Hollins University Alumnae Magazine, Summer 2023

WOMEN in

Hollins

Hollins Magazine

Vol. 73, No. 3

June - August 2023

EDITOR

Billy Faires, executive director of marketing and communications

ADVISORY BOARD

President Mary Dana Hinton, Vice President for Institutional Advancement Anita Walton, 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

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 polic y throughout its operation. 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

Contents

2 A Letter from President Mary Dana Hinton

14 “Things Flowed So Much Easier” The Legacy of Lacrosse at Hollins by Billy Faires

18 Women in STEM by Sarah Achenbach ’88

24 Right Across the Street

Alumnae Share Memories of the Williamson Road Apartments Era by Sarah Achenbach ’88

28 “To The Mountains” by Billy Faires

DEPARTMENTS

4 In the Loop

To view the online version of Hollins magazine, visit hollins.edu/magazine or scan the QR code.

Photo by Boyd Pearman Photography

At the May 2023 board meeting, the Hollins Board of Trustees unanimously approved an updated mission statement for the university. The new mission states:

Hollins University is dedicated to academic excellence, creativity, belonging, and preparing students for lives of purpose. Hollins provides an outstanding and academically rigorous undergraduate liberal arts education for women and entrepreneurial and innovative graduate programs for all in a gender-inclusive environment. We lift our eyes, Levavi Oculos, to create a just future as we build on our past.

In the most important ways, our updated mission statement is merely a condensed version of our prior, much longer, mission statement. As we met with several hundred stakeholders over the course of just under a dozen mission feedback sessions held from 2021 to 2023, I heard clearly the charge to preserve the best of who we are, emphasize the power of Levavi Oculos, and, importantly, craft a mission statement that is concise enough that we can all carry it in our hearts and

2 Hollins

FROM THE President

minds. I am so grateful to have heard your hopes, aspirations, and concerns for our beloved Hollins.

The aim of this new mission is to spotlight and honor the essence of what Hollins as an institution has always valued and prioritized; to acknowledge the scope of what we currently represent; and to remind the world that we are always striving to look upward and forward with what we do in the world.

This summer, as we prepared for the roll-out of our new mission statement, I was repeatedly struck by how it, and Hollins overall, is more relevant and resonant than ever at this cultural moment.

For example, this summer, “Barbenheimer”—that mashup of the two summer blockbusters, Barbie and Oppenheimer quickly became a cultural touchstone that seemed to be exploring territory connected to Hollins’ own mission. Issues of gender roles, stereotypes, struggles for equality and self-acceptance, of men in positions of power, and scientific legend.

I am keenly aware that our mission has everything to do with so many of the topics and themes these two movies explore. The complex issues around gender in society. The role of science and technology in shaping our future. And the historic (and, arguably, continuing) paucity of opportunities for

women to engage in and influence those spaces. Community and our duty to one another and ourselves are central to our empowering liberal arts education.

As I watched these films, my hope was that Hollins will continue to build a world where women will play a more substantial, central, role in the plot. Not only as a doll who symbolizes what is possible (Barbie), but as an expert on the cutting edge of discovery and exploration who has lived out what is possible (Oppenheimer).

What you will read in this issue touches on all these themes. Our “Women in STEM” feature celebrates just a sampling of Hollins alumnae/i who have made a major impact in the world of science. Our features on the legacy of lacrosse at Hollins, on the memories of the Williamson Road apartments, and this summer’s Reunion Weekend remind us that the bonds formed here really do last a lifetime and are themselves part of the power a Hollins education provides. And we conclude the issue by celebrating a song inspired by our motto, Levavi Oculos, written by a 2023 graduate, the newest cohort entering the long green and gold line of alumnae/i. A song about looking up, looking forward, and believing in yourself.

May you all lead lives of purpose with your eyes lifted!

181st Commencement Exercises Celebrate the Class of 2023

Senior United States District Judge Callie Virginia “Ginny” Smith Granade ’72 wished the class of 2023 “a journey filled with endless possibilities and remarkable achievements” at Hollins University’s 181st Commencement Exercises, held May 21 on the school’s historic Front Quadrangle.

“My Hollins liberal arts education was bedrock,” she told the 179 undergraduate and graduate students who received degrees during the morning ceremony, “and because of your success and persistence at Hollins, you have that firm foundation to support whatever you choose to do in the future.”

Fall Term 2022 Senior Class President Chamolis Mout and Morgan DeWitt, senior class president for Spring Term 2023, also addressed their fellow graduates. Mout thanked her parents for allowing her “to experience the joy of growing up and cherishing their love while going through all the obstacles life threw my way. They taught me how to be hopeful and work toward my dreams. I still am a dreamer and a doer.”

DeWitt praised her classmates for persevering through the COVID-19 pandemic and expressed her confidence that “the class of 2023 is prepared for anything. There truly is nothing we can’t overcome. I am grateful to have gotten this opportunity to experience this university, and all it has to offer, throughout the past four years.”

See pp. 10-11 for additional photos from Commencement.

Chemistry Majors Showcase Their Research at ACS Spring 2023

Five Hollins students presented posters at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), held in March in Indianapolis.

Megan Brown, Nupur Sehgal, Cristina Pokhrel, and Uyen Nguyen, all members of the class of 2023, and Tram Nguyen ’24 highlighted the results from three different research projects during the ACS Technical Program.

“Attending the ACS national meeting was a great opportunity for my students and me to showcase our work at Hollins, learn more about research at other universities, and expand our connections with chemists in the fields of carbohydrate chemistry, biological chemistry, and

analytical chemistry,” said Assistant Professor of Chemistry Son Nguyen. “Most importantly, we gained information about opportunities for Ph.D. programs or chemistry-related job opportunities with a bachelor’s degree, and opportunities to access research equipment at the Fralin Life Sciences Institute at Virginia Tech. Some of my students were able to meet faculty from the universities where they will pursue their Ph.D. studies.”

Nguyen added, “I am immensely proud of my students’ work, their presentations, their development, and their achievements, and the fact that some of them have been accepted into Ph.D. programs at esteemed graduate schools.”

4 Hollins

Hollins Professor Receives NEH Summer Stipend to Underwrite Book Project

Ruth Alden Doan Assistant Professor of History Christopher Florio has received a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Stipend award of $6,000 to support his project, “The Problem of Poverty in the AngloAmerican Age of Slave Emancipation, 1780-1865.”

Florio, a member of the Hollins faculty since 2019, is writing a book on responses to poverty across the AngloAmerican world in the wake of slave emancipation. The book traces the historical relationship between slavery’s abolition and the emergent forms of racialized and global inequality that began to coalesce in slavery’s wake.

Summer Stipends support continuous full-time work on a humanities project for a period of two consecutive

months. NEH funds may support recipients’ compensation, travel, and other costs related to the proposed scholarly research.

Overall, the NEH announced more than $35 million in grants this spring for humanities projects throughout the country. “These 258 newly funded projects demonstrate the vitality of the humanities across our nation,” said NEH Chair Shelly C. Lowe (Navajo). “NEH is proud to support exemplary education, preservation, media, research, and infrastructure projects that expand resources for Americans, support humanities programs and opportunities for underserved students and communities, and deepen our understanding of our history, culture, and society.”

Author of The Tower of Life Wins 2023 Margaret Wise Brown Prize

Chana Stiefel, an award-winning author of more than 30 books for children, has been honored with the eighth annual Margaret Wise Brown Prize in Children’s Literature.

Stiefel received an engraved medal and a $1,000 cash prize for her nonfiction picture book

The Tower of Life: How Yaffa Eliach

Rebuilt Her Town in Stories and Photographs. Illustrated by Susan Gal and published by Scholastic Press, The Tower of Life is the true story behind the Tower of Life exhibit at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

“This book will leave a powerful impression on every reader,” stated the judges for this year’s prize.

“The Tower of Life reminds us to

Library Recognizes Undergraduate Research Award Winners

and Finalists

The annual Wyndham Robertson Library Undergraduate Research Awards spotlight exemplary student research projects completed in Hollins courses. The research projects showcase extensive and creative usage of the library’s resources; the ability to synthesize those resources in completing the project; and growth in the student’s research skills. The awards feature a cash prize of $300 for winners and $100 for finalists.

The 2023 winners are:

• Hailee Brandt ’25 in the First-Year/Sophomore category for The Forced Effeminization of Male Chinese Immigrants and the Consequences of This Process, recommended by Ruth Alden Doan Assistant Professor of History Christopher Florio;

• Elizabeth Klein ’23 in the Junior/Senior category for Jewish Pioneers in the Service of Christian Whiteness in the 19th-Century American West, also recommended by Florio.

This year’s finalists include:

• Ari Cogswell ’26, Sylvia Guillet ’26, and Alyssa Lawhorn ’26 in the First-Year/ Sophomore category;

always seek the light, and to always share the light.”

Hollins established the Margaret Wise Brown Prize in Children’s Literature as a way to pay tribute to one of its best-known alumnae and one of America’s most beloved children’s authors. The cash prizes are made possible by an endowed fund created by James Rockefeller, Brown’s fiancé at the time of her death.

Each year, Hollins invites nominations for the prize from children’s book publishers located across the country and around the world. A three-judge panel, consisting of established picture book authors, reviews the nominations and chooses a winner.

• Mars McLeod ’23, Paramita Vadhahong Painter ’23, and Caylin Wigger ’23 in the Junior/Senior category.

The Undergraduate Research Awards are cosponsored by the library and the Office of Academic Affairs. This year’s judges were Assistant Professor of Psychology Seung-Hee Han; Assistant Professor of Film Nathan Lee; Professor of Art Emerita Kathleen Nolan; Library Student Assistant Milo Ramirez Pacheco ’25; Director of the Writing Center Brent Stevens; and University Librarian Luke Vilelle.

Florio

Third Annual Leading EDJ Conference Furthers Building a More Inclusive, Equitable Hollins

Hollins Students Earn Phi Beta Kappa Honors

The Iota of Virginia Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Hollins University welcomed 18 new student members at an initiation ceremony in May.

Inducted were seniors Yareli Sosa Antunez, Zoe Brooks, Anh Hunynh Doan, Marissa Gannon, Amanda Grover, Elizabeth Klein, Van Hai Le, Sneha Malakar, Jaiya McMillan, Linh Pham, Naomi Rajoo, Katherine Sanders, Cierra Scott, Adriana Wells, Caylin Wigger, and Kaley Wood. Kayla Richardson and Ellie Song were also initiated as junior class members.

Since 1776, Phi Beta Kappa has championed education in the arts and sciences, fostered freedom of thought, and recognized academic excellence. As America’s most prestigious academic honor society, Phi Beta Kappa

honors the best and brightest liberal arts and sciences undergraduates from 293 top schools across the nation through a highly selective, merit-based invitation process.

Ten percent of U.S. colleges and universities have Phi Beta Kappa chapters. These chapters select only about 10 percent of their arts and sciences graduates to join.

Phi Beta Kappa members include 17 U.S. presidents, 42 Supreme Court justices, and more than 150 Nobel laureates.

Represented by a signature gold key and three Greek letters, Phi Beta Kappa offers a credential that has national recognition. Membership affirms the society’s motto, “Love of learning is the guide of life.”

President Hinton urged students, faculty, staff, and alumnae/i to “choose to see the bared humanity of one another and choose not to look away from the discomfort, but rather to lean into it” during the third annual Leading Equity, Diversity, and Justice (Leading EDJ) Conference, held in February.

This year’s conference welcomed over 370 participants for roughly 30 sessions united around the theme of Barriers and Bridges to Access. “The theme reflects the holistic need to evaluate our policies, practices, programs, and this place,” Hinton explained. “We’re asking ourselves: How do we experience Hollins? How do we limit one another’s experience in this place? And most importantly, how can we turn barriers into bridges?”

Lauren Ridloff, who portrayed the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first deaf superhero in the 2021 film Eternals, delivered the event’s keynote address. A former Miss Deaf America, Ridloff was the lead in the Broadway revival of Children of a Lesser God and appeared in the AMC series The Walking Dead. She is now starring in and executive producing a new series on Starz.

“I finally have a seat at that table in Hollywood where the important decisions are being made,’ she said. “I am so happy to open more doors for deaf talent.”

Hollins

President Hinton Joins New Council Dedicated to Securing the United States’ Global Competitive Position

President Hinton is part of a coalition of national leaders hailing from higher education, government, business, the nonprofit sector, and the military announcing the formation of the Council on Higher Education as a Strategic Asset (HESA).

Over the next year, HESA will develop recommendations for ensuring that higher education institutions can deliver the workforce and educated citizenry necessary to address the United States’ most critical national priorities. They will propose new models for higher education policy, funding, and collaboration.

Hinton is among the organization’s Council Commissioners, national thought leaders who share an interest in advancing the mission of the Council and who can amplify and expand the reach of its work.

“Technology and global interconnectivity are fundamentally uprooting workforce priorities,” said Michael Crow, president of Arizona State University and a cochair of HESA.

“The United States is falling behind its vision for higher education, which is already endangering our security and competitiveness. We must act swiftly to reimagine collaborative approaches for higher education policy and funding that reflect changing economic realities.”

HESA plans to deliver its recommendations to the president of the United States and targeted members of the administration, select members of the U.S. Congress, state governors and legislators, and higher education governing boards and chief executive officers by June 2024.

6

REUNION

All color photos on pages 7-9 by Boyd Pearman Photography.

A 70th Reunion in Words: Memories from the Class of 1953

Margaret “Peggy” Wood Doss and her fellow members of the class of 1953 were unfortunately unable to gather at Hollins this summer to celebrate their 70th reunion. So Doss and a classmate came up with the creative idea to have, as she puts it, “a 70th reunion in words,” and share “snapshot scenes and some important events that took place during our four years, 1949 to 1953.”

Doss and the class of ’53 entered Hollins under the presidency of Bessie Carter Randolph, a Hollins alumna (class of 1912) who had guided the institution since 1933. But, with Randolph’s retirement in 1950, Doss and her classmates began their sophomore year under a new leader: John Rutherford Everett, who was just 31 years old when he took office.

“Eastnor was then the president’s home, and Everett lived there with his wife, Betty, and three-year-old daughter, Peggy,” Doss recalls. “The family became a part of our college experience.”

In addition to his administrative duties, Everett was also a member of the Hollins faculty. “He taught a course in economics — a welcome addition,” Doss says.

Doss majored in art history at Hollins, and she notes that “the class of 1953 had about 12 majors in both ‘history of art’ and ‘art.’ Our classes were held in the Art Annex behind the Little Theatre. Upstairs was a huge room that was home to those who were painters. It was dotted with easels and full of good light from both tall windows and skylights. Professors John Ballator and Lewis Thompson were both much-loved teachers.”

Downstairs “in more modest space” in the Art Annex “was the realm for art history students,” Doss says. “Our professor was Frances Niederer, a talented young woman who founded and shaped this major. Professor Niederer taught a variety of courses, from Egyptian, Greek, and Roman arts to architecture and medieval and modern art.” Niederer instructed her classes “in a room with high desks where slides were projected on a screen wall. In the darkened room we took notes by a light on each desk.”

During those years, Keller Hall, located downstairs in Main Building, served as the college’s student center. Doss remembers four art majors taking the initiative to decorate it. “They composed two fresco murals depicting Hollins people, spaces, and ceremonies for future students to enjoy.”

Doss is also proud of how the art majors from the class of ’53 established another enduring legacy. “They came together to donate funds for the Art History Viewing Room, a place where both art history and art majors could study together.”

Paula Pimlott Brownlee served as president of then Hollins College from 1981 until 1990. During Reunion Weekend, at a special ceremony held in the duPont Chapel, Brownlee was honored as president emerita, by special resolution of the Hollins Board of Trustees. Their resolution concludes, “Resolved, that Hollins has benefited from your bold, progressive, collaborative, and innovative leadership. As our seventh president, you brought preeminence to Hollins. You reflect the epitome of Hollins women everywhere. Indeed, we are beyond lucky and exceptionally proud. Named president emerita, the Board of Trustees expresses its deepest gratitude for your stellar leadership and commitment to Hollins throughout your presidency and beyond.”

Paula Brownlee named President Emerita

Scan the QR code to view more from Reunion 2023.

QR code.

President Hinton presents the Resolution to President Emerita Brownlee.

Commencement ’23

Photos by Sharon Meador

Remembering Richard Dillard

Richard Dillard’s incredible 59-year tenure at Hollins saw the coming and going of 11 presidents of the United States and nine presidents of Hollins. He began his time under Tinker Mountain barely a year after the death of Robert Frost, the year the Warren Report determined Oswald acted alone in the assassination of JFK, the year the Civil Rights Act was signed into law, and Martin Luther King Jr., received the Nobel Peace Prize.

His impact on generations of students and writers was noted time and again at the memorial service held for him at Hollins last May. Perhaps The Hollins Critic is as powerful and tactile a symbol of Dillard’s literary influence and presence as any. Begun in his first year at Hollins, it has been published in print five times a year since. A special section in the June 2023 edition of the Critic was dedicated to Dillard, and we are including much of what was in that issue here, with permission from Managing Editor Amanda Cockrell ’69, M.A. ’88, and with our gratitude.

In Memoriam: Richard Dillard

R. H. W. Dillard, longtime editor of The Hollins Critic, died April 4, 2023, in Roanoke, Virginia.

A short, declarative sentence that those of us who worked with him, and were taught and mentored by him, find it hard to believe still.

I first met him as a freshman creative writing student in his first years at Hollins. Richard made us all feel as if we were individually special to him, and I do believe we were. He gave each of his students our own voice and taught us how to shape it, teaching us to write like ourselves and not like anyone else.

Later he hired me to run the Hollins children’s literature program and as managing editor of The Hollins Critic. He was endlessly kind, endlessly encouraging, funny as hell, and I was never afraid to ask him anything or to confess when I screwed up. I still keep thinking, “I need to ask Richard about that.”

He used to talk about one’s encyclopedia, the personal reference library in our head that we draw from for recognition when we read. His office always seemed to me like that idea made solid—only apparently in disarray but always searchable by its owner. Whatever peculiar and esoteric bit of knowledge you had just discovered, or were looking for, Richard generally had it.

He began his teaching career at Hollins in 1964, the year the Critic was founded. He stayed for 59 years, sending generations of writers and teachers out into the literary world. For 33 years he was chair of the department of English and creative writing and became the senior editor of the Critic in 1996. He taught creative writing, British and American literature, and film, and founded Hollins’ graduate program in children’s literature in 1992.

In 1987 he was named Virginia’s Professor of the Year and in 2007 he was given the George Garrett Award of the Association of Writing Programs for his contribution to other writers. He received both the O.B. Hardison and Hanes poetry prizes and was inducted into the Fellowship of Southern Writers in 2011. The Virginia Writers Club honored him with its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.

He was a prolific writer and scholar. His works include volumes of poetry, fiction, and criticism.

In 2016 he founded Groundhog Poetry Press, named for the creatures who populated his backyard and seemed to him among the most lovable of the animal kingdom.

We don’t know where the Critic will go without him. His imprint was indelible.

— Amanda Cockrell, managing editor

In Memory of Richard Dillard From contributors to the Critic

Is there deeply zany seriousness? Or deeply serious zaniness? Are they the same or different? They are different, and both express and confer the kinds of wisdom that Richard Dillard made available with seeming effortlessness. We met when I was an undergraduate at the University of Virginia, and he was finishing his Ph.D. there. Because he joined the Hollins faculty in 1964, I came there for my M.A. in 1965. For the rest of his life we shared advice, stories, poems, essays, and adventures. I never knew his equal in imagination and what to do with it. He helped me become a grownup, and helped me remain one. Years ago I began to reread his wonderful books with loving attention, and I’ll be at it as long as I can read.

— Henry Taylor M.A. ’66

Though it was 43 years ago(!), I clearly remember Richard warmly welcoming [my] incoming class of M.A. students. He told us that by the end of the year we would all wish the program were longer, and though I doubted it at the time, he was right. He made me, and everyone, feel as if we were already successful writers, despite our all being in our early 20s. And that, as Frost wrote, has made all the difference.

— Wyn Cooper M.A. ’81

Iwas introduced to Richard Dillard in 2001 by George Garrett and Irving Malin with a thought that I might contribute to The Hollins Critic. At that time, he did not know me at all and, aside from a few academic articles, I had not published very much. Moreover, I was proposing to write about Octavia Butler, a writer at that point mainly known within the science fiction world and nowhere near her wide popularity today. Richard, to my great surprise, was warmly receptive to my idea, and published not just this article but several more I wrote over the years. Given his wide range of sympathy, I knew he would be enthusiastic about most writers under the sun, especially if they were quirky, undervalued, or explored from a different angle than the critical norm. Writing for Richard, you felt he had the quiet confidence in you to let you do your own thing as a writer, and that kind of tacit editing is perhaps the most empowering of all, especially when you knew Richard was so widely read and had such a fine-grained sense of critical discernment.

Richard had a taste in fiction that was very transgressively “experimental.” His interests crossed genres, from horror to the Gothic to science fiction, which was very rare in Richard’s own cohort. He was always on the cutting edge in terms of new ways to write and to think about writing, and indeed he could be said to have made the cutting edge his own.

Himself a writer of great originality and achievement, he was endlessly generous in appreciating the work of other writers, creative or critical, no matter what was the writer’s identity and background, and no matter how the literary world tried to classify the writer’s work.

As with Malin and Garrett, Richard’s posture towards a literary world often intensely guarded and competitive was one of enthusiasm and gratitude. Richard Dillard made the literary world better not by fitting into a prefabricated mold but by being exuberantly and outstandingly himself, and, even though we will always feel his loss, he has shown us a way to read, write, teach, and think that will continue to inspire.

— Nicholas Bims

After Dillard

The poet [he loved this] is the enemy within the gates; the poem, a prayer or manifest. Richard loved the monster: lurching, stitched, combinatory. Its face of death. Loved baseball, crosswords. The spinning stars, Albania, Zembla, the Magic City. Sad clattering Tristram, gentleman. Hermes Thrice-Greatest. Labyrinthine groundhog burrows, gorilla language, semaphores, Poe’s cryptogram. Genius babies, beanstalks, tough guy noir. Slant truth / slant rhyme. Links, bobolinks, the Library of Borges. Synchronicity. The crazy All those directors. All those films. Dana Scully. Comic books, & strips. Loved twins. Loved Monk, Ornette, Dawn Upshaw, Sheryl Crow. Fireworks. The Great War, the Green Drawing Room mirrors, black holes, Ovid in exile, fook the begroodgers, Augusto capering while the White Clown frowns. Lit Fest. John / Paul / George / Ringo / Iggy Pop. Eclipses. Plumbing. Whim. The poetical works of Sean Siobhan. An equinoctial egg. Migraine auras, solar wind. Treasure Island’s map. Holmes. Eyes that do see. Norse longships that bore burning the body forth in honour… Each delighted him. Each is a sign for the gifts & grace of art, the artist’s turns & twists.

— Jeanne Larsen M.A. ’72

Idon’t know what I did to deserve a 50-year friendship with Richard Dillard. After I left Hollins, with an M.A. in hand, hoping it would get me a teaching job, which it did, I saw Richard in person only a couple of times. But we kept in touch, and his support for my writing was generous, to say the least.

One thing that our friendship was based on was our shared eccentric passion/ admiration/affection for the old horror movies. My application to Hollins contained, in the samples of my work, a poem called “In Memory of King Kong.” Looking back, I’ve wondered whether it might have been that poem that got me accepted.

Many years later I sent him a poem called “Frankenstein,” which dealt with both the 1931 original and the 1935 sequel The Bride of Frankenstein, which some people think belongs on an all-time top 10 list along with Citizen Kane and The Godfather. Richard’s response was

succinct, as his critical comments usually were. He said that I had “nailed it.” That was a great moment for me. I don’t mean to compare myself to Eudora Welty, but just to say, I think what I felt having Richard say that about my Frankenstein poem must have been similar to what she felt when William Faulkner wrote to her, “You’re doing all right.”

There’s a memorable scene in The Bride where the monster (as we call him) has found refuge with a blind hermit in the forest, and as they share bread, wine, and cigars together, Boris Karloff gets just the right intonation when he says, “Friend, good.” My long-time, massively intelligent, funny, generous friend has passed. I am more grateful to him than I can easily express, so—“Friend, good.”

— Howard Nelson M.A. ’70

BY BILLY FAIRES

In the early afternoon hours of Sunday, May 14, 1979, the weather was close to perfect. Perhaps a bit on the warm side.

Hollins—the home team, the host team, welcoming schools from across the country for the Division II Lacrosse National Championships—entered halftime of the finals with a 3-1 lead over second-seeded Lock Haven State.

Hollins rolled into the finals on “College Field 1,” which would later be named for beloved longtime coach Marjorie Berkeley, having walloped their first two opponents. They first plastered the University of Richmond 16-3 in the quarters, and then Cortland (now SUNY Cortland) 9-2 in the semifinals.

Everything seemed to favor the Green and Gold. Head Coach Lanetta Ware, who today is professor of physical education emeritus, was in her 16th season at Hollins, a tenure marked by numerous undefeated seasons and regularly competing with, often besting, better-knowns like Dartmouth, the University of North Carolina, and even home-state rival University of Virginia.

Her team included a handful of firstand second-team All Virginia talent, led by All-American Leslie Blankin Lane ’79, a four-sport super-athlete who would go on to play on the United States’ first-ever Women’s National Team for lacrosse in 1982, where she would earn All-World honors as a midfielder on that gold medal team.

Ware’s team emerged from halftime and quickly built on their momentum, scoring a fourth goal barely a minute into the second half. They wouldn’t score again for the remainder of the game.

A high-speed, no-holds-barred barrage by Lock Haven commenced, and despite 19 saves by first-year student and goalie Lee Canby ’82, the game was tied with just under 15 minutes remaining. Lock Haven’s winning goal came just two minutes later, and the 5-4 score would hold the remainder of the time.

“When you play a top-level opponent, you have to be at top speed all the time, particularly when you have the ball,” Ware told the Roanoke Times & World

THE LEGACY OF LACROSSE AT HOLLINS

“Things Flowed So Much Easier”

1979 photo

News, and the opposing coach noted that they picked up the key loose balls in the midfield in the second half. “And a lot of times, that’s where a game is won.”

No one on that field, or in the audience crowded around it, or living in the dorms or on Faculty Row, could have known that May 14, 1979, would be the pinnacle of Hollins lacrosse.

Ware’s early ’80s teams remained intensely competitive, although they never returned to the nationals. The coach, who led the team to two Virginia state championships in addition to coming up a goal shy of a national title, would leave Hollins in 1984 to become an internationally rated and revered lacrosse umpire. Her 28-year officiating career would find her serving as head technical delegate for the 1986 and 1989 World Cups, among other career highlights. Ware’s leadership in the women’s lacrosse world would only grow, and she eventually served eight years as the president of the International Federation of Women’s Lacrosse Associations (IFWLA) from 1993 to 2001.

Forty-four years after that loss in the national finals, in February 2023, Hollins announced its decision to discontinue the program. Lacrosse at Hollins had begun facing roster challenges and coaching consistency in the late 1980s, and by the late 2000s it was fighting to survive. Hollins struggled to find a coach who could right the ship with recruiting and victories. By 2016, the once proud and successful program had requested a temporary reprieve from the Old Dominion Athletic Conference to step away from conference competition due to the inability to field a full and competitive roster.

After an extension of that waiver in 2018, and another to 2022, it was clear the team could not “reach a roster size that would allow us to sufficiently compete and to ensure the health and safety of our student-athletes,” as Athletic Director Chris Kilcoyne noted in the announcement.

Lacrosse at Hollins spanned over 70 years, beginning in 1952, and left its imprint on the lives of hundreds of Hollins alumnae and their families.

Nancy Dick ’62 picked up her first lacrosse stick in 1947 when she was just seven years old. Her home at Washington College in Maryland was “mere steps away” from where the men’s lacrosse team practiced and played. “I became the team’s informal mascot,” she said.

Dick entered Hollins as a legacy, following her mother Dorothy Quarles Dick ’30, and was a four-sport athlete as a student.

“The athletics were great at Hollins, and I loved being able to do all those things all year ‘round,” Dick said. “For one thing, I had a lot of energy, and I needed to get it out! I loved the camaraderie of being on a team, and it was very different from being in a classroom. I was a fine student, but not Phi Beta Kappa or anything. But every afternoon I was out there somewhere on a field or a court, practicing. I was so very team-sport oriented.”

Ware began her Hollins coaching career the year after Dick graduated, in 1963.

Coach Ware’s teams lost only one game during her first four seasons at Hollins, going undefeated in 1963, 1965, and 1966.

“They were what I called a pushbutton team,” Ware recalled. “All I had to do was get them in good shape and

get them to cooperate with each other and place them on the field properly for their talents. They did the rest.”

Ware noted Deborah Snyder “Snickie” Bussart ’65 as “one of the first really great players I ever had. She and Ann Howson Dixon ’65 had played together in high school, and they could hit one another on the run going down the field and never miss a stride and go to goal no problem.”

In 1967, women’s lacrosse had begun to expand to other schools in Virginia and beyond, and the competition for players increased. Going undefeated became an increasingly difficult bar to reach. “As the years went on,” Ware said, “I knew we’d have to start using fillers who hadn’t come to Hollins playing lacrosse, so I had to find athletes and work with them to fill in those spots to make a competitive team.”

Mary Elise Pinder Schill ’73 was just such an example. She had never played team lacrosse before coming to Hollins, but Ware noted her athleticism and recruited her. Lacrosse quickly became Schill’s “favorite sport of all time.”

“Back then, there were so few rules (to women’s lacrosse), and you played with natural boundaries. You could just go anywhere, and the ball would just soar,” she said. “I was an attack wing, so my job was to get the defense to the offense, and my job was to pass to Anne Grauer ’71, because she could score from anywhere.”

Christi Hays ’74, just a year behind Schill, was crushed when Denison turned her down, a rejection which led to her attending Hollins. She thought, as teenagers with dreams so often do, that her life was over at that point.

“What I didn’t know was that my life as I know it still today was just beginning. Going to Hollins turned out to be the

LEFT: “The Rock” Christi Hays ’74 in goal

MIDDLE: 1964 game photo

RIGHT: 1954 team photo

LEFT: 1975 game photo

RIGHT: Nancy Dick ’62 takes her

best thing that ever happened to me,” Hays said.

Hays’ cousin is Carol Semple Thompson ’70, who was known affectionately and respectfully as “The Hulk,” and who went on to become one of the greatest amateur golfers of all time. Following in Thompson’s footsteps was a little frightening for Hays, even though the latter was a five-sport athlete in high school. But it didn’t take her long to leave an impression on her classmates, quickly earning the nickname “Hulk Jr.” before earning one that stuck for life: “Rock.”

“I know it was because of the way I was built,” Hays said, “but I like to think it was because I was steady and reliable in the goal! Admittedly you have to be a little ‘off’ to be a goalie and put yourself in front of a lacrosse ball. But I thrived on it.”

She shared an “urban legend that Lanetta likes to tell” about an away game road trip where the team’s car got a flat tire. “In the process of changing the tire, the jack started to shift, and Lanetta yelled for me to grab the car. Apparently, I did, and my teammates yelled, ‘My god, she’s a rock!’”

Hays, like so many players from years past, remembers and cherishes so many memories. From the unforgettable buffet available for their away game at The Homestead to watching the “G Bits” (the Great Britain and Ireland national lacrosse team, which stayed and practiced at Hollins during a state-side tour in the early ’70s). “It was awe inspiring. It was so fast. Basically, three passes, shoot, and score!”

The number of lacrosse alumnae who went into illustrious coaching or officiating careers is well beyond a mere handful, and several interviewed referenced their Hollins coaches as

vital to their paths. Hays, after briefly flirting with social work and nursing as professions following graduation, found her way into a thriving 45-year career as a teaching tennis pro (as well as platform tennis and pickleball).

“If I am a good teacher and coach, it is because I was given the ‘blueprint’ for the rest of my life at Hollins,” she noted. “My time on all the teams at Hollins taught me how to be a contributing and supportive teammate. Having phenomenal coaches like Lanetta Ware and Marjorie Berkeley gave me the model that I have drawn from all these years in my own coaching.”

Mary Elise Yarnall ’80 was another alumna who found herself in the coaching/referee ranks, working in high schools as a lacrosse referee for the past 14 years, and in the college ranks for the last four.

“The game has become very rough,” she said. “It’s so much different from what we played. It’s not as fluid. It’s gotten much closer to the men’s game. We played with wood sticks and didn’t have out of bounds. We now have offsides and field restraints, and the game has turned into something more like basketball. Things flowed so much easier, and now things are a lot more physical.”

Yarnall cherished her time at Hollins and was hesitant to name any one player for fear of leaving out someone else on the team she adored.

“It was a whole team of people who were incredible,” she recalled. “We played as a team, and we did well. Everybody had their strong points and weak points, but combined together it really worked. Obviously you can’t go back, but it was a wonderful experience. The fact that we were able to compete with those bigger schools like UVA made us really

proud. It was a great experience. Obviously winning is nice and makes it an even better experience.”

By the late 1980s and early 1990s, Ware’s concerns that Hollins could not compete salary-wise for coaching talent in a sport growing and expanding to the country’s elite colleges and universities was playing out. Losing seasons began piling up, and Spinsters routinely— almost annually—begin using words like “rebuilding” and “struggled,” and finding reference to actual season records becomes harder to find.

The decision last February to discontinue the sport was made following years of discussion and attempts to address issues that, ultimately, could not be overcome.

“This is not a decision we made lightly or without significant consideration,” said Ashley Browning M.A.L.S. ’13, vice president for enrollment management at Hollins. “We are grateful for the many contributions the lacrosse program and its players have made to Hollins over the years and feel confident that reinvesting resources within the division will help strengthen our collegiate athletic program overall.”

While those interviewed for this piece were all disappointed by the news, few were surprised, and most ultimately supported Hollins’ decision.

“I was sad to see the sport be discontinued, but by the same token, you have to go with the times. You have to do what’s right and work with what’s working,” Dick said, reflecting a sentiment shared by several others.

Ware, whose steel-trap memories of her time at Hollins are as sturdy as ever even as four decades of life and time have passed, preferred to reflect on the gratitude she felt for the players and experiences.

“I was very privileged to teach so many people that wanted to learn. I had a fine time. “

Hays, apropos of a true Hollins alumna, referenced an Annie Dillard ’67, M.A. ’68 quote to conclude her reflections: “Dillard said (Hollins) is ‘a place where friendships thrive, minds catch fire, careers begin, and hearts open to a world of possibility.’ It certainly was all of those things to me.”

LEFT: Members of the 2014 team pose for a pro shot RIGHT: The 2019 team poses for a group shot on Senior Day

WOMEN in

BY SARAH ACHENBACH ’88

Data doesn’t lie. Women comprise a mere 28% of the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) workforce. In the lucrative and growing computer science/math and engineering fields, women make up only 25.2% and 16.5%, respectively. (Source, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2020.)

Hollins STEM students, faculty, and alumnae/i are making sure that the data is moving in the right direction. STEM majors are thriving at Hollins. For all majors for the academic year just finished, psychology and biology are the number one and two majors, respectively. Chemistry rounds out the top 10 at number nine, with environmental studies, mathematics, and public health tied for 12th.

When Scientific American conducted its own study of common traits among female STEM leaders in 2020, the qualities they found successful women in STEM share—confidence, ensuring their ideas are heard, authenticity—are just another day in Hollins’ Dana Science Building (or any other classroom on campus). The alumnae/i STEM leaders profiled here have taken their passion for STEM, nurtured at Hollins, to become pioneers in their fields.

Program Specialist, U.S. Department of Agriculture

B.S., biology and environmental science

M.S., entomology, Purdue University

Wildlife and Wildlands Science and Management, The School for Field Studies

Peace Corps, Zambia

I’ve always liked insects. I had no idea you could make a career out of bugs. For study abroad, I went to Tanzania, where there are a lot of crops. What affects crops? Insects. I wanted to do something to make an impact, so I decided to become a field agricultural entomologist and focus on global sustainable farming.

My goal from the start has been to decrease food insecurity in a sustainable way that bridges the gap between research and everyday life. I was in the Peace Corps in Zambia for two years, doing agriforestry and helping local communities become more self-sufficient and sustainable. We worked to make them more independent in ways that protected essential resources like tree planting versus deforestation.

I had an entomologist’s dream job. I was program director for the largest sterile insect release program in the world at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. I worked in Guatemala and Mexico on acceptable strategies that protected American agriculture. After

two years I returned to the States. The entomology field here is highly focused on pest management, typically sales and treatment. So I pivoted to a new career in food and nutrition service.

I love figuring out what tools and processes we need to solve the problem. I work in retailer compliance and examine retailer transaction data to determine whether they are violating regulations and committing fraud within the program.

Science is ever changing. You’re always questioning, coming up with new theories and how to test them, and looking at information and then adapting to that. [As a female scientist], I think there’s still the challenge that you’re not necessarily taken at face value. I’ve always had female colleagues, and we’ve supported each other with new ideas. Entomologists can be very independent, but building relationships is really going to help you advance your ideas.

Pest management is definitely going to be a big deal as climate change continues. Sterile insect techniques are starting to be applied to more scenarios. Medicine is using it to combat mosquitoes that spread disease. There is also insect farming for proteins to try to move away from traditional beef, for example. GPS technology is being used to track insect movement, so learning computer programming is really beneficial. It’s also transferable to other sciences.

Clinical Scientist, Parexel

B.S., biology

Ph.D., genetics, Case Western Reserve University

Certified Clinical Research Professional (CCRP) Hollins Alumnae Board, member since 2016; President, 2021 to 2023

I chose Hollins because I wanted a career in genetics research. I attended Hollinsummer (then “HollinScience”) before my junior year and loved everything about the STEM offerings. Between that, Hollins’ small class sizes, and attentive faculty, there was nowhere else I wanted to go. My first job out of college was helping to sequence the genome of a fungus that destroyed rice crops. My graduate

NICOLE PARKER ’09

ANTOINETTE HILLIAN ’00, Ph.D., CCRP

work was studying genetic mutations that affected the disease severity of cystic fibrosis. For my postdoctoral work, I studied the effect of a high-fat diet on insulin resistance and glucose levels in mice.

After 12 years of doing lab research, I had an epiphany that I didn’t actually like lab-based research, but everything else surrounding it. I switched over to clinical research operations. When I am examining data and sending emails to make sure the data is clean and sites are compliant with the protocol, our overall goal is to share good research: that what is ultimately sent to the FDA is safe, quality data.

I’m a clinical scientist for a large phase III kidney cancer study. I review patient data from around the world and ensure that research sites are compliant with the study protocol and that patients are safe. As a Black woman, part of a group who has been unfairly treated by medical research, I’m proud of the role I play in ensuring safe trials and ultimately safe medication.

I founded the STEMinist group to mentor students and new Hollins alumnae. The LinkedIn group connects them with older alumnae in STEM for networking advice. There’s so much you can do with a STEM background. I tell [students and young alumnae] to be open to new opportunities. I was very focused on becoming a Ph.D. doing lab science in genetics. Looking back now, it wasn’t a good fit for me. I need to be true to who I am. It’s okay not to have everything figured out. You will find your path.

Clinical trials can be the last chance for a lot of patients. CAR T-cell immunotherapy is a huge breakthrough for stem cell research. It’s proving to be very successful in subjects who have failed earlier conventional treatments. I’m proud that my hospital opened one of the first trials for lymphoma in the country.

Member and Attending Biostatistician, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

B.S., statistics

Ph.D., biostatistics, Johns Hopkins University

At the end of my sophomore year, I was a chemistry major. That summer, I was part of a research program at the University of Alabama Medical School doing lab work for pediatrics. I enjoyed designing the project more than being in the lab, so I changed my major to statistics. For most places, statistics was offered in graduate school, not undergraduate, so it was really a jewel for Hollins to have a statistics major.

I’ve been blessed with opportunities. [After graduating] I went directly into a Ph.D. program at Johns Hopkins University. Most of the people there already had one or two masters’ or had worked in Pharma. After my husband’s medical residency in New York in the early 1970s, I returned to Hopkins in an emerging field with a whole new kind of statistics: health services, which included screening programs like mammograms and vaccinations. I did a post-doc in epidemiology, working on breast cancer treatment with a randomized clinical trial in Pittsburgh during my husband’s fellowship. When we settled in New Jersey, people recommended that I contact the head epidemiologist at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, who was working in cancer epidemiology and cancer prevention and control. I’ve been working there for 43 years now.

Biostatistics uses data to direct hypothesis. You have a hypothesis that the element or drug will cure cancer or reduce mortality. Statistics are the data, but the science of statistics is the design of how you’re going to relate what you observe. One of our first projects was the National Polyp Study looking at people who had already had adenomas, a precursor lesion for colorectal cancer. There was a randomized trial to see how often they needed to be seen using colonoscopy. That’s how I started with colon cancer biostatistics. We use microsimulation modeling to assess the growth of adenomas and to predict the occurrence of colorectal cancer. Using these models, we can efficiently examine the most optimal screening and surveillance practices to reduce the burden of colorectal cancer.

You always need to have good data and good methodology. I’ve worked with the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, the American Cancer Society, and the Cystic Fibrosis Society on screening recommendations, such that screening tests are conducted in the most efficient time intervals. We’re working on the possibility of a blood test, rather than a fecal test, for colon cancer. The computing power we now have is spectacular and ever-growing. Our first randomized trial had 2,000 people. Now we have big data with 100,000 people. We’ve really changed the tune of screening for colon cancer, from small, randomized trials to the big data and different ways for people to get screened.

ANN GRAHAM ZAUBER ’69, Ph.D.

Technical Director, Global Health, CRDF Global

B.S., biology, B.A., English

Ph.D., microbiology and immunology, Vanderbilt University

Postdoctoral fellowship, University of Washington and the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute

Public health is a discipline that’s a century old, but I didn’t really think about it as being a career pathway in college. I began in the laboratory sciences with a very traditional research degree and postdoc before I got to public health. I’ve always been interested in how you use science to query how the universe works and how to apply it to make systems and interventions that make people safer and healthier and our planet more sustainable.

I thought I would be a veterinarian. My Short Term at a veterinary research institute at the University of Kentucky was transformational. I loved the research piece and diverted my interest to veterinary research. Then I started thinking that there were so many diseases and health conditions affecting people. I wanted to do research that had a chance of addressing HIV and AIDS. My early research was on better understanding how HIV causes disease progression. At Hollins, Professors Harriet Gray [biology] and Sandra Boatman [chemistry] made me more disciplined and encouraged me to think about what I wanted to do in research. My takeaway from my liberal arts education is that I can always learn new things. When you get to your goal, you don’t stop. You keep building on it. That’s a fantastic foundation for a career in global health, which is constantly evolving and changing.

My career in public health grew out of opportunities. I did a postdoc in viral pathogenesis, very research-focused, inquiry-driven work. I had an opportunity to work on viral diseases with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the U.S., and with the CDC in collaboration with the Thai Ministry of Public Health. I worked in laboratory capacity building to make

sure the labs in two Thai provinces had the equipment and materials they needed and that the [lab staff] had the needed training to detect and diagnose diseases that cause pneumonia. I’ve spent almost 20 years now working on variations of disease surveillance in public health with a focus on global health.

I came of age when HIV/AIDS was becoming a pandemic. The public health community predicted and warned about the idea that we were vulnerable to the spread of emerging infectious diseases. We don’t have to wait for the next event, outbreak, or emergency. For me, public health combines social justice with health and science.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, I was in academia. I investigated what it takes to build capacity to detect and respond rapidly to outbreaks. Now I’m the technical director of the CRDF Global portfolio CDC-funded projects, which means working with people in partner countries to help assess how to detect outbreaks quickly and respond effectively when they occur.

We cannot conduct disease surveillance one country at a time. We learned from the COVID-19 pandemic that we need to work together and share information to forecast more effectively. With technologies in place, we can diagnose epidemic-prone diseases and unknown and emerging diseases more rapidly. If we build on these platforms and build the trained workforce, then we are better prepared.

I’m encouraged by the growing call to decolonize global health. We are starting to think about what is most needed from the local perspective, not what the most resourced countries think is needed. When we start thinking more comprehensively and collaboratively, we move forward together.

Managing Partner, SV U.S. Operations

Entrepreneurial strategist for STEM start-ups

B.S., chemistry

Ph.D., biochemistry and molecular biology, Harvard University

Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellow, biochemistry, Stanford University

M.B.A., Harvard Business School

I fell in love with chemistry in 10th grade. When I applied to Hollins, the Dana Science Building was new. I took one look and knew it was for me. Professor Ralph Steinhardt was head of the chemistry department and he gave me free rein of the building, night or day. He said to follow my passion and that’s what I have done. I went straight to Harvard after Hollins.

The common denominator in all my professional undertakings is that they are all new initiatives. After my Ph.D. at Harvard and my postdoctoral work at Stanford, I returned to Harvard as an assistant professor at the medical school. I had received my first National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant only after generating data to convince the NIH that I could do what I was proposing. That process made me realize that the

JULIE FISCHER ’92, Ph.D.

DEBRA PEATTIE ’75, Ph.D., M.B.A.

government is not going to pay me to innovate. It’s going to pay me to do things that I know how to do. I decided that wasn’t going to work for me. The whole point of science is trying things, and sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t.

My first start-up with Vertex Pharmaceuticals worked. Today, they are light years away from what they were founded on, which was structural drug development based on small molecules. Now they’re into cell therapy and gene therapy and all kinds of fabulous things. One of the companies I founded that did not work out was one trying to develop a blood diagnostic for endometriosis. The science was there, but not the technology. I learned to move on from failure because something else will work.

I love the technology of science. With RNA therapeutics emerging, technology is offering tools to go forward that we didn’t have in the past. Of course it has raised ethical and cost concerns. The more advanced we get, the harder things often become to move forward in other ways.

SV Investments is trying to build cross-border opportunities. SV stands for Strategic Value. It’s a private equity and venture capital firm in South Korea with assets of $1.5 billion. SV has established a partnership with a Boston-based firm to expand on the U.S. footprint to offer Korean investors access to U.S.based investment opportunities in life sciences. One of the legacies of the COVID-19 pandemic is that now you can tap into expertise in a way that is efficient for everybody’s time. This fosters collaboration and creativity because you have access to people, their ideas, and information much more readily than when everything had to be done in person.

Manager, Global Makeup Product Development, The Estée Lauder Companies B.S., biology with a biochemistry concentration, dance minor Hollins Batten Leadership Program M.A., cosmetics and fragrance marketing and management, Fashion Institute of Technology

I was pre-med at Hollins. Spring of my senior year, I wasn’t ready to fully commit to medical school. I like to use both my right and left brain. I like to be analytical and creative. I felt that going to medical school would have taken that away from me, but I didn’t know how to shift or pivot earlier.

I never thought about beauty as a career path. At the Hollins Science Seminar, I presented my research on my own skincare product that inhibits the growth of acne. Alexandra Trower ’86 [Hollins Board member and, at the time, Estée Lauder’s Executive Vice President for Global Communications] was in the audience and asked if I had thought of doing something in beauty. Two months before graduation, I went to New York, met with her, and applied for a job as an associate scientist. I decided I would work in beauty for at least the first year and then see how I felt about going to medical school.

You don’t see STEM jobs in the beauty industry advertised that often. Before applying to Estée Lauder, while I was trying to figure

out if I should go to medical school, I was thinking about how to make a product. How do I work with different formulators to tackle the problem in a different way? I like having creative control. When I started, I worked in the clinical center testing the efficacy of products. I moved into formulation in the lab, then into product development and innovation. I communicated closely with my research and development lab and helped my team put together a test plan to bring new ideas to life. In my current role in branded product development, I lead all the face makeup product development for the Lauder brand. Even now that I am in marketing, I still use my STEM background. Everything that we do, I ask, what is the methodology? What’s gonna be our key insight? How are we going to use data to support our story?

Beauty is very personal for a lot of women. People might think, “Oh, it’s just lipstick,” but it gives women confidence. It’s not just outward. It’s inward, too. I take beauty development seriously because I know a lot of women take their beauty regimen seriously. And as a woman of color, I feel it’s my duty to ensure that everyone feels included. I look at shade lineups to ensure that everyone is captured when it comes to the shades that we develop.

Biotechnology is going to be used in the next couple of years, especially in beauty. Anyone can go to a store and buy a cream, but when you look at your body, we eat differently, we sleep differently, we manage stress differently. Women have hormones that are released differently. Right now in the market, we don’t look at that holistically. Using biotechnology or even artificial intelligence (AI) or hybrid intelligence, which is that mixture of AI and human intelligence, to pull data from a specific person, look at their entire genetic makeup, and then make something that’s super personalized just for that person— that would be a game changer for beauty. Each person’s skin microbiome is different. It’s not a one size fits all. How do you use technology to enhance and make personalized products for people?

ASHANI DAVIDSON ’17

Celebrating 65 Years of the Hollins Science Seminar

Student research is a hallmark of studying STEM at Hollins. Encouraged by professors and inspired by a robust curriculum and opportunities through January Term and more, Hollins science majors have conducted independent research projects throughout the university’s history.

In 1957, the Hollins science faculty created the annual Hollins Science Seminar for students to give oral presentations on their research to an audience of students, faculty, parents, and others.

“Faculty at Hollins recognized the value of offering research opportunities for undergraduates long before it became a buzzword for academic institutions,” says Renee D. Godard, professor of biology and environmental studies and chair, environmental studies.

In recent years, the Science Seminar format has migrated from all students doing oral presentations over two days to some students doing oral presentations and others presenting in a research poster symposium. “This format mirrors the major scientific research meetings,” Godard explains. Another recent innovation is the program’s partnership with the Wyndham Robertson Library to digitize the last three years of Science Seminars to enable students to cite their work in their resumes. Scan the QR code to see the 2022-23 proceedings.

Every seminar includes a STEM expert invited to present keynote remarks on a topic in their field. The 2023 keynote speaker, Michael Olson, Ph.D., social psychologist at the University of Tennessee, discussed “The Science Of Bias: Implicit Attitude Formation, Change, & Impact.”

April 5 & 14, 2023

The Science Seminar also hosts the induction ceremony for Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Honor Society founded nationally in 1886 to “honor excellence in scientific research and encourage a sense of companionship and cooperation among researchers in all fields of science and engineering.”

In 2023, Hollins’ Sigma Xi chapter inducted six students, who conducted an independent research project outside of a course-embedded experience and were nominated by a biology, chemistry, environmental science or studies, mathematics, physics, or psychology faculty member.

“The process of inquiry is vital to science, and engaging in research is very valuable to any student moving on from Hollins,” says Godard. “Students interested in graduate programs (MD, PhD, DVM, OT, PA) can distinguish themselves from the rest of the applicant pool by conducting research, and the critical thinking and analytical skills that are honed in the process benefit all students.”

44

The Data on the Hollins Science Seminar student presenters in 2022-23

total research projects in a poster format in 2022-23

31

2 days of presentations in 2022-23

1,500 since 1957 estimated student presenters

1,300 since 1957 estimated student research projects

Sarah Achenbach ’88 is a freelance writer who fondly remembers her only STEM class at Hollins before retreating to the humanities: computer programming with Professor of Mathematics Caren Diefenderfer, a national leader in quantitative reasoning who taught at Hollins for 40 years until her death in 2017 and a wonderful, patient human being.

Scan QR code for Digital Proceedings

Right Across the Street

Alumnae Share

Memories of the Williamson Road Apartments Era

BY SARAH ACHENBACH ’88

The road to Hollins looks a bit different now. When you drive down Williamson Road to the campus gates, a familiar landmark is gone. In early June, row by row, brick by tannish-yellow brick, the Hollins apartments were razed, marking an end of an era for college housing and generations of Hollins apartment dwellers.

From 1969 through the 1990s, the apartments were a coveted housing option. Seniors vied to live there. (Juniors, too, at the beginning and end of the apartments era.) Weeks leading up to the spring housing lottery, friends on Hollins Abroad made frantic overseas calls to gather roommate groups and give row preferences.

Living in the apartments is one of my favorite Hollins experiences (during the 1987-88 academic year I resided in Apartment 202). If the Facebook query I posted as research for this article asking for memories and stories about apartment living is any indication, I am not alone.

Before we stroll down memory lane (or rows, since we’re talking about the apartments), a little history is in order.

How It Started

When the apartments were constructed in 1967, they weren’t originally part of the Hollins campus. Roanoke developer Warren Wingfield built the 32-unit Hollins Village Apartments as rental properties next to the parcel of land Hollins owned along Williamson Road. A year later, under some financial duress, Wingfield approached President John A. Logan Jr., to see if Hollins had any interest in using the apartments for student housing.

At the February 1968 Board of Trustees meeting, Logan and the trustees discussed “…the possibility of having some 20 or 30 mature students live off campus in noncollege housing.” The prospect of nearly 120 more beds meant more students and increased revenue. It also meant happier upperclasswomen. First-year students lived in the new Tinker House, dedicated in April 1966, but upperclasswomen squeezed into other residence halls. A 1968 President’s Interim Report to the Board cites “overcrowding and submarginal housing of a sizeable number of students has produced problems of morale.”

Hollins

PHOTOS FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: 1976 photo of the apartments; Zibby Brady Andrews ’73; Class of 1975 regular party hosts Nancy Johnson Haring, Nancy Reighley Cavanaugh, Ross Barham Beale, Barbara Holz Manning, and Penny Beale Marshall; Sarah Achenbach ’88 and Elizabeth Hinds ’88 (left edge) at the Black and White Pool Party held just for apartment residents.

The Board decided against the leasing option, voting in October 1968 to purchase the Hollins Village Apartments for $575,000, complete with an outdoor pool, and the 500 feet of undeveloped property abutting Williamson Road. The apartments enabled Hollins to grow its enrollment steadily from 885 in 1968 to 1,000 in three years, a significant accomplishment given the declining college enrollment nationally at the time.

The apartments remained popular with seniors for years, but as the new century approached, the units began to show their age. Hollins filled in the pool in the mid-1990s due to liability reasons. Deferred maintenance issues totaled roughly $5 million, explains Kerry Johnson Edmonds ’88, executive vice president and chief operating officer (and one of the few first-year students to go to the fall 1984 opening Apartment Party at the invitation of her sister, Kelly Johnson Storck ’85.)

“After 2000, we saw a significant change,” she notes. “Students wanted to be back on campus.” Seniors now jockeyed to live in the renovated Hill Houses. Hollins began housing more

juniors and sophomores on campus, but new issues emerged: The stretch of Williamson Road in front of the apartments was now a busy four-lane thoroughfare, and student safety had become a major concern.

What had been modern housing in the 1970s and 1980s was now tired and cramped—and with the same This End Up furniture that had been there for 30 years. “We started talking about what to do with the apartments in 2011,” Edmonds says. The solution was constructing the new, spacious Student Apartment Village on campus on the original footprint of Faculty Avenue. The 10 homes in the Village, Phase I of which opened in 2019, cover the 92 beds from the apartments and bring the entire student body onto campus.

The apartments did have a late-act last gasp during the COVID-19 pandemic. In spring 2020, international students lived there. “We were able to cluster students there, each with their own room, and not have students scattered through campus, which we had closed,” Edmonds explains. The apartments served as isolation and quarantine housing through Spring Term 2022.

Not Quite Real Life but Real Close

“Definitely different, definitely grownup,” is how Elizabeth “Zibby” Brady Andrews ’73 recalls apartment life. She and two other juniors ended up rooming with senior Marcy Grill ’73, who had a good lottery number. “It was highly unusual for juniors to be there. Our other junior friends were quite jealous of the lack of supervision [in the apartments] and would stop by often.”

Sure, we were doing the same things across the road that we’d done in the dorms—playing Pictionary on the floor, typing papers on typewriters, putting off studying by smoking cigarettes and talking—but it felt like “we were out of school and in a city apartment,” Margaret “Meg” Joyner Robinson ’88 remembers.

Margaret “Marjie” Wasson ’95 lived in 303 as a junior and 204 as a senior. “The apartments were so much more than just a crazy start to the school year,” she says. “They provided the space to have get-togethers and parties plus more freedom and gave us a taste of post-college living.” Even parking in the rows between the apartments was adult-level, with a series of mini-hills that tested even the most advanced parallel parker.

It was a taste of real-life living without the bitter parts. No threat of starvation (we could still eat every meal in Moody Dining Hall if we chose). Couldn’t be evicted for not paying rent. If it got too loud, we could go to a friend’s apartment or head to the library or Botetourt to study.

Friends would come and go through the apartments to hang out, borrow clothes, or, because I was an R.A., borrow one of the communal vacuums. (Maybe there was one in each apartment. I don’t remember much about cleaning.) On Tuesday night at 10 p.m., we’d cram into our living room to watch thirtysomething on ABC. In the morning, we’d walk across the road for classes with whomever had the same class schedule, sometimes in our pajamas. Many nights at 1 a.m., I’d walk back alone from Botetourt, through the stillness of campus and the sounds of crickets near the creek.

A few might not have used the kitchen, save for the refrigerator

(“No Name, No Claim” was the rule for Tabs and beer in the fridge), but many did. Meg and her roomies ate late-night Texas cheese fries prepared by proud Texan Julie Boswell Holmquest ’88. Judy Morrill ’84 happily grilled on a hibachi on her apartment’s patio. And my roommate Kim Shaw ’88 prepared a full-course, from-scratch turkey dinner in our apartment kitchen for our parents on Parents Weekend.

Mary Kate Vick Fuller ’88 wrote of warming up a pizza with Kelly Neill Klein ’88—in the box, which caught fire. “How the hell didn’t we know better?” she asks. But that was part of the reallife learning about basic kitchen safety and some cross-cultural exploration. “Kelly taught me to make chicken-fried steak and called it a ‘Texas Thang!’” adds Fuller, who was elected president of the apartments. It came with a cool plaque on her door but few other duties, she recalls.

Sometimes real life got too close. Amanda L. Miller ’86 and Nicole Osborne Ash ’86 had a second-row, two-person unit directly across from the swimming pool. Their “water-adjacent” locale took on new meaning in November 1985 when Roanoke and Hollins flooded. “Normally, I walked to campus but had driven that morning,” Miller writes. “The rain was picking up considerably, and my clothes were very wet after my first class. I decided to head back to the apartment to change. In the short time between returning to the apartments and preparing to leave again, Route 11 became a river. I watched as classmates struggled to cross the rising water. It didn’t take long before we were completely cut off from the main campus. As the flood water approached, we headed up to apartments on higher ground.”

Designing Women

There were strict rules prohibiting painting the walls, but that didn’t stop people. Jennifer “Jenn” Sgro Orfield ’95 and her roommates painted their entire kitchen ADA purple. “I can only imagine how many layers of paint were needed to cover it up,” she says.

Apartment 203 adorned their kitchen with colorful handprints, recalls Ann Holden Harris ’84. They also recreated entire bedrooms in the rows as a prank. For those too nervous to paint the walls, the half-wall bookcase between the dining area and living area—“openconcept living” pre-HGTV—was fair game for paint, stencils, and other personalization.

A few people recovered the cushions of the iconic This End Up sofas and chairs found in each apartment. Rumor has it that the furniture was sold to Hollins at a deep discount, thanks to Caroline Showalter Hipple ’77, who was an executive with the company for 20 years. True? I couldn’t verify it. But what is irrefutable is the furniture’s loungeability, standability, danceability, and, in the case of my apartment, sleepability.

When I was at Hollins, there was a popular bumper sticker: “Preserve Wildlife: Date a Hollins Girl.” There was certainly wildlife at the apartments. Zibby Brady Andrews and her roommates had a large fish tank—approved by residential life—with one large fish. Named Paul after Andrews’ roommate’s ex-boyfriend, the fish tried to escape while Andrews was alone in the apartment. She eventually caught him in a strainer and dumped him back in the tank. It was not Paul’s first offense. He had eaten the other fish, named Mr. Cunningham after the Hollins English professor. Neither fish’s name was a term of endearment.

There were also a few unapproved furry residents. Mary McKibbon ’88 got her kitten Chester early in senior year. He got locked in the dishwasher and refrigerator and had his tail slammed in the door. With accidentprone apartment life eating into his nine lives, McKibbon took him home at Christmas.

Life of the Party

The parties, naturally, were legend, particularly the Apartment Party that kicked off the school year. Held a few days before classes started, it was a huge street party with big crowds between the rows. People roamed in and out of apartments and dingy stockade fences for the kegs on the patios. Music blared from various apartments. Boys from around Virginia and farther south traveled to Hollins for it.

Once, I was at a conference and making small talk with the panelist before a conference session. He was a University of Virginia graduate, and I mentioned that I had gone to school in Virginia at Hollins. “Great Apartment Parties,” was his reply.

Some apartments kept the party going. Nancy Crichlow ’82 had one job in spring 1981: secure Apartment 305. Her intended roommates—Laura Jackoway Ludvigsen ’82, Sally “Bumpy” Donnelly ’82, and Nancy Wright ’82— were abroad, and she was the only one who could snag “Studio 305,” so dubbed a few years earlier for its great parties.

“I’m convinced Housing Director Jo Ferguson took pity on me for having spent three years in Tinker and rigged the draw,” Crichlow says. “The telegram (!) sharing the good news with London read ‘Studio 305 wildness all (h)ours.’”

Kim Shaw ’88 in her Apt. 201 bedroom, which was also the living room. (Note sturdy This End Up furniture.)

Amanda Miller ‘86, standing outside her apartment following the flood of November 1985.

’80s apartment party in 305

Studio 305 parties featured a disco ball, nacho Doritos, peanut M&Ms, screwdrivers, and a living room dance floor crammed with students from all Hollins classes as well as faculty, staff, and the Roanoke community. Studio 305 had a DJ in the closet under the stairs, who played Michael Jackson, David Bowie, Grace Jones, the Fame soundtrack, and The Go-Go’s.

When the pool was a pool and not a grass plot (after the mid-1990s), it was the place to party or just hang out on a sunny day. The pool was also the scene of what may have been the only student protest at the apartments. And it was unrest over, fittingly, the right to party. Jamie Granger Collier ’87, apartments president, organized the protest after several apartments were denied party contracts following unruly parties in October 1986. The Hollins Columns reported that residents were cited for breaking noise ordinances, sitting on apartment roofs, failing to clean up, and having male guests who publicly urinated and caused property damage when a guest drove in circles on the adjacent Community School’s fields.

Sarah Dowling, the resident coordinator for Back Quad and the apartments, said in the complaint that the apartments in question violated the party rules and/or did not obtain the proper party contract prior to the parties. Any apartment wishing to host a party had to request a party contract approved by Dowling. Understandably, Hollins was concerned about student safety, liability, and adhering to Virginia’s new over-21 drinking age. Following the party weekend in question, five apartments received letters explaining that Dowling would not sign contracts for them for the remainder of the semester.

“That didn’t go over well and we held a ‘protest’ that security had to break up,” Collier recalls. The residents of five apartments stood in solidarity in front of the pool, their radios ready to blast the request they had called into a local radio station: Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”

After a packed community meeting about the issue, both sides reached a compromise. Girls still had fun but just with the correct paperwork.

ABOVE: Early Friday morning of Cotillion Weekend, spring 1986. “Lanz nightgowns and sweatshirts were very popular,” noted Amanda Miller ’86.

RIGHT: Black and White Pool Party 1988 (left to right) Alison Tainter Gilbert ’88, Kelly Neill Klein ’88, Pam Kauffman Adams ’88, and Barbara Peale ’88.

What’s Next?

Edmonds and Hollins have been working with Roanoke County and the landowner who owns a great deal of real estate leading up to campus on how the university can be the catalyst for development along the Williamson Road corridor.

“There hasn’t been any true development along this part of Williamson Road, yet this area has the largest concentration of employees in North Roanoke County,” she says. Razing the apartments gives Hollins seven acres of land to develop and, as Edmonds explains, “inspire others to better see what could be developed.” Hollins’ plan is to do a long-term land lease to maintain control over the site of the former apartments, which could feature housing and commercial opportunities that could serve Hollins and the region.

Indeed, the apartments have always been about potential. Crichlow sums up what every resident felt: “I remember the heady feeling of being young and hyper-alive, the world at our feet.” Living there, trying on adult life, was part of the education.

“The apartments were where this naive 19-year-old learned most of her close friends were gay when a dear friend’s birthday party turned into a coming-out party of sorts,” Candace Upson McLane ’89 shares. “That night set so much in motion, the Gay Straight Alliance among them, but more impor-

tantly, a life full of long-standing authentic sisterhood friendship. It has rippled into my children’s lives, where they have been blessed with so many aunties who care about them. The apartments were where we could share our truths.”

In the months leading up to graduation in 1988, Mary Kate Vick Fuller ’88 and seven friends decided to extend the apartments experience by moving together to a chosen city. They wrote the names of six cities—Atlanta, Dallas, Charlotte, New Orleans, New York City, and Washington, D.C.—on slips of paper and put them in a hat. “We drew one out, and it was D.C.,” she says. “We all got jobs and moved there at the end of the summer after graduating. There were 14 Hollins girls who lived on our street in Old Town Alexandria. Best decision ever that night in the apartments.”

Sarah Achenbach ’88 is a freelance writer in Baltimore, who wants to thank everyone who shared their memories of the apartments . A big thank-you to Isabel Folck, CA, Hollins University archivist and special collections librarian, and the Alumnae/i Office for their great research.

Scan the QR code to view more images alumnae/i shared from the Hollins apartments .

BY BILLY FAIRES

“To the Mountains” S

ome famous artists are inspired by muses, but Lillian Savage ’23 was inspired by ghosts.

In the fall of 2019, she was a brandnew first-year student on campus, intrigued by all the ghost stories getting referenced and whispered about in one or another gathering. She decided to look into it.

“I did some digging in the archives of the library and found several articles and firsthand accounts of ghostly happenings at Hollins,” Savage said. And then, as the winter of her first year turned to spring, COVID-19 shut down the campus and sent students home.

“The pandemic was a cabin-feverfilled time for everyone, and it gave me ample opportunity to let the stories percolate and form into a fictional narrative surrounding Hollins culture and three popular ghost stories: the Ghost of Presser Music Hall, the Ghost of

the Green Drawing Room, and the Theatre Ghost.”

Those stories became the inspiration for her senior theatre thesis, “To the Mountains.” The short musical contains seven songs, “six of which I wrote over the course of a year and a half during quarantine,” she said.

“The last song and titular track, ‘To the Mountains,’ was finished in April of 2022, and took on a life of its own, separate from the musical. It’s a song about perseverance through the metaphor of climbing a mountain, and if Hollins students know anything, it’s how to climb a mountain.”

Even if Savage wasn’t fully aware of it early on, as more Hollins ears heard the tune, there was a growing sense she had captured something even bigger. Perhaps—perhaps—not quite alma mater-level powerful, but something very close to it, a sense of timeless love

for a place and its purpose infused in words that never have to say, “We love you, Hollins, oh yes we do” and yet the feeling pours through with every note.

She found herself taking on the new challenge of writing a choral version last fall, an a cappella four-part SSAA (two sopranos, two altos) piece attempting to take “inspiration from the auditory experience of being on top of a mountain, as the parts echo and layer on top of each other as a form of mountainous mimicry,” she said.

The climb to the completion of this arrangement, she soon discovered, was even more challenging than the climb to the top of Tinker.

“Songwriting and music composition are different in many aspects. Some of my challenges were creating a more complex harmonic structure, while still retaining good voice leading, and filling every moment with some form of

musicality, as a cappella pieces fully rely on the voice to serve as the verbal instrumentation.”

The song became the school’s unofficial spring anthem, as it was first performed for her musical in April and then in choral performances at Honors Convocation, a recital, and then again at Commencement on Front Quad. Few expect that to be the last time the song is performed at a Hollins function, based on the feedback and the powerful emotional responses so many connected to the university have shared.

“The messaging of the song never changes no matter how it is sung,” Savage said.

(lyrics)

Lift your eyes there, to the mountains. We’ll be found there by and by. We can go there, to the mountains, where the tall peaks touch the sky. There’s a straight path to the mountains but it’s lined with brush and stone. Through the tall trees, up the valleys where the blue sky meets the green and gold. There’s a view there kin to heaven and every word the angels echo. Whatever god made the open seas and plains, clearly loved the mountains better. There’s only one way to the mountains it’s not easy but we try. Keep believing and maybe someday you can find your strength and learn to fly. Though there’s rivers, rocks and boulders, though there’s twists and turns along the way, when we get there we can turn and say that the climb’s best in sunny weather.

Lift your eyes there, to the mountains. We’ll be found there by and by. We can go there, to the mountains, where the tall peaks touch the sky.

Watch performances of “To the Mountains” by scanning the QR codes. THEATRICAL CHORAL

Receptions with President Mary Dana Hinton

Charleston, SC

Tuesday, September 12 5-6:30 p.m.

Hosted by Leslie Allgood Smith ’00 at the Country Club of Charleston

Louisville, KY

Thursday, September 21 6-7:30 p.m.

Hosted by Sandra Frazier ’94 (private home in Louisville, KY)

Roanoke, VA

Tuesday, September 26 5:30-7 p.m.

Hosted by President Mary Dana Hinton and the Tinker Mountain Chapter of the Hollins Alumnae/i Association at Lorimer House, Hollins University

Virtual Town Hall with President Mary Dana Hinton

Wednesday, October 25 7-8 p.m.

Be on the lookout for emails with additional information and links to register! Or you are always welcome to contact us at alumnae@hollins.edu.