subject of a book he co-authored with longtime collaborator Elisabeth Soep in 2024 called Code for What? Computer Science for Storytelling and Social Justice. The book is based on their research findings while Lee was a scholar-in-residence at the Oakland-based organization YR Media (formerly known as Youth Radio).

Lee does say that his job has “changed pretty profoundly.” Before the merger, teaching was emphasized more heavily, as is the norm at liberal arts colleges. Now, under Northeastern, his position is “much more oriented toward research,” he says. One of the perks of this shift is that he’s able to apply for larger grants because of Northeastern’s status as an R1 university. “I have a new PhD student that I recruited,” Lee says, and she assists him with his research.

At UCLA, Lee’s doctoral dissertation examined the use of a culturally relevant computer science curriculum that integrated 10th graders’ sociopolitical analysis of their South L.A. community and created a choose-your-own-narrative video game to challenge dominant narratives of materially dispossessed BIPOC youth. In his role as an English, social studies, and media arts teacher at an east Oakland school, he helped students create digital stories around issues in their communities, including violence and immigration. He says it feels like his career has come full circle.

In the last academic year, he and his grad students began partnering with Lyndsay Schaeffer at the Mills College Children’s School to create a game tailored to fourth and fifth graders. (Images from a meetup between the two groups of students in November 2023 are seen throughout this piece.) This “intergenerational collaboration,” as Lee calls it, involved his students building two video games and getting immediate feedback from the younger students about their design and playability. One of the games, C aptain Crimson’s Journey, required players to work together as swashbuckling pirates to defeat monsters on each level, while the other—Project Tomorrow —pitted players against each other to build a spaceship and escape an alien planet.

He collaborated with Schaeffer again this academic year, with his students working on an eco-justice game about watershed issues in Oakland. “Her students actually learn much more of the content than my students,” Lee says, “but they’re collaborating together on their respective projects and sharing the different development steps along the way with one another.” Lee’s students pitched the game to the younger students and received feedback, an approach he refers to as player-centered design, where the designers involve the target group of players in the creation process from the beginning.

The initial goal for Lee’s students was to publish the game and allow others to play it, “a very tall order for any game designers to [do] in a couple of weeks, let alone beginner game designers,” he says. His students were able to complete a playable prototype of the game by the end of the fall 2024 semester.

Collaboration is a key aspect of both Lee’s research and teaching. There’s a third group of students involved in the creation of the video game, at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music: Students in the technology and applied composition program are producing the game’s sound effects. According to Lee, it shows how interdisciplinary game design is, in that it involves people with many different skills and talents, including visual artists, programmers, composers, and voice actors. “Game design as a field really brings in different skill sets to build a multimedia creation,” he says. “It’s not just programming; it’s storytelling.”

Dexter Delandro, CAMD ’25, who is currently working on his master’s in game science and design, was in the first cohort of Lee’s students to collaborate with the Children’s School last year. He notes one major difference between Lee’s class and his other coursework; his other classes involve “designing games for ourselves, not really for a target audience.” Delandro and his cohort got to know the younger students and their interests in order to design a game they would enjoy, which ultimately became Captain Crimson’s Journey.

He found it a unique experience to “have that direct relationship with the target audience,” he says. The process was more iterative than in other game design courses, he adds, because the grad students built a version of the game, which the younger students then played and provided instant feedback about.

Beyond Lee’s work as an educator, he has made important theoretical contributions to the field of education

with respect to computational thinking and arts expression as a tool for social justice. Soep, the co-author of Lee’s book, points to the significance of his framework of Critical Computational Literacy (CCL), which Lee applied in his work with BIPOC youth between the ages of 14 and 24 while he was a scholar-in-residence at YR Media; this research constituted the data for their 2024 book.

Lee describes CCL—which is derived from Brazilian philosopher Paulo Freire’s concept of critical pedagogy and Jeanette Wing’s concept of computational thinking, among others—as bridging social justice, technology, and artistic expression. As “youth-centered education,” this approach differs from traditional

teaching methods and prioritizes deep examinations of power and injustice while creating computational multimedia products that speak truth to power. He describes it as the intersection of arts practice and creative expression with developing products that feel impactful for the consumer.

Soep says she believes it’s a highly effective approach for working with urban youth. “Guided by Lee’s conceptual clarity, innovative curriculum, and hands-on mentorship,” she says, “our team of novice and veteran journalists and designers produced interactive stories on topics including gentrification, gun violence, gender identity, and AI.”

She adds that this method “raised awareness and shifted perceptions of key social issues through dynamic user experiences that invited audiences to participate in the meaning-making process.” It also allowed young people to tell stories on their own terms, she adds.

Beyond game design, Lee has more recently been doing some work in the field of “extended reality,” which includes virtual reality (VR) technology, as well as a more limited form called augmented reality (AR). An example of AR is the feature in many mobile apps, like Amazon, that allows you to see how a certain product will look in the context of your home. One way these newer technologies can be used for pedagogical purposes, Lee explains, is in AR apps such as Black Terminus AR, which uses a mobile phone app to provide cultural and historical context for public art. For example, he says, if you see a mural of Black Panther founder Huey P. Newton around Oakland, you can place your phone over the mural and use the app to bring his image and words to life.

Notwithstanding the incredible possibilities of extended reality technology, Lee says that most of his writing also “has a very healthy dose of techno-skepticism.” He recently co-wrote an article with Soep and Cherise McBride that introduced the framework Humanizing Data Expression (HDE) within the context of new AI technology: “The key role of expression in HDE distinguishes the human from the machine through the lens of storytelling.”

The purpose of the article was to understand how 14- to 25-year-olds were making sense of AI technology, and the researchers found four main literary practices used by these young people: contextualizing AI in the real world and revealing how it works; unveiling AI’s authorship and asking who makes it; grappling with the tensions and dangers of AI (such as deep fakes used to spread misinformation); and trying to outsmart or hack the technology, which can lead to a sense of agency for young people.

“ I’ve seen it over and over again, that students’ eyes light up when they get to do something like that, something dynamic. This approach ups the ante of what they produce.” – Cliff Lee

In general, Lee feels that critical media literacy, such as understanding how algorithms work, is crucial for everyone engaging with these technologies. He points to one project that examined virtual test-proctoring software, which became very common during the pandemic. It has been shown, Lee says, to have a racially biased algorithm that isn’t able to recognize people with darker skin. It has also erroneously flagged activities as cheating, because its designers didn’t take into account the fact that many students live in crowded and/or noisy living situations.

At the end of the day, there is no way to avoid the forward march of technological innovation, and the fact that gaming in particular is a hugely popular activity among young people. However, Lee says, transformational game design, also referred to as “serious” or “applied” games, can be used to address social inequities. As an example, he points out that a lot of Gen Z and Alpha gamers worry about climate change. One way Lee has injected social justice concerns into game design is by working with BIPOC youth in Oakland and Richmond to create narrative-based games that educate people about eco-justice issues. Beyond the education these games can provide to their players, creating them can increase feelings of agency for youths, Lee says. When he was a high school teacher and his students created digital stories about their families’ immigration experiences, he adds, they were more engaged. “I’ve seen it over and over again, that students’ eyes light up when they get to do something like that, something dynamic,” Lee says. This approach “ups the ante of what they produce.” 6

RUBY WALLAU

It’s About Women in Gaming

Ten years ago, Gamergate attempted to silence and malign women finding a foothold in the video game industry. We spoke to Mills alums in the field to see how things have (and haven’t) changed.

In 2014–15, women in the video game industry became the targets of white male/ right-wing gamers in an online harassment campaign. This was spurred on by the perceived rise of influence of women in the gaming industry, when—really—all that happened was the playing field (pun intended) between men and women in the gaming industry became marginally more level.

The price of equality in the gaming industry has been a hefty one, indeed.

According to Forbes, recent statistics show that in the industry itself, women only make up 30% of employees. Comparably, women globally represent half of all gamers. With gaming now a $184.4-billion industry across the globe, and games available everywhere from dedicated platforms like PlayStation and Xbox down to everyday computers, tablets, and phones, it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Women are still here, and still gaming.

The Quarterly spoke with a few Mills alums who were present for that moment in gaming history and/or played integral roles in the industry:

0 AJ Glasser ’06, an international relations major who became a gaming journalist, writing for outlets such as Kotaku. She later went on to work at Twitch and is now a senior developer relations manager for Oculus Publishing, a virtual reality gaming platform owned by Meta.

0 Lily Emil Lammers ’19 is a gamer and voiceover actress. Some of her character work includes Ash from Nintendo’s Fire Emblem Heroes and Petey in Pokémon Masters

0 Ellen Steuer ’99 was a community manager for Disney online games. She later moved into product marketing; first, in gaming, then social media and ecommerce. She’s now a senior manager at Ingenio, which specializes in the spiritual and wellness space.

0 Tami Borowick ’90 worked as a programmer and game designer at Lucasfilm then became a founding employee of Humongous Entertainment. Later, she worked on user experience and was a producer with other game companies, and designed interactive content for children’s electronic toys at Fisher-Price. In recent years, she worked as a social media analyst for Microsoft.

Many of them had roots in gaming well before entering the field professionally.

From the Start Screen “Games were very much part of my upbringing,” Glasser said. “My parents were doctors. They brought home the newest technology all the time because they had, like, a fetish for it.” Glasser’s folks had all of the latest ’80s gadgets, from the first Nintendo system to laser disc player, to ColecoVision. “When the second Dreamcast came out, and then Super Nintendo, we got those, too,” she said. Lammers always had a love for video games, playing them since she was a toddler. “I’ve been playing them probably since I was like, two or three years old, and then just kept going,” she said. It was in her teens, however, when she had an epiphany, taking on games in a professional manner: “In high school, I realized that people did this for a job. I started imitating voices from games, researching who all these voice actors were. It appealed to me as an actor, because I felt like you could do anything.”

Discovering this career path meant freedom for her: “I could play a high schooler, I could play an older woman, I could play a little boy,

I could play a little creature. I could do all of that, which felt so much more free than other areas of acting.” Doing voiceover work enthuses Lammers as an actor, she added. “I just love the video game art form,” she said. “I think there’s a diversity of what you can do with a video game. It can be a visual novel, or it can be something more simple. It can be those huge, cinematic games. There’s a lot of different things that can go into [a game].”

Steuer didn’t have the gaming experience at home, but she was still able to experience it in her childhood. “We never had a Nintendo or an Atari or anything like that in my house. I was a girl, and nobody thought a girl would care about those things,” she said. “So I would go over to any friend who had a Nintendo and was, like, ‘Can we please play Mario? Can we please play whatever game?’ It was not a focus [at home] to give me any kind of technology.” When Steuer got to Mills, she bought her very first system: a PlayStation.

There was one Mills alum, however, who didn’t get into gaming until later in life. “I was not a gamer,” Borowick said. “I had played one game in college, and really hadn’t even thought about going into games.” What brought her into the gaming world? It was a piece written by a fellow Mills alum, who worked at Lucasfilm. “The way she talked about the atmosphere, the creativity, the openness—that made me really want to apply,” she said. Borowick sent in her resume and cover letter via snail mail for a job.

As a communication major, she was surprised when they asked her about their games sector. “I said, ‘I don’t know! I haven’t played a lot of games, so I really don’t know about them,’” she said. “I asked if they could send me some games to play, to which they agreed. In today’s world, I think that’s crazy, but they sent me three of their games, and I loved them!”

Gameplay

Given their diverse ages and experiences in the industry, the effects of Gamergate varied among these four Mills alums. Still, facing ostracization and doubt has been a common factor throughout all of their careers. “These bros at a company didn’t want to hear what I had to say,” Steuer said.

“I’d been getting death threats for a long time before Gamergate,” Glasser said. “The conventional wisdom for people writing in games journalism was to just ignore it.” She had some good fortune given her first name is genderless/reads as male. But even with this advantage, how the situation was devolving didn’t escape her. “I don’t think anyone really understood at the time that it was happening, how bad it was getting, and what it was doing to women as an entire category, rather than just women who wrote about games,” she added. “It was spreading, and it was spreading pretty badly.”

At the start of Gamergate, Lammers was still in high school. Though there wasn’t an effect on her professionally at that time, it did cause her some trepidation about entering the gaming field down the road. “It started when I was entering the online-sphere and reading about games. You really got to see all of those polarizing opinions about things, and it shaped what I thought about games,” she said. She added that she’s noticed that the industry’s desire to appeal to a variety of customer demographics can sometimes find itself at odds with the prevailing culture: “You’ll see huge hiring boosts of marginalized people, but then they’re fired the next year, or they’re harassed or there isn’t anything in place to protect them, or the workplace is toxic.”

About 10 years ago, Steuer was working at a different gaming company in the Bay Area, with a culture starkly different from the House of Mouse. At Disney, Steuer said, the culture was defined by smart people who studied the interaction of game play from kids to adults. But at this more recent company, “it was very dudebro, with maybe three or four women on a team of 80 or so men,” she said.

Illustrator Ang é lica Navarro ’21 created avatars of the four alums featured in this story in the styles of their favorite games. Clockwise from top left: Lily Emil Lammers ’19 and The Legend of Zelda; AJ Glasser ’06 à la Valkyria Chronicles; Tami Borowick ’90 with Freddi from Freddi Fish; and Ellen Steuer ’99 with a cat from Toontown

They weren’t focused at all on accessibility, which is a direct correlation to how fun a game can be, and that was a culture shock for Steuer. “Honestly, there are always challenges at work getting your ideas across,” she said. “What was specifically difficult for me was I was the first woman to get pregnant at this company. Going through the maternity leave process turned into a traumatic experience.”

Simultaneously, Gamergate was providing background noise to her work experience. “There were no accommodations for anything even remotely motherly. While on maternity leave, I returned to someone new having been hired over me. I wasn’t considered for the role. It was just not a friendly culture to women,” she said. While Steuer ended up working something out at the company, it was such a negative experience that she ended up leaving the company anyway, just as a voice like hers was needed.

“I

keys” were the “points” that were made, Steuer said. Her experience at Disney certainly catered to child users. But it also catered to those who were just starting in gaming, which culminated in a strange kind of gatekeeping in the gaming world.

think you need to create an environment in which marginalized voices can prosper and continue to exist in the game industry. So many people are leaving because it’s so toxic, and that’s not something you can financially maintain.”

–Lily Lammers ’19

One prime example came through basic game functionality: “So if you’re a gamer, you might know that W, A, S, and D are the keys that a lot of traditional computer games use on the keyboard to navigate around. W is forward and S is backward, and A is left and D is right,” she said. In her Disney days, kids would test the games, and jump right into it—and intuitively, they would gravitate to the arrow keys, which was easy, sensible, and logical. “But these dudes who’ve been playing games forever, WASD was all they knew,” she explained. She had to insist that arrow keys be made an option while keeping the traditional WASD. “A kid is not gonna inherently know that unless they’ve played a game with that before. Why would we limit their experience the first time they’re sitting down to play the game? Just let the arrow keys be the navigator.” Despite the logic behind her reasoning, pushback to utilizing the arrow keys remained. “That’s not how it’s done” and “Nobody uses the arrow

Borowick was no longer in the industry at the time Gamergate happened, but said she empathized given her past experiences. “Some industry members did not know how to act around women or how to treat women. How to be co-workers with women. It saddened me to hear it was still going on,” she said. Prior to Gamergate, Borowick experienced sexist behaviors in the workplace: “Gendered words were an issue. Adult employees were called ‘girls’ instead of ‘women,’ groups of us were labeled ‘females’ as though we were subjects in science experiments, and while my coworkers were called ‘programmers,’ I was called a ‘female programmer.’ These were particularly irritating to me because of my Mills education.” Borowick was also asked out on the job and in the middle of written reports, making her feel like a piece of meat. “My ideas and suggestions were downplayed or ignored,” she said. In the workplace, she has been called both a bitch and “Bossybutt,” and once “Commander Buttonhead” while in charge of a project. Men who behaved as she did were naturally called “assertive or a go-getter.”

Lives to Spare

Despite the specter of Gamergate and the intolerance within the industry, these Mills alums are still part of the gaming community, in some shape or form. They stay up to date on industry news, and some have even joined online communities.

“I’m on a couple of Discords,” Glasser said, referring to specialized chat rooms and voice channels through the Discord app or website. “They’ll often post things there as they become distributed, like, ‘Oh, there’s layoffs,’ or ‘Oh, they’re hiring.’ Most of those are oriented around that and around breakout games.”

“Unfortunately, Twitter [now X] is a huge source of news,” Lammers said. “I’m hoping Bluesky will grow.” Lammers is also on Discord groups: “We talk rates, we talk about auditions [while still honoring NDAs]. A lot of us want to stay informed, whether it’s rates and union stuff, and also keeping up with close friends.”

While Steuer left Twitter post-Gamergate, she says she’s able to stay up to date on the gaming industry through friends and social media, such as “Reddit and those types of places, but I’m not following the games industry as closely as I was,” she said. “I’m more following politics these days.”

Borowick has also taken a step back, but still finds herself in gaming’s orbit: “I hear a bit through industry friends or sometimes industry news sites. I try keeping up on headlines from conferences and expos, and pay attention to mainstream news stories.”

As in any industry, women in gaming have to measure their appetite for workplace friction—as these alums’ experiences show. But despite the terror that Gamergate wrought on women in gaming, women are still very much in the industry, their presence ever-growing. And if you’re a woman who enjoys any type of video game, be it on your phone, your laptop/ PC, or console— Game on. 6

A Rundown on Gamergate

Histories of Gamergate have traced its origins to 2013, when the video game programmer Zoë Quinn created Depression Quest, an interactive fiction game about mental health. While it received critical acclaim and praise from medical professionals and game critics alike, the text-heavy game was disparaged by some in the gaming community as boring.

Upon its August 2014 release on Steam (one of the top PC gaming platforms worldwide), posters on the message board 4chan scooped up derogatory posts from Quinn’s ex-boyfriend and spun them into a narrative that accused the creator of sleeping their way to positive reviews. This led to an online sexual harassment campaign (including, but not limited to, threats of rape and murder) on 4chan and Reddit. The movement’s clarion call, for a time, was: “It’s about ethics in gaming journalism.” Its actions, though, went well beyond that.

Initially called “Quinnspiracy,” the name #Gamergate was coined on Twitter by conservative actor Adam Baldwin on August 27, 2014. Alt-right columnist Milo Yiannopoulos boosted that hashtag on Breitbart News, which continued to spread. This domino effect helped to broaden the alt-right movement.

Other targets of Gamergate’s abuse included independent video game developer Brianna Wu, journalist Jenn Frank, and feminist blogger Anita Sarkeesian. They (along with others) were threatened with physical harm and rape, while being doxxed and labeled as social justice warriors. Some who spoke out against Gamergate became targets of swatting, wherein fake calls are made to 911 reporting dangerous situations that would send heavily weaponized police officers to targets’ homes.

A decade later, Gamergate has helped to pave the way for such alt-right movements as Pizzagate down to QAnon. Just one of the many academic studies that’s been published on the movement is “The Gamergate Social Network: Interpreting Transphobia and Alt-Right Hate Online,” which was published in the journal Digital Studies in 2024.

Soundtracking

One of the Most EnduringGamesComputer

JERRY MARTIN, MFA ’81, isn’t a gamer, but his influence has been felt—and most certainly heard—by a generation of computer game enthusiasts.

The Center for Contemporary Music graduate was a composer and audio director for The Sims, a beloved computer game series that first debuted in February 2000. Created by Bay Area-based video game designer Will Wright and distributed by his company Maxis (and later, Electronic Arts), The Sims is an example of what the industry calls a “god game”—one in which the player controls every aspect of the game universe. There’s no end goal or mission in the world of The Sims; players simply control the lives of a single Sim or family of Sims as they go through a continuous series of lifelike tasks.

And, much like life, there’s music to accompany that journey. In the case of The Sims (as well as associated properties such as Sim City and Sim Casino), there’s music for interstitial moments, music to soundtrack specific activities such as building or buying items for your Sim home, and even a radio feature. This music is “mostly subliminal and unconscious,” Martin says. “You’re creating emotions for whatever’s happening, and you’re trying to tell the emotional story of what’s going on.”

WORDS BY JESSICA LIPSKY

As much as the game itself has become something of a touchstone for a generation of gamers, so too has the music from The Sims.

“I try to not be fake,” Martin says of his compositional technique. And while there’s often a sonic “assignment” he’s composing to, “I like to always transcend that and get to the real meat of what the music could be and should be.”

Finding Inspiration at Mills

Martin was a composition major during his undergrad years at what’s now Cal State East Bay and chose to earn his MFA at Mills College on the strength of its Center for Contemporary Music. “I had a lot of fun there,” Martin recalls of his time at Mills in the late ’70s and early ’80s, “right when computers were coming out.” The composer says he remembers learning on tape recorders and a now-collectible Moog 3C analog synthesizer.

But the real draw for a young Martin were the composition professors; “there were some just incredible guys that I really loved.” At the time, minimalist composer Terry Riley (who is often credited with making one of the first remixes in 1968) was a professor in the Music Department and offered North Indian raga singing classes alongside his guru, Pandit Pran Nath. Within

the Center for Contemporary Music, composer Lou Harrison held classes on Javanese gamelan music.

Learning in those diverse styles greatly influenced Martin, who worked as a freelance composer and producer for more than a decade. In the mid-’80s, he founded Musicontrol and created music for a variety of corporate clients—from AT&T and the NBA, to Toyota.

In 1996, Jerry Martin was hired as the studio audio director and lead composer for the Maxis division of Electronic Arts, where he would make his mark on Sims properties. His varied background served the particular needs of The Sims well.

“I had a lot of background in trying to do as many different things as possible and not specialize [in a certain style of music],” Martin says. “That helped me with The Sims, especially because there was a lot of different stuff going on—not just hard-edge techno and rock stuff, like with most of the video games at that time.”

Entering Build Mode

Martin has a particular sense of humor, and while he approaches compositions with a professional determination, he doesn’t take himself too seriously. Creating

“It was funny to me to hear music that was really specific to a certain genre, that was really well done, juxtaposed against these weird Sim characters and scenery.”

music for any Sims property “was just kind of tongue in cheek,” Martin remembers. “It was funny to me to hear music that was really specific to a certain genre, that was really well done, juxtaposed against these weird Sim characters and scenery.”

Occasionally, he would hire other Mills grads to support his projects. He composed jazz music to create the enlivened, hectic feel of a metropolis for SimCity 3000, and used the “patternistic minimalism” he learned from Terry Riley whenever he could. Martin’s minimalistic approach was almost tailor-made for gamers in the Sim universe—some of whom “would sit there for hours, days.”

“You want the music to be something that doesn’t get annoying really quickly. If you put too much structure in the music, then it gets more repetitive if you listen to it over and over again,” he explains. “If there’s less structure in the music, then it’s easier to listen to over and over again.”

That particular fact was essential when creating contemplative music for The Sims build mode, which would play any time a Sim was renovating their house or engaging in a similarly mundane task essential to the gameplay. Along with jazz pianist John R. Burr and Doobie Brothers saxophonist Marc Russo, Martin composed a series of semi-improvisational New Age jazz piano pieces that would become a hallmark of the game. Twenty-five years later, Martin still receives complimentary emails about The Sims

“I got a lot of comments that they just turned the game on just to hear the music,” Martin recalls. “I think a lot of people really love it now, but when I was doing that stuff, New Age had a bad, bad rap.”

And while The Sims didn’t lead to a documented glut of interest in New Age music or improvisational jazz, the repetition of the build-mode music certainly opened ears and created a sound for which people are now nostalgic. A 2018 Vice article estimates that The Sims build-mode music is “likely one of the most widely heard album-length collections of music to be released so far this century.”

Leveling Up

Today, interest in video game music has exploded. People listen to music from games on YouTube, while independent musicians have seen games as a revenue generator and means of employment. Games have also become a means of musical exploration; a place where people can learn about new genres and artists. Celebrated musician Jon Batiste has waxed poetic about the importance of video game soundtracks and, in 2022, the Recording Academy announced it had created a new Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack For Video Games and Other Interactive Media.

When Martin first began composing for video games, the format “was this kind of bastard stepchild thing; it was considered lowly.” But over the course of his eightyear tenure at Maxis, “it became more and more revered, right along with music, along with movies.”

While this is due in part to an increasing number of titles and platforms, the medium of the game itself influences the impact of its music. “People play these things for hours and hours and hours. Usually when you’re listening to music, you don’t keep playing it over and over and over again. You’re not going to sit there and watch a movie 10 times in a row,” Martin says. “Just the repetition [of music in a game] is going to pound that stuff into your head. You’re going to be affected by it.”

Martin is mostly retired, but The Sims still plays a role in his life—he offers high-quality versions of his compositions for The Sims with transcriptions to subscribers of his website, Boombamboom.com. When asked if he’d finally consider playing The Sims now that he’s a retiree, Martin just chuckles. He won’t be entering build mode any time soon. 6

AAMC

News & Notes

A MESSAGE FROM THE AAMC PRESIDENT

Hello amazing and steadfast alums, As we chart our course for the year, I am excited to share the latest updates from the AAMC. Our overarching goal is to connect and engage with as many alums as possible. Guiding this effort is our new AAMC Development Director Lee Steward. Lee comes to the AAMC with strong credentials and a wealth of experience. He will develop a strategic plan for the AAMC with the board, elevate communication channels, and spearhead future events.

Staying involved in campus life is a key priority for the AAMC, and our legacy students hold a special place in our hearts. The Alumnae Student Relations (ASR) Committee, made up of six dedicated alums, distributed 150 snack bags during finals week, and they’ll repeat this effort at the end of the current term. On December 6, the committee, in collaboration with the Office of Alumnae Relations, hosted a memorable mid-year graduation event for graduates, friends, and families. The Valentine’s event at Reinhardt House on February 13 was a big success, bringing everyone together to share the spirit of love and friendship. The traditional Pearl M Dinner, honoring the graduates, is scheduled for April 17, with graduation following on April 27. Alums, please join us for this final send-off of our legacy students!

The Lifelong Learning Committee kicked off 2025 with a New Orleans-themed cooking extravaganza, featuring gumbo and king cake. In March, the Lynda Campfield Book Club dove into Project 2025, focusing on the conservative movement in America, both past and present.

The AAMC Branch Committee is working to expand the reach of our branches. Holiday get-togethers hosted with Alumnae Relations were held in Seattle, East Bay, Contra Costa, and Sacramento, with more events planned for the spring.

The Travel Committee continues to attract adventurous alums. Nearly a dozen have already booked spring and summer trips thru the AAMC, choosing destinations like the Netherlands, Malta and Sicily, Tuscany, Ireland, and Britain. Past participants have shared rave reviews, so check out the offerings in this Quarterly or on aamc-mills.org.

The Center for Contemporary Music Digitization project, initiated by the AAMC and supported by Northeastern and the Mills College Dean’s Office, is progressing rapidly. Professor David Bernstein and Alexander Zendzian, director of Mills Performing Arts, are managing a team of five, dedicated to archiving and cataloging more than 1,300 recordings with upwards of 6,000 individual performances for which Professor Bernstein is providing descriptive entries. See a note from him on the next page. Looking ahead, the governors are working with Northeastern to activate AAMC scholarships and open them for future donations. A 100th anniversary celebration of the Mills College Art Museum is scheduled for the fall, with AAMC involvement. A fundraising campaign to support these efforts and AAMC operations is also under development. Please note that our annual meeting will be held on Zoom on June 21, and the Nominating Committee is hard at work in preparation.

There are busy months ahead. Keep connected and s hare your ideas and thoughts. We are continually evolving while remaining true to the AAMC’s long-held values, focusing on students, alumnae participation, and continued efforts to promote the legacy of Mills.

Thank you for your engagement and support.

Warm regards,

Debby Dittman, AAMC President

THANK YOU 

For Helping Us Preserve the Mills Music Legacy

Dear AAMC friends and colleagues, Music is an ephemeral art form, sounds in the air that rapidly disappear. Sitting in our beautiful Concert Hall, I often try to imagine the diverse musical activities that have taken place in what many of us consider a “sacred space.” Your generous gift in the amount of $65,944.86 for our CCM Music Archive Project will help make it possible to preserve Mills’ extraordinary musical legacy. Thank you so much for your unwavering support. You are the “heart and soul” of our beloved institution.

Sincerely,

David W. Bernstein Professor of Music

Call for Dedicated Alums:

Join AAMC’s Board of Governors or Nominating Committee

Ready to make a positive impact on the Alumnae Association of Mills College (AAMC)? Apply for the Board of Governors or Nominating Committee and steer our alumnae organization toward a bright future!

WHY JOIN?

Board of Governors: Shape our strategic direction and ensure alignment with our mission and goals.

Nominating Committee: Identify and evaluate talented candidates for board positions.

WHY YOU SHOULD APPLY:

• Join our independent non-profit celebrating the Mills legacy and championing future progress.

• Utilize and grow professional experience in non-profit governance, fundraising, event management, finance, volunteer recruitment, and more.

• Engage with like-minded individuals committed to Mills and our alum community.

How to Apply: Visit aamc-mills.org for applications and details. The deadline is April 18 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific time.

Let’s shape the future together!

Attention AAMC Members

Upcoming elections for the Nominating Committee will be held electronically in June. If you require a paper ballot due to lack of computer or internet access, please contact our office at 510.430.2110.

Meet AAMC’s New Director of Development

Dear alums,

I’m thrilled to join you and the AAMC to lead our fundraising efforts as your director of development. It’s an honor to be part of such a dedicated and passionate community, and I look forward to working together towards a brighter future.

With 30 years of experience in the non-profit, education, and music sectors, I’ve most recently served as director of stewardship at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Ross, where we raised $3 million in less than three years. As an executive management consultant, I’ve helped raise more than $10 million for arts and education organizations in the Bay Area. My commitment to community engagement includes initiating performing arts series that support charities like Girls Inc., Save the Bay, and Meals on Wheels.

Continued on next page

Left to right: AAMC President Debby Campbell Dittman ’68, Professor of Music David Bernstein, Communications Chair Kieran Turan ’90, and AAMC Vice President Kathy Roskos ’80.

Lee Steward

AAMC’s New Director of Development, continued

My fundraising education started very early, inspired by my mother, a successful Mary Kay consultant. She taught me the value of building genuine relationships and knowing clients’ names, families, and personal details. Like Aurelia Henry Reinhardt, she also instilled in me the importance of respecting and celebrating women. It’s this spirit of empowerment that Mills imparted to its students, and this spirit lives on.

Now at the AAMC, we are at a crucial point. While Mills College and its programs have changed, the passion for empowerment and education endures in each of you. My work, and yours, is to live out Aurelia Henry Reinhardt’s vision of a liberal leadership legacy—one worth preserving for our alumnae and future leaders.

Through your financial support of the AAMC, you join us in continuing a legacy that began almost 175 years ago. I am truly passionate about this work and invite you to join me. Your generous support will honor the hard work and sacrifices of all the remarkable women who have forged a path for us. Let’s make a lasting impact together.

Warm regards, Lee Steward

Alumnae Award Applications Are OPEN!

Honoring our Mills alums has been a cherished tradition at Reunion for three decades! Nominate yourself or fellow alums for our three prestigious award categories:

• Distinguished Achievement

• Outstanding Volunteer

• Recent Graduate

For more information and to submit nominations, visit aamc-mills.org

Help us celebrate the remarkable achievements of our Mills alumnae!

AAMC Travel 2025

Conwy Castle, Wales – Heart of Britain

Explore the AAMC’s exciting travel offerings for 2025, from Europe to vibrant Turkey. Embark on a journey where education and adventure meet, creating unforgettable experiences and cherished memories. Pack your bags for a year of discovery, connection, and inspiration! Visit the AAMC website to secure your spot at aamc-mills.org/travel.

DUTCH WATERWAYS: April 23–May 01

ITALY: TUSCANY & EMILIA-ROMAGNA: June 10–June 19

MALTA & SICILY: May 15–May 25

HEART OF BRITAIN: September 1–September 13

COASTAL GEMS OF THE EMERALD ISLE: June 22–July 04

ISTANBUL & THE TURQUOISE COAST: September 24–October 04

Oregon Shakespeare Festival!

Set aside the weekend of May 10 to join the Office of Alumnae Relations and the Alumnae Association of Mills College (AAMC) for an excursion to Ashland!

Enjoy a full day of activities, including a campus walking tour, lunch, and a 1960sinfused production of As You Like It by director Lisa Peterson.

A very limited number of tickets at half off the list price have been offered by the Office of Alumnae Relations, which will also co-host the lunch with the AAMC. At press time, there were still slots available; register and purchase tickets at bit.ly/shakespeare-05-10-2025 while supplies last.

What’s now

Suzanne M. Adams Plaza at the Rothwell Center used to be a sparkling swimming pool, officially the I.W. Hellman Pool, which was a bustling spot for students to lay out and enjoy the sun. It was also the place to put in some laps, as these bathing beauties from the 1930s demonstrate. Unfortunately, the pool and the old gymnasium nearby were later removed from the landscape due to earthquake damage from a moderate temblor near Daly City in 1957.

MEDIA LAB

New releases, publications, and performances by Mills alums and professors

Awakening: the Sacred Feminine, a show of photography and abstract collage by Shelley Carlisle, MFA ’22 , was on display at Nevada City Winery from February 1–20.

Mixed media and works on paper by Dewey Crumpler, MFA ’89, were exhibited through December 10, 2024, at the David C. Driskell Center at the University of Maryland, which also hosts his collection of writings and sketches. Read more about Life Studies at tinyurl.com/dewey-crumpler.

Sarah Davachi, MFA ’12 , performed her new three-hour work, “Music for a Bellowing Room,” at The Lab in San Francisco on November 16, 2024. Her collaborator, the filmmaker Dicky Bahto, appeared with her. Read a Q&A with Davachi on 48hills at tinyurl.com/sarah-davachi-2025.

“Past as Prologue: Dickens vs. Dickens in Chancery,” an article by Gail Pliam David-Tellis ’63, was published in the September 2024 issue of Dickens Quarterly

The second solo album by Thea Farhadian, MFA ’07, is Tattoos and Other Markings. It was released by Other Minds Records in early 2025; visit otherminds.org/recordings.

Wu Fei, MA ’04, performed at the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s Lunar New Year celebration on February 8.

Along with artist Heike Liss, Professor Emeritus of Music Fred Frith performed “Drawing Sound” at Amherst College’s Fayerweather Hall on November 14, 2024.

Rehearsals for Dying: Digressions on Love and Cancer by Ariel Gore ’94 was released on March 11 by Feminist Press. Gore wrote the book about her late wife’s battle with metastatic breast cancer—Deena died in late 2023.

A volume co-edited by Associate Professor of Political Science

Martha Johnson, Women and Power in Africa: Aspiring, Campaigning, and Governing, was published by Oxford Academic in January.

In the early days of the current administration, Marcie Jones Brennan ’95 recalled her undergraduate days in a blog post for Wonkette about the Executive Order on gender and sex: “I am back at old Mills College, reading Marge Piercy again!” she wrote. Read the piece at tinyurl.com/marcie-jones.

The late Professor Emerita of Art Hung Liu has works on display in a unique new Bay Area space, the Floating Museum on the Barge in Alameda. Her piece “Unit cohesion” was also part of an exhibition at the Ryan Lee Gallery in New York from January 9 to February 15.

Share your recent release with the readers of Mills Quarterly ! Send a press kit, including high-resolution images, to mills.quarterly@northeastern.edu

Bianca Mabute-Louie ’12 is a sociologist who released her first book, Unassimilable: An Asian Diasporic Manifesto for the 21st Century, in January. She also appeared in conversation with Michelle Mijung Kim at UC Berkeley’s Ethnic Studies Library on February 5. Read her interview with KQED’s Eda Yu at tinyurl.com/bianca-mabute-louie.

Don’t Take This The Wrong Way, a collection of short stories co-authored by Professor of English Kim Magowan, was released in March by Eastover Press.

Mea McNeal, MFA ’18, has written the novel Bee Club, based on her career as a journalist covering beekeeping and melittology. The book, which follows a bee club, was released by Nervous Ghost Press in late 2024.

“You Can See The Forest Burn,” a piece by Professor of Art Yulia Pinkusevich, was featured by on a digital mural by Boston PBS station WGBH on December 5, 2024. Her “Nuclear Sun” series was also part of the exhibition Out of Site: Survey Science and the Hidden West at the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles, which ran from May 2024 until January 5.

Stories by Marguerite Sheffer, EDD ’18, that hint at the fantastic are available for perusal in The Man in the Banana Trees, which was released in November 2024 by University of Iowa Press.

It was a busy 2024 for Michelle Smith Johansen, who published essays in The Sun and Dreamers Creative Writing and poetry in Decolonial Passage and Midnight Masquerade. She also won first place in the SouthWest Writers’ 2024 anthology competition for a haiku.

House of Thorns, the newest YA book by Isabel Strychacz ’17, was released in August 2024 by Simon & Schuster. It’s a mystery surrounding a missing young woman and her family’s ancestral home.

Bambi Waterman, MFA ’01, participated in Land, Sky, and Sea:

A Tapestry of Perspectives, a three-artist exhibition at Sonoma State University’s art gallery from February 6 to March 15. Waterman’s paintings and sculpture reflect patterns in the animal world.

Amanda Wheeler ’72 has written Deeper Than Blue, a nonfiction title about her husband and his experience with Alzheimer’s. Under the pen name Amanda G., she outlines the challenges and humorous moments that affect caretakers of those with the disease.

The wildfire that claimed Paradise, California—the hometown of author Shana Youngdahl ’01—informed the narrative in her newest YA novel, A Catalog of Burnt Objects. Dial Books released the title on March 18.

The Ave... & Other Off-Campus Locales

THE ORIGINAL Mills campus originally stretched much further southwest than current borders show—nearly all the way down to Foothill Boulevard in East Oakland. When the College sold off that tract of land in 1924, what followed was quite a prolific era for nearby housing developments.

Advertisements in the Oakland Tribune f rom that time show that the area across Seminary from the Wetmore Gate, in Millsmont, was developed as Chimes Terrace— because it was within earshot of the Campanil. Across MacArthur Boulevard (or Camden Street, as that segment of road was then called)

to Roberts Avenue, it was Mills Gardens, a name chosen by Mills students at the time.

And as a result, a bustling commercial district sprouted up in the environs of MacArthur Boulevard and Seminary Avenue. Barbara Cook Barnes ’60, who also grew up near campus and attended the Children’s School starting in 1942, recalls shopping there as a child. “On a regular basis, I would see people walking down the hill to go shopping on MacArthur, especially Dr. and Mrs. Neumeyer, who lived [in Faculty Village]. He had been my mother’s MA thesis director, so I’d known him since I was a baby,” she says. “It was very common for me to see Darius Milhaud sitting in the car outside the food shops. The window was usually open, and he had a lapboard to score music paper with a big black fountain pen.”

One of those food shops was Primo’s Grocery Store, owned by Primo and Josephine Genovali—the grandparents of Robin Boody Busick, MA ’89, MFA ’91, a Bent Twig thanks to her mother, Violet Genovali Boody ’52. “They were proud of their little produce market, and I know a lot of Mills folks shopped there,” she says.

Jim Graham, son of former Dance Department Chair Eleanor Lauer, MA ’40, and himself a longtime Mills employee, was one of them. “As a very small child, I sometimes rode on Primo’s shoulders at closing time, pulling the chains on each light,” he

says. He recalls a variety of businesses in the area: Rexall Drugs, Triway Meats, beauty salons, dry cleaners, florists.

Over time, it became known colloquially as “The Ave.” If you peruse student newspapers from the ’50s and ’60s, ads promote spots like the Mom and Pop Café and stories compare prices between Kampus Foods and the Mills Food Center. Another article from 1968 mentions the opening of a Baskin-Robbins on The Ave— though Loard’s, which is still there, was always a favorite. “How could I forget emergency trips to Loard’s Ice Cream in the late ’50s?” says Barbara Christie Wagner ’59. “I see they’re still in business serving my favorites: burgundy cherry, chocolate mint, and lemon custard.”

Other than Loard’s, though, much has changed at The Ave. Rexall’s space has become a martial arts school; Primo’s spot is vacant. The Millsmont Seminary Merchants Association actively organizes business owners in the area and hosts Millsmont Mondays with food trucks in the evening. Students currently on the Oakland campus volunteered to assist at one such event in early February. And despite the various changes that have taken place over the years, names of several businesses that have survived continue to bear the Mills name: Mills Liquor, Mills Launderette & Cleaning, Mills Hoagie & Deli Shop.

An archive photo from the Oakland History Center showing the Mills campus in the top right corner, with Foothill Boulevard and Bancroft Avenue bisecting the image on the bottom left.

Several alums shared their memories of going off-campus a bit further afield of The Ave!

My most memorable off-campus event stemmed from Friday night folk-dancing at International House. Several of us trekked into Berkeley, mostly for exercise, because we had experienced the aggressive overtures of foreign students hunting for potential American wives. We were quite standoffish, conversing politely with partners when the music stopped.

One night, I spoke briefly with my partner, a very shy young man with a pronounced stutter. He admitted that he had grown up on the Mills campus where his father worked. I assumed it was a clerical or maintenance position or he would have said that his father taught there. The next week when we were dancing, the music stopped again. This time, we discussed places and people we knew in common. We started going out as friends. Twenty months later, I married Lynn T. White III [the son of President Lynn White II] in the Mills Chapel.

–Barbara-Sue White ’64, Berkeley

For four years, San Francisco was the center of my universe. Only a one-hour bus ride from Mills. Where to begin?

Meeting friends at St Francis Hotel. Flower stand gardenias that cost 25 cents. Shopping at Magnin’s, Gump’s, and the lovely City of Paris. Calorie splurge at Blum’s. Sunset from Top of the Mark. Cable car to Buena Vista for Irish coffee.

Coit Tower, Lombard Street, Maiden Lane. Chinatown, Fisherman’s Wharf. Ushering at Rudolph Serkin performances. Formal dances at Palace Hotel. Singing at the Red Garter. Bicycling through Golden Gate Park. 21st birthday parties at Trader Vic’s. Fraternity weekends at Carmel and other area resorts.

And don’t forget museums, live theater, opera and jazz. There was hardly time for academic life.

–Barbara Christie Wagner ’59, Portland, Oregon

Lynda Laun ’69 wrote in with a list of her favorite spots and events—musical and otherwise: the Fillmore, Avalon Ballroom, and Family Dog in San Francisco; seeing John Mayall, Jesse Colin Young, and Albert King in concert; and witnessing César Chávez make an appearance in Berkeley.

FOR NEXT TIME

The Tea Shop, the Teash—we know you love it (if your dedications to the workers there on the Senior Wall indicate anything!). Send in your best memories by emailing your stories to mills.quarterly@northeastern.edu , leaving a voice mail at 510.430.3187 (time limit is three minutes), or mailing a letter to: Mills Quarterly 5000 MacArthur Blvd. Oakland, CA 94613

CATCHING UP WITH...

In the 1983-84 academic year, the Mills Stream—then the name of the student newspaper—went through a fair amount of change. Editor-in-Chief Elisa Cafferata ’84 graduated mid-year, handing the reins to a team of underclasswomen who took the paper to a weekly publication schedule. And, the experience launched them all into impressive, fulfilling careers, including several alums who left us too soon: Lenn Keller ’84, whose photography of queer activism led to shows at institutions like the Oakland Museum of California and a role in co-founding the Bay Area Lesbian Archives; and Suzann Panek Robins ’85 (see page 47), who became a celebrated author and educator in the holistic health space.

Elisa Cafferata ’84 attended law school in Washington, D.C. before returning home to get her MBA at the University of Nevada. She’s worked in government relations for Planned Parenthood and for the Nevada Department of Employment, Training, and Rehabilitation during COVID. Dawn Cunningham ’85 studied social anthropology at UC Berkeley, and after graduating, she started a career in communications for nonprofits and schools—including full-time at Mills from 2006 to 2014. (She has also been heavily involved with the Quarterly!)

Cheryl Reid ’87 earned a graduate degree in journalism from the University of Maryland, then became a reporter for several newspapers in Washington state, where she still lives. After working in communications for the state attorney general, she moved to freelancing while staying at home with her twin sons.

What about your time on staff has stayed with you in the years since?

“Newspapers rely on photographers, reporters, designers, editors, and ad salespeople. The Mills Stream is where I first developed some skill managing people and projects. Being an editor really helped me improve my own writing.” –Cafferata

“Today, I’m surprised by how much latitude I was given to write what I wanted—for example, a book review of The Freedom Fighter’s Manual, a CIA-produced guide for Nicaraguan contras.” –Cunningham

“The absolute joy of collaborating with a group of smart, dedicated women. It’s more fun to accomplish something as part of a well-oiled team than it is to do it by yourself. Also, speaking truth to power can be uncomfortable, but it’s necessary.”–Reid

What are your favorite memories from your time with the Stream?

“All publications had offices in a building behind Mills Hall, which was originally the laundry. It was great to have that space to work together. The Stream also had several IBM Selectric typewriters for editors and reporters to use. Since I only had a manual typewriter, it was a real perk to be able to use an electric typewriter for my school papers.” –Cafferata

“I remember working with other student staff members on laying out the paper, with typeset columns that we sliced with X-ACTO knives and pasted up with sticky wax and rollers. I appreciate that, starting with the Stream, I’ve had first-hand experience with the rather dizzying evolution of publishing technology since the early 1980s. So much has changed—except X-ACTO knives. They are eternal.” –Cunningham

“Probably the time our layout and design queen Carolyn Strong asked me my opinion on something. I replied, tongue-in-cheek, “I like it. It’s original. Let’s go with it!” We ended up making sweatshirts with that quote.”–Reid

“Elisa was my editor my freshman year, and I was so in awe of her! She set the standard for me to meet when I became editor.”

–Cheryl Reid

Thursday, April 10, marked Northeastern’s annual Giving Day—and, like last year, Mills alums stood up to the challenge.

Together, you helped amplify the Mills alum community’s presence by supporting Oakland-centered programs such as the Mills Institute and the Mills Farm, making gifts in honor of the Mills College Art Museum’s centennial year, and donating to the Dean’s Fund for Mills’ Greatest Need. This Giving Day, you made a lasting impact with fellow alums.

YOU DEMONSTRATED YOUR MILLS PRIDE WITH YOUR GIFTS!

givingday.northeastern.edu

In 2024, Giving Day raised more than $3.4 MILLION FROM OVER 11,000 DONORS —INCLUDING MILLS ALUMS—

This section includes notices of death received before January 10. Submit a listing on behalf of a member of the Mills community at mills.quarterly@northeastern.edu or 510.430.3312.

ALUMNAE

Betty Rowen McCord ’46

• March 1, 2024 • Pacific Palisades, California

She majored in studio art at Mills, and she is survived by two children.

Jo Ann Sweeney Passey Jackson Lassen ’46 • December 21, 2024

• Mesa, Arizona

After graduating from Mills with a music degree, JoAnn married her first husband and relocated to Arizona, where she raised five children. When they divorced, she became a secretary at a law office and married a lawyer, who died of cancer nine years later. JoAnn later reconnected with a friend from Mesa and married for the third time, though he also passed prematurely. She remained close with all of her families and stepchildren. In more recent years, she recorded two albums on the piano, golfed, and played bridge. She is survived by five children and many grandchildren. She was a Bent Twig to cousin Maud Arrants Flinn ’24.

Bette Decker Sage ’47

• November 22, 2024

• Salt Lake City

She was a woman of the West who grew up on a ranch, and she studied under Darius

Milhaud at Mills. Bette married her first husband in 1945 after his return from the South Pacific and, after his untimely death, she conquered life as a widow with two young sons on a Wyoming ranch. Her second marriage, to Jim Sage, brought her to the South Bay of Los Angeles, but she always found solace on the ranch. Music provided it as well—she called her baby grand piano her “psychiatrist”—and despite her rural upbringing, she found herself just at home in New York and Paris. She is survived by three sons, two stepdaughters, four grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.

Ann Jacobus Folz ’50 • November 19, 2024 • Dallas After Mills, she graduated from Southern Methodist University with a bachelor’s degree in comparative literature. Ann married her late husband, A. Lorch, before she graduated, and her interest in public policy led her to volunteer positions with the League of Women Voters and the National Council of Jewish Women, and she enrolled in a civic leadership master’s program at the University of Dallas. She also loved to travel, and she greatly enjoyed the arts. She is survived by two sons, two granddaughters, and niece Sarah Jacobus ’73.

Mary “Beth” Raines Toney ’50 • November 30, 2024 • Little Rock, Arkansas She met her late husband, Doug, at Mills. Beth was an accomplished singer who performed with her church choir and at the Robinson Center in Little Rock, and her artistry was best on display through the many quilts and baby blankets she created for her home and her family. She also worked with the program American Field Service as the Arkansas coordinator, helping to place foreign exchange students in the United States and abroad. She is survived by four children, seven grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

Joaquina Ballard Howles ’52 • October 24, 2024 • London, United Kingdom She wrote a book in the 1960s, No More Giants, based on her upbringing on a Nevada ranch, which received a limited release from a British publisher. Nearly 60 years later, the granddaughter of good Mills friend Judith Campbell McIlvenna ’52 was able to connect with the author of a blog about older, underrated books, who was searching for Joaquina to rerelease the book. It was republished several years ago, with a forward that compared her to Sylvia Plath and Joan Didion.

Joaquina’s second novel, Brighter Later, was published in 2020, and she also worked for the Bishop of London. She is survived by three children.

Miriam Bennett Leslie ’52 • October 21, 2024 • Lafayette, California

She departed Mills after two years and finished her art degree at the University of Minnesota, close to where she grew up. Miriam married Don Leslie, the son of family friends, and the new family eventually settled in Erie, Pennsylvania. There, she became an accomplished dressage rider and show jumper, and she and Don enjoyed cross-country skiing. Miriam was deeply involved in the Erie community: the Junior League, president of the garden club, and the Sarah Reed Children’s Center. She is survived by Don, three children, six grandchildren, sister Helen Bennett Beus ’48, sister-in-law Joan Leslie Ogden ’50, and niece Judith Leslie Titcomb ’73.

Geraldine Clark ’52 • March 20, 2023 • Hayward, California

She worked as an executive secretary for Bowles Farming Co., and she served on her 50th Reunion committee. She is survived by a niece and a nephew.

Elisabeth Koralek Linder ’50

With 10 words uttered before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in 1987, Elisabeth Koralek Linder ’50 cut through the politics in the controversy over the Iran-Contra affair. In response to a charge from a Congresswoman who said that Elisabeth and her husband, David, were exploiting the death of their son in Nicaragua three weeks earlier, she said, “That is the most cruel thing you could have said.”

Her words went out over the airwaves, and upon her death on June 8, 2024, newspapers—including The Oregonian, in her hometown of Portland—lauded her bravery in speaking truth to power and prompting a national reckoning. In the years following her unexpected moment in the spotlight, she and her family labored to finish the hydroelectric dam that her son, Benjamin, was working on at the time of his death. The financial benefits that the Linder family and donors were able to provide there and in the nearby town of San José de Bocay resulted in the naming of a school, Escuela Técnica Elisabeth Linder, in her honor.

Injustice had, unfortunately, been part of Elisabeth’s life from an early age. She was raised in a German-speaking family in Prague, which fled what’s now Czechia when she was about 10. After spending time in Switzerland and then attending school in England and Mexico, she came in 1946 to study at Mills, majoring in philosophy. Her daughter, Miriam, says that Elisabeth worked in the Mills dining halls while attending classes.

After she graduated, she went to work as a secretary at a hospital in San Francisco, where she met David, who was a doctor. They married and eventually moved to Portland, where she worked as a trial assistant and interpreter for the county’s public defenders—using the Spanish skills she picked up in Mexico. Elisabeth also volunteered extensively, particularly with the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, which agitated against war through rallies and literature.

Five years after David’s death in 1999, she moved to Terwilliger Plaza, a retirement community in Portland where she enjoyed knitting, table tennis, reading voraciously, and keeping up with friends. Her surviving son, John, told The Oregonian that her strong sense of justice lasted throughout her life. “She always had a soft spot for the underdog,” he said.

“She always had a soft spot for the underdog.”

–John Linder, Elisabeth’s son

Gifts in Memory of

Joan Lewis Danforth ’53 by Margot Jones Mabie ’66 and James Mabie

Mary Lois Hudson Sweatt ’60 by Estrellita Hudson Redus ’65 and Raleigh Redus

Professor Emerita of Ethnic Studies Melinda Micco by Estrellita Hudson Redus ’65 and Raleigh Redus

Patricia Dunnagan Pickering ’53 • December 21, 2024

• Stockton, California

After Mills, she finished her degree at UC Berkeley, where she joined the Delta Gamma sorority that she continued to serve post-graduation. A sorority sister introduced Patricia to her brother, Jerrald, whom Patricia married in 1956. She worked for the California Housing Authority for a short time before her first child was born, then embarking on a life of volunteerism and church service. Patricia also loved to bowl, garden, and play the piano. She is survived by four children, six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

Sandra “Sandy” Rietz

Jones ’54 • April 12, 2023

• Orinda, California

She majored in home economics and later worked as a human resources assistant at First American Title. Sandy is survived by three children and cousin Ruby Kanne Ek ’64, and she was predeceased by sister Betsy Rietz Dingwell ’51.

Diane Peters ’56 • 2022

• Cupertino, California

She went on to the Pratt Institute and USC for bachelor’s and master’s degrees in architecture, later working for herself as an occupational

therapist and for the State of Hawaii. Diane also served on her 50th Reunion committee and as class secretary.

Mary “Mally” Amory Haight ’57 • October 27, 2024 • Beverly, Massachusetts After Mills, she worked for Pan Am and started a family with her husband, Tony, in San Francisco before moving to back to her home state of Massachusetts. In Beverly, Mally volunteered for a variety of organizations and sat on the boards of Shore Country Day School, the United Way, and the North Shore Garden Club. She was also a champion golf player in Massachusetts and in Wickenburg, Arizona, where she eventually retired thanks to her love for the American West. She is survived by Tony, three sons, and five grandchildren.

Janet Hall Chamberland ’59 • November 25, 2024 • Honolulu She ultimately graduated from UC Davis with a degree in home economics and returned home to Hawaii in the early 1960s. There, she started working as a classroom assistant before earning a master’s degree in special education from the University of Hawaii and specializing in

those students at Niu Valley Middle and Kalani High Schools. Janet was also the president of the Kauai Humane Society and adored exploring the natural treasures of her homeland through cliff jumping, boating, swimming, and hiking. She is survived by two children, a stepson, four grandchildren, and a brother.

Penelope “Penny” Wendel Matter ’64 • October 18, 2024 • Dana Point, California She transferred from Mills to Occidental College, where she met her husband, Charles. Penny first pursued a career as a social worker, then shifted to homemaking after the first of her four children arrived. She and Charles moved to Dana Point in 1998 to be closer to the ocean, and she also earned a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy, which she used at the Laguna Beach Youth Shelter. Penny loved to travel for fun and to visit her family, and she made friends wherever she went. She is survived by Charles; four children, and 10 grandchildren.

Barbara Whittleton Forrest ’67 • November 18, 2024 • Concord, North Carolina She majored in government at Mills, and later worked as a safety and loss control manager at Coos-Curry Electric Cooperative. She is survived by a daughter.

Harriette Stewart ’73 • December 1, 2024 • Tallahassee, Florida She got her degree in government and worked as a fiscal coordinator at Florida A&M University.

Ursula D. Smith ’76 • December 28, 2024 • Los Angeles

Susan “Suzann” Panek Robins ’85 • October 15, 2024 • Coos Bay, Oregon She embarked on her journey in higher ed after marrying and giving birth to three children, graduating from Mills with a degree in interpersonal communication and going on to Hollins College in Virginia for a master’s in holistic health education. Suzann turned that into a robust career as a counselor, educator, and relationship coach, and she wrote the title Exploring Intimacy—with another, Loving More Than One, remaining unfinished. She is survived by her partner, Gary Stroup; three children; three grandchildren; and five siblings.

Liza Parker Kitchell ’92 • September 26, 2024 • Somerville, Massachusetts She was a resumer who explored music with Maggi Payne and Chris Brown. After Mills, Liza first worked with middle-school students in Montclair before marrying her husband, Ram Kelath, and earning a master’s degree in ethnomusicology at the University of Wisconsin. They settled in the Boston area, where Liza taught music in Boston Public Schools and in her own homegrown studio. She also served as president of the board of the Somerville Community Growing Center, an urban greenspace and performing space. She is survived by her husband and daughter.

Patsy Chen Peng ’51, MA ’53

A passionate Mills alum and donor, Patsy Chen Peng ’51, MA ’53, died on December 21, 2024, in Walnut Creek. She is survived by a son, two daughters-in-law, and four grandchildren.

Patsy was born in Beijing, then moved with her family to Chongqing to escape the Japanese occupation of World War II. After her first marriage ended in tragedy when her husband, a Flying Tiger for the Republic of China Air Force, died in a plane crash, she received a U.S. Presidential Grant to come to Mills, where she earned her undergraduate degree in education and an MA in child development.

She initially moved to New York to teach, then soon married her late husband, Benjamin. While raising two sons, Patsy also worked as an investor and financial planner and, later, indulged her love of art through study with a renowned Chinese artist and served in leadership roles for several New Yorkarea charities.

When her husband retired, they relocated to Rossmoor, and she involved herself in the local Chinese American Association and the Golden Rain Foundation. She would also record video on her many travels and turn them into segments that aired on Rossmoor’s cable channel.

Mills became the beneficiary of her love for her heritage; she established the Patsy P.H. Peng Endowed Fund for Academic Excellence in Chinese, the Patsy Peng Endowed Scholarship, and a named visiting professorship in Chinese.

FAMILY & FRIENDS

Karsten Gopinath, spouse of Rosanne Cunningham ’90 • December 12, 2024 • Los Angeles

Gilbert Peterson, spouse of Wendy Scott Peterson ’67 • May 26, 2024 • Walnut Creek

FACULTY & STAFF

Bishop John Cummins, former campus minister • December 3, 2024 • Oakland

TERESA TAM

SALON

POEM BY MABEL ESTHER RICE, S. ’09

Rain in Spring

Cool hush; and then

A wind blown gush of gentle rain, From the unfathomed sky

Where the gray surfs lie, And the silent sea birds circle by, Skimming the clouds as they skim the foam

On the waves of their restless home.

Silently, silently, fragrant earth

With your buttercups, marigolds, waiting for birth, Out of the sky come I, come I,

In your warm brown bosom let me lie— Drink! I will drug you to sleep, by and by— Dripping, slipping, on grass wet-green (Is it like the sea that we drops have seen?)

Out of the sea come we, come we, And quivering rivers and brooks we be— Drink! We were sucked by the sun for thee!

Shimmer of light on wet-green grass, As the shifting cloud drifts slowly pass; And languorous odors of dank leaf mold

Left by winter old

In his graveyard cold; Of wind blown rain a gentle gush And then—cool hush.

Mabel Esther Rice graduated from Mills Seminary in 1909. This is one of several poems that she published in the Mills College Magazine, a student-driven literary journal that had formerly been titled The White and Gold which was previously known as the Mills Quarterly

Salon features artwork and creative writing by Mills alums and professors. Submit your work for consideration by reaching out to mills.quarterly@northeastern.edu

MILLS QUARTERLY

5000 MacArthur Blvd. Oakland, CA 94613-1301

510.430.3312

mills.quarterly@northeastern.edu quarterly.mills.edu

“Game design as a field really brings in different skill sets to build a multimedia creation. It’s not just programming; it’s storytelling.”

–CLIFF LEE, PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION FOR MILLS COLLEGE AT NORTHEASTERN AND PROFESSOR OF ART AND DESIGN FOR THE COLLEGE OF ART, MEDIA, AND DESIGN (READ MORE ON PAGE 12)