Hollins University Alumnae Magazine

In This Issue

SPRING 2022

Hollins Receives $75 Million pg. 6

Roads to After Hollins Alumnae/i Fighting Domestic Abuse in the 21st Century

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Hollins Hollins Magazine Vol. 72, No. 2 January - April 2022 EDITOR Billy Faires, executive director of marketing and communications ADVISORY BOARD President Mary Dana Hinton, Vice President for External Relations Suzy Mink ’74, Associate Vice President for Alumnae/i Engagement and Strategic Initiatives Lauren Sells Walker ’04, Director of Public Relations Jeff Hodges M.A.L.S. ’11 CLASS LETTERS EDITOR Carrie Dixon Johnson ’13 DESIGNERS Sarah Sprigings, David Hodge Anstey Hodge Advertising Group, Roanoke, VA PRINTER Progress Printing, Lynchburg, VA Hollins (USPS 247/440) is published quarterly by Hollins University, Roanoke, VA 24020. Entered as Periodicals Postage Paid at Roanoke, VA. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Hollins, Hollins University, 7916 Williamson Rd., Box 9688, Roanoke, VA 24020 or call (800) TINKER1.

The articles and class letters in Hollins do not necessarily represent the official policies of Hollins University, nor are they always the opinions of the editor. Hollins University does not discriminate in admission because of sexual orientation, race, color, national or ethnic origin, disability, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, age, political beliefs, religion, and/or pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, and maintains a nondiscriminatory policy throughout its operation. For more information, contact Chanelle Sears, director of equity, community, and Title IX, at (540) 362-6069 or searsct@hollins.edu. Questions, comments, corrections, or story ideas may be sent to: Magazine Editor Hollins University 7916 Williamson Rd. Box 9657 Roanoke, VA 24020 magazine@hollins.edu

Cover illustration courtesy of Rebekah Lowell M.F.A. ’19 in children’s book writing and illustrating

Content s 2

A Letter from President Mary Dana Hinton

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Making Herstory A Hollins alumna is giving her alma mater $75 million, the largest gift in school history and the largest ever for a women’s college.

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Don’t Call It a Comeback Former Director of Hollins’ Children’s Literature Program Amanda Cockrell ’69, M.A. ’88 finds post-retirement success in writing about the past. By Jeff Dingler M.F.A. ’22

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Imagination and Hope

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Roads to After: Hollins Alumnae/i Fighting Domestic Abuse in the 21st Century

By Sarah Achenbach ’88

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A Rock-Solid Legacy

By Marin Harrington M.F.A. ’23

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Immigration Is a Black Issue Patrice Lawrence ’11 talks about the UndocuBlack Network. By Jeff Dingler M.F.A. ’22

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Girlhood Revisited and Reimagined Q&A with Julie Pfeiffer, professor of English and chair of the department of English and creative writing at Hollins, who recently published her first book, Transforming Girls: The Work of Nineteenth-Century Adolescence.

By Marin Harrington M.F.A. ’23

D E P A R T M E N T S 3

In the Loop

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Class Letters

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Visit the online version of Hollins magazine at hollins.edu/magazine.

FROM THE

President Dear Friends,

President Mary Dana Hinton pictured in a December 2021 video announcing Hollins’ record-breaking $75 million gift from an anonymous alumna donor. For the full video and many others, visit youtube.com/hollinsvideo.

I hope that the beautiful spring season has brought to you a spirit of rejuvenation, hope, and vibrancy. Certainly, were I to describe Hollins as I write this letter, those would be among the words I would choose.

As you may recall from my letter in the last alumnae/i magazine, I shared with the community, “My goal for our campus community this year is a variation of ‘only connect.’ I want us to look out for one another, to support one another, to lift one another. Our liberal arts education commands that we truly connect.”

Of course, my goal and my joy is facilitating that connection on campus.

To witness eyes light up when an important theory is learned, a common experience shared, or a critical value uncovered, to see lives connect—faculty, staff, and students—is a powerful thing. Today we get to share that joy with you as you read this magazine and see the connection between mission, learning, professional endeavors, and civic engagement.

You see, our resonant and relevant mission has spawned such goodness as the Hollins Opportunity for Promise through Education (HOPE) Scholarship, which will allow selected students from the Roanoke Valley to attend Hollins tuition free for four years. Our ability to learn together is prominent in the story about our Imagination Campaign, our community effort to develop significant, mission-aligned, and revenue-generating programs to sustain Hollins well into the future. Likewise, we see the challenging and powerful work of Patrice Lawrence ’11 as a vibrant example of how Hollins alumnae/i engage with the world around them. Perhaps our greatest connective tissue of all may be found in the announcement of a $75 million gift from an anonymous alumna. This gift connects our mission with our people; the importance of women’s education with the need to give back—the ultimate form of civic engagement; and connects the past, present, and future.

As I have shared with Hollins alumnae/i groups with which I have had the pleasure of meeting, this gift signals to me that I, and all of us on campus, must work even harder to connect and to thrive. We cannot view this gift as a stopping point. Rather, it has crafted a runway for us to actively and aggressively plan for and live into the future—a future we will share together. It calls on each of us to ask what we can do to bring that future—our mission—into fruition.

So, to me, the gift is a call to action; a call to lead; a call to connection.

May you see your best self in these pages.

Levavi Oculos, Mary Dana Hinton President

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IN THE

Loop

Hollins Community Embraces “Equity, Accessibility, and Identity” at 2022 Leading EDJ Conference

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ollins students, faculty, staff, alumnae/i, and Board of Trustee members worked toward creating a more equitable and just campus community during the university’s second annual Leading Equity, Diversity, and Justice (EDJ) Conference, held February 24-25.

Over 400 attendees participated in 37 virtual and in-person sessions united around this year’s theme of “Equity, Accessibility, and Identity.”

Session topics ranged from “Broaching: Confronting the Uncomfortable Conversations in Systemic Racism” and “Examining Residential Segregation: Where You Live Determines Your Health and Quality of Life” to “Talking Back to Dad: Developing Pedagogies to Discussing Hard Questions in the Classroom and Community” and “Cultivating Inclusive Friendships:

Children’s Literature M.F.A. Student Wins New Voices Award

Malik

Real Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Starts in Our Social Circles.” Session leaders included current students and faculty as well as alumnae/i and guest activists and experts from the community at large.

Loretta Ross, a nationally recognized expert on racism and racial justice, women’s rights, and human rights, delivered the conference’s keynote address, “Calling In the Calling Out Culture.” Drawing upon 50 years of activism, Ross stressed the need to “create a culture shift” that consciously and deliberately moves away from “publicly shaming or blaming people for something that you think they have done wrong, for which you think they should be held accountable” to a process where “you extend to people love, respect, forgiveness, and grace.”

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Hollins Featured in The Princeton Review Guide to Green Colleges: 2022 Edition

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ollins is one of the nation’s most environmentally responsible colleges, according to The Princeton Review.

The education services company features Hollins in its website resource, The Princeton Review Guide to Green Colleges: 2022 Edition, which is accessible for free.

The Princeton Review chose the 420 schools in the guide based on its survey of administrators at 835 colleges in 2020-21 concerning their institutions’ sustainability-related policies, practices, and programs.

“We strongly recommend Hollins to students who care about the environment and want to study and live at a green college,” said Rob Franek, The Princeton Review’s editor-inchief. “Hollins offers excellent academics and demonstrates a commitment to sustainability that is exemplary on many counts.”

aleeha Malik, a student in Hollins’ Master of Fine Arts program in children’s literature, is the winner of Lee & Low Books’ 22nd annual New Voices Award.

Established in 2000, the award is given annually by the children’s book publisher for a picture book manuscript by a writer of color or Indigenous/ Native writer.

A second-grade teacher from Baltimore, Malik was honored for At Home in My Skin. The manuscript features a child with vitiligo—a skin disorder that causes depigmentation— who embraces their individuality by drawing connections between their skin’s ever-changing patterns and the designs in nature.

Malik wrote the manuscript last summer in her African American

Children’s Literature class at Hollins taught by Michelle Martin, the Beverly Cleary Endowed Professor for Children and Youth Services in the Information School at the University of Washington.

The renowned author, essayist, lecturer, book critic, and community literary activist helped Malik shape the manuscript for publication.

In a statement, Lee & Low Books said, “Malik hopes young readers, especially those with noticeable skin conditions, will read At Home in My Skin and know they belong in this world—that there is space for everyone to love and thrive in their unique skin.”

Malik will receive a $2,000 cash prize and a publication contract.

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IN THE

Loop KCACTF Region IV Awards Top Honors to Hollins Students for Playwriting, Stage Management, and Costume Design

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he Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF) Region IV has recognized Hollins graduate and undergraduate students for their creativity, both on the stage and behind the scenes.

Works by three student playwrights from the Playwright’s Lab at Hollins were chosen for the KCACTF Region IV Festival, which was held online in February. Mothers and Terrorists by David Beach M.F.A. ’21, which received the 2021 KCACTF Region IV John L. Cauble One-Act Play honor, was staged this year with a full virtual production.

Sarah Cosgrove’s M.F.A. ’22 I Lived to Tell, a Cauble recipient for 2022, and Cherished by Rachel Graf Evans, winner of the KCACTF Region IV’s 2022 David Shelton Award (the region’s highest award for fulllength, student-written plays) were also performed.

Playwright’s Lab Director Todd Ristau said the selection of the three plays for this year’s festival “continues Hollins’ unbroken string of successes with KCACTF Region IV. Over the years, our student playwrights have garnered awards in nearly every category of playwriting at KCACTF.” KCACTF Region IV also honored two Hollins seniors with prestigious awards in its Design, Technologies, and Management category.

Elizabeth Dion ’22 received the Stage Management Fellowship Award, while Nabila Meghjani ’22 won the Heart of the Art Award in Costume Design.

Both were honored for their work on Hollins Theatre’s Main Stage production in October 2021 of Caryl Churchill’s The Skriker.

“According to the nominee list, 168 students in Region IV were nominated for the Stage Management Fellowship Award, and 71 were nominated for the Heart of the Art Award in Costume Design, so we’re extremely proud of both Liz and Nabila for their recognition,” said Assistant Professor of Theatre and Theatre Department Chair Wendy-Marie Martin M.F.A. ’14.

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Student Researchers Earn Praise at Academic Conferences

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rom the social sciences to the natural sciences, Hollins student researchers are getting noticed and gaining applause for their work.

Working with Professor of Political Science Edward Lynch, Kayla Richardson ’24 spent last summer immersed in researching Catholic social thought and free market theory as one of just 12 students selected for Hollins’ Summer Fellowship Program.

Their study resulted in a paper that the two presented at the annual conference of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists.

“The praise was universal,” said Lynch. “One participant, who runs a theology program at Franciscan University, said it was the best presentation she had ever heard.

Another was convinced, from the quality of her presentation and her knowledge, that Kayla was a grad student and was shocked to learn she’s a sophomore undergrad.

The experience confirms something I’ve said many times: When Hollins students bring their ‘A Game,’ they stun the world. We have a high degree of faith in our students’ abilities, and based on what I’ve heard from my counterparts, the intellectual bonds formed between faculty and students at Hollins are almost unique in higher education.”

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wo research projects conducted by three Hollins chemistry majors were recognized at the Virginia Academy of Science Fall Undergraduate Research Meeting.

Megan Brown ’23, Nupur Sehgal ’23, and Tram Nguyen ’24 earned the event’s top award in the Medicine category ($750 in research funding) for “Let’s Go Fishing: Catching Cysteine-Containing Proteins in Cytoplasmic Pools.”

They also received honorable mention in the same category for “C-glycosylation Through Reductive Halide Atom Transfer Reaction with Photo-Irradiation.”

The three students are all enrolled in a research lab taught by Assistant Professor of Chemistry Son Nguyen. “I am so proud of Megan, Nupur, and Tram, and am lucky to have them in the research lab,” he said. “They work very hard and very productively.”

Nguyen and the three students also presented at the national American Chemical Society meeting in San Diego in March.

Tram Nguyen ’24, Assistant Professor of Chemistry Son Nguyen, Nupur Sehgal ’23, and Megan Brown ’23.

Kayla Richardson ’24

IN THE

Loop Students Gain Insight, Encouragement at 10th Annual C3

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ollins’ M.F.A. in dance is resuming its on-campus engagement this summer following a year of remote instruction necessitated by the pandemic.

Yet the pandemic and global events have continued to challenge some of the program’s plans.

Students were scheduled to travel to Plovdiv, Bulgaria, considered by many to be the nation’s cultural hub and in 2019 was named a European Capital of Culture; however, COVID-19 precautions and the geopolitical instabilities associated with the war in Ukraine necessitated a shift.

“We hope to go to Plovdiv in the summer of 2023,” said Jeffery Bullock, professor and chair of

Hollins’ dance program. This summer, Hollins M.F.A. dance students will have the opportunity to join Maurya Kerr M.F.A.’17 and her San Francisco-based dance company for focused learning for three weeks at the end of the summer. “I am eager to connect Hollins dance with the exciting things happening on the West Coast,” said Bullock.

Hollins’ M.F.A. in dance is an innovative program in which students immerse themselves for five weeks during the summer in the intimate learning atmosphere on the Hollins campus, followed by three weeks of travel and immersive study.

President Hinton Elected AAC&U Chair

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resident Mary Dana Hinton has been elected chair of the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) Board of Directors.

“I’m so grateful to the extraordinary group of higher education leaders who serve on the AAC&U Board of Directors,” said AAC&U President Lynn Pasquerella. “I look forward to working with and learning from this year’s board members as we strive toward our

shared objective of advancing the vitality and public standing of liberal education by making quality and equity the foundations for excellence in undergraduate education in service to democracy.”

The AAC&U supports the educational mission of colleges and universities across the global landscape of higher education and partners with campus leaders and educators at all levels.

Mary Daley ’19

Hollins’ Dance M.F.A. Program Returns to On-Campus and Face-to-Face Study

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ntrepreneur and educator LaNita Jefferson ’07 assured Hollins students, “You can make your own tables. You don’t have to wait for someone to invite you to a seat at the table,” during the 10th annual Career Connection Conference Jefferson (C3), September 30 and October 1.

It’s okay to find and create opportunity,” Jefferson, the keynote speaker for this year’s event, told students. “It’s okay to be you. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Be yourself and believe in yourself.

And don’t be afraid of the word ‘no.’”

C3 welcomed alumnae/i from across the country to showcase the lifelong power of a liberal arts education, share their insights on life and work, and help students connect to others in their networks.

Thirty-five alumnae/i volunteered their time and talents to serve virtually as conference leaders.

“What a momentous and important occasion to celebrate the deep and engaging connection between the liberal arts and career success, and the critically important link between our alumnae/i and current students,” said President Mary Dana Hinton.

Spring 2022 5

Making HERstory A Hollins alumna is

giving her alma mater $75 million, the largest gift in school history and the largest ever for a women’s college.

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The SECRET

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ome secrets are just harder to keep than others. And every time Vice President for External Relations Suzy Mink ’74 shared it with someone, they started crying.

There is no perfect way to share the news that an alumna has honored her alma mater with a gift of $75 million in cash almost immediately from a single donor. But each conversation inevitably began with a simple question: “Are you sitting down, because I have some wonderful news to share.”

“My heart literally leapt with joy for Hollins and for this alumna.

Her heart and her love for Hollins are as big as this gift, and I know what this meant to her.”

“There’s no easy way to break the news that Hollins is receiving $75 million, in cash, almost immediately, from a single donor,” Mink said.

“It’s almost too much to take in.”

The donor, a passionate alumna of, and believer in, Hollins, shared her intention to give

$75 million to Hollins with Mink. Like most who meet President Mary Dana Hinton in person, the donor told Mink she saw something compelling in her attitude and vision for Hollins University.

This gift wouldn’t come in her will or in due time, but rather in cash, in three equal installments over the next three years.

Together, she and Mink called Hinton to share the news. “To say it was an emotional and overwhelming call is a vast understatement,” Hinton said. “Because I know Suzy and the donor, I knew they wouldn’t joke about such a matter, but the enormity of the gift and the moment was unbelievable.

“My heart literally leapt with joy for Hollins and for this alumna. Her heart and her love for Hollins are as big as this gift, and I know what this meant to her. I still weep recalling the call; it was amazing.”

For those unfamiliar with fundraising, one does not simply hand over cash at those levels without working out a complex web of details, and until those issues could be finalized, the circle of those who knew remained small; as in Mink, Hinton, and the donor. Quickly, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Kerry Edmonds and Board Chair Alexandra Trower ’86 were pulled in.

All four readily acknowledged shedding tears at the news. And then more tears later, as the enormity of the moment and gift fully settled in.

This $75 million gift is the largest in Hollins’ history, and the largest donation ever received by a women’s college. In addition, it represents one of the largest single donations ever given to a college or university solely by a female donor, as well as one of the largest ever to a small liberal arts college.

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Can Women’s Colleges TURN THE CORNER?

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omen’s colleges are an endangered concept. The decline in the number of women’s colleges has been severe and relatively swift. Almost nine in every 10 women’s colleges that existed at their peak of roughly 281 (according to The New York Times) in the mid1960s have closed, transitioned to a coeducational mission, or merged into other institutions. In 2021, only 31 women’s colleges remained in America, and that number is expected to drop further in the coming decades. That’s roughly 50 women’s colleges closing every decade.

“I don’t want a sticker price, ranking system, or anything else to get in the way of a student successfully pursuing an education. This gift will impact generations of students on the Hollins campus. It is truly transformational.”

“Years of underfunding for the sector has collided with the devastation stemming from the pandemic on women’s education, families, and jobs. This reality makes an already tough situation at women’s colleges unsustainable,” said Emerald Archer, executive director of the Women’s College Coalition. “Given the backdrop of the global pandemic, it has become even more clear to me that financial aid is a woman’s issue. Even though women are the majority when it comes to those seeking higher education, they are the ones bearing the greatest burden when it comes to financial hardship. Hollins’ gift will, in part, be used to alleviate these hardships for traditionally underserved students. To say that this is a game changer for students is not an exaggeration.”

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The donor believed it was time to set Hollins apart by ensuring its return to a stable financial footing and to provide the long-term financial structure for supporting need-based aid for generations to come.

“I don’t want a sticker price, ranking system, or anything else to get in the way of a student successfully pursuing an education,” Hinton was quoted as saying in The Washington Post’s coverage of the gift announcement. “This gift will impact generations of students on the Hollins campus. It is truly transformational.”

Gifts at this level, at a school of Hollins’ size, have outsized impact on issues of accessibility for traditionally underserved and limited-income students. “The need for an educated citizenry and women’s leadership development is greater now than ever, yet higher education access is more challenging than ever,” Hinton continued.

Financial security and long-term stability are critically important issues for women’s colleges like Hollins. The alumna donor, in her official statement about the gift, clearly agreed: “Hollins’ mission and the value of its enduring presence and direction as a progressive institution were the catalyst for my gift and the urgency of making the funds available immediately. It ensures Hollins can move forward, with confidence, as an institution committed to women and the liberal arts.”

Presently, Hollins invests $21 million annually in financial aid. The undergraduate student body at the start of the 2021-22 academic year was 36% low income, 32% first generation, and 30% students of color.

“This gift signals for me that I, and all of us on campus, must work even harder to thrive,” Hinton said. “We cannot view this gift as a stopping point. Rather, it has crafted a runway for us to actively and aggressively plan for a life into the future. It calls on each of us to ask what we can do to bring that future—our mission— into fruition. So, to me, it is a call to action.”

It is a call Hinton hopes inspires not only future donors to Hollins, but women’s colleges across the country. Archer echoed that hope.

“From uniquely preparing women to lead in a global society and closing the gap in maledominated fields, to being epicenters of inclusive excellence and creating a community that promotes lifelong learning and connection beyond graduation—women’s colleges have more relevancy today than they ever have before,” Archer added.

You cannot RUSH A MIRACLE

An Outpouring OF GRATITUDE

s anyone who has worked in the nonprofit fundraising world knows all too well, receiving a gift of this size out of the blue rarely happens. This $75 million gift, while shocking due to its enormity, was not entirely unexpected. Rather, it was the surprise ending of one chapter in a very long story. That story is about this alumna’s relationships with key individuals at Hollins, her abiding faith in the institution, and the excitement she felt when hearing of Hinton’s vision for the future.

The journey from initial conversations about a significant, possibly record-breaking gift to the actual announcement in December was in fact a long and winding one, taking years and hundreds of hours of conversation.

“One of the great gifts of my work is having the opportunity to get to know many alumnae/i and friends and what matters to them about Hollins,” Mink said. “Building relationships and trust is so very important as they consider the many ways they can help Hollins, and it is that close connection that allows important and significant conversations about philanthropy to take place.”

Almost every gift begins, continues, and ends with connection. That connection begins as a student—to the institution, to their classmates, to their faculty and staff mentors. It continues after graduation, often through sustained friendships made and through outreach efforts from the advancement and alumnae relations teams.

And the connection, as it pertains to major gifts, concludes with deliberate conversations between the donor, Mink or another advancement representative, and the president.

What has sprouted into a record-breaking gift began as a seed planted as a student, was watered with contact and given sunlight through updates on campus and academic life, and grew over time. And Mink stresses that institutions require a diverse garden to be healthy. Every flower that grows by staying connected to Hollins has a vital place in the ecosystem, whether it gives back a single dollar, 75 million of them, or can’t even afford to donate but just hopes to one day.

No healthy nonprofit ecosystem can thrive on the redwoods of major giving alone.

Most importantly, this gift to the endowment was about strengthening the institution’s foundation and stabilizing financial operations for the long term, and to do so in a way that would not require Hollins to pull back from the generous investment in financial support it has been offering students but instead to lean in. It is only the beginning of a new chapter.

ollins received dozens upon dozens of notes and emails expressing gratitude for the donor and her gift from alumnae/i, and dozens more replied via social media to the news. A small sampling of such reactions is included below, beginning with a powerful letter from Bri Seoane ’01.

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Dear Hollins sister, For 24 years, Hollins has been a consistent, boundless gift in my life.

At each personal and professional milestone she is there, manifesting her foundational strength, and providing support and comfort through the friendships forged in Tinker, Moody, and Pleasants. Hollins isn’t just a place, it is a touchstone, a place I go back to in my mind and my heart when I need a booster shot of courage, a refresher on leadership, and a reminder that I have in me all that I need to succeed and an extraordinary community to cheer me on.

I am a first-generation college student, and my family could not have afforded to send me to a state college, let alone a private institution across the country. The generosity and passion for women’s education from donors like you allowed me to make my dreams come true.

Since leaving Hollins I’ve dedicated the last two decades to public service, first overseas as a Peace Corps volunteer and staff member and most recently back in my home state of California building programs and raising funds to support sick children and their families through medical crisis with Ronald McDonald House Charities Bay Area.

The ripple effect of transformational gifts is almost unquantifiable.

As a professional fundraiser, I try to do this for donors all the time.

Now, as a beneficiary of scholarships like the ones your gift will create, I’m trying to quantify it on a personal level. Thanks to Hollins, my work has improved health outcomes for hundreds of communities in El Salvador and provided a safe, comfortable place to stay and nourishing meals for tens of thousands of families seeking specialized medical care for sick children in the Bay Area. Thanks to Hollins, I was able to (virtually debt free) earn a master’s degree. Thanks to Hollins, I was the sole breadwinner for my family of four and now am able to raise my daughter with the financial stability and mental fortitude to be a successful, working single mom.

Recent data shows that female philanthropists are on the rise, and I think this bodes well for our communities and our country.

Your gift will be cited as a front-runner in this trend and will, no doubt, inspire many more women to take on the mantle to influence the public sector through giving. WOW. Another ripple effect, isn’t that something?

Thank you, Hollins sister, for giving this incredible gift that will ripple into infinity. I am so grateful for you, your heart, and your generosity. Thank you for setting minds and lives on to incredible paths like mine was decades ago.

In gratitude, Bri Seoane ’01

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hen I started at Hollins in the mid-’80s I was a scholarship kid from Massachusetts.

I had the privilege of attending an outstanding college where I received an excellent education and made lifelong friends.

Many decades later, I have convinced the daughter of a friend to enroll at Hollins, another scholarship kid, this time from Oregon. She will attend a different college— in fact, a university. She, too, will receive an excellent education and make lifelong friends.

Generosity like yours will make it possible for her to recruit another young woman several decades in the future.

I appreciate your kind and thoughtful donation. And allow me to honor you for the records that it set, most especially the largest donation ever from a woman donating solo.

Women who are going places really do start at Hollins. I wish you all the best.

— Mj Paulitz ’88, from an email note

Dear Ms. Hinton, This is excellent news!! I am so happy to hear this!!

Hollins is in my will.

Congratulations on this excellent gift!!

— Miriam Schulman ’74, from an email message

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ust a note re: the astounding gift to Hollins announced this week. As the forever grateful recipient of generous scholarship monies during my years at Hollins, I find the gift especially gratifying. The modesty of the anonymous donor is also totally admirable. How lovely for everyone—alumnae, students, and staff—when I consider the struggles of our sister women’s colleges in Virginia, Hollins’ good fortune is even sweeter.

— Leila Christenbury ’72, from an email note

Dear fellow Hollins alumna, I would like to add my voice to the chorus who are thanking you for your very generous gift to Hollins.

In May, I will attend my 25-year Hollins reunion. Every day (and I mean every day) I thank Hollins for the life it has enabled me to lead. I came to Hollins at the recommendation of the Hollins alumna who gave me a part-time job while I was in high school. She said, ‘I think Hollins would be good for you, and I think you would be good for Hollins.’ Although I was a bright student, I could not have dreamed of affording Hollins without significant financial support (Hollins and loans covered 90% of my fees while I was a student).

Hollins was more than good for me. It has given me not just my career and lifelong friends, but has influenced my whole life. I studied abroad in London, and, inspired by that experience, I have lived in the UK for the past 15 years. My career in higher education fundraising started with my workstudy job at Hollins in the development office, and I am now in charge of alumni engagement at one of the oldest and largest universities in the UK. I have kept in touch with many Hollins friends, including two of my best friends who now live in Maine and in Sweden. Hollins opened up the world to me and made me realize I could lead whatever life I dreamt of leading.

It also gave me the tools to make that dream a reality.

I also have a photo of me on my graduation day holding my infant niece, who 20 years later followed me to Hollins. Like me, she is bright but her financial resources would not have allowed her to attend Hollins (or go to college at all) without significant support, which she received from Hollins.

Hollins gave me, and then my niece, the gift of choice over how we live our lives. We have the luxury of opportunity, which otherwise would have been closed to us.

I understand what a scholarship can mean to a student who has ambition and goals but very little money. I know this gift will change the lives of those who receive scholarships, and they, in turn, will change the lives of others. My life, and my choices, would be very different had Hollins not given me opportunity. Thank you for making those dream futures possible for so, so many students who can now follow in our footsteps.

— Holly Peterson ’97, from an email message

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Dear fellow lover of Hollins: Dear Hollins friend and sister, As a proud first-generation scholarship recipient, I want to THANK YOU for your unbelievably generous donation to our alma mater. I am so proud to be part of a group of women who care so much about our school and its continued success. You will probably never know just how many lives your gift will touch for generations to come … maybe even my daughters! From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for yours.

— Kristin Jeffries Henshaw ’94, current Alumnae Board member, from a handwritten note

Dear President Hinton and Alumnae Office staff, This is such fantastic news!!!

Thank you for sharing it with all of us, and also for President Hinton’s passionate and dedicated words of the use this funding will go to—scholarship!

Perhaps one of the recipients will be a future Supreme Court Justice—or president! :) In any case, progressive Hollins graduates will be (and are) in positions to support other women and work for equity and justice and a better America and world.

Congratulations to all of you. YAY! Hollins.

PS: I did include Hollins in my own estate planning and trust, which I signed last month. :) Not nearly this amount (much less by a great deal!). I am pleased and proud that I am able to do that.

— Emily Cope Teller ’70, from an email message

I graduated from Hollins in 1988 with a degree in English. I have been back for reunion several times. I am still in close contact with my Hollins friends. Every so often we get to spend a weekend together. My daughter just wrote some essays for college applications of her own. In one of them she mentioned that her mother had lifelong college friends, and that she hoped she would also. Hollins was (and is) so very important in my life. I had a merit scholarship for half of my tuition while at Hollins.

The scholarship played a significant role in my decision to attend Hollins, and was a huge help to my parents.

On behalf of us who benefited from scholarships while at Hollins, THANK YOU for your gift to help younger generations experience our dearly loved Hollins.

— Amber Dahlgreen Curtis, Esq. ’88, from an email note

I

haven’t responded to an email from Hollins since I left in 1971. I continue to read, from afar, and so felt compelled to reply to this: great news! How wonderful that an alumna (a) is in a position to be able to make such a generous gift, and (b) has made it. And bravo to you for using it to fund scholarships.

Hollins was an extraordinary experience for me (1969-71). I was a scholarship student, and so grateful for that opportunity. I was also rather young to be starting a life away from home (I was a young 17 when I started). Sadly, after two years in increasing turmoil, and after a breakdown, I left abruptly. I’m in a much better place now.

For what it’s worth, I’d like to recommend that you consider counseling those who are starting college younger than most, offering them the option of a ‘gap year’ (now far more common and accepted than when I started college), and supporting them individually in their first year at college. I believe it would have made a tremendous difference in my young life. Perhaps you could fund such a program, at least partially, from this endowment.

Nonetheless, I am grateful to Hollins, and think about it more warmly than I have since leaving because of this news and this reply. Please forward this to whomever could find it helpful.

— Lane Trippe ’73, from an email message

Don’t Call It a

Comeback A Former Director of Hollins’ Children’s Literature Program Amanda Cockrell Finds Post-Retirement Success In Writing About the Past B Y

12 Hollins

J E F F D I N G L E R M . F. A . ’ 2 2

s a writer, Amanda Cockrell ’69, M.A. ’88 has a good understanding of how the past repeats and variates itself.

“The adage holds that those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat its mistakes, and I think that’s true,” said Cockrell. “But if history repeats itself, it never does so exactly or we would probably be better prepared for it.”

Speaking of that, Cockrell wasn’t prepared for how busy, or productive, her retirement would be. After 26 years working at Hollins as an educator and the first director of the university’s children’s literature program, Cockrell hung up her academic regalia in 2018— but since then she’s felt anything but “retired.” In addition to continuing her work as managing editor of The Hollins Critic, Cockrell has published three new books, nearly one a year, and not slim children’s books (as one might expect from the former director) but rather meaty works of historical fiction.

“It feels wonderful—had pretty much decided I was probably not going to publish anything else and that was fine,” said Cockrell about her postretirement inspiration. The Hollins alumna hadn’t published a new book since 2011, and even though she was the founding director of Hollins’ children’s literature program, which under her leadership branched into multiple degrees and certifications, Cockrell’s writing career has been solely focused on fiction. “This whole thing has been a huge and gratifying surprise, especially the success of the new books.”

Her newest novel, The Shadow of the Eagle, will be available online and in bookstores on May 26, and it’s the first in a new three-book series of Roman-era historical fiction called The Borderlands.

Set nearly 2,000 years ago along the fringes of the Roman Empire in modernday Britain, The Shadow of the Eagle follows Faustus Valerianus, the son of a Roman father and a British mother, as he joins the legendary general Agricola’s campaign to conquer all of the British Isles, pitting Faustus (in a very Faustian pact) against his allegiance to the empire and the bonds of his own Courtesy of Sheree Scarborough

blood. The book has already received some high praise, being described by major Roman history writer Simon Scarrow as “a brilliantly realized world of Imperial ambition and Native resistance and the inevitable clashes that arise.”

“What keeps me interested about the Romans is how wonderfully and appallingly like us they are,” said Cockrell. “They are the template for Western government but also for Western colonialism, with their self-assured conviction that Roman civilization was a boon to any conquered people. And these days, it’s pleasant to go live some other ‘when’ for a while.”

Of course, this isn’t Cockrell’s first fictional foray into the past. Her 1979 debut novel Legions of the Mist also took place in ancient Britain and was inspired

by Rosemary Sutcliff’s fictional account of the mysterious disappearance of the Roman Ninth Legion. “The Legions of the Mist was actually begun my senior year at Hollins as a January Term project,” recalled Cockrell. “It took me 10 years to get up the gumption to finish it.

After that, because I wanted to quit my day job, I signed on with a book packager who specialized in historical series and I wrote three Roman books (as well as a lot of others) for them.”

In the tradition of many Hollins alumnae/i before her, Cockrell was breaking new ground, working in a genre that was generally frowned upon for

women. However, even though her first novel had been published under her own name, the next three would be published under a nom de plume: turning Cockrell into Damion Hunter, a male. “It wasn’t my decision,” said Cockrell. “When I got a contract to write The Centurions series for a book packager in the ’80s, they insisted on pseudonyms, partly because they wanted to be able to continue a successful series if the writer got bored with it. But I’m sure that picking a male name was deliberate.

It was held that women didn’t write

“This whole thing has been a huge and gratifying surprise, especially the success of the new books.”

historical adventure. In fact, a fan once told me that another reader (a woman!) had told him that the series couldn’t be any good if a woman wrote it.”

Although The Centurions series was published under another name, it led to many more opportunities for Cockrell, who was able to stretch her creative legs.

Since then, she has written in many other genres, including contemporary fiction, mythological fiction, and even young adult with What We Keep Is Not Always What Will Stay (named a Best Book for Children by the Boston Globe), all books published under her own name.

However, after her publisher was acquired by another house in 1998, Cockrell’s older titles as Damion Hunter fell out of print, where they languished for years. That is, until right after her retirement from Hollins, when the UK publishing house Canelo emailed Cockrell out of the blue wanting to reprint The Centurions books as well as Legions of the Mist. “They found that the old pseudonym had some name recognition among Roman fans, and you never want to waste that,” said the Hollins alumna. “But I wanted my name on them. So we settled on publishing both the old and the new books as ‘Amanda Cockrell writing as Damion Hunter.’”

That turned out to be a wise decision.

Since then, Cockrell has been in a writing frenzy, penning The Wall at the Edge of the World in 2020 (a sort of sequel to Legions) and The Border Wolves in 2021, the fourth and final volume in The Centurions that had been canceled more than two decades before. “This was the surprise of my retirement,” said Cockrell. “All my Roman books are now back in print!”

And Cockrell doesn’t appear to be slowing down. She’s already hard at work on Edge of Empire, the second of Faustus’ stories in The Borderlands.

“Roman fiction is hot right now,” said Cockrell, always aware and writing about the fickleness of history. “I have no idea why, any more than I do why it wasn’t hot 30 years ago. My one conclusion is that the publishing biz is a crapshoot, but we knew that.”

Jeff Dingler is a current creative writing M.F.A. student and marketing intern.

Spring 2022 13

IMAGINATION

& HOPE WHAT THE IMAGINATION CAMPAIGN IS: capitalizing on the strengths of the community to move forward revenue-generating opportunities and build campus culture on an accelerated timeline.

WHAT IT IS NOT: a strategic plan.

14 Hollins

I

n January 2021, even as so much institutional energy was centered around managing Hollins’ Culture of Care approach to the COVID-19 pandemic, President Mary Dana Hinton recognized a need for the community to be thinking beyond those immediate tactical challenges and toward a promising and sustainable future for the university. She knew the best imagination and vision for what is possible is not the product of a single mind, but rather the amalgam of dozens upon dozens of engaged and optimistic stakeholders, especially faculty and staff.

Working alongside the advancement team and Vice President for External Relations Suzy Mink ’74, Hinton was able to secure almost $10 million in gifts earmarked specifically to fund new initiatives and programs for the university that could be revenuegenerating and sustainable.

Yes, Hollins and almost all universities are nonprofits, but the amount of annual revenue pulled in ultimately

dictates opportunities for growth and improvement. When done well, this can create a sort of virtuous cycle, where improvement and growth result in increased revenue, which then offers even greater opportunity for improvement and growth. The funds raised for the “Imagination Campaign,” as Hinton called it, were intended to inspire a quick and vital creative spark for the entire community.

“Many observe that the path to longevity and sustainability is found by focusing squarely on the business model and finances. I disagree with that,” said Hinton. “I think it is critically important to focus on mission, campus culture, and the business model equally.

You cannot, in the long term, enhance one without the others. All three must be gently held in relationship equally.

“The future of the institution is at the intersection of those three elements.

That’s the rationale behind all we did with the Imagination Campaign and the culture I hope we are building at Hollins.”

IMAGINATION IN PROGRESS

B

y the end of 2021, 18 of the 31 proposals had begun coming to fruition. It’s a diverse portfolio of projects that offers everyone at least a few tasty morsels.

In the academic realm, work is in motion to add several graduate-level and certificate offerings in the 2022-23 academic year, and a comprehensive reform of Hollins’ general education program is on schedule to launch in the fall of 2023.

One key focus on improvements around student life centered on physical plant support for the athletics program, an area with significant room to grow in the coming years. By the start of classes next fall, a redesigned expansion to the athletic center and several improvements to the riding center should

be complete. A new 200-meter track and field area across from the tennis courts along West Campus Drive will be on its way to completion and ready for the spring 2023 season.

In marketing and communications, 10 faculty and staff were accepted into an eight-week “Public Scholars” workshop. “By shifting from being leaders in scholarly discourse to leaders in public discourse, faculty will discover how their voices can shape the 21st century and beyond,” notes the program

introduction from Scholars & Writers, the firm conducting the sessions, which also includes four individual sessions with a journalist consultant.

In addition, brand revisioning work has begun to develop a comprehensive platform that will incorporate graduate and continuing studies while remaining compelling for the undergraduate program. The work is expected to conclude with a reorganized and redesigned website before the end of the 2022 calendar year.

THE HOLLINS OPPORTUNITY FOR PROMISE THROUGH EDUCATION (HOPE)

O

ne of the most exciting products of the Imagination Campaign is designed to provide real HOPE. Developed for students living in the greater Roanoke Valley region, the Hollins Opportunity for Promise through Education (HOPE) scholar program prioritizes lifting the burden of private college tuition for students with financial need and specifically supports young women who wish to pursue a college degree at Hollins with zero tuition debt.

“HOPE makes a college education affordable for young women regardless of their ability to pay, and supports them in taking the next step toward achieving their academic and professional goals,” said Ashley Browning, vice president for enrollment management at Hollins.

Under HOPE, any young woman admitted to Hollins for the fall of 2022 who resides within 40 miles of campus is invited to apply. Students whose families have a household adjusted gross income of $50,000 or less will receive priority when HOPE funds are awarded.

“The cost of tuition is fully covered for HOPE scholars for all four years, including any year-over-year tuition increases, through a blend of academic merit scholarship, need-based federal and institutional aid, and the Virginia Tuition Assistance Grant,” Browning explained. “HOPE scholars who live on campus may choose to apply federal

interest in Hollins. By the application deadline, more than 100 local students had applied, up from 63 at the same time last year. And of those, some 60 had applied for the scholarship. And visits from local students have more than doubled from 2021, which wasn’t by any measure a down year. Despite the challenges of COVID-19, Hollins

“HOPE is the work of changing individual lives in service to our community and democracy. I simply cannot imagine more important, powerful, or necessary work.” loans to the cost of room and board.”

The HOPE scholar program is intended to enhance the already vibrant community of Hollins students from the local area. “Nearly 12% of our student body hails from the greater Roanoke Valley,” Browning said. “Roughly twothirds of those students commute and one-third are in residence.”

Launched last fall, HOPE has already rekindled an increased local

welcomed the highest number of enrolled first-year students in 15 years in 2021 and is on a path to match or exceed that number this fall.

“HOPE is, truly, a professional and deeply personal dream come true for me,” Hinton noted. “HOPE is the work of changing individual lives in service to our community and democracy.

I simply cannot imagine more important, powerful, or necessary work.”

Spring 2022 15

Roads to After Hollins Alumnae/i Fighting Domestic Abuse in the 21st Century

BY SARAH ACHENBACH ’88

1 in 3.

Illustrations courtesy of Rebekah Lowell M.F.A. ’19 children’s book writing and illustrating

16 Hollins

That’s the number of women who experience sexual or physical violence by an intimate partner at some point in their lives, per the United Nations.

In the past two years, those numbers have spiked dramatically. The American Journal of Emergency Medicine states domestic violence cases worldwide rose 25-33 percent over the past two years.

Early lockdowns meant women were isolated with violent partners, cut off from the resources and networks they needed. In 2020, many social services— shelters and free or cheap safe housing, legal aid services, food banks, childcare centers, rape crisis centers, and more— were forced to scale back services or close temporarily. Today, many have yet to return to pre-pandemic service levels, remaining understaffed and overwhelmed with cases.

The issues continue to be increasingly complex. Rising rent prices—rents rose an average of 14 percent and as high as 40 percent in some cities last year— and an increased demand for now-fewer shelter beds and subsidized apartments have created a safe housing shortage.

Courts continue to slog through a case

Stay Home, Stay Safe.

W

Lowell

backlog caused by 2020 court closures and limited dockets. Many court systems pivoted to virtual hearings for protective orders, which may be difficult to access for women being controlled by an abusive partner to access. The bump in gun ownership—7.5 million Americans became first-time gun owners from January 2019 through April 2021, per The Annals of Internal Medicine. When there is a gun in a domestic violence situation, the risk of homicide skyrockets 500% (The American Journal of Public Health).

And for many women, the pandemic continues to shift where, when, and how they work, creating financial and personal stress. From summer 2019 until summer 2021, The Pew Research Center charted a drop of nearly 13% in the number of women in the labor force with a high school diploma compared to a five percent decrease for men.

For women with a high school diploma, the decline was six percent vs. 1.8 percent, lower but still significant.

At the center of this complex, evershifting Venn diagram of issues are Hollins alumnae/i, striving to help women in need navigate their way to safety and a new life.

hen Rebekah Lowell M.F.A. ’19 children’s book writing and illustrating saw the March 2020 messaging about the COVID-19 pandemic’s lockdown phase, her first thought was that home isn’t safe for everyone.

She knows. For 10 years, it wasn’t safe for her.

Lowell, an illustrator and author raised and living in small-town Maine, was abused by her husband from the time they were dating until the day she and her two young daughters escaped.

She endured a criminal trial where he was convicted of kidnapping, among several other charges, and a civil trial where he lost all parental rights.

The pandemic’s isolation was hard for Lowell. “I stayed home for a decade, and I didn’t want to stay home,” she adds.

“He told me that keeping me at home was to keep me safe.” From March 2020 until recently, she social distanced and masked while completing her middle grade novel in verse about a young girl, her sister, and mother who survive abuse.

Her book, The Road to After, debuts in May (Nancy Paulsen Books/Penguin Random House). Lowell’s story has a hopeful ending, but that’s not the case for many of the women who were trapped at home with their abusers during the pandemic.

Lowell’s psychological abuse began when she was dating her ex-husband.

A “great catch” to her family and friends, he was as controlling of her as he was charming to everyone else.

During their engagement, he forbade her to go out in public without him.

“On my wedding day, I knew my life was over, but I didn’t know how to get out of it,” Lowell says. “I didn’t realize it was abuse. He never struck me directly but threw things at me, but abuse is abuse.

It starts out small, but it always grows.”

She was not permitted to go to the grocery store or bank. Not to the pediatrician’s or dentist’s office for her children. Not for playdates for her girls.

Not to talk to the neighbors who shared a driveway with them. When the family drove anywhere, she had to sit in the

backseat in full view of his holstered handgun, which he purposefully slung over the passenger seat.

Forbidden to hold a job or have her own money, she had to hide her art— Lowell has a B.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design—because her paintings and sketches did not directly benefit him.

She was permitted to submit a design for a duck stamp competition, which her husband begrudgingly mailed, but when she won, she could not attend the ceremony.

The breaking point and yearlong escape plan executed by her parents, an attorney, and state and local law enforcement came when her oldest daughter, then 6, had a cavity. The abuser began Googling “home dentistry” with plans to fix the cavity himself.

“We argued and things escalated” she recalls. “That’s when a voice inside me said, ‘Then we’re gone.’”

For four months, she recorded audio of her home life and reached out to Child Protective Services with the burner phone her mother stashed in a secret spot in her parents’ house, which she accessed on the infrequent, chaperoned visits he allowed. (Her parents lived in the same state.)

On March 6, 2013, dozens of people were waiting for her phone call when

Spring 2022 17

Scarcity of Shelter

A

her husband left for work. Her father, accompanied by state law enforcement and a crew of family and friends, picked them up and drove them to the police station in her parents’ town, where they spent the day while her husband was arrested. She filed for a protective order and began to rebuild a new life. York County, Maine’s domestic violence center, Caring Unlimited, offered transitional housing and hope. (Today, Lowell serves on its board.) Her ex-husband served one-and-a-half years before getting released on an appeal. The felony kidnapping charges were dropped, based on a date discrepancy in the specific sub-law when the crime they were charging occurred, a mistake overlooked by the DA during the trial.

“Honestly, I don’t think it’s over because he is out of jail,” admits Lowell, who has chosen not to move because it’s where her family and support system are. “I share my story because I don’t want to live in fear, but I look over my shoulder all the time.”

With her freedom, she rekindled her dream of writing and illustrating children’s books. Lowell found her way to Hollins’ graduate program in children’s book writing and illustrating through the Facebook page of an illustrator she admired. For the summer residency program, she and her daughters moved between Roanoke and Maine for five years.

On average, a victim of domestic abuse tries to leave seven times before leaving permanently. On the day of her escape, she first called her father to tell him not to come, that she had changed her mind and couldn’t go through with the plan. He didn’t listen.

“I tell women who reach out to me that they have a choice,” Rebekah adds.

“You don’t have to stay, and you don’t have to leave if you are not ready to.

Sometimes people feel ashamed if they stay. I stayed for a decade because I didn’t have the resolve to leave.”

18 Hollins

s a certified trauma specialist, Megan Lenherr ’14, NCC, LPA, ITR-CTS has helped many women like Lowell. For the past six years, she’s been a therapist and college advocacy specialist for Women’s Services in Meadville, Pennsylvania. The nonprofit offers comprehensive services for women and children including counseling and housing. Lenherr also coordinates the partnership she forged with nearby Allegheny College to help clients gain access to college.

Until spring 2021, the 18-bed shelter operated by Women’s Services had been operating at half capacity. Shelters serve a critical bridge and frequently are the only option a person has when fleeing a relationship. Staying with family and friends isn’t always safe since the abuser knows those locations. Often, the victim lacks a support network, so the shelter becomes a safe harbor in many ways.

“We were still open, but a lot of people were not willing to come to a shelter and be in public during the pandemic [for health reasons], and we weren’t providing all of our services,” explains Lenherr. Packed ERs with COVID-19 patients meant that Lenherr and her colleagues were unable to see clients who were in the ER for sexual or domestic violence. “We could talk with clients on the phone, but they weren’t receiving the services they would’ve had we been able to go to the ER,” she explains.

Like many health care providers, she pivoted to remote counseling, but going online is not that simple for women experiencing abuse and isolated with their abuser, especially women who are underserved and lack access to technology.

“Women in domestic violence situations don’t have access to safely communicate online,” she says. “I saw a decrease in the numbers of people we served because it wasn’t safe for them to receive services.”

“It took awhile for people to come out of hiding once quarantine was lifted,” Lenherr explains. She’s continued telehealth services while seeing an

Lenherr

uptick of in-person visits, but the biggest challenge, she says, is housing: “For us, domestic violence directly correlates with homelessness. Because so many women weren’t coming during the pandemic, and now are trying to come at once, we can’t handle the influx.”

Typically, Women’s Services operates a 30-day shelter with a goal of transitioning women into public or subsidized housing. “Now we can’t find housing for three to six months for our clients,” she adds. “There are wait lists for months. Women are stuck with nowhere to go.”

Her biggest concern? “We’re just not going to catch up,” Lenherr explains.

“Because of the system backup, there are going to be a lot of women who are not going to get services.”

A survivor herself of sexual trauma, Lenherr chooses to embrace the hope she sees in her clients and colleagues.

“The resiliency of the people in this field is amazing,” she says. “I’ve seen my coworkers who have been at the shelter 24/7 since March 2020 and are still passionate. People are not giving up.

They are still dedicated to changing lives.”

“We Can Unlearn It”

“D “Everybody Suffers”

E

lizabeth Barbour ’78, M.A. ’98 in English and creative writing watched the pandemic shut doors for many women who would’ve come to the Legal Aid Society in Roanoke, where Barbour is a domestic violence attorney.

“Many legal aids do not report increased caseloads at this time, but we all realize the problems have been worse with the pandemic,” says Barbour. “Victims have few roads to leave relationships with the doors that have shut—doors to jobs, doors to safe-haven friends and relatives.”

There are Legal Aid Society offices across the U.S. serving those unable to afford legal representation. Barbour and her colleagues in Roanoke assist victims of domestic violence with obtaining protective orders, uncontested divorces, and custody cases. While she did not experience an uptick in women seeking protective orders from abusive partners, she is witnessing a trend of women emerging from the pandemic ready to go through with a divorce: “I really sense that the [past two years] have given them space to unpack what they’ve gone through. I didn’t see this before March 2020.”

Another by-product, she says, is that she and her colleagues have had time for more reflection as well. “Those of us in the trenches have been able to read up on patterns and reasons for domestic violence and concentrate on the power of partnering with other agencies that assist victims and developing methods to increase outreach to raise awareness,” adds Barbour, who enrolled in law school in 2017 after careers as a hand model in print and TV and as a model with the Ford Agency, as a writer, and as a residential real estate developer in Telluride, Colorado.

Barbour

When asked about the downstream effect of the pandemic and domestic violence, Barbour doesn’t hesitate.

“It’s going to ripple through the children,” she says. “With domestic violence, everybody suffers, even the abuser.

Children keep a lot of people in lousy relationships, and so does lack of money.”

Good wrap-around services—legal services, counseling, a victim advocate team, housing, childcare, etc.—are essential, Barbour adds. “I’ve seen victims really prosper when a constellation of services are meeting their needs, but the pandemic has hindered national training [for service providers].”

She says women’s empowerment is the missing piece for most of her clients, almost all of whom are female.

“They’re not getting the memo about claiming their own power and taking care of themselves,” Barbour says.

“By the time they get to me, though, they are ready to leave their situation and ready for a way out. It’s a real privilege to get to be the person who opens a series of doors that gets them out.”

omestic violence has always been a pandemic,” says Larissa Sutherland ’96, an art teacher and administrator turned domestic victim advocate and educator. “For me it’s always been in the context of gender equality. It’s clear to me how many systems were designed to keep women as second-class citizens.”

For the past 11 years, Sutherland has worked to understand those systems, beginning with the root behaviors of battering. She leads education programs for victims and families, runs courtordered men’s batterer intervention groups, and has served as a domestic violence victim advocate for the U.S. Navy since 2016. Prior, she worked in advocacy and education for domestic abuse, rape, child abuse, and more for nonprofit domestic violence and sexual assault centers.

“It all comes down to learned behavior, which means that we can unlearn it,” says Sutherland, who began her career as an elementary school art teacher and encountered children who were victims of domestic abuse.

“The reality is that a lot of people who grew up in abusive households have not dealt with childhood trauma.”

Throughout the pandemic, Sutherland continued to lead a court-ordered evening class for domestic abuse offenders.

The pivot to a remote class still offers a front-row seat to the shame that domestic violence creates for the abused and the abuser. She witnessed how the pandemic cut off points of intervention and exit for victims, “moving people into the realm where they didn’t have access to church or larger family,” Sutherland adds.

The impact, she believes, is long-term, from the court backlog to the disconnect that people can experience in virtual support groups. But Sutherland’s biggest concern and challenge are how the pandemic has altered her ability to find services and safety nets for her clients.

“The Great Resignation has severed my professional network,” she explains.

“All of the systems are stretched thin because staffing issues are so difficult.”

Spring 2022 19

Youth and Early Warning Signs Like all social service providers, Sutherland relies on an intricate, trusted network to find the resources she needs to help victims and their families.

Connections lost often translate to lost services.

A few months before the pandemic, Sutherland founded the Equipoise Center on Domestic Violence (enddv.org), a consortium of educators and advocates.

Her goal is to connect the many dots across the complexities of domestic violence and to educate others on the barriers for victims. “But the pandemic took the wind out of my sails,” she says. “I’ve done some virtual training through Equipoise, but I created it to provide accessible, affordable, inperson training.”

Like Lenherr, hope keeps her going.

“Working in the weeds of people’s lives has given me a unique point of view where systems are failing, but if I didn’t have hope in this work, I couldn’t do it.”

Hope is also what she tries to fan in those she helps. “Hope is the most important thing that victims of domestic violence have to hold on to—it will be hard to leave, but it will be worth it,” she adds.

D

iane Hall ’88, senior scientist for policy and strategy at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and her colleagues are concerned about a pandemic rise in child abuse because of the prolonged remote learning phase. “Kids [were] home, and parents are home and stressed,” she explains.

“Teachers are usually the first line of defense to identify abuse, which was lost during remote learning.”

Before Hall was tapped to work directly on the CDC’s pandemic response, she spent 13 years at the CDC on preventing relationship violence in youth. She’s authored online violence education tools for schools, based in part on her Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania, for which she interviewed dozens of teenagers about their perceptions of what constitutes violence.

“There are not a lot of teen examples of healthy relationships,” says Hall, who is on the Hollins Alumnae Board.

“When I asked them about jealousy, [many] saw it as a sign of love.” The school counselors she met with said that they rarely broke up fights in school between boyfriends and girlfriends, calling it “a dating thing,” but they would break up same-sex fights.

“One of the things we’ve tried to emphasize in CDC curriculum is the

Hall

importance of school policy and recognizing early warning signs,” she explains.

When couples break up, teenagers or adults, that is when there is the greatest risk, Hall notes.

One of her concerns as adolescents, teens, and young people return to a pre-pandemic “normal” are the norms they have lost during remote learning and social distancing. Hall says that the developmental gap in learning to navigate and practice healthy relationships in person will have short-, middle-, and long-term effects—worrisome to behavioral scientists and parents alike.

RESOURCES If you or someone you know is experiencing relationship violence, there are resources to help.

Caring Unlimited, York County Maine

1-800-239-7298 caring-unlimited.org National Domestic Violence Hotline

800-799-SAFE (7233) TTY 1-800-787-3224 thehotline.org National Sexual Assault Hotline

800-656-4673 rainn.org

20 Hollins

National Resource Center on Domestic Violence

nrcdv.org

National Sexual Violence Resource Center

nsvrc.org

National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline

866-331-9474 loveisrespect.org

Stalking Prevention & Awareness Resource Center

202-558-0040 stalkingawareness.org

Child Protective Services

800-552-7096 childwelfare.gov

One Love Foundation LGBTQ+ Partner Abuse Hotline

800-832-1901 tnlr.org

National Suicide Prevention Hotline

800-273-8255 suicideprevention lifeline.org

joinonelove.org

Equipoise Center on Domestic Violence

enddv.org and also on Facebook

End Violence Against Women International

evawintl.org

CHECK OUT THESE HELPFUL APPS: MyPlan guides users

through designing a safety plan

Techsafety app

helps the user understand and prevent cyberstalking

One Love

L

ike many people, Sharon Donnelly Love ’71 had a stereotype of what domestic violence looked like.

“I thought it was a housewife with no way to support herself and was dependent on her husband,” she says.

May 3, 2010, changed that. In the early morning hours, a policeman knocked on her door in Baltimore, Maryland, to tell her that her daughter, Yeardley Love, was dead, beaten to death

by Yeardley’s ex-boyfriend.

Yeardley was a standout studentathlete on the University of Virginia women’s lacrosse team with three weeks until graduation. Her murder made headlines and transformed her mother into an international advocate for education and awareness of relationship violence for people ages 16-24.

In 2012, Love and her daughter Lexie founded the One Love Foundation— Yeardley’s uniform number was One— to educate young people about relationship violence and to help them recognize harmful behaviors in person and online. Today, 1.6 million people have participated in a free One Love Foundation-led workshop. Over 100 million people have viewed One Love’s educational content, including Escalation, a film about relationship violence created to engender discussions in schools and colleges that has been viewed around the world. The foundation’s myPlan app guides users through making safety decisions about their relationship or someone they care about, and the One Love Film Fest screens studentproduced films around the theme of relationship violence awareness and prevention.

In March 2020, One Love was able to quickly shift online because of its prior focus on remote training for volunteer educators. “We saw an upswing in abuse for our age group [16-24 years],” Love explains.

Leading the charge for relationship violence prevention didn’t happen overnight for Love. In the weeks following Yeardley’s death and the arrest of her abuser, Love struggled to connect her vision of domestic violence with

her daughter’s death. “Before she died, I thought that she might get hurt playing lacrosse or driving home to Baltimore from Virginia,” she says. “But I never thought that this would happen to her.”

Yeardley’s family and friends had been aware of the tumultuous relationship and knew his behavior escalated when Yeardley broke up with him shortly before her murder, but Love had no idea that this was such a tenuous time for people in abusive relationships.

Young women ages 16-24 are at three times greater risk of being involved in a violent relationship than older women, she explains. “[After her death] people told us that we should do something, but I didn’t want to touch the subject,” Love says.

Instead, the family focused on funding a lacrosse team in inner-city Baltimore.

[Love’s husband and Yeardley’s father died of cancer prior to Yeardley’s murder.]

By the time the trial started in 2012, Love and Lexie were ready to focus on the issue of relationship violence in young people.

A week after Yeardley’s murderer was convicted on second-degree and felony murder charges, a donor stepped forward with $1 million and fast-tracked the One Love Foundation (joinonelove. org). Yeardley, who would have been 35 this summer and dreamed of becoming a lawyer, had a joy for helping others.

That spirit, her mother believes, has guided the One Love Foundation since its inception. “Yeardley had her hand in all of it,” Love says. “It was a choice to get out of bed and not wallow. It gave us a purpose.

“If I had a crystal ball, I never would have thought we’d be where we are today,” says Love, who was named a 2021 AARP Purpose Prize award recipient and received $5,000 for the One Love Foundation in recognition of her leadership. “There was a big vacancy in this area. We said if we could save just one life, it would be worth it.”

Sarah Achenbach ’88 is a freelance writer living in Baltimore.

Advice from Our Experts DON’T DOUBT YOURSELF.

“I have learned to listen to my inner voice. When you think something is hopeless, it’s not. You don’t have to accept a situation, and you don’t have to do it on your own. Reach out, even if it’s just one person.”

— Rebekah Lowell

DON’T UNDERESTIMATE YOUR DANGER.

“People acclimate to their level of abuse and tend to minimize their danger.

Reach out to the National Hotline to get connected to a victim advocate who can do a danger screening and make an individual safety plan. If there are children involved, expand that plan to them. Create a code word with children and teach them how to call 911.”

— Larissa Sutherland

DOCUMENT THE ABUSE.

“When you photograph your injuries, identify yourself in the photos.

Email them to a friend and delete the evidence from your phone.”

— Larissa Sutherland

DON’T BLAME YOURSELF.

“Anyone can experience domestic violence. The shame and secrecy of it is its own pandemic.”

— Megan Lenherr

DON’T KEEP IT A SECRET AND SEEK HELP IMMEDIATELY. “The first tendency is to think that you

can handle it yourself. Talk to friends and family and get support. And devise a plan, because it’s not going to get better. It’s only going to get worse.”

— Sharon Donnelly Love

EDUCATE YOURSELF AND QUESTION YOUR ASSUMPTIONS. “Learning the players and dynamics

of what goes on in domestic violence is legion, a quantum effort.”

— Elizabeth Barbour

Spring 2022 21

A ROCK-SOLID

Rory Sanson Boitnott ’19

22 Hollins

Sharon L. Meador

LEGACY Top: Members of the campus community gathered around for a “Spread Kindness” photo in spring 2021.

Left: The Rock after the thousands of paint layers were removed and the remaining surface was initially washed.

B Y M A R I N H A R R I N G T O N M . F. A . ’ 2 3

ctober 21, 2021, was a historic day in Hollins’ nearly 200-year history: the Rock on West Campus Drive received its first cleaning in four decades.

When the process was complete, countless layers of paint were removed, and with them, a 40-year historical record of student announcements, declarations, and celebrations.

Hollins announced the Rock’s restoration to the public in an article published on the university’s website and social media accounts, aptly titled “After 40 Years, the Rock Gets a Cleaning.” The article stated that the cleaning was “much-needed,” as the paint layer “had become so thick that it had begun cracking and separating from the stone.”

While reactions from alumnae/i were certainly expected, the Facebook post which shared the article received an unprecedented response, including 55 comments and 83 shares. Among those comments and reposts, some interesting patterns emerged: slews of teary-faced emojis, requests for a photo display of the Rock’s many iterations, and general feelings of sadness and loss. There were also fond reminiscences and people sharing photos of their own Rock moments. What was most clear, however, was that the Rock encapsulates many alumnae/i’s most powerful and joyful memories of their time at Hollins.

Spring 2022 23

Courtesy of Bryna Wedner Darling ’89

Sharon L. Meador

Sharon L. Meador

Left, top: Members of the campus community gathered to take a last look before the cleaning.

Left: The layers of paint were so thick that they were cracked and sliding off the side of the Rock.

Below: Crew members used a crowbar to pull the entire front facade from the Rock’s surface.

Bryna Wedner Darling, Leigh Wilkerson Johnson, Margaret Spiggle Fogg, and Kelley Wingo Gates (all class of 1989) with the Rock, which they painted together before their graduation.

24 Hollins

Bryna Wedner Darling ’89 was one of the many alumnae who commented on the Facebook post announcing the Rock’s cleaning. She shared a photo of herself with Leigh Wilkerson Johnson, Margaret Spiggle Fogg, and Kelley Wingo Gates (all class of 1989) with the Rock, which they painted together before their graduation. “I didn’t realize until I read the article that the Rockpainting started only a few years before I arrived on campus in the fall of 1985,” she says. “I was amazed by how many layers of paint there were.

The only time I’ve participated in painting the Rock was before graduation, but maybe I’ll have to do it again at the next reunion.”

“I realize that the paint removal had to be done, but, in a way, it feels like removing a little piece of history,” Darling says. “I can’t even fully explain my emotional attachment to the Rock, but it’s there. I know that one day they’ll redo the sidewalk outside of Tinker, where I engraved my name in the wet cement along with most of my first-year class, but at least now the Rock itself will always be there.”

One of the most liked and most replied-to comments on the post was written by Abby Hargreaves ’14, who posted, “So many of us would have paid good money for a chunk of the paint layers.” She doesn’t think her comment is an exaggeration, either. “If it weren’t for the lead risk, it would have been so cool—and no doubt profitable—for Hollins to make pieces of the paint flake available for purchase as keepsake items, whether in jewelry or other knickknacks,” she says. “It would also be so smart to add more Rock merchandise to the Hollins store.

I mean, do I need a paperweight? No. But would I buy a mini replica of the Rock as a paperweight?

Probably.”

Like Darling, Hargreaves understands the emotional ramifications of the Rock’s cleaning.

“It’s such a big representation of history in an interesting and tangible way,” she says. “I think one of the reasons the Rock is such a striking icon for alumnae/i in particular is that it’s a more portable sort of idea than traditions like Tinker Day and Ring Night. It’s so hard to translate Tinker Day into life after Hollins, but you can replicate the Rock (and explain it more easily to non-Hollins folks than Tinker Day) pretty easily, even if it’s just grabbing a small rock roughly the shape of the Rock, painting it, and putting it outside your home.”

Far left: Students were invited to inspect the removed layers of paint after removal.

Courtesy of Elena Samel ’09 Courtesy of Abby Hargreaves

Right: Megan Lenherr ’14 with the Rock on her 22nd birthday.

Elena Samel ’09 painted the Rock numerous times with her fencing team. “My favorite designs we did were either a white picket fence with -ing added to the end, or our bloody fencing valentine to announce our excitement for an upcoming tournament. One time my friends painted the Rock for my birthday and were so excited they almost tackled me off my feet,” she says. “Painting the Rock always represented the great Hollins pillars of mischief, creativity, and chaos. The Rock is one of the first things you see on campus on the way in and one of the last things you see as you leave. Each time I pass it, it leaves as much of a mark on my heart as we ever did on its surface.”

Marin Harrington is a current creative writing M.F.A. student and marketing intern.

Above: Abby Hargreaves ’14 painted the Rock for her first time as a way to celebrate First Step.

Right, top: Fencing teammates Elena Samel and Patricia Cope (both class of 2009) after painting the Rock in preparation for a tournament.

Below: The Rock received a thorough pressure washing after the biggest chunks of paint were pulled away.

Rory Sanson Boitnott ’19

Sharon L. Meador

Hargreaves

Courtesy of Abby Hargreaves ’14

Sharon L. Meador

Sharon L. Meador

Left: Even after the largest layer was removed, remnants of past paintings remained prior to washing.

Spring 2022 25

IMMIGRATION

BLACK IS A

ISSUE Patrice Lawrence ’11 talks about the UndocuBlack Network

Rob Ferrell @ instagram.com/bmore_radical

P

atrice Lawrence ’11 knows what life is like for the more than half a million undocumented Black immigrants in the United States—she’s one of them. Also, as the cofounder and codirector of the immigrant’s rights nonprofit UndocuBlack Network, Lawrence understands all too well how difficult it can be existing in the immigration shadows of modernday America, of constantly fearing detention or deportation.

“I’ve learned now that there’s very little autonomy in adjusting your status in the United States,” said Lawrence.

“I have missed out on so many funerals, weddings, both my brothers’ graduations from high school and university, caring for my parents after accidents, saying final goodbyes to multiple loved ones.

I no longer feel free, nor am I free, to travel as I wish.”

Only a few years ago, however, Lawrence’s life looked totally different.

Born and raised in Kingston and St. Andrew, Jamaica, Lawrence flew to Roanoke in 2007 after earning a scholarship to Hollins. Just 18 years old at the time, with a temporary student visa, Lawrence chose to study political science and philosophy and had a bit of an awakening. “I love Hollins,” said Lawrence, “I was involved in some political things when I was in Jamaica, but my foundation at Hollins, my classes with Jong Ra, Jon Bohland, Edward Lynch, and Jeanette Barbieri, helped me to get an understanding of what policy is, and where my ideals come from, and what politics UndocuBlack wants to have as its own.”

After graduating with honors, Lawrence moved to Washington, D.C. to work for an arm of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

She had hoped this organization would sponsor her to acquire a work visa.

However, this prospect fell through, and when Lawrence’s student visa expired soon after, she decided against the odds to remain in the country. “I figured it would be an easy fix,” said the Hollins alumna. “I thought the system would

work out for me and I could get a green card.” But Lawrence’s life changed dramatically. She lost her health insurance, lost her right to vote, and even lost eligibility to get a driver’s license in most states. These conditions forced her into the margins of society, performing low-wage jobs oftentimes for cash.

This is the reality for most undocumented people in America today.

Just like Lawrence, nearly half of the almost 11 million undocumented people in the U.S. are people who came to this country legally but overstayed a visa.

And of that population, around 630,000 are Black, many of them forgotten in an immigration narrative that largely focuses on Latinos and Central Americans, who make up the largest portion of the undocumented population.

For years, Lawrence lived in the shadows, fearful of being detained or deported yet at the same time desperate to make ends meet, working odd jobs from Michigan to Ohio and New York as a tutor, a home health aide, and a live-in nanny. She also made numerous attempts to change her immigration status, including talking to and paying numerous lawyers. She was accepted into law schools twice. None of it worked. “When I became undocumented, I wanted to assimilate,” said Lawrence.

“I wanted to hide so I wouldn’t be targeted.”

PhotoMe Multimedia Productions @ photo_me_multimedia_production

B Y J E F F D I N G L E R M . F. A . ’ 2 2

Lawrence

“

When I became undocumented, I wanted to assimilate. I wanted to hide so I wouldn’t be targeted.

Lawrence felt largely hopeless until 2014 when she befriended a fellow undocumented Jamaican, who was having discussions about creating a convening of Black people in the U.S. who had lost legal status. It was a radical, albeit risky, idea. “I thought it was interesting—and I thought probably we

” Spring 2022 27

“

It gave me a space where I could truly be myself, have my ideas, speak the truth, influence media, and possibly change my life and other people’s lives. That was a freedom I didn’t have, and that’s the beauty of UndocuBlack and the beauty of our organization and our membership.

Danyeli Rodriguez Del Orbe- UndocuBlack Network Creative Specialist

don’t need it,” said Lawrence about revealing her status to others. “I was really scared. I thought it would put a target on our backs. I thought we would be really stigmatized.”

Nonetheless, these discussions between Lawrence and others from across the country eventually became the Undocumented and Black Convening, a first-of-its-kind national conference of around 70 undocumented Black people held in Miami, Florida, from January 15-17, 2016. The three-day event featured facilitated workshops, strategizing sessions, intersectional caucus spaces, and healing spaces. “That was the first time I told a group of other people about my status,” recalled Lawrence.

“And after I left, I said ‘this is really necessary.’ It was so freeing to be in a space where I could use my own accent again. I could talk about who I was and feel secure doing so.”

The Undocumented and Black Convening, cofounded by five Black

28 Hollins

migrants, turned out to be the official beginning of the UndocuBlack Network, which Lawrence cocreated immediately after with the original coconveners.

Lawrence defines the organization as a “multi-generational Black organization of currently and formerly undocumented people that represents Black people from all across the diaspora.” “Immigration Is a Black Issue” is the motto and philosophy of the UndocuBlack Network, which facilitates access to immigration resources and fights to transform the realities of undocumented Black migrants.

The nonprofit has been a game changer for many, including Lawrence.

“Forming UndocuBlack Network forced me to stop hiding who I was,” said the Jamaican native, who in April 2016 went public with her status at an immigration conference. “It gave me a space where I could truly be myself, have my ideas, speak the truth, influence media, and possibly change my life and other people’s lives. That was a freedom I didn’t have, and that’s the beauty of UndocuBlack and the beauty of our organization and our membership.”

Since its inception six years ago, the UndocuBlack Network has done a little bit of everything, from successfully freeing people from detention to helping individuals with their immigration cases to stay in the U.S., and even sponsoring and helping to pass a major piece of legislation, the Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness program, which allowed Liberian nationals who’ve been living in the United States since 2014 to apply to become Lawful Permanent Residents. “This bill had been written in different ways for almost 20 years, and we did the work to get it across the finish line,” said Lawrence.

“I’m very proud of this bill and I’ve learned so much from having done that.

”

It’s fueled us to believe that it is possible to pass mass legalization for many folks.

In Jamaica, we have a saying: If you have raw meat, you seek fire. Those of us who have that raw meat, we really seek the fire!”

In just a few years, the nonprofit has grown exponentially, with members in more than 30 states now and coverage by big media outlets like CNN, the Black News Channel, BBC, MSNBC, and more. The organization even had the ear of now Vice President Kamala Harris, getting the then-Senator to work with UndocuBlack on issues with Mauritanians whose asylum or Temporary Protected Status claims were being almost indiscriminately denied.

“I’ve met Kamala before in person when she was in the Senate,” said Lawrence. “She brought a member of the UndocuBlack Network (a Californian constituent) to her State of the Union in 2018. That’s how close a relationship we had with her office.”

However, even with an ally like Vice President Harris in the White House, movement on immigration reform is glacial at best. In spite of the UndocuBlack Network’s successes, Lawrence is still undocumented herself, even as she continues to grow the nonprofit and advocate for others. “Absolutely I’m a target,” said Lawrence. “But I’m also drawing attention to myself the opposite way in that if they come after me, I think I’ve made enough of an organizing impact that others will go and protest, so it will be harder to get rid of me.

Am I risking my life every day?

Absolutely. But am I safer now than a few years ago when no one knew who I was? Absolutely.”

Jeff Dingler is a current creative writing M.F.A. student and marketing intern.

Girlhood

REVISITED and

REIMAGINED B Y M A R I N H A R R I N G T O N M . F. A . ’ 2 3

Julie Pfeiffer, professor of English and chair of the department of English and creative writing at Hollins, recently published her first book, Transforming Girls: The Work of Nineteenth-Century Adolescence.

Released on October 15 by University Press of Mississippi, Transforming Girls analyzes a variety of since-forgotten mid-19th-century bestsellers that were aimed at adolescent girls in the United States and Germany. To commemorate the book’s publication, Pfeiffer spoke with Marin Harrington M.F.A. ’23 about researching and writing Transforming Girls, along with the continued importance of studying children’s literature.

Sharon L. Meador

68 Hollins

What assumptions about adolescent girls’ literature from this era are you hoping to challenge or reevaluate with your book?

There’s a critical assumption in the United States that adolescent fiction didn’t develop until the 1970s. Yet there are all these books written in the mid-1800s that are explicitly about adolescent girls and that talk about adolescence as a time of difficult transition. I realized that, in fact, there were 19th-century American girls’ books about adolescence and we had just forgotten about them.

How did you end up rediscovering these American novels in the first place?

It actually started with my sabbatical as a Fulbright Senior Scholar at JohannWolfgang University in Frankfurt, Germany. I was studying German girls’ books and initially thought they were different from American ones because American girls’ books are family stories or they’re about younger girls, while these German books were about adolescents. I thought I might write a book about the contrast between American and German girls’ books until I actually started reading best-selling American girls’ books from the 1800s and noticed their similarities.

There was a strong German presence in the U.S. in the 19th century. There were German printing presses, and German books were translated into English and vice versa. A cross-cultural exchange happened that was oriented around the idea that there is such a thing as adolescent girlhood, and these books treated female adolescence as a creative, transformative space, whereas we currently view adolescence as a time of alienation and angst.

Since this idea of “creative transformation” is so central to these novels, could you talk about what that concept looks like in these books?

The teenage girls in these 19th-century books tend to be awkward. They’re kind of a mess, and they’re loved despite that. The girls feel embarrassed, but the adult women around them acknowledge

that becoming a woman is not an inevitable, natural process, but a construction that’s hard work. These female role models provide girls with a supportive environment where it’s okay to make mistakes. Today we expect the ideal teenage girl to be charming, and if she’s not, that’s a problem that needs to be solved. One of my chapters is called “The Romance of Othermothering” and it talks about how mothering happens outside of heterosexual marriage in these books.

Even though the protagonists are usually expected to find a husband as soon as possible, they are often mothered by single aunts or teachers, and the girls are mothering each other as peers who take care of each other. There’s a sense of completion that happens in these novels when a girl learns how to nurture other girls and women.

Even though you point out lots of positive messages that these books can send to young girls who are in the throes of adolescence, do you still think that these books have a place with contemporary audiences, considering they also hold problematic views on gender and race?

Transforming Girls really developed from a question I started asking maybe 20 years ago, which was: Why do I read, teach, and study these classic girls’ books that are so clearly sexist and also reinforce white privilege? I say in my book that I don’t necessarily recommend giving these books to teenagers.

I write instead about using the positive aspects of these novels to imagine a different vision of adolescence and reframe our ideas about how to support teenagers. I do believe that the things we read when we’re young, before we have structures for intellectual critique in place, can become deeply internalized.

We absorb certain ideologies and maybe spend the rest of our lives sorting out which of those ideologies we actually wanted to absorb and which we didn’t. I think part of the importance of studying children’s literature is thinking about the kind of conversations we want to have with children who are reading.

What have you found most powerful about being able to reexamine the books that you read as a child through this new scholarly outlook?

There is something powerful about this notion of celebrating girlhood and saying that yes, being an adolescent girl is an experience worth writing about. It’s a concept that has just really resonated with me and is a reason why I want to keep reading, teaching, and critiquing these books. Taking on the womanly identity your culture expects of you is a kind of invisible labor, and these girls’ books make that labor visible. Now we have the opportunity to think about what we’re choosing to do and what we’re not—and maybe redefine the grumpy adolescent girl as someone who’s actually working really hard to make herself into a new person.

Marin Harrington is a current creative writing M.F.A. student and marketing intern.

New Look Online Beginning This Summer Hollins.edu/magazine has a great new interactive look and feel. Go check out a backlog of some of our most recent issues as well as the online version of what you hold in your hand!

Hollins magazine will begin a new quarterly tradition this summer, with four issues annually arriving in your mailbox. Each summer and winter, you will receive issues that include features, alumnae/i spotlights, and news from the Hollins campus. And each fall and spring— as alumnae/i are preparing to gather up for reunion—you will receive issues solely dedicated to class letters.

With this slightly altered approach, the class letters issues will be even more dependent on photos to brighten up your journey through the pages, so please share your selfies and ussies with Hollins!