Administration Ruth A. Knox ’75
President of the College
Vivia L. Fowler
Dean of the College/Vice President
for Academic Affairs
Patricia M. Gibbs
Vice President for Student Affairs
C. Stephen Farr
Vice President for
Enrollment Services
Richard P. Maier
Vice President for Business
and Fiscal Affairs/Treasurer
Deborah J. Smith ’76
Vice President for Institutional
Advancement
Wesleyan Magazine Staff Susan Welsh, Editor
Director of Communications
swelsh@wesleyancollege.edu
Brandi Vorhees, Art Director Mary Ann Howard, Staff Writer Ryan Smallwood, Student Researcher Cathy Coxey Snow ’71
Director of Alumnae Affairs
csnow@wesleyancollege.edu
Lauren Hamblin ’06
Associate Director of Alumnae Affairs
lhamblin@wesleyancollege.edu
Wende Sanderson Meyer von Bremen ’80
Class Notes Editor
Printing Panaprint Photography Special thanks to Neal Carpenter at inWard Studio, Jason Vorhees, Woody Marshall, Paolo Deste Fanis, Lynn Lane, plus alumnae and friends for providing photos. Wesleyan Magazine is published twice a year by the Wesleyan College Office of Communications 4760 Forsyth Road Macon, GA 31210-4462 phone (478) 757-5134 fax (478) 757-5104 Contents may be reprinted with permission of the editor.
from the president Throughout this issue of the Wesleyan Magazine, we celebrate women writers who have been recording and shaping history for more than a century. From novelists, poets, and songwriters to historians, speech writers, and journalists, Wesleyan women are proving the value of the written word and winning national awards along the way. In keeping with this celebration of alumnae writers, we are welcoming several extraordinary guest authors to our campus community this year. Recently, Southern fiction fans packed the Porter Memorial Fine Arts Auditorium to help authors Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor launch the paperback release of their New York Times bestselling memoir of pilgrimage and metamorphosis, Traveling with Pomegranates. Soon we will host the award-winning children’s book author Carmen Agra Deedy, who will be the Carnes Lecture speaker on January 27, 2011. Join us if you are in the area. We also were thrilled to celebrate the inauguration in October of the recently established Campbell-Stripling Distinguished Writer-in-Residence Program at Wesleyan. Endowed with a generous gift from our own Kathryn Stripling Byer ’66, this program brought both Kay, who just concluded a five-year term as poet laureate of North Carolina, and Cathy Smith Bowers, the current holder of that prestigious position, to campus for three days filled with Southern poetry. You’ll want to read more about this wonderful program on page 24. 2011 marks the beginning of an exciting year for Wesleyan College, the 175th anniversary of our founding on December 23, 1836. We’ll celebrate the history and the future of the College through dozens of events, including the grand re-opening in January of Taylor Hall as the new home for our popular business, education, and psychology programs. A massive renovation has restored this jewel of the 1928 campus to its classic grandeur while meeting today’s high standards for energy efficiency and technology. We are proud
that this renovation of Taylor Hall will achieve Silver certification in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design by the United States Green Building Council. Please come to campus any time and take a look for yourself. In the second half of this issue, we thank each of you who supported Wesleyan College in Fiscal Year 2010 with your gifts for scholarships, endowment, special projects, and the Annual Fund. Once again, we have combined the feature articles and content of our Wesleyan Magazine with the donor information of our Annual Report. Not surprisingly, we continue our efforts to use our precious resources wisely, and we are extraordinarily grateful to you –– our loyal donors –– for the gifts you share with us. In early December, Wesleyan’s 175th anniversary celebration took us to New York City where I was thrilled to have a personal visit with Betty Thompson ’47, who is featured in this issue. Just as exciting was the young alumnae event the previous evening. These sharp, energetic women are at schools like the Pratt Institute of Art and Columbia University. They are pursuing promising careers in banking, law, and the arts –– one is already an associate pastor in a United Methodist Church near the Hudson River. During this special time in the College’s history that naturally includes honoring the legacy of all the women who have come before us, these young alumnae remind us that we celebrate equally the promise of the extraordinary women we continue to send out into the world. We also celebrate all of you who make this Wesleyan experience possible!