Mount Holyoke fa l l 2018
Alumnae Quarterly
Leading into the future The inauguration of Mount Holyoke College’s 19th president, Sonya Stephens I N TH I S I SSU E NURSE AND PHYSICIAN NANCY M. HILL, CLASS OF 1859 INSIDE THE COMMUNITY CENTER “DIRTY DANCING” UNDER THE STARS
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F E AT U R E S
16 Inauguration of Sonya Stephens
In September the Mount Holyoke community gathered to celebrate the College’s 19th president
28 Nancy M. Hill, class of 1859
Working as a nurse during the Civil War was only the beginning of a lifelong career in medicine
D E PA R T M E N T S
2 LYONS SHARE
Welcoming Maria Mossaides ’73, facing death with dignity, alumnae in politics, inspiring essays
5 UNCOMMON GROUND
MHC in D.C., fellowship winner Michelle Taylor Watts ’94, Convocation 2018, five faculty receive grants, Makerspace update, Mountain Day, remembering two longtime staff members
10 Female Gaze Actor, dramaturge and director Tiffany Tang ’97; authors Joanna Cooke ’97, Alima Bucciantini ’04 and professor Eva Paus 12 Ten Minutes With Law school dean Markeisha Miner ’99 13 The Maven Emily Inglesi ’95 on getting more from your career 14 Insider’s View Community Center
34 MoHOME MEMORIES “ Dirty Dancing” under the stars; student ledger
36 On Display Mary Woolley’s medals 37 Then and Now First-year class profiles 38 A Place of Our Own The Orchards Golf Club
40 CLASS NOTES 80 MY VOICE
Emily Krakow ’20, “My Mount Holyoke Summer”
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Contents FA L L 2 018
VOLU M E 10 2
N U M BE R 4
Cover and table of contents: Joanna Chattman; back cover: Deirdre Haber Malfatto
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L ET T E R S
EM A IL
FAC E B O OK
TW ITTER
I NSTAGR A M
L I N K E DI N
Lyons Share
WELCOMING A NEW PRESIDENT Congratulations, Maria Mossaides ’73
ON FACING DEATH WITH DIGNITY My classmate and friend Mona Marich
(“Alumnae Association Welcomes New President,” summer 2018, p. 6). You dedicated countless hours over many, many years to Mount Holyoke. I can say with confidence you will do a wonderful job as president. —Diane Kadlec ’75 via Association website
Hanford ’64 (“Gifts of the Spirit,” summer 2018, p. 27) has offered a valuable gift to the 100 percent of us who will die and most likely will care for someone who is dying along the way. Hanford has reminded us that the ultimate comfort is in knowing that one is not alone when dying, and that God’s love will not only endure but will carry us as we make our grace-filled exit. —Reverend Susan Salot Gaumer ’64 via Association website
I had the pleasure of serving on the board of Cambridge Family and Children’s Services while Maria was executive director. She is the ultimate example of “if you want something done well, ask a busy person.” The Alumnae Association is very lucky to have her. —Ruth Rotundo Whitney ’66 via Association website Congratulations, Maria! I still think of the conversation I had with you and [your daughter] Sophia Apostala ’04 at an alumnae networking event in Boston in 2015 as I prepared to enter politics and public service. I am still grateful to this day for the insights you both provided! —Leila Quinn ’12 via Association website
Thank you, Mount Holyoke, for opening up the subject of death and spirituality! To address a patient’s beliefs and hopes without judgement opens the door to the possibility of finding their meaning and peace. Mona’s gift is the ability to be fearlessly present with people and their fears and hopes. —Lurline Purvis Aslanian ’64 via Association website I am encouraged to see MHC recognize such an important and distinguished graduate. Her book is an important read for us all. Many of her comments will stay with you forever. —Ellen MacKinnon Spencer ’60 via Association website
“
Mount Holyoke has
taught me how to be an advocate for change, not just when it benefits me, but for the greater good. –Brandy Williamson ’18 @A AM H C M O U NT H O LYO KE ALU M S
“
”
The summer rains
sure have made the #MountHolyoke campus beautifully green, just in time to welcome the #Classof2022! #MountHolyoke2022 @A AM H C M O U NT H O LYO KE ALU M S
”
Join the Conversation quarterly@mtholyoke.edu
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WE SHARE D
@mhcalums Did you catch this answer tonight on @jeopardy? None of the contestants did! #jeopardy #mountholyoke #sevensisters #1837 #marylyon
Mount Holyoke College has been named one of CNBC’s 20 best-value colleges for 2019, a list that includes Grinnell College, Vanderbilt University and Rice University. Singled out for its commitment to meeting 100 percent of students’ financial need, Mount Holyoke was noted as being “academically prestigious.” Not noted: Mount Holyoke was the only women’s institution to make the list.
ALUMNAE IN POLITICS I supported Emily Martz ’94 (“She’s Running,”
summer 2018, p. 16). If we were better organized there is so much more we could do to bring Mount Holyoke women with an amazing education and a strong sense of self to our state legislatures, city and town councils, and to Congress. Voices are needed at every level. —Alice Godfrey Andrus ’63 via Association website INSPIRING ESSAYS I really enjoyed the two essays in the last issue
(“Resilience Essay Contest,” summer 2018, p. 22). Jaime Jenett’s ’97 especially speaks to me given my own life path. It takes great courage to say “the rosy life I envisioned is just a different shade of red than I anticipated, and I embrace it.” —Betty Walter ’84 via email MORE FULBRIGHT NEWS, PLEASE I was delighted to note that seven Mount Holyoke
women have been named Fulbright winners this year. As the Fulbright advisor at a small, liberal-arts college in Oregon for many years, I know that it takes a village to support these talented students. I was disappointed when the Quarterly named only one of the Fulbright scholars. I’d love to have seen an article featuring all seven, giving them the credit they deserve and demonstrating to readers that Mount Holyoke students take very seriously the College’s commitment to global education. —Deborah Morgan Olsen ’65 via email
Many years ago I overheard a psychology professor trying to find a tech to fill the slot that I was leaving. He said, “Can’t you send me someone from Mount Holyoke? They know what they are doing.” I cherish that overheard comment still. (I’m 82 years old.) —Molly McKey Lofgren ’56 What an honor for the College, and so deserving. I am proud of my alma mater. —Deborah Nichols Tall ’78 MHC women: spread the word!!!! —Marcy Wilkov Waterman ’71 So many things to love about MHC! —Mia Petersen ’89
Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly
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M OUN T HO LYO K E ALUMNAE QUARTERLY Fall 2018 Volume 102 Number 4 EDITORIAL AND DESIGN TEAM
Jennifer Grow ’94 Editor and Interim Senior Director of Marketing & Communications Millie Rossman Creative Director Jess Ayer Class Notes Editor and Marketing & Communications Associate CO N T RIBUTORS
STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT AND CIRCULATION
This information published as required by USPS. Publication title: Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly; ISSN publication number 00272493; USPS 365-280; published quarterly; subscriptions are free. Office of Publication: Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College, 50 College St., South Hadley, MA 01075-1486.
Alicia Doyon Emily Krakow ’20 Sara Rottger ’19 Maryellen Ryan Elizabeth Solet
Contact person: Jennifer Grow,
QUARTERLY COMMITTEE
Net press run: 35,778; Requested
Tara L. Roberts ’91, chair Lisa Hawley Hiley ’83 Perrin McCormick Menashi ’90 Susana Morris ’02 Carolyn E. Roesler ’86
.
413-538-2301; Publisher and owner: Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College. Circulation (based on summer 2018 issue): subscriptions: 34,003 + nonrequested (campus) distribution: 1445. The Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly is published quarterly in the spring, summer, fall and winter by the Alumnae Association
President Maria Z. Mossaides ’73 Vice President Susan Brennan Grosel ’82 Treasurer and Chair, Finance Committee Alice C. Maroni ’75 Clerk Markeisha J. Miner ’99 Alumnae Trustee Rhynette Northcross Hurd ’71
Fall 2018, volume 102, number 4, was printed in the USA by Fry Communications, Inc., Mechanicsburg, PA. Periodicals postage paid at South Hadley, MA, and additional mailing offices. Ideas expressed in the Alumnae Quarterly do not necessarily reflect the views of Mount Holyoke College or the Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College. The Alumnae Quarterly welcomes letters. Letters should run not more than 200 words in length, refer to material published in the magazine and include the writer’s
Young Alumnae Representative Tarana Bhatia ’15
full name. Letters may be edited for clarity
Chair, Nominating Committee Danetta L. Beaushaw ’88
To update your information, contact
Chair, Classes and Reunion Committee Melissa Anderson Russell ’01
ais@mtholyoke.edu or 413-538-2303.
Chair, Communications Committee Marisa C. Peacock ’01 Chair, Volunteer Stewardship Committee Charlotte N. Church ’70 Chair, Clubs Committee Elizabeth McInerny McHugh ’87
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of Mount Holyoke College, Inc.
and space. Alumnae Information Services at
The Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College, Inc. 50 College St. South Hadley, MA 01075-1486 413-538-2300 alumnae.mtholyoke.edu quarterly@mtholyoke.edu
Directors-at-Large Casey C. Accardi ’15 Eleanor Chang ’78
POSTM ASTE R
Executive Director Nancy Bellows Perez ’76 ex officio without vote
Information Services, Mount Holyoke
(ISSN 0027-2493; USPS 365-280) Please send form 3579 to Alumnae Alumnae Association, 50 College St.
“
So exciting to come home
from vacation & find my book inside the @mtholyoke @aamhc Alumnae Quarterly. Grateful for the English Dept., my 1st year creative writing course and senior year writing seminar. Mt. Holyoke shaped the writer I am today. @S MALI B E R SAR AH MAR I E J ET TE ’01
”
Scott Stafford / The Berkshire Eagle
ALUMNAE ASSOCIATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS
South Hadley, MA 01075-1486
alumnae.mtholyoke.edu
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N EWS
FEM A LE GA ZE
TEN MINUTES W ITH
T H E M AV E N
I NS I DE R ’ S V I E W
Uncommon Ground Five students spend semester in D.C. IF DEMOCRATS WIN BACK THE HOUSE in 2018, a Mount Holyoke College alumna will likely be at the helm of the most powerful committee in the House of Representatives. Rep. Nita Lowey ’59 is currently the ranking member of the House Committee on Appropriations and, with an elevation to majority, would chair the committee responsible for the federal budget. The New York Democrat recently met with the inaugural cohort of the MHC Semester in D.C. program. The five participating seniors — who were selected after a lengthy, competitive application process — are spending the fall living, working and studying government and public policy in the city. The pilot program is administered through the College’s Weissman Center for Leadership and directed by Associate Professor of Politics Calvin Chen. The program is designed to facilitate students working not only in government but also nonprofits, nongovernmental organizations and advocacy agencies. In the first of several site visits, Chen accompanied the students on their visit with Lowey. They spoke with her about their internship locations this semester. Angelica Mercado ’19 is interning in the office of Rep. Jim McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts. Beth Wagoner ’19 is at the U.S. Department of Labor’s Civil Rights Center under director Naomi Barry-Perez ’96. Melissa Carney ’19 is at the National Council on Independent Living, Linh Nguyen ’19 is
at the Wilson Center’s Global Women’s Leadership Initiative and Jiayu Wang ’19 is interning at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. The students are being led in their studies by Chen, who commutes to Washington every three weeks to teach a seminar and help them navigate their experiences. When they aren’t at their internships, students take classes at the University of California, Washington Center with students from Notre Dame and the universities of California, Michigan, Pennsylvania and San Francisco. The program is the latest in Mount Holyoke’s long legacy of teaching and training women leaders, Chen noted. “Professor Victoria Schuck started the first internship program of its kind in 1949,” he said. “The MHC Semester in D.C. program is a return to the tradition she helped establish, as well as an opportunity for the next generation of thoughtful, skilled women leaders to tackle the daunting challenges facing the country and, indeed, the world.” In her remarks to the students, Lowey remembered how Schuck attended her swearing-in ceremony and brought with her a paper that thenstudent Lowey had written. She credited her professor and mentor with opening her eyes to the possibilities for careers in public service. Lowey is now squarely focused on the election and the work she is championing, now and once November has passed. “Our best chance for the future is electing women,” she said. Learn more about the MHC in D.C. program at mtholyoke.edu/wcl. —BY MITCHELLE STEPHENSON
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Reunion 2019 Reunion I
May 17–19 1949, 1969, 1979, 1994, 1999, 2009, 2017
Reunion II
May 24–26 1944, 1954, 1959, 1964, 1974, 1984, 1989, 2004, 2014
Deirdre Haber Malfatto
alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/reunion
Alumnae fellowship funds research exploring activism by and for black girls From the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter, black girls have been unsung heroes in the fight for African-American equality in the United States. Michelle Taylor Watts ’94 is working to change that. With a 1905 Fellowship from the Alumnae Association, she has launched a research project, “Black Girl Soldier: The Radical Lives of Black Girls in the African-American Liberation Movement.” Watts will delve into literary and cultural representations of black girls and civil engagement, continuing on her study of black women in 19th-century African-American women’s literature. She will also interview Deborah Northcross ’73, who was a plaintiff in an early school-desegregation case, Northcross v. Board of Education, Memphis City Schools. Watts will produce materials to both document the past and inspire the future, creating a teacher’s guide for historical novels and a curriculum on social-justice organizing for girls. “This body of work allows me to merge my scholar side and my practitioner side,” Watts said. “It’s a rich moment in time for those of us who study these issues, and I am so grateful for the support of the Alumnae Association.” An English and politics double major at Mount Holyoke, Watts went on to earn a doctorate in English, African-American and American literature at Rice University. She currently teaches in the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Department at the University of Cincinnati. She also facilitates youth-development programs in community learning centers, including GRAD Cincinnati, a nonprofit organization providing academic support to underserved students, and is a court-appointed special advocate with the nonprofit organization ProKids. Thanks to generous gifts from alumnae, the Association is pleased to provide a number of fellowships to support research, travel and study. To learn more about fellowship opportunities, visit alumnae. mtholyoke.edu/fellowships. —BY ANNE PINKERTON
Courtesy of Michelle Taylor Watts ’94; bike share: David Houck, courtesy of Valley Bike
SAVE THE DATE
Valley BikeShare
Over the summer the Valley BikeShare program installed electric-assist bikes all over the Pioneer Valley, including in the Village Commons. Learn more at valleybike.org.
Keep up with your favorite MHC teams at athletics.mtholyoke.edu
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Faculty funding Five faculty members have received a grant for more than half a million dollars from the National Science Foundation for an advanced microscopy system. The new equipment will facilitate multidisciplinary research and training for Mount Holyoke students, as well as contribute to inter-institutional collaborations.
[The country’s democratic system] is broken because there is too much money in American politics ... and because of gerrymandering, which denies us a legitimate election in November. So we don’t have a democracy. —JOH N KE RRY, FORM E R SECRETARY OF STATE AN D MASSACH USET TS SE NATOR , SPEAKI NG WITH MOU NT HOLYOKE ’S VICE PRESI DE NT FOR ACADE M IC AFFAI RS AN D DEAN OF FACU LT Y JON WESTE RN ON SE PTE M BE R 25 AT A BOOK TOUR EVENT FOR HIS NEW AUTOBIOGRAPHY, “EVERY DAY IS EXTRA .”
Makerspace update Glial cells of a fruit fly brain express green fluorescence protein, as visualized with an integrated laser scanning/spinning disk microscopy system.
The faculty members are Kenneth Colodner, assistant professor of neuroscience and behavior; Kyle Broaders, assistant professor of chemistry; Kerstin Nordstrom, Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor of Physics; Jared Schwartzer, assistant professor of psychology and education; and Craig Woodard, Christiana Smith Professor of Biological Sciences. “This new cutting-edge piece of equipment will be valuable to a variety of faculty and students across the STEM disciplines,” said Gary Gillis, associate dean of faculty and director of the Mount Holyoke College Science Center. “This grant highlights once again the efforts of our faculty to provide our students access to the most up-to-date technology in their classes and research labs.” Read more college news at mtholyoke.edu/news.
Join the Alumnae Stay program
Construction has begun on the new Maker and Innovation Lab, a green, 8,000-square-foot space in the first floor of Prospect Hall. The interdisciplinary lab will build upon the resources of the current Makerspace in Art 221 and will include a general workshop with tools such as 3D printers and laser cutters and a wood and metal shop, as well as a lounge and two classrooms. Learn more about the future Maker and Innovation Lab at mtholyoke.edu/makerspace.
Alumnae Stay provides free, temporary and safe housing to Mount Holyoke College students or alumnae traveling to pursue academic and professional growth. Volunteer or find a room at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/alumnaestay.
Discounted insurance for alumnae
The Alumnae Association sponsors an alumnae insurance program. Learn more at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/insurance.
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A gathering in Ghana
Joanna Chattman
In August, ten alumnae from the Mount Holyoke Club of Ghana hosted Preston H. Smith II, chair of Africana studies and chair of politics, and his wife, Lynda Pickbourn, assistant professor of economics at Hampshire College, for brunch and conversation. Smith was in Ghana to research opportunities for future student programs in the country.
(Long-awaited) Mountain Day! The Mary Lyon bells rang early on October 16, and the festivities of Mount Holyoke’s oldest tradition began. Students rode shuttles from campus to Skinner State Park, where they hiked the mountain on a gorgeous (if chilly) fall day. They were treated at the top to ice cream, a button-making station courtesy of Archives and Special Collections and, for the third year, temporary tattoos from the Alumnae Association. And while the campus community was enjoying the day off from classes, alumnae in more than 120 cities got together for ice cream. Below, left to right, Nabina Shrestha ’00, Ayesha Mustafa ’02, Sonam Belbase ’02, Devika Sahdev ’01 and Angel Chen ’06 gathered in London, England, in what may have been the first of the 2018 Mountain Day reunions held around the world. See more photos at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/mountainday.
President’s Report
Support the Founder’s Fund Your gift to the Founder’s Fund at the Alumnae Association helps us support the activities of alumnae around the world. Visit alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/ff.
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#WeAreMountHolyoke
“Mount Holyoke Koinonia Fellowship has been an integral part of making MHC truly feel like ‘MoHome.’ I have never before been a part of a group that made me feel so immediately welcomed, loved and valued and that nurtured the growth of my faith so richly.” — Wenjie Li ’20 (right)
Also pictured: Kierstyn Lau ’20 (left) and Katy Gore ’20
We Are Mount Holyoke: courtesy of MHC Office of Communications
In the fall President Sonya Stephens shared the Mount Holyoke President’s Report for the 2017–2018 academic year. Read about the College’s progress in the second year of The Plan for 2021 at alumnae.mtholyoke. edu/presreport2018.
alumnae.mtholyoke.edu
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Joanna Chattman
In Memoriam
Convocation 2018 On the Tuesday before classes began, Mount Holyoke students, faculty and staff braved the heat and gathered in Gettell Amphitheater for Convocation 2018. Incoming and returning students embraced the new academic year with cheers and abundant energy. The crowd was addressed by President Sonya Stephens, Student Government Association President Adelita Simon ’19 and several faculty and staff members, including Kijua Sanders-McMurtry, who joined the College as its first chief diversity officer in August.
E LAINE TREHU B , archivist emerita, died on July 1, 2018, at the age of 89. Trehub came to Mount Holyoke in 1973 and served as the College’s first official archivist. In the words of Leslie Fields, head of Archives and Special Collections, “For 23 years Trehub collected, described and shared Mount Holyoke history with our campus community, alums and researchers around the world. Archives and Special Collections exists today because of her good and steady work, and her belief in the power of women’s stories.” She is predeceased by her daughter, Lorna, and husband, Arnold. Among her survivors are her sons, Aaron and Craig, nieces and nephews, and grand-nieces and grand-nephews. ANNE CO T T ON , registrar emerita, died on July 28, 2018, at the age of 85. Cotton came to Mount Holyoke in 1987 after working for a variety of employers, including the National Security Agency, Doubleday Publishing, the Metropolitan Opera and Harvard University. She worked at the College for eleven years, retiring in 1998. Many will remember her for her work on Faculty Show, which she appeared in, wrote for and produced. Among her survivors are several nieces and nephews.
Join an Alumnae Association trip abroad
DID YOU KNOW?
You can read the
Mount Holyoke News online?
Check it out at mountholyokenews.com.
Passage through Panama Canal and Costa Rica February 8–16, 2019
We invite you to join one or more of the upcoming travel opportunities, such as a nine-day sailing journey from Costa Rica to the Panama Canal. For more information and to register, visit alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/travel.
Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly
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FE M A LE G A ZE
THEATE R
A Passion for the Stage
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After drama school, she lived the quintessential New York actor’s life. She worked at Morgan Stanley and spent her lunch breaks at auditions. She would “sing 16 bars from ‘Oklahoma’” and then quickly run back to her shiny skyscraper office. Every free moment, she was back on the stage. Tang eventually moved home to San Diego, and after many years in a variety of roles — both offstage and on — her lifealtering Mount Holyoke theater connections came full circle. This year, Intrepid Theatre Company — where Tang has worked since 2010, first as an actor and since 2012 as associate director —staged Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright SuzanLori Parks’ ’85 new play, “Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3).” Last year, the play — which takes place during the time of the American Civil War — debuted to packed houses. Tang watched from the wings nearly a dozen times. “It was
amazing,” she says. “I couldn’t get enough of Parks’ language. It’s like Shakespeare. As a fellow alum, I felt proud of it.” Then, just last spring, another San Diego company, Diversionary Theatre, hired Tang to be dramaturge for a fall production of “Bull in a China Shop.” “I thought I could offer insights about what Mount Holyoke was at its inception and what it is now,” she says. The play, by Bryna Turner ’12, is centered on the relationship between past Mount Holyoke President Mary Woolley and her partner, College math professor Jeannette Marks. As Tang worked with the cast to educate them about Mount Holyoke, she brought her alma mater — and its history — clear across the country. Some of the actors thought of Mount Holyoke as a finishing school, so Tang included in her work with them the history of student activists in the women’s suffrage movement of the 1920s
Tiffany Tang ’97 (left) was dramaturge for a recent play by Suzan-Lori Parks ’85
Courtesy of Tiffany Tang ’97; Daren Scott (2)
REWIND TO Tiffany Tang’s ’97 junior year at Mount Holyoke, and she likely would have declared she was done with theater. Despite it being a lifelong love, she wanted a reliable career first and would figure out a way to pursue her creative interests on the side. Yet just a year later, as a senior, a performance in Rooke Theatre would establish the course of her professional life, which most recently has meant the opportunity to support productions of work by two of Mount Holyoke’s leading alumnae playwrights. As a college student, Tang’s intention to drop theater from her future plans was like trying to reroute her destiny. Theater, after all, was coursing through her veins. Growing up with a stage-director mother and performing since age five, theater was Tang’s life. Despite this, she had decided she was ready to let it go until just months before her Mount Holyoke graduation, when she joined a production at the College of Joyce Carol Oates’ “I Stand Before You Naked,” a collection of monologues by “women on the edge of madness and vulnerability.” Six nights a week, she and others endured a grueling, physically challenging rehearsal schedule that reignited her passion for performing. The cast prepared by using the Suzuki Method, a rigorous form of physical theater training developed by Tadashi Suzuki. For Tang, that meant following up a full day of classes with preparatory hours-long workouts of push-ups and sit-ups. “It was so intense, and it changed me. I loved it,” she says. Tang was hooked. “On a whim,” she says, she sent an application to the prestigious Actors Studio Drama School in New York City. She was accepted and was soon off to make it in the big city. alumnae.mtholyoke.edu
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FE M A LE G A ZE
B OOKS
Confronting Dystopia: The New Technological Revolution and the Future of Work Edited by Eva Paus CO RN E LL U N IVE RSIT Y PRESS
A distinguished group of scholars analyze the implications of the ongoing technological revolution of jobs, working conditions and income. Focusing on the economic and political implications of artificial intelligence, digital connectivity and robotics for both the global North and global South, they move beyond diagnostics to seek solutions that offer better lives for all.
Tang offered her Mount Holyoke expertise to actors performing in “Bull in a China Shop” by Bryna Turner ’12
— during Woolley’s presidency — and photos of students doing calisthenics. The play opened in September. Tang is still associate director of Intrepid Theatre Company, and she is also focusing on her own writing. In the fall she traveled to Paris for a seemingly odd source of inspiration: an astrophysics conference. She’s been interested in the subject since she took her first astronomy class at Mount Holyoke and hopes to bring the subject into her next writing project. But no matter the other artistic pulls Tang feels, she knows that the stage will always be a part of her path. “I love the brevity of theater,” she says. “It’s a onemoment-in-time experience that resonates so deeply and affects so many people, yet it can never be repeated again. It reminds us to hold tight to our experiences and to be present as they unfold.” —BY CARLIN CARR ’00
Eva Paus is professor of economics and Carol Hoffmann Collins ’63 Director of the Mount Holyoke McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives. She is the author of “Foreign Investment, Development, and Globalization: Can Costa Rica become Ireland?”
Exhibiting Scotland: Objects, Identity, and the National Museum Alima Bucciantini U N IVE RSIT Y O F MASSACH USET TS PRESS
In 1707 Scotland ceased to exist as an independent country and became part of Great Britain. To preserve the country’s unique antiquities and natural specimens, a Scottish earl founded the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1780, whose collections eventually became the National Museum of Scotland. “Exhibiting Scotland” traces how these collections have helped tell the changing stories of this country for centuries. Alima Bucciantini ’04 is assistant professor of history at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The Sequoia Lives On Joanna Cooke YOSE M ITE CO NSE RVANCY
From tiny seed to largest tree, the giant sequoia is a living wonder of nature. Numbers fail when trying to describe the ancient and tremendous tree. “The Sequoia Lives On” is a book for young children that shares the life story of the giant sequoia, casting light on natural questions: How does this tree grow so big? How does it live so long? Joanna Cooke ’97 is a writer who spent 10 years living in the Sierra Nevada, working as an environmental educator and National Park Service ranger in Yosemite National Park.
WEB EXCLUSIVE
See more recent alumnae books at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/ fall2018books.
Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly
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TE N M I N U TE S WI TH
LAW SC HO O L D E A N
Chief Advocate for Students From the age of nine, M A R K E I S H A M I N E R ’ 9 9 knew what she wanted to be when she grew up: a lawyer. After Mount Holyoke, where she majored in African and African-American studies, she attended the University of Michigan Law School and soon landed a job as clerk to the Honorable Anna Diggs Taylor, the first African-American woman to serve as chief judge of the Sixth Circuit. Then, after a few years working as a commercial litigator in Dickinson Wright PLLC’s Detroit office, Miner took an academic turn, serving as assistant dean of career services at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law. In 2015 she became the dean of students at Cornell Law School, a job she loves. “I walk down the hall and hear languages from all over the world,” she says. “It’s a rich tapestry of a diverse educational environment.” Miner serves on the Alumnae Association Board of Directors and has also been a member of the organizing committee for the Black Alumnae Conference, held on campus every three years. “I always come away from these conferences and the campus re-energized and engaged,” she says. “It allows me to reconnect with who I wanted to be when I was at Mount Holyoke.”
On the rewarding aspects of her job: I’m working with incredibly smart, talented new lawyers in training — people who are going to shape the profession. Having a role in the start of their careers is incredibly
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On sharing both ups and downs: In environments like Mount Holyoke or grad school we see people’s accomplishments, but we rarely see people’s challenges. For many, that can lead to feelings of inadequacy. I think women, in particular, need to be honest with one another about how we’ve gotten to where we are. The ramifications are significant for people looking up to us. — I N T E R V I E W BY H A N N A H WA L L AC E ’ 9 5
“
When current students call
me with questions about law school, I always take their calls.
”
Thomas Kleinveld/DefendDefenders
On her career choice: I see myself as the chief advocate for students from orientation to convocation — and everything in between, including the transition from students to alumni. So, I’m their contact for wellness and support, crisis management, student organizations, leadership development, diversity and inclusion and academic counseling. There is never a dull moment!
rewarding. As a first-generation student — my parents went to college but couldn’t afford to finish — there was so much I didn’t know. It’s exciting to be able to help these students to figure out that there are many different paths to achieve their goals and to determine which one best fits their needs at this particular point. Also, I remind them, just because you choose this particular path now, doesn’t mean you can’t go down other paths later.
Allison Usavage
Why Mount Holyoke: I visited as a high school senior, and the minute I stepped on the campus I knew it was where I was supposed to be. When I was out for the preview weekend, there was all sorts of activism on display on the green, including the Clothesline Project (an organization that brings awareness to violence against women and children), and a student reading from her anthology of poetry about the African diaspora. I called home and told my mother, “These women are smart, they’re articulate and they’re leaders.” And mom said, “Well, maybe that’s the place for you!”
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Thomas Kleinveld/DefendDefenders
TH E M AV E N
T HE C A R E E R MAV EN
Increasing the Fulfillment Factor By E MI LY I NGLE SI ’95 IN MY ROLE as a clinical psycholo-
about perception (“what if I put effort into a search and don’t find something better”). Regardless of the type of clutter, it’s helpful to take a look at it, because it can get in the way of clarity and impact overall well-being. Realistically, we can’t always remove all the clutter, but we can think about better ways to work through some of it.
gist providing specialized career counseling and assessment, I often work with people who look for happiness and fulfillment in their jobs. Most of my clients have expressed dissatisfaction with their careers at some point. It is not unusual for these feelings to manifest as emotional distress, depression or anxiety. No matter what the focus of our work together, whenever my clients express unhappiness around their jobs, I ask them to think about the four principles below. Based on my experience, if one of these elements is missing, there is a greater likelihood of decreased fulfillment or happiness, which can significantly impact emotional and physical well-being.
Are you passionate? Do you wake up every morning and love or like what you do? I often work with clients who chose their jobs because they were passionate about a few of the primary functions, but over time the role may have changed or the job is not as expected. An attorney who loved the intellectual debates in law school might now find that the hours of solitary computer work at a law firm are not as stimulating. Do you respect your coworkers? Harmony in the workplace can also influence how we feel about our jobs. Coworkers and management often have a heavy hand in creating the culture of the workplace (even a remote one). Realistically, we don’t always
A R E YOU A M AVE N? Pitch your area of expertise to quarterly@mtholyoke.edu.
get to decide who we work with, but most of us have to go to work every day and engage with others regardless of our personal opinions of them. Sometimes, the work environment is even toxic and/or abusive, full of drama, gaslighting or unfair practices. Managing these interpersonal stressors can take a toll on an employee’s overall health and happiness.
Do you believe in the mission? Sometimes there are changes that employees cannot control, such as leadership shifts, growth, product refocus or new company values. A company’s decision to grow can change its culture, making a once intimate setting into one that feels impersonal. If an employee feels disconnected from the values of the company, her performance, morale and investment in the job are at risk. Can you clear the “clutter?” Sometimes the clutter is real (“I can’t just up and leave, I have a mortgage or rent to pay”), and sometimes the clutter is more
As you consider these four principles, you might identify what is compromising your own career fulfillment. Although it is not always possible to take immediate steps, it can be helpful to pay attention to internal signs of distress and discontent that will guide your path to change. Start with self-reflection and/or consultation with a seasoned career consultant to determine whether or not realistic shifts within oneself or the organization can resolve the disconnect. You might seek out a professional career counselor to help you identify personal values and strengths using, in part, assessment measures. Speaking with a therapist can also be helpful to work through emotional ramifications of current work stressors. Finally, two good resources available to Mount Holyoke alumnae are the Facebook groups MoHo Career Chat and Sisters Hiring (Seven) Sisters.
Emily Inglesi ’95 is a licensed clinical psychologist in Boston’s financial district, where she has a private practice specializing in working with professionals in the areas of anxiety, life transitions, identity and providing Core Themes™, a four-phase career counseling and assessment program. Learn more at dremilyinglesi.com and corethemes.com.
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I NS I D E R’ S V I EW
Celebrating the Community Center ALUMNAE VISITING CAMPUS often spend time at their favorite spots
and seek out those spaces that are new since they graduated. Over the past few months, the Community Center has been the focal point of many of those visits, as it sits, quite literally, in the center of campus. The complex, which includes Blanchard Hall, opened last spring and combines new and old construction to offer a 21st-century design that incorporates the history of the College. The third floor of Blanchard Hall — now known as the Weissman Student Commons — houses student organization offices and places for students across disciplines to collaborate. The second floor houses the offices for the Division of Student Life along with several gathering spaces, including the Unity Center, where students and others on campus enjoy a weekly meal together at Interfaith Lunch. The lower level of the building offers more space to relax, study or collaborate, as well as the Grab ’n Go and the Cochary Pub & Kitchen, both with quick meal options.
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The Dining Commons, a 34,000-square-foot addition off of Blanchard Hall that overlooks Lower Lake, is open from early morning to late in the evening. Diners can assemble a meal from nine food stations, including kosher and halal offerings, a 40-ingredient salad bar, an all-day omelet station, pizza ovens and international cuisine. The building offers six distinctive dining rooms, including a tranquility room for those seeking a quiet environment. Designed to LEED Silverequivalent standards, the Commons is one of many campus initiatives that will help the College achieve carbon neutrality by 2037, Mount Holyoke’s bicentennial. In September, the Community Center was a place for celebration during the weekend of the inauguration of President Sonya Stephens (see page 16). College trustees, Alumnae Association board members and special guests gathered to recognize the many individuals who made the Community Center possible.
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WEB EXCLUSIVE
View more photos of the Community Center at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/ insidethecenter.
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Joanna Chattman
I NS I D E R’ S V I EW
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Celebrating our
Nineteenth President On September 29, the Mount Holyoke community came together for the inauguration of Sonya Stephens, a celebrated scholar of 19th-century French literature and its relation to visual culture, who has led the college since being named acting president in July 2016.
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY
Joanna Chattman
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“Like many who cross these gates, I felt, when I first visited Mount Holyoke, as if I’d found a community I might call home. Mount Holyoke’s incontestable beauty and storied past is an invitation to believe in an exceptional future — a future full of possibilities and of hope, a future in which we can all see ourselves, a future in which our students would impose themselves and challenge us and the systems that shape the world beyond the gates, too. I am more sure than I’ve ever been of anything that this is a learning community — a community in which curiosity and inquiry really matter, and in which challenging conversations are the norm, not the exception. And I am so grateful, so very honored, to be able to continue to serve Mount Holyoke, and to serve you, because I believe in this place, in us, in possibility.”
Mount Holyoke College President Sonya Stephens
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Path to the presidency In April 2018, after an extensive selection process, Sonya Stephens, who was named acting president in 2016, was chosen to head the College by the Board of Trustees in an enthusiastic, unanimous decision. She assumed the presidency on July 1, 2018. Stephens has been part of the Mount Holyoke community since 2013, when she joined the College as vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculty. In that role she led efforts to reimagine the Mount Holyoke curriculum, reduce class sizes, develop innovative learning spaces, enhance faculty research support and compensation and recruit the faculty of the future. Since assuming the role of acting president more than two years ago, Stephens has made it her priority to champion rigorous and innovative academic programs, academic access and a commitment to connecting the work of the academy to the concerns of the world while reaffirming and building on its legacy of women’s leadership, diversity, global excellence and sustainability. Stephens knows from personal experience the value of a women’s college education. She received her bachelor’s degree in modern and medieval languages from New Hall, a college for women at the University of Cambridge that is now known as Murray Edwards College. She also earned a doctorate in French from the University of Cambridge. Her master’s degree in French studies is from the Université de Montréal, where she was a Commonwealth Scholar. Read more about Sonya Stephens at mtholyoke.edu/president.
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Right, top: Before the ceremony, faculty, senior staff, speakers, special guests and delegates from more than 50 institutions joined Stephens in the Field House Lounge on the top floor of Kendall Sports and Dance Complex to don their robes and other inauguration regalia. During the flurry of the preparations, Stephens stole a quiet moment to review her prepared remarks. Right, bottom:
Bingyao Liu ’19, founder of the Mount Holyoke College Chinese Music Ensemble, played the yangqin, a Chinese dulcimer, captivating the audience. Facing page, center:
Dame Carol Black, principal, Newnham College, the University of Cambridge, spoke of the far-reaching destinations of Cambridge alumni, including Stephens: “We try very hard to take the best possible students and then we try to make them better still. We want to stretch their minds. We want them to be innovative. We want them to be able to stand their ground and argue their ground in an appropriate way. And then we want them to go forth. And some go forth in the United Kingdom, but some like Sonya go forth and come to Mount Holyoke. And here I believe you do have a bit of what Cambridge believes it produces. It produces great people to be great leaders.�
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Left, bottom:
Rosemary Lloyd, Rudy Professor Emerita of French, Indiana University, first met Sonya Stephens 37 years ago when she was applying to Cambridge University’s New Hall College (now Murray Edwards). Years later, she encouraged Stephens to apply for a professorship at Indiana University, and she spoke about this career turn in her remarks. “Sonya was elected to the professorship at I.U., so I had the great pleasure of being her colleague for my final years. She reminded me last night that I retired the same year she became head of [the] department, but this is absolutely arbitrary. It just happened that way.” Lloyd’s remarks were met with laughter, including from Stephens’ family (top).
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The inauguration ceremony took place in the Field House of Kendall Sports and Dance Complex. The processional — and at the conclusion of the ceremony, recessional — were led by College Marshal Alan Werner, professor of geology.
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Vision and Planning
During her inaugural remarks, Stephens spoke to the strategic priorities of The Plan for 2021, the work that has been completed and the new “initiatives that recommend themselves as imperative and urgent.” Women’s education
“We will reassert the relevance and power of a Mount Holyoke education, and of a women’s college that is the most inclusive — a women’s college that is bold and expansive in its understanding of its mission and of gender itself, a college that fully embraces the exploration of identity, and at which individuals can discover and define themselves away from dominant cultural norms.” Inclusivity
“We will also center inclusivity in the fullest way, challenging inequity, acknowledging prior histories of exclusion and past wrongs, and building upon decades of student resistance and protest, as well as on work here by those students, faculty and staff who have gone before us, and those engaged in that work here and now. We will continue to build an inclusive administration, staff and faculty, and to reimagine, as we have always done, a curriculum that looks critically forward as well as to the past, and that connects academic discipline with creativity and existential inquiry, that links self-discovery and intellectual pursuits both to experiential opportunities and to that ‘higher purpose.’” Sustainability
“We will push forward to make the necessary investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency on campus; we will promote local and global food justice and sustainability; and we will invest in further opportunities for environmental education across the curriculum and through our Campus Living Laboratory.”
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After the ceremony, invited guests joined President Stephens at a cocktail party at the McCulloch Auditorium in Pratt Hall followed by a gala dinner in Chapin Auditorium. Clockwise, from top left (left to right within each photo): Mary
Graham Davis ’65, Michelle Toh ’85 and Barbara Baumann ’77; Nancie Fimbel ’68; Jane Zimmy ’74, Ellen Chilemba ’17 and Karena Strella ’90 (Chilemba was one of two alumnae who spoke during the panel discussion “Entrepreneurship and the Liberal Arts” in Gamble Auditorium earlier in the day.); Heather Coffey, Katherine Kraschel ’06, Elizabeth Walsh ’11 and Katherine Duceman ’11; W. Rochelle Calhoun ’83; 1963 classmates Sally Donner and Alice Godfrey Andrus with Stephens.
Facing page : Stephens and her senior leadership team share a toast.
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Tears falling that no one sees familiar voices voices you love and the bells ringing at the end of day seedlings sprouting on the windowsill the future fish scales iced branches after the storm a choir cloud covered stars everyone’s soul white candles glowing at the church entrance desire unspent coins in a saucer hair filled with sunlight or water what the diamond means — “What Shines” by Marjory Heath Wentworth ’80, poet laureate of South Carolina. During the inauguration ceremony the Mount Holyoke Glee Club performed this poem to original music by Nathan Jones.
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“This work of ideas is illumination itself, and my hope for and commitment to the the future of Mount Holyoke is that, here, we will pursue and name our ideas and our passions, and that, here, within a light that realizes our magic, we will give form to the lives and to the vision that, in their turn, will shape that future.�
Mount Holyoke College President Sonya Stephens
WEB EXCLUSIVE
See more photos from weekend events at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/ inauguration.
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Volunteering as a nurse during the Civil War was only the beginning of 1859 alumna Nancy Hill’s lifelong career in medicine
WRITTEN BY
H E AT H E R B AU K N E Y H A N S E N ’ 9 4 I L L U S T R AT I O N BY
E L E A N O R TAY L O R
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early May of 1864, soldiers injured in the Civil War Battle of the Wilderness made it to Washington, D.C. Carried on stretchers, in horse-drawn ambulances, or limping along, about 250 wounded men sought help at the Armory Square Hospital. Without the proper paperwork they were suspected as deserters and were denied entry. But one nurse, Nancy M. Hill, witnessed their suffering and refused to send them away. Instead she swung open the hospital gates and asked the guards to turn a blind eye. Then Hill, class of 1859, set about to heal or comfort as best she could. When the soldiers’ validating documents arrived the next day she was lauded for her bravery and decency. By that time Hill had been at Armory Square (on the present-day site of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum) for more than a year. It was an unusual place for a middle-class woman to find herself in the mid-19th century, but Hill had role models for gumption. She was born in 1833 in the area that is now Arlington and Belmont, Massachusetts, where her family had been since 1630. All four of her great-grandfathers fought in the Revolutionary War, in the Battles of Bunker Hill and Lexington. One great-uncle took part in the Boston Tea Party (a tea chest lid he acquired was later a cradle for Hill’s doll). Foreshadowing Hill’s own work was that of her great-grandmother Swan, who had nursed both Patriot and British troops. George Washington visited the family home in 1780 to thank her personally.
TRAINING FOR WAR Hill went to public school in Cambridge until October 1856, when she arrived at Mount Holyoke. She adored life at the College but had to leave due to ill health during her third year. Hill later told a classmate that not graduating was a lifelong disappointment and that she owed her success to the College. “I have great affection for dear old Holyoke, and if my life has amounted to anything, I thank Holyoke,” Hill wrote. She recovered at home as the nation slid toward the Civil War. In April 1863 the desire to do something to aid the Union’s effort stirred Hill, then 29, to leave her comfortable, middle-class life in Boston to volunteer as a nurse. Before leaving home she had gone to medical lectures and had training on cleaning and bandaging wounds. But little could have prepared her for what she would experience. Armory Square was the facility nearest the steamboat landing on the Potomac River and a railroad depot, which
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meant the worst of the war-wounded generally landed there. The men arrived covered in blood and dust and suffering, and the nurses washed them, dressed wounds, fed them and dispensed what few medications were available. Gunshot and stab wounds, crude amputations and gangrene were everyday sights, and, sometimes, soldiers only arrived in time to die. Harriet Foote Hawley (wife of the governor of Connecticut) served as a nurse at Armory Square at the same time as Hill. She wrote of the wounded from the Battle of the Wilderness, “The scenes presented were enough to appal [sic] the stoutest nerves.” Disease actually killed more soldiers than combat in the Civil War, and nurses like Hill, working in confined spaces, were exposed to the blood, breath and waste of soldiers. Smallpox, scarlet fever, measles and typhoid fever, among other infectious diseases, spread rapidly through hospitals. Many nurses were sickened (“Little Women” author Louisa May Alcott lasted approximately six weeks as a nurse in a Washington, D.C., hospital before heading home to recover from typhoid). Many others died.
LEGIONS OF WOUNDED Hill ran Ward F, one of a dozen white clapboard buildings constructed on the National Mall at the behest of President Abraham Lincoln. In the 150-foot-long wards there were sometimes 1,000 patients in all. Each ward had a surgeon, a “lady nurse” and a ward master with 12 assistant nurses who were all recovering male soldiers. The hospital wasn’t far from the White House, and Lincoln was a frequent visitor, taking long strides down the packed wards, shaking hands with shattered men and thanking them. After the war, Hill’s friend and fellow nurse Amanda Akin Stearns wrote an account of her time at Armory Square. She said Lincoln appeared often and “always with a kind word, when his eyes had a sad, far-away look, and he often paused before those suffering most intensely to utter a warm ‘God Bless you.’” The president was just one of the well-known people Hill crossed paths with during that time. Poet Walt Whitman had come from New York looking for his wounded brother in December 1862. His brother had only suffered minor injuries, but Whitman was so moved by the legions of wounded that he stayed on for years as a self-described “missionary.” Whitman read and wrote letters for — and played games like Twenty Questions with — the hospitalized soldiers. He was morbidly fascinated by Armory Square because it had, he wrote, “by far the worst cases and most repulsive wounds.” (The female nurses were reportedly split on Whitman’s visits; some despised him openly while others brought him tea.) Later
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he recalled the long wards of Armory Square this way: “The clank of crutches on the pavements of the floors of Washington … tempests of life and death … and looking over all, in my remembrance, that tall form of President Lincoln, with his face of deep-cut lines, with the large, canny eyes, the complexion of dark brown and the tinge of weird melancholy saturating all.” Whitman later described suffering from what we now call post-traumatic stress disorder because of what he’d seen in the war. Hill also met Dorothea Dix, the Union’s superintendent of female nurses, during her first day on the job. The two did not hit it off initially. Dix had created the nurse corps and had strict standards for those who would join their ranks: women between the ages of 30 and 50, plain-looking and plain-dressed (no colors, bows, jewelry or hoop skirts). “Sober, earnest, self-sacrificing and self-sustained; who can bear the presence of suffering and never lose self control; who can be calm, gentle, quiet, active and steadfast in duty,” read the job description. The position required a minimum three-month commitment, and the pay was 40 cents per day (though middleclass women like Hill donated their pay to the hospital fund). Hill was 29 when she landed in D.C. — not meeting the age requirement — and Dix rejected her outright. “My dear, don’t unpack your trunk. I shall send you home tomorrow,” Dix told her. But, in a surprising show of support from on high, D. Willard Bliss, superintendent of Armory Square Hospital, allowed Hill to stay. Despite the rocky beginning, Hill earned Dix’s respect early on. Just a few days into Hill’s service, while everyone was still in bed, a bugle announced the arrival of 18 badly wounded soldiers. Hill dressed quickly and rushed to the ward to find some men on stretchers, others lying on the floor, all cold and weak. As the sun came up, she worked on getting hot fluids into them, when the shadow of Dix fell over her. “My dear, do you get up as early as this?” Dix asked. “Yes, when my patients need me,” Hill replied. Dix shuffled off without another word, but Hill had made an impression.
H O S P I TA L S E R V I C E S Hill spent roughly two-and-a-half years at the Armory Square Hospital. In addition to their medical duties, nurses like Hill tried to make their wards as pleasant as possible. They read and wrote letters between soldiers and their families. And, wrote Hill, “I kept them well supplied with books and saw they were kept busy.” Armory Square had its own newspaper and choir, which Hill sang in. At Christmastime the nurses hung evergreen from the rafters and made wreaths, and in the spring they
planted flower beds between the wards for “tired eyes and weary hearts.” Hill wrote that every ward was like a family. The men often called the so-called lady nurses “Mother” despite many of them being younger than the soldiers. “We represented home to these wounded men. We took the place of mother and sister and cared for them as they would have done,” wrote Hill. “Although the soldier was far away from home and kindred, we had learned to love them, and tears would fall as we thought of the dear ones at home who could not be with them to bid them goodbye.” In addition to the education, work ethic and grit Hill brought to Ward F, she took full advantage of her connections at home for the benefit of the hospital. She often wrote letters to family and community imploring them to send supplies. On one Sunday during the Battle of the Wilderness, Hill’s mother read her letter to four churches. The congregations were dismissed only to reconvene later at town hall with all of their cotton and linen tablecloths and sheets — even their finest — to be cut and rolled as bandages. In her memoir, Hill’s colleague Amanda Akin Stearns wrote, “The New England ladies here are constantly receiving valuable boxes of good and useful things, which are dispensed liberally. Miss Hill has furnished Miss [Platt] and me with all the condensed milk, wine, etc. we need at present.”
O N T H E B AT T L E F I E L D S Admitting the injured soldiers without credentials to Armory Square had been an extraordinary act, but Hill didn’t stop turning heads. Hearing that the worst cases in the Battle of the Wilderness remained in the tangled copses along the banks of Virginia’s Rapidan River, she applied for a pass to the battle front. Two days later she left the relative safety of Washington to attend to the wounded in the field. Over the course of that one battle (the first skirmish in which General Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee faced off) there were nearly 30,000 casualties in total. Later that summer, when Hill returned to her ward, she recorded 40 amputees in one day. On another record-breaking day, 48 men died at Armory Square. Even as the sheer volume of wounded soldiers during the Civil War demanded that women be allowed to treat them, it was not an easy transition. Before the war only men had been nurses, and though women were used to caring for sick family members, their domain was the home. Hill grew up and went to Mount Holyoke during the era of “True Womanhood,” as it was called. It was marked by piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity, and women’s power and happiness was believed to be rooted in those attributes. Noble women were ones who
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devoted their lives to creating a nurturing and comfortable home for their husbands and children; it was believed that a stable society depended on fulfilling these predetermined roles. While the so-called “lady nurses” were proving their mettle in hospitals and on the battlefield, nurses like Hill still endured skepticism and, sometimes, outright hostility. Demanding, tireless Dorothea earned the nickname “Dragon Dix” from doctors in Washington, D.C., and beyond. One male doctor in Illinois characterized female nurses as “old hags … surrounding a bewildered Army surgeon, each one clamoring for her little wants.” The Women’s Central Association of Relief (WCAR), which organized relief efforts of northern women, noted at the time, “Women working in army hospitals are objects of continual evil speaking among coarse subordinates, are looked at with a doubtful eye by all but the most enlightened surgeons and have a very uncertain, semi-legal position, with poor wages and little sympathy.” Fortunately, the surgeon in charge of Armory Square was one such enlightened doctor. Dr. Willard Bliss (who Whitman called “one of the best surgeon’s [sic] in the Army”) was impressed by Hill and encouraged her drive to learn more and do more during her time at the hospital. He also suggested she study medicine after the war. At Armory Square, Hill and her colleagues would have weathered the shocking assassination of President Lincoln in April 1865, perhaps even witnessed the solemn procession when his body was brought back to the White House. An Armory Square Hospital Gazette article at the time attempted to put into words the public shock. “The crime was so new to our politics, and was so abhorrent to all our ideas and feelings, that its commission came upon the public mind like a thunderbolt from a clear sky,” it said. The Civil War ended less than a month later, and Hill stayed on at Armory Square for several months more. Both the troops and the nation’s “other army” of resourceful women then returned to their various corners of the country to rebuild their lives.
BECOMING A DOCTOR Women of all social classes had carved out roles for themselves as nurses, matrons and hospital administrators during the war. They had played a more visible role during that four-year period than ever before and, for the first time, had been engaged in meaningful work outside the home. They proved that they could both handle it and excel at it. Clara Barton, the famous battlefront nurse and founder of the American Red Cross, later said that at the end of the war “woman was at least 50 years in advance of
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the normal position which continued-peace would have assigned her.” However, women didn’t break glass ceilings right away. Many actually returned home feeling dejected, with no future in their chosen professions. (Female Civil War nurses received no official recognition or pension until 1892, and, even then, they were slow to be paid.) But women had started pressing against boundaries. Roughly 3,000 middle-class white women like Nancy Hill had been Civil War nurses. Six went on to medical school, and Hill was one of them. After the war, she returned home to Massachusetts and hit the books in preparation for a return to school. Hill studied medicine in Boston from late 1871 into early 1872 and interned at the New England Hospital for Women and Children. The facility had been created by pioneer doctor Marie Zakrzewska to give women a place to practice hands-on medicine, and Zakrzewska became Hill’s mentor. In 1872 Hill moved on from Boston to the University of Michigan Medical School, which had begun admitting women just one year earlier. She received her medical degree two years later. Hill then moved to Dubuque, Iowa, and opened her own practice, specializing in obstetrics. In addition to a gender shift, America was also undergoing cultural changes in regard to race, ethnicity and class. (Hill would have been on the leading edge at Armory Square, where she’d interacted with people from all walks of life.) In her medical practice Hill became concerned particularly with young, unmarried women and their children, who as social outcasts generally received poor care. In 1896 Hill formed the Women’s Rescue Society of Dubuque, which ultimately served tens of thousands of women and children. (It continues today as Hillcrest Family Services.) After being a tireless advocate for women and babies for nearly four decades, Hill retired in 1910. She died nine years later, from complications of the flu, at age 86. Near the end of her life she had reflected: “I never made a fortune. I never was married, never was a mother but brought about 1,000 children into this world. … I have worked in a humble way. I have done my part doing what was required of me, taking my place among my brother medics.”
Heather Baukney Hansen ’94 is an independent journalist. In the spring 2018 Alumnae Quarterly she wrote about Nancy Hill’s Mount Holyoke classmate Helen Pitts Douglass. Her most recent book is “Wildfire: On the Front Lines with Station 8.”
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STUDENT LIFE DURING THE CIVIL WAR the Civil War began, both students and faculty worked to support the Union troops. As later generations would do for American troops during World Wars I and II, Mount Holyoke students knitted socks, sewed haversacks and rolled bandages for Union troops as part of the war effort. In an essay written for the 1908 Mount Holyoke Alumnae of Hampshire County meeting, Anna C. Edwards, class of 1859 — a classmate of Nancy Hill — recalled the war effort during her first year teaching at Mount Holyoke. “We worked for the soldiers with tireless zeal, sending barrels of socks, mittens and all manner of comforts to the Army front. I have seen our whole family of three hundred knitting socks at the general exercise in seminary hall. Some did not understand the art very well, and each section was under the supervision of a teacher.” The students were joined in this work by other women living in South Hadley. Priscilla Shaw Bayley, class of 1866, recorded in her diary that students held “recess meeting[s] to pray for our country,” and on Thursday, April 2, 1863, students fasted “for our country,” skipping at least one meal. During these meetings, held in parlors of the Seminary Building, teachers would lead students in prayer for specific family members fighting far away, according to requests filled out earlier and dropped in a box. Faculty members also held community meetings where they read newspaper articles and letters aloud to share information about the war. Edwards saw many announcements for these meetings throughout her time on campus, such as “Miss Chapin read [Major General George B.] McClellan’s address to the army of the Potomac, which has at last moved.” Despite the pervasive atmosphere of trepidation across campus, gatherings like these instilled a sense of order and community.
Students received news of the war and individual soldiers through newspapers and letters from soldiers on the front. One of the first deaths to affect the Mount Holyoke community was that of a student’s brother, who was a soldier in the 10th Massachusetts regiment. An October 6, 1912, newspaper article written by Ellen Parsons, class of 1863, recounted “tense days of student life.” Parsons described a scene in the reading room after the list of those slain in the Battle of Antietam was published. One of her classmates read that her cousin, a colonel, was killed. As soon as she put down the paper and left her seat, another student in her class took it up to learn that her youngest brother had also been killed in the battle. The class of 1863 was much smaller than average, but even so “the only 37 members counted among themselves 10 brothers, one father, one husband and one betrothed, in the Army, to say nothing of first cousins.” According to Edwards’ essay, “From this time [1861] till peace was declared, startling telegrams from the seat of the war became a feature of our student life.” While the students and faculty coped with heavy personal and political losses, Edwards wrote that “it fell to us students of 1861–1865 to watch with our country through its long night of sorrow and suspense, and to take our diplomas while cannon was booming.” — B Y E M I LY K R A K O W ’ 2 0
WEB EXCLUSIVE
Read more about student life on campus during the Civil War, including a 1912 Sunday Republican article written by Ellen Parsons, class of 1863, at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/ parsons.
Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly
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F R OM T H E A R C H I V E S
ON DI S PL AY
T H E N A N D NOW
A PL AC E OF OU R OW N
MoHomeMemories Cheering for Baby Houseman “Dirty Dancing” under the stars ON FR IDAY, August 31, 2018, after officially
— B Y E M I LY K R A K O W ’ 2 0
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AF archive / Alamy Stock Photo
arriving on campus for their first year at Mount Holyoke, the class of 2022 gathered in Gettell Amphitheater to watch the movie “Dirty Dancing,” many for the first time. Many upper-class students — some returning to campus early just for the screening — joined the more than 600 members of the incoming class, reliving their own first night on campus. And they led the cheering at the moment of the most beloved line in the movie, “Baby’s starting Mount Holyoke in the fall.” The annual screening of “Dirty Dancing” at Orientation began in 2013, but the movie has been shown on campus countless times during the past 30 years. As early as 1988, just one year after its release, “Dirty Dancing” was screened for the community in Gamble Auditorium in events presented by the student Film Society. And since then, more informal gatherings have been part of residence hall living for the past three decades. First-year student Christine Liang ’22 — who was seeing the movie for the first time — called the experience “a great way to end a first night” at Mount Holyoke. And as she and her classmates sang along to the movie’s theme song, “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life,” she was filled, she says, with a sense of “unity and belonging.”
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FR OM T HE AR CHI VES
A Detailed Account Student ledger Margaret Ball, class of 1900, was meticulous in keeping track of her student expenses, as seen here in this ledger from her student days in the late 1800s. No doubt she later called on the same skills when she became the founding editor of the Alumnae Quarterly in 1917.
Courtesy MHC Archives and Special Collections
Keep up with Mount Holyoke Archives and Special Collections at mhc-asc.tumblr.com or follow them on Instagram and Snapchat at mhcarchives and on Twitter @ASCatMHC.
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Some expenses in this small notebook are likely to be similar to those of today’s students — tuition, travel fees, laundry — but that banjo club fee of $.25 and $1 for handkerchiefs (as gifted by Aunt H.) are reminders of days past.
Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly
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O N D I S PL AY
A RT I FAC T
Impressive Collection Mary Woolley’s medals D UR I NG H E R LI FET I ME Mary
— B Y E M I LY K R A K O W ’ 2 0
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Deirdre Haber Malfatto
Woolley, who served as Mount Holyoke president from 1901–1937, amassed a collection of about two dozen medals, coins, ribbons and badges that is now housed in the College’s Archives and Special Collections. In 1937 Woolley was the first woman to be awarded the Susan Colver Rosenberger Medal — the highest honor awarded by Brown University. Woolley graduated in 1894 as the university’s first female graduate and received a master’s degree from Brown in 1895. She received a commemorative coin from the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments of the League of Nations when President Herbert Hoover appointed her to serve as a delegate to the conference in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1932. She was the only woman in the U.S. delegation to attend the conference. Woolley also owned a pin from the Daughters of the American Revolution as well as several medals or badges for her service as a delegate at various colleges’ anniversaries, including a badge for Vassar College’s 50th anniversary, a medal for Monticello College’s centennial and a badge for Mount Holyoke College’s 75th anniversary.
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TH E N A N D N OW
1994 2022 First-year Class Profiles At the end of August 1990, the class of 1994 arrived on campus for first-year orientation. This group of red pegasi was made up of 453 students from 43 states plus D.C. and 28 countries. Forty-seven percent of them graduated in the top 10 percent of their high school class.
C L A SS O F 1994
1,853
1,140
first-year applicants
first-year students admitted
453 first-year students enrolled
68%
69% 1994
32%
graduated from independent schools
graduated from public high schools
2022
graduated from public high schools
0%
30%
graduated from independent schools
1%
homeschooled
homeschooled
C L A SS O F 2022
3,611
1,883
first-year applicants
first-year students admitted
636 first-year students enrolled
On Friday, August 31, 2018, the class of 2022 arrived at Mount Holyoke for first-year orientation. They were selected from an applicant pool nearly double that of the 1990 admission cycle. The newest red pegasi hail from 38 states plus Puerto Rico and 37 countries. The class of 2022 is also the first incoming class to be eligible for the Maria Scholarships, a full-tuition merit award for first-year students from Puerto Rico instituted after Hurricane Maria struck the island. Forty-eight percent graduated in the top 10 percent of their high school class.
Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly
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A PL ACE O F OU R OWN
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“
During my four years on the golf team, I always enjoyed the respite
the course afforded me. It was my therapy before I knew what therapy was. My daily time at the Orchards was where I learned the benefit of ‘me time,’ where the intricacies of each hole were mapped out in my memory, prepping for upcoming matches and home-course advantage, and where I always felt safe and happy.
Deirdre Haber Malfatto
—SUSAN BUSHEY MANNING ’96
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”
Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly
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M Y VO I CE
E S S AY
My MHC Summer By E MI LY KR AKOW ’2 0
T HI S PAST S U M M E R was an amazing, Mount Holyoke-filled adventure.
I left campus for an internship in New York City, and it seemed that everywhere I went, I met another Mount Holyoke alum. I knew it already, but meeting so many alumnae in the world made me realize again that my decision to attend Mount Holyoke in 2016 was one of the best decisions I have ever made, and the network of Mount Holyoke grads extends far beyond Pearsons Hall and the rest of this beautiful campus. Emily Krakow ’20 is a junior at Mount Holyoke and splits her time between South Hadley and Austin, Texas. She is an English major and German studies minor and has worked as the Alumnae Quarterly’s editorial assistant since January 2018. [EDITOR’S NOTE : Emily quickly made herself an invaluable member of the team. We kind of hope she never leaves.]
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THE STRAND
FLATIRON BUILDING, 19th FLOOR
I interned in the publicity department of Minotaur Books, the crime and mystery fiction imprint of St. Martin’s Press. But, as a book-loving English major, of course I went to the Strand Bookstore on my first day in New York City. I struck up a conversation with two people in the store and found out that they were both Mount Holyoke alumnae who had just returned from Reunion!
On June 27, I took over the Mount Holyoke Instagram account. Because I was working in such an iconic building, I decided one of my photos had to be of the Flatiron Building. Ariel Russ ’13, who works on the 19th floor, saw the post and commented, “There’s a bunch of Mohos here at Macmillan, myself included! Come say hi!” I went upstairs and chatted with her. She has her green griffin scarf at her desk. I also contacted Sylvan Creekmore ’13 on the 19th floor. Creekmore and I later went out for lunch, and we talked about her career as an editor. While I’m still learning about and experiencing different departments in publishing, our conversation gave me some helpful insights into what it’s like to work in editorial at a major publishing house and advice for when I enter the workforce as a college graduate.
THE ELEVATOR A few days after my Instagram takeover, I was in the elevator when the other person in the elevator happened to recognize my water bottle from the photo on Instagram. Her sister is a Mount Holyoke alumna who had sent her the posts.
FLATIRON, 15th FLOOR My work at Minotaur Books included writing galley letters and press releases, managing book mailings, and, yes, rearranging the contents of some filing cabinets. And on my second-to-last day of work, I found out that one of the publicists I interned under was the son of Mount Holyoke alumna Sally Blanning DeJean ’66!
ASTORIA For the last week of my internship, I stayed with Bridget Mahoney ’06, who is part of the Alumnae Stay Program. I also happened to meet her at the MHC NYC Intern Networking Event earlier in the summer. I am so grateful that she and her husband opened their home to me so I could finish my internship program after the dorm I had been living in closed to prepare for the new academic year.
alumnae.mtholyoke.edu
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It only takes 5 simple steps: 1
Visit mtholyoke.edu/go/sustaining and click “give now.”
2
Enter your monthly gift amount.
3
Select “Sustaining: Charge the above gift amount monthly.”
4
Select your desired payment date.
5
Choose your gift destination.
Change your gift at any time by contacting The Mount Holyoke Fund at 1-800-642-4483.
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Regular gifts add up over time and significantly i mpact the experience of every Mount Holyoke student. Become a sustaining donor to advance the mission of Mount Holyoke — and to transform lives. To found Mount Holyoke, Mary Lyon traveled extensively by stagecoach, filling her green velvet bag with contributions ranging from 6 cents to $1,000. These small donations brought her vision to life, and a legacy of support — of all sizes — has sustained the College for over 180 years.
Mount Holyoke Fund
11/15/18 5:29 PM
50 College Street, South Hadley, MA 01075
“I love the brevity of theater. It’s a one-moment-in-time experience that resonates so deeply and affects so many people, yet it can never be repeated again.” — Tiffany Tang ’97 Read more on page 10
Rooke Theatre
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