Mills Quarterly winter 2006 by Mills Quarterly

Mills Quarterly Winter 2006 Alumnae Magazine

Passionate Pediatrician: Lora Melnicoe,â&#x20AC;&#x2122;77 Our Week with Rosa Parks Reunion and Convocation 2005

MILLS COLLEGE

ANNUAL FUND

Your College,Your Choice

Remember that you choose how the money is spent! Gift designations include: ● Mills’ Greatest Need ● Student Scholarships ● Graduate Fellowships ● Faculty Salaries ● Buildings and Grounds ● Technology Acquisition

Every gift counts, and every gift helps. Thank you!

Many thanks to those alumnae, parents and friends who gave generously to the Mills College Annual Fund during the fall phone-a-thon!

DONALD B. JOHNSON, OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA, 1980

BRUCE COOK

Mills Quarterly

CONTENTS WINTER 2006 12

Reunion and Convocation 2005 Alumnae in full regalia gathered at Convocation to hear astronaut Dr. Sally Ride, who encourages women in math and science. More than 200 alumnae took part in Reunion this year; class photos begin on page 19.

Bookshelf This collection features a new faculty member’s award-winning short stories; the magical memoir of a rock musician’s wife; the next installment of the Go-Girl Guides; plus art, education, and poetry books.

Statement by Alumna Trustee–Elect Susan Brown Penrod, ’71 “Over the years I have experienced the energy of our loyal alumnae in many ways and believe that it is one of the legacies of our Mills education.”

Passionate Pediatrician

by Jo Kaufman

Doctor, mother, and humanitarian, Lora Melnicoe, ’77, is physician to the poor.

Our Week with Rosa Parks: Her Presence Remains a Gift in Our Hearts and Homes by Daphne Muse The civil rights pioneer visits Oakland in 1980.

D E PA R T M E N T S

Cover photo by Peg Skorpinski.

Letters

Inside Mills

Mills Matters

Calendar

Profiles

Passages

Mills Quarterly Volume XCIV Number 3 (USPS 349-900) Winter 2006 Alumnae Director Sheryl J. Bize-Boutte, ’73 Editor David M. Brin, MA ’75 <dbrin@mills.edu> (510) 430-3312 Design and Art Direction Benjamin Piekut, MA ’01 Associate Editor Pat Soberanis Contributing Writer Moya Stone, MFA ’03 Editorial Assistance Katrina Wardell, ’07 Quarterly Advisory Board Jennifer Neira Heystek, ’04, Marian Hirsch, ’75 Jane Cudlip King, ’42, Jane Redmond Mueller, ’68 Cathy Chew Smith, ’84, Ramona Lisa Smith, ’01, MBA, ’02 Sharon K. Tatai, ’80 Lynette Williams Williamson, ’72, MA ’74 Class Notes Writers Sharada Balachandran-Orihuela, ’05, Barb Barry, ’94 Julia Bourland Chambers, ’93, Laura Compton, ’93 Barbara Bennion Friedlich, ’49, Sally Mayock Hartley, ’48 Marian Hirsch, ’75, Cathy Chew Smith, ’84 Special Thanks to David M. Hedden Jane Cudlip King, ’42 Board of Governors President Thomasina S. Woida, ’80 Vice Presidents Anita Aragon Bowers, ’63 Jane Cudlip King, ’42 Treasurer Beverley Johnson Zellick, ’49, MA ’50 Alumnae Trustees Leone La Duke Evans, MA ’45 Sara Ellen McClure, ’81 Sharon K. Tatai, ’80 Governors Lila Abdul-Rahim, ’80, Michelle Balovich, ’03 Micheline A. Beam, ’72, Sheryl J. Bize-Boutte, ’73 Cecille Caterson, MA ’90, Harriet Fong Chan, ’98 Vivian Fumiko Chin ’89, Beverly Curwen, ’71 Suzette Lalime Davidson, ’94, Cynthia Guevara, ’04 Linda Jaquez-Fissori, ’92, Krishen Laetsch, MA ’01 Mary Liu, ’71, Leah Hardcastle Mac Neil, MA ’51 Nangee Warner Morrison, ’63, Michele Murphy, ’88 Diana Birtwistle Odermatt, ’60, Ramona Lisa Smith, ’01, MBA, ’02, Jennifer Torkildson, ’06 Lynette Williams Williamson, ’72, MA ’74 Sheryl Y. Wooldridge, ’77 Regional Governors Joyce Menter Wallace, ’50, Eastern Great Lakes Nancy Sanger Pallesen, ’64, Middle Atlantic Albertina Padilla, ’78, Middle California Adrienne Bronstein Becker, ’86, Middle California Judith Smrha, ’87, Midwest Linda Cohen Turner, ’68, North Central Brandy Tuzon Boyd, ’91, Northern California Gayle Rothrock, ’68, Northwest Louise Hurlbut, ’75, Rocky Mountains Colleen Almeida Smith, ’92, South Central Dr. Candace Brand Kaspers, ’70, Southeast Julia Almazan, ’92, Southern California Elaine Chew, ’68, Southwest The Mills Quarterly (USPS 349-900) is published quarterly in April, July, October, and January by the Alumnae Association of Mills College, Reinhardt Alumnae House, 5000 MacArthur Boulevard, Oakland, CA 94613. Periodicals postage paid at Oakland, CA and at additional mailing office(s). Postmaster: Send address changes to the Mills Quarterly, Alumnae Association of Mills College, P.O. Box 9998, Oakland, CA 94613-0998. Statement of Purpose The purpose of the Mills Quarterly is to report the activities of the Alumnae Association and its branches; to reflect the quality, dignity, and academic achievement of the College family; to communicate the exuberance and vitality of student life; and to demonstrate the worldwide-ranging interests, occupations, and achievements of alumnae.

On This Issue In the Mills Matters section you’ll find one news item that is especially important to Mills alumnae: the appointment of Sheryl J. Bize-Boutte, ’73, as permanent executive director of the AAMC. (See page 8.) Sheryl has been at the AAMC since March, acting as interim executive director. She has worked to create a climate conducive to mutual success for the Alumnae Association and Mills College, and she is leading the AAMC with a spirit of cooperation as we look to our future. You’ll find photos of Convocation and Reunion on pages 12 and 13, and in addition, the class photos taken at Reunion on pages 19 through 21. Convocation this year was particularly impressive. The concert hall overflowed with students, alums, faculty, and staff, and the speeches were especially memorable. Dr. Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, was there to talk about her work encouraging girls and women to pursue careers in science. (See an excerpt of her speech on page 12.) How appropriate, then, that she was present to break ground for Mills’ new $17-million natural sciences building. Construction—or actually, the demolition of parts of the old life science center, in preparation for construction—is taking place as we go to press. The new building will assure Mills’ role as a leader in training women to assume top positions in the sciences. I was especially moved by the student speakers at Convocation this year. Carolina Salazar, ’06, who is this year’s president of the Associated Students of Mills College, asked, “What does it mean to be a Mills woman?” She called Mills women “courageous, revolutionary, imaginative, inspiring,” and added, “But most importantly, Mills women are world changers. Mills women have vision. They do not accept the status quo. They have the capacity to see what is wrong in the world and the drive and ambition to change it.” Rachel Flaith, ’80, MBA ’06, told the audience that a friend “asked me why I decided to come back to Mills to get my MBA. And her question got me to thinking, for it wasn’t just because of the small classes, the esteemed faculty, or the unique student body. I realized that it all boiled down to three things that Mills had taught me over 25 years ago: love, laugh, and give.” She noted that laughter is everywhere at Mills, and she takes this as a good sign. Her own path took her to Mills as an undergraduate, and back years later as a student in the MBA program. “I came to Mills the first time . . . unsure of myself and not knowing what I wanted,” she said. “I came back to Mills because I knew exactly what I wanted.” Before I sign off, I want to draw your attention to the article about Dr. Lora Melnicoe, ’77, on page 22. Lora is a Mills alumna who exemplifies Carolina Salazar’s notion of a Mills woman, someone with vision who has “the capacity to see what is wrong in the world and the drive and ambition to change it.” I hope you’ll find some inspiring words in this issue,

Letters to the Editor Architecture at Mills Many thanks for your article in the recent Quarterly about the architect Walter Ratcliff. [“Walter Ratcliff and the Master Plan for the Mills Campus,” Fall 2005.] All these years, I had assumed (erroneously) that those Mills buildings which I most admired were Julia Morgan structures. Those awesome buildings— Ethel Moore, the Music Building— which in the 60s forever shaped my growing sense of beauty and function, were not Julia’s at all, it turns out, but completed decades later by an architect I’d never heard of. I thank you for the correction. Morgan may well have borne the torch for the ‘look’ of the Mills campus, but Ratcliff carried it to the height of its potential. —Gail David-Tellis, ’63 Stacy Gilbert, Global Refugee Expert I really enjoyed the Fall 2005 Quarterly. I was especially pleased to see your article on Stacy Gilbert. [“Mission: Possible,” Fall 2005.] In the fall of 1988, Stacy was my hostess when I visited Mills as a prospective student. She graciously showed me around Orchard-Meadow, took me to dinner in the dining hall, and then handed me over to Miel Corbett for the evening. Meanwhile, Stacy betook herself to the library where she spent the night finishing her thesis. In the morning when she returned to take me to breakfast, she apologized for being a disengaged hostess, but I didn’t mind a bit. I’d already seen enough to decide that Mills was for me. Even from that brief visit, it was pretty clear that Stacy was destined to get involved in international politics. Her room was filled with posters, pictures, and other evidence of her

interest. I love seeing that she made it a reality. —Jennifer Moxley, ’93 Bachelor of Science Degree I just finished reading the Fall 2005 issue of the Mills Quarterly. As always, it was enlightening and enjoyable. The articles about Stacy Gilbert and Walter Ratcliff were wonderful. I did, however, note an error on page 6. This is not the first time in the College’s history that a Bachelor of Science degree has been offered at Mills. In 1960 Bachelor of Science degrees were awarded for medical record librarianship. I know, because I have one. The BS degree may have been awarded in other fields as well, although that may have been the last year. —Stacia Sue Gabriel, BS ’60 More on Birds at Mills Your fine article on Mills birds, which I’ve just read [“Stalking the Dark-eyed Junco, Spring 2005] brought back many memories of towhees scratching in the leaf litter on the east side of Mills Hall, the wonderful spring song of robins in the late afternoon, the scurrying of quail coveys, and Cogsie’s [Howard Lyman Cogswell, Professor of Biological Sciences] superb field trips on campus and elsewhere, complete with the sight of a great horned owl sitting on a Marin County hillside. He (Cogsie) seemed to be able to identify all birds from their songs, notes, and other noises, even to a hummingbird coming to a screeching halt in the air. —Ellen Crumb ’59 A very happy event was to receive the Spring Mills Quarterly and find the wonderful article on birds by David Brin. Quail calls always say “Mills College” to me, so I will admit that part [that there are no longer quail on

campus] was a shock. My parents built their home on the Mills campus in 1928 when I was eight years old, and my most precious memories of the campus are of the walks I had. I think I covered every inch of the campus during the many years I lived there, and I still enjoy walking. —Jean McMinn Greenwood, ’43 WANTED: ALUMNAE ADMISSION REPRESENTATIVES Would you like to recruit bright, dynamic young women and encourage them to attend Mills? The Alumnae Admission Representative (AAR) program is looking for new volunteers. If you enjoy talking about your time at Mills and like to contact prospective students, consider becoming an AAR. Alumnae who live in all areas outside of Alameda County are needed! During the first year we do ask new AARs to attend the AAR Training Workshop at Mills, which will be held early September 2006. Time Commitment The amount of time required to do the AAR job varies according to area. The minimum commitment is 15 hours per year. AAR Activities m Contact prospective students and applicants by mail, email, and/or phone and represent Mills at college fairs. m Interview interested students. m Call and congratulate admitted students. m Host and/or organize recruiting events in your area. If you have questions, or if you would like to volunteer, please contact Joan Jaffe in the undergraduate admission office, (510) 430-2135 or email <aar@mills.edu>.

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inside mills LEADERSHIP IN THE PROFESSIONS streamlining their career opportunities. ideas and make them happen.” ills College enjoys prestige as a Dr. Chetkovich says her goal is “the The proposal for the 4+1 public policy leader in women’s education marriage of analysis and action” on the curriculum is currently under review by the through both its undergraduate and part of her students. “I’d like to give Western Association of Schools and graduate degrees. But as President them the tools to analyze the outcomes Colleges (WASC), and the graduate coursJanet L. Holmgren stated, “Mills from a policy, then decide whether or es will be launched soon after WASC College cannot stand still.” Mills students not to become an advocate. Mills’ pubapproval. The master of public policy aims agree, and have clamored for new lic policy graduates should also put the to provide students with the skills and professional graduate programs. In focus on action, to move forward with perspectives required to formulate, impleaddition to the master’s program in public policy, Mills has made several innovations Natural Sciences Groundbreaking promoting women in the Dr. Sally Ride, the first American woman in annexed to the existing life sciences center, and professions. The popular space, helped President Janel L. Holmgren break will bring together the department of chemistry “4+1” option is now ground for a new natural sciences complex on and physics, now housed across campus, with offered in several disciSeptember 30, 2005. The building will be biology and biochemistry and molecular biology. plines, allowing students to complete bachelor’s and master’s degrees in five years.

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BRUCE COOK

Public Policy: A Marriage of Analysis and Action In response to the interest in professional graduate studies at Mills, and through the careful consideration of the Strategic Planning Committee and the faculty, the College has initiated a 4+1 master’s degree program in public policy. Dr. Carol Chetkovich, formerly at Harvard’s Kennedy School, has joined the Mills faculty to direct the Public Policy Program. The unique feature of the 4+1 bachelor of arts/master of public policy path is that it allows undergraduates with a major or minor in public policy to earn both degrees in five years,

Helen Drake Muirhead, ’58, Mary Alice Garms Ramsden, ’48, Dr. Sally Ride, President Janet L. Holmgren, and Professor of Chemistry John Brabson prepare to break ground for the new natural sciences building.

LEADERSHIP IN THE PROFESSIONS

ment, and evaluate public policies. In addition, graduates of the program will gain the expertise to analyze complex social, economic, and cultural issues. “We will create a woman-centered program, in part by analyzing how gender interacts with public policy,” says Dr. Chetkovich. “My mission is to ensure students are inspired to go into public service, and to view public, nonprofit, and government work as honorable.”

The Mills MBA, Where Women Mean Business Building on Mills’ 150-year heritage as a leader in women’s education, the Mills Graduate School of Business provides a challenging, team-oriented environment that celebrates and fosters female advancement. The Mills MBA program prepares women for

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New School of Education Mills recently enhanced several programs in education, thus creating a new School of Education from what used to be a department. The major areas of focus for graduate study in education are child development, teacher preparation, and educational leadership. One of Mills’ enhanced areas of study is the early childhood education master’s degree, with an emphasis on the burgeoning field of infant mental health. This 4+1 course of study allows students to complete their bachelor’s and master’s degrees while also earning a California teaching credential. Mills College also offers specialized graduate study in the field of child development through the child life in hospitals and community health centers program, as well as early childhood special education.

leadership roles in today’s competitive business world. The Mills MBA program provides a unique and supportive learning environment where women can explore their business potential. The flexible program options allow completion of the degree in two to four semesters, and small classes allow greater faculty access for students. The curriculum is rigorous, but the atmosphere is congenial and individualized. President Janet L. Holmgren speaks at the natural sciences building groundbreaking ceremony. The 4+1 MBA program includes a sumUC San Francisco, Stanford, Harvard, mer internship between graduation and UCLA, Dartmouth, and Yale. the fifth year, ensuring that participants “We have been at or above our enter the fifth year prepared for the 60-student capacity for the past three graduate business curriculum with realyears. Over that period, the range of world experience. acceptances to medical schools has been from 75 to 85 percent,” says John Pre-Medical Studies Brabson, PhD, professor of chemistry Students who have chosen the field of and adviser for pre-med students. health services may strengthen their application to medical schools through The Mills Difference the College’s post-baccalaureate preAt Mills the academic atmosphere in medical program. This educational professional programs is one of encouropportunity is open to women and men agement and optimism. Students supwho already have a bachelor’s degree port each other and are cooperative and have decided to pursue a health and friendly as they seek their mutual professions career, but lack some or all of goals. Faculty members expect students the basic science courses. The program is to achieve their goals and make every flexible, and can be tailored to suit a stueffort to ensure individual success. This dent’s specific background in science and model of rigorous academic preparation mathematics. Many students who comcombined with collegiality makes Mills plete the Mills pre-med program go on College a leader in graduate education. to prestigious medical schools such as

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inside mills Alumnae of Color

Holmgren and cochaired by Mills Trustee Corazon Manese Tellez, ’72; former Trustee Estrellita Hudson Redus, ’65, MFA ’75; and executive director of the Alumnae Association of Mills College, Sheryl J. Bize-Boutte, ’73. The event was cosponsored by the Office of Institutional Advancement. According to President Holmgren, the event was a tremendous success. “The gathering provided a wonderful opportunity for honest and productive dialogue among alumnae of color, mem-

A lively event welcoming alumnae of color back to campus was held at the Mills College Art Museum on September 10, 2005. More than 50 women, representing 60 years of graduating classes, enjoyed lunch, lively conversation, and a keynote address by President Janet L. Holmgren. Frances Dunham Catlett, MA ’47, provided an inspiring historical context for the group. The event was hosted by President

bers of the College administration, and key leaders in the AAMC,” she said. “Discussion was lively and forwardthinking. Participants offered many constructive ideas to actively re-engage women of color in Mills’ mission to educate women of all backgrounds for roles of leadership in the global community.” The event honored the creation of an endowed chair named for Congresswoman Barbara Lee, ’73. This was the first in a series of events for alumnae of color to be held in 2005–06.

Clockwise from right: Micheline Beam, ’72, Estrellita Hudson Redus, ’65, MFA ’75, and Benita Sheffield Harris, ’74. Cynthia Guevara, ’04, shakes the hand of Frances Dunham Catlett, MA ’47, as Sarah Washington-Robinson, ’72, looks on. Trustee Corazon Manese Tellez, ’72, and Toni Adams, ’68. Stephan Jost, Mills Art Museum director, and Rita Stuckey, ’01.

BRUCE COOK

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BRUCE COOK

LEADERSHIP IN THE PROFESSIONS

A Gala at the de Young Museum

hat do you get when you invite Mills College volunteers and donors to a private event at a brand new museum? Over 500 happy art lovers! Mills was pleased to host one of the first such events at the new de Young Museum in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. President Janet L. Holmgren introduced renowned artist and Mills faculty member Catherine Wagner, who treated attendees to a private tour of her exhibition at the de Young. The event was made possible through the efforts of Trustees Joan Lewis Danforth, ’53, and Roselyn Swig, as well as the Fine Arts Museums Project Director Deborah Frieden, ’76.

BRUCE COOK

Professor of Studio Art Catherine Wagner discusses her work at the de Young Museum.

Chicago Alumnae Unite

POLLY ROYAL LANGSLEY, ’49

Elizabeth Parker, ’85, hosted a delightful reunion for Illinois alumnae at the Women’s Athletic Club in Chicago on September 13, 2005. President Holmgren was greeted by 25 enthusiastic women, who listened to the president’s report on current campus happenings and shared their insights with her. Gina Salaices Ney, ’85, left, and Sheryl J. Bize-Boutte, ’73, executive director of the AAMC, in Chicago.

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MILLS MATTERS

Sheryl J. Bize-Boutte, ’73, Appointed Executive Director of AAMC

DAVID M. BRIN, MA ’75

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New Staff Joanna Iwata New dean of student life Joanna Iwata isn’t new to Mills: She began her career here as assistant director of student activities. Ms. Iwata has spent the intervening two decades in student services at a number of colleges, most recently as director of student involvement at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. “Coming back to Mills 20-plus years later as the new dean of student life,” she says, “is like coming home.” She didn’t waste a minute, leading her team of “imagineers” in developing a new student-centered matrix of programs “to improve the diversity of programs and services we offer our students,” Ms. Joanna Iwata

Iwata says. “I am excited to be back at Mills and look forward to a challenging and rewarding year ahead!” Daphne Muse Writer, teacher, commentator, and consultant Daphne Muse has been appointed director of the Women’s Leadership Institute (WLI). Before coming to Mills, she was a writer and editor at educational publisher Scholastic. Ms. Muse has been involved with Mills several times in her career—twice as faculty member, as a WLI fellow and advisory board member, and most recently as a consultant to the Office of the President, where she developed the initial plan for the Barbara Lee Chair in Women’s Leadership. “The opportunity to engage in an intellectually vibrant and creatively compelling sustained discourse, with women from around the world, was one of the most amazing experiences of my life,” notes Ms. Muse. “The Institute reflects the power and vision of some of the most insightful and powerful women I’ve ever met.” Randy McGlauthing Randy McGlauthing, appointed earlier this year as director of graduate admission, has nine years of experience in student and faculty recruitment in both higher education and business training. He served as interim director of graduate admission for the first half of 2004; prior to that, he was program recruitment manager at Digital Randy McGlauthing Think, a business services firm. With bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business administration, Mr. McGlauthing has focused on the administrative management of academic programs delivered on-site and online.

DAVID M. BRIN, MA ’75

The AAMC’s Board of Governors announced last month that Sheryl J. Bize-Boutte, ’73, has been appointed executive director of the Alumnae Association of Mills College, effective January 1, 2006. Sheryl had been serving as interim director since March 2005. “I am extremely grateful for all of the support provided to me as interim director and Sheryl J. Bize-Boutte, ’73 feel confident about the future,” Sheryl comments. Sheryl majored in English at Mills and worked on the Mills Weekly while a student. She recently retired from a long career in management with the U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA). She first joined the DOE/NNSA Oakland office in 1973 as a management intern and served in a variety of management positions during her tenure. She was the site manager at the DOE/NNSA Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory site office and as acting director of the Oakland Operations Office Financial Assistance Center, she administered a portfolio of 1,075 active grants with a cumulative value of $11 billion. In her most recent capacity at DOE/NNSA, Sheryl was the deputy associate director for federal services, where her primary responsibilities

included management of information technology and security for the DOE/NNSA Service Center, which included oversight of a $27 million budget. She was also responsible for the integration of the Oakland office into the Albuquerque office. The principal mission of the Oakland office was to provide support for the NNSA mission in oversight of the federal research and development contracts for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. “I am looking forward to working with the AAMC Board of Governors, the AAMC staff, the College, and alumnae to make the AAMC a model for such organizations,” Sheryl says.

NEWS OF THE COLLEGE AND THE AAMC

“Mills is well known on regional, national, and international levels for its outstanding graduate programs,” Mr. McGlauthing says. “I am looking forward to contributing to and enhancing graduate educational opportunities for both our current undergraduate students as well as the general public.” Jess Miller After a nine-month search, Mills College has appointed Jess Miller as program director of Services for Students with Disabilities. Ms. Miller’s extensive experience includes positions as program director, assistant professor, and crisis counselor. Through orientation, an online newsletter, and brochures, her primary goal is to “raise visibility of the program on campus so that every student who may need our services knows of our program.” Holly N. Stanco Holly N. Stanco fills the newly created position of director of the Mills College Annual Fund in the Office of Institutional Advancement. Ms. Stanco brings extensive experience in donor cultivation, fundraising, stewardship, alumni relations, and staff management to Mills. She comes to Mills from UC Davis School of Law, where she directed the annual fund and earlier served as associate director of development and alumni relations. Julie Gordon Cohen In the Office of Institutional Advancement, the new associate director of major gifts is Julie Gordon Cohen. Ms. Cohen brings 12 years of experience with nonprofit development and seven years with major gift management. Her most recent positions were in development at the University of Washington and at the California Pacific Medical Center Foundation. Stephanie L. Mazow Also in the Office of Institutional

Shhh!

Posted every month, Shhh! is your online source for all that’s new and happening at the Mills College library. Catch a book review, peruse the list of new materials added to the collection, get inspired by a profile of an author, or read some sound advice in the Miss Nomer column. In the December issue, the usually polite Miss Nomer lost her cool and went on a rant. To view Shhh! go to <www.mills.edu/ academics/library/library_ information/newsletter.php>.

Advancement, Stephanie L. Mazow, MFA ’02, is the new donor relations coordinator, where she will head up stewardship responsibilities. Ms. Mazow moves to OIA from the Office of the President, where she served for many years as administrative assistant.

Women of the West Conference On October 6–8, dozens of women gathered for the Women of the West Conference, cosponsored by Mills College and the National Women’s History Project. The opening keynote featured three “Makers of History”: Ada Deer, director of American Indian Studies at the University of Wisconsin and former assistant secretary for the U.S. Bureau for Indian Affairs; Delaine Eastin, Mills distinguished visiting professor of education and former California state superintendent of public instruction; and Aileen Hernandez, chair of the California Women’s Agenda and the first woman appointed, in 1965, to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Highlights included a first-night performance by singer-songwriter Holly Near; a tribute by University of Pennsylvania law professor Linda Wharton to newly retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor; a celebration of the 85th anniversary of women’s right to vote; and workshops on the Rosie the Riveter national park project and efforts to preserve the home of Juana Briones, a pre–Civil War California businesswoman.

The Mills community played integral roles at the conference, with Professors Eastin and Bertram M. Gordon speaking, current students participating in workshops, and eighth-graders from the Julia Morgan School for Girls offering a presentation on the significance of their school’s namesake. The conference closed with a tour of Mills buildings designed by Julia Morgan, in which the guide, Betty Marvin of the Oakland Heritage Alliance, impersonated Morgan.

Mills Provides Leadership at Teaching Institute Mills College President Janet L. Holmgren and Professor of Education Anna Richert have played leading roles at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, an independent policy and research center based in Stanford, California. The foundation recently honored President Holmgren for her accomplishments during a sevenyear tenure on the foundation’s Board of Trustees, four as chair of the board. As chair, she shepherded the 100-year-old foundation through the construction of its first permanent home in Stanford. “Janet Holmgren is a gifted educational and organizational leader,” said Carnegie President Lee S. Shulman. “Her tenure as chair was characterized by a profound sense of stewardship and responsibility to the foundation’s welfare.” Professor Richert is one of three eduM I L L S Q U A R T E R LY W I N T E R 2 0 0 6

MILLS MATTERS

cation experts exploring the use of Webbased technologies in teaching programs. The two-year Carnegie Foundation–funded Quest project, featured recently in Education Week, creates collaborative websites where experienced teachers in urban schools share their expertise. The teachers videotape their lessons and write reflective essays on their methods; both are posted on the Web, where student teachers can view them. These demonstrations help teachers in training explore such questions as how teachers learn about their students and how they use this knowledge to advance their teaching methods. “We hope the Quest project will launch a new, Web-based method for preparing future teachers for the complexities of the profession,” Richert said.

Seagate Technology, the world’s largest manufacturer of disc drives, recently awarded the Expanding Your Horizons (EYH) Network a $100,000 grant to support women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. As part of the company’s commitment to K-12 science and technology educational programs, Seagate’s chief operating officer, Dave Wickersham, will be working closely with the network for the next year, assisting with raising the network’s visibility both nationally and internationally and helping the network implement a long-term strategic plan. For more than 30 years, Mills College has been working in partnership with the EYH Network to expose young women to careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The first EYH conference was held on the Mills College campus in 1976. Over the years, Mills has demonstrated its commitment to women

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Professor Moira Roth Receives Award for Leadership in Art

publications on performance, feminist art, and multiculturalism, Roth has urged the discipline of art history to expand and reconfigure the scope of its vision. Roth edited and contributed to The Amazing Decade: Women and Performance Art in America 1970–1980, Connecting Conversations: Interviews with 28 Bay Area Artists, and We Flew Over the Bridge: The Memoirs of Faith Ringgold. An anthology of her writing, Difference/Indifference: Musings on Postmodernism, Marcel Duchamp, and John Cage, with commentaries by Jonathan D. Katz, was published in 1998. In recent years, Roth has continued to broaden her intellectual reach to encompass travel, memory, language, and artists’ responses to war and its aftermath.

Trefethen Professor of Art History Moira Roth has been named a 2006 recipient of the Annual Recognition Award by the Committee on Women in the Arts of the College Art Association (CAA). She was chosen for excellence in art and leadership in the world of art. An internationally recognized writer, curator, and lecturer, Roth has curated numerous groundbreaking exhibitions, and published books, articles, essays, and conversations with artists that bring visibility and give voice to artists underrepresented in their profession. The CAA Committee on Women in the Arts will honor Roth at their Annual Show of Imogen Cunningham’s Award Ceremony during Works at the Mills Art Museum the CAA Conference in Boston on February 23, The Mills College Art Museum recently acquired this 2006. studio portrait of Hillary Black Dumas, ’63, taken by Roth received her PhD Imogen Cunningham in 1968. It is being shown in the from UC Berkeley in 1974. current exhibit of Imogen Cunningham’s works at the From her early writings on Museum through March 2006. Cunningham was marMarcel Duchamp, the subried to Mills professor of art Roi Partridge, and often ject of her PhD dissertaphotographed people with connections to Mills. The tion, to her numerous photograph is a gift of Hillary and Dr. Gilbert Dumas.

Seagate Technology Contributes $100,000 to Expanding Your Horizons

in science, technology, engineering, and math by housing the national office of the network and by hosting a Mills College EYH conference each spring. Barbara Li Santi, professor of computer science and a former chair of the Mills College EYH conference said, “We’re thrilled that the EYH Network has received this prestigious grant. Our partnership will continue for many years to come.”

SATURDAY, JANUARY 28 8:00 PM Concert Series: Phil Minton/Improvised Vocal Music English vocal improviser Phil Minton and his Feral Choir project perform with trained and untrained singers from Mills College. Concert Hall, Music Building (510) 430-2296 MONDAY, JANUARY 30 6:30 PM Lunafest Film Festival: films by, for, and about women. Lunafest was

Mills faculty composer presents Lava and Ragamala Chiaroscuro. Concert Hall, Music Building (510) 430-2296 SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5 3:00–5:00 PM Sophomore and Junior Tea and Treats Orchard Meadow Dining Room Sponsored by the AAMC’s Alumnae Student Relation Committee. Alumnae are invited to meet, chat, and share a cup of tea with students.

Performance All-day conference featuring poet and scholar Irena Klepfisz and performance artist Sara Felder. The day will consist of concurrent workshops and panels on the creativity and scholarship of Jewish women. Advance registration and ticket purchase required. For more information refer to<www.mills.edu/ academics/grants_and_ special_programs/kol_ isha/index.php> or email <galadam@earthlink.net>.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9 8:00 PM Concert: Great Fences of Australia Concert and Hyperstring Project A performance with Mills students on a specially constructed 50-foot amplified fence. Concert Hall, Music Building (510) 430-2296 SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21 5:30 PM Contemporary Writers Series: Chris Abani Abani is a poet, novelist, and native of Nigeria. Mills Hall Living Room

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TUESDAY, JANUARY 31 5:30 PM Contemporary Writers Series: Bruce Andrews, a “performance artist and poet whose texts are some of the most radical of the Language school.” Mills Hall Living Room (510) 430-2236 TUESDAY, JANUARY 31 8:00 PM Concert Series: Chris Brown

HEATHER LANG, ’01

created in order to raise awareness about women’s issues, highlight women filmmakers, bring women together in their communities, and raise money for the Breast Cancer Fund. Haas Gym (510) 430-2395

The Mills College Swim Team is having a great season. Mills hosts meets against California State University, East Bay on Saturday, February 4 at noon and against Cal-Tech on Saturday, February 11 at noon, at the Trefethen Aquatic Center. For information call (510) 430-2172.

Donations of homebaked cookies and tea cakes gratefully accepted. Volunteers welcome. (510) 430-2101

(510) 430-2236 SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 26 9:00 AM Mills College Concert Hall Kol Isha—Jewish Women’s Voices Unbound: Creativity, Scholarship and

SUNDAY, MARCH 5 4:00 PM Concert Series: A Rage for Music Music for flute, harpsichord, and fortepiano by J.C. Bach, Muzio Clementi, James Hook, and others. Concert Hall, Music Building (510) 430-2296 SATURDAY, MAY 13 118th Commencement Meet at Reinhardt Alumnae House at 8:30 AM to don robes and march with your fellow alumnae. Toyon Meadow (510) 430-2110 SATURDAY, MAY 13 AAMC Annual Meeting (510) 430-2110

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I have a shared mission with you at Mills in trying to encourage girls and young women at all levels to enter and stay in the sciences. You may not realize it, but you are enormously important role models to elementary and middle school girls. When they see college women who have gone on in math and science, who are encouraging them and telling them they can do what they want to do, they can be what they want to be in whatever area it is, they really, really listen. —Dr. Sally Ride

BRUCE COOK

Left: Dr. Sally Ride, first American woman in space, gave the keynote address at Convocation. Above: Francie Mixter Lloyd, ’55, presented President Janet Holmgren with a gift from her class. Below: Amy Buckingham-Flammang, ’65, left, with Alex Orgel Moses, ’65, and Professor Emerita of Economics Marion Ross, ’44, at the president’s garden reception.

BRUCE COOK

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We take the occasion of Convocation to celebrate the accomplishments of our students and our faculty, and to welcome our reunioning alumnae, those wonderful women—and in our graduate programs, women and men— who have come before us and set a standard for our students to follow. —President Janet L. Holmgren Convocation is the celebration of the official opening of the academic year at Mills and affords an excellent opportunity to reflect on who we are, where we came from, and what we represent. —Thomasina Woida, president of the AAMC Clockwise from top right: Marian Hirsch and Ellen S. Jamieson. Vivian Stephenson, chair of the Mills College Board of Trustees, left, and Dr. Sally Ride at Convocation. Peggy Weber, ’65, left, and Anita Aragon Bowers, ’63. Proud alums from the Class of 2000.

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BOOK SHELF Twigs: The Go-Girl Guide to Nesting by Julia Bourland, ’93; Perigee Books <us.penguingroup.com>. Whether you rent or own that address you use for sleeping, Julia Bourland’s latest book is a great primer on how to turn a house (or apartment, or dorm room, or whatever) into a home. Twigs: The Go-Girl Guide to Nesting is Bourland’s third handbook on living the good and satisfying life; as with her previous endeavors, it’s packed with helpful and manageable tips. Twigs is divided into two sections—“Composing the Nest” and “Feathering the Nest”—and although it may be tempting to skip right to the “feathering” chapters, Bourland’s predecorating advice is invaluable. Here, she gives readers insight—drawn from her own experiences as a homeowner—on the best way to approach projects. Some of the biggest obstacles, Bourland notes, are oddly shaped or functionally challenged rooms—where do you put a couch in a room that’s largely broken up by windows and doors? Or, how do you turn that tiny studio apartment into something other than one giant mess? The answer to the latter problem—as well as many others outlined in the book—is to divide the area into “zones” via paint, furniture, and other visual dividers. Throughout, Bourland’s writing is breezy and inviting; reading Twigs is almost like reading emails from your best friend. By giving Twigs just the right balance of cheery optimism and down-to-earth reality checks, Bourland has created a modern and invaluable style manual. —Rachel Leibrock, MFA ’05

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Why Are We Reading Ovid’s Handbook on Rape? Teaching and Learning at a Women’s College by Madeleine Kahn <www.madeleinekahn.com>; Paradigm Publishers <www.paradigmpublishers.com>. Dr. Madeleine Kahn’s new book, Why Are We Reading Ovid’s Handbook on Rape? Teaching and Learning at a Women’s College, is a compelling account of the challenges she encountered during her tenure in the Mills English department from 1989 to 2004. When a student asserted that including Ovid’s Metamorphoses on the class syllabus was tantamount to “reinforcing the patriarchy’s oppressive power” over women, a series of questions and challenges was ignited, causing Kahn to rethink her approach to teaching, her definition of feminism, and the placement of boundaries between professor and student. Recounting classroom discussions seemingly verbatim, Kahn examines the traditional so-called patriarchal form of teaching and explores how and why that approach didn’t work for some of her students at Mills. From students’ reluctance to speak in class to their unfamiliarity with boundaries and accusations of oppression, Kahn confronts it all and reveals her search for a way to balance her students’ needs (and demands) with her desire to help these young women develop a voice and a place for themselves in life. Mills alumnae will find this book fascinating as they compare their classroom experiences from past years with what’s happening in the classroom today. —Moya Stone, MFA ’03

Teaching as Principled Practice: Managing Complexity for Social Justice by Linda R. Kroll, Ruth Cossey, David M. Donahue, Tomás Galguera, Vicki Kubler LaBoskey, Anna Ershler Richert, and Philip Tucher; Sage Publications <www.sagepublications.com>. Teaching as Principled Practice is more than mere anthology. The seven coauthors, all on the faculty at the Mills College School of Education, present and elaborate for the larger education community the six principles that have guided them in educating preservice teachers at the elementary, secondary, and preschool levels. It is dedicated to the children in the Oakland public schools, “who deserve the best education and the best teachers.” The following make up the six principles: m Teaching is a moral act founded on an ethic of care. m Teaching is an act of inquiry and reflection. m Learning is a constructivist/developmental process. m The acquisition of subject matter and content knowledge is essential. m Teaching is a collegial act and requires collaboration. m Teaching is essentially a political act. After an introduction to all six principles, which are interrelated, one author (sometimes two) in turn discusses and elaborates on each principle. Anna Ershler Richert, for example, addresses the “moral terrain of teaching” through the lens of a real-life dilemma faced by a student teacher: Four students in a high school history class had plagiarized their end-of-year book reports. Richert examines every dimension of the problem, from the motives of the Pakistani student who “loaned” her book report to the other girls in hopes of winning their friendship, to the girl who knew that plagiarism was not allowed but didn’t see it as “a big deal,” to the administration’s pressures on the student teacher to report and punish. Richert gives her readers tools for analyzing such issues and finding alternatives to rewards and punishments—alternatives that give the students skills for their future education and relationships, alternatives guided by the ethic of care—and finding the courage to act on those alternatives.

In similar ways, each chapter explains its respective principle. Inquiry and reflection simply mean stopping to question your teaching practice, while knowledge of subject matter applies to both the teacher’s knowledge and the student’s learning. The constructivist/developmental process refers to a theory about the way children learn; that is, they learn best through experience, by figuring things out—“constructing” knowledge—for themselves with adult guidance, and their learning changes as they develop and grow. Collaboration is essential, the authors say, in a profession that is inherently isolating. And teaching—from devising lesson plans to addressing the dilemmas of plagiarism—always carries an equity and social justice component. This book is itself a collegial project of inquiry and reflection with moral and political dimensions. As an elementary-school teaching-credential student at Mills, I can also attest to the constructivist and collaborative approach to their own instruction and the value these professors place on subject matter content. A rarity in academia, these educators practice what they preach. —Pat Soberanis

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Space between the Stars: My Journey to an Open Heart by Deborah Santana; One World/Ballantine Books <www.oneworldbooks.net>. This beautifully written memoir illuminates the shadows inhabited by celebrities’ wives. For most of her life, Deborah Santana has lived among and between stars, from her father, master blues guitarist Saunders King, to her husband of 32 years, Grammy Award–winning guitarist Carlos Santana. Her story begins with her experiences as a child of two races, for her mother is Irish American and her father, now deceased, was African American. To Deborah, their different skin colors meant no more than their different eye colors—until one day in third grade, while crossing the school playground, an older girl “hissed in the meanest voice I had ever heard: ‘Your mama’s as white as day, and your daddy’s as black as night.’ ” From that day on, her father’s stories of the prejudice he experienced while touring the South carried resonance for Deborah. Her stable, middle-class upbringing in San Francisco went smoothly until the counterculture arrived, her plans for college interrupted when R&B star Sly Stone came into her life. Against her parents’ wishes, Deborah followed Sly to Los Angeles, quickly quitting college there, and stayed in their rocky relationship for four years. She left after Sly hit her, and she would spend many years seeking redemption from those days of drugs and rock and roll. In fact, writing is her redemption—writing honestly, that is, about her life with Sly and with Carlos, whom she met shortly after her breakup with Sly. They were a perfect match: both San Francisco natives (Carlos by way of Tijuana), he admiring her father’s musicianship, she unimpressed by his stardom. And Carlos was kind and drug-free. They married in 1973 and spent the next eight years as disciples of guru Sri Chinmoy, becoming vegetarians and meditating regularly. But in 1981, when Deborah revealed to Carlos that she had had an abortion on the advice of the guru, they decided to end their association with Chinmoy. The happiness in this next stage of their lives—with the births of their three children, Stella, Salvador, and Angelica Faith—was marred only by Carlos’ straying. Twice, Deborah left him. But the second reconciliation seems to have worked, with Carlos keeping his promise to remain faithful. During this phase, Deborah’s brief time at Mills empowered her: “I stretched my boundaries as a womanist and strove to develop more personal autonomy and independence.” This she has done, managing the band’s business, raising her family, and writing this magical book. —Pat Soberanis

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Losing and Finding by Karen Fiser, MFA ’90; University of North Texas Press <www.tamu.edu/upress/unt/untgen.html>. Winner of the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry in 2003, this tight collection from Mills alumna Karen Fiser is as much an intimate journey of loss and devastation as it is of hope and recovery. Fiser speaks of the loss of love and intellectual powers after a debilitating illness, the dark days where “the pain is patient, sitting there.” But she also sings of survival—“My amphibious life seems to be going very well. / It’s as good a way to live as any, I believe, / so long as you remember you must keep on swimming.” Fiser’s voice is controlled, lyrical, and at times tinged with a bittersweet humor. In Partners, she writes, The pain and you are like Holmes and Watson, the one hawkish and keen, master of disguise and sleight of hand, the other bumbling along behind, writing about it. In these meticulously titled poems, Fiser offers sharply observed meditations on life as an unceasing cycle of losing and finding, as “that bright curve of light” in the “cold night sky”: from a distance it looks like one bright thing, but it ends and begins again and again out there in the dark where we can’t see. Her poems describe suffering and the sudden loss of one’s prior life and powers, but they also celebrate the gifts that arise from the heart of suffering—the importance of the smallest things and the ability to pay fierce attention to them. —Gayle Mak, MFA ’05

New Mexico Artists at Work Text by Dana Newmann, ’59, photographs by Jack Parsons; Museum of New Mexico Press <www.mnmpress.org>. Part workshop, part gallery, the visual artist’s studio is fertile ground for the creative mind. It is also intensely personal, for these are “private, not public, spaces . . . thus they often have a cloistered feel to them, a serious weight even when they possess a lightness of touch,” writes photographer Jack Parsons. This stunning book gives us, as Dana Newmann writes in the introduction, “a glimpse of, and a clue to, the alchemical process by which something apparently comes from nothing.” Her carefully researched introduction provides a historical New Mexico context for the main presentation, but the cloistered feel of these studios, the alchemical nature of their purpose, applies to all artists everywhere—and that’s what makes this book so fascinating. Newmann’s empathetic and knowledgeable text is the perfect complement to the photographic portraits. Based on interviews about and personal visits to each space, these miniprofiles allow the artists to elaborate on the whys and hows of their studios and the connection to their art. Nationally known installation artist Judy Chicago, for instance, created a space filled with natural light and easily movable worktables; her studio time is “inviolate,” she says, to allow for the discipline and demands of her elaborate collaborative projects. Some sculptors need vast areas for their work, such as Larry Bell, who has installed a walk-in vacuum chamber where minerals such as lapis are vaporized and deposited in thin layers onto pure rag paper; the result is shimmering, organically shaped sculptures. Erika Wanenmacher, by contrast, composes her dynamic pieces in a 16-by-24–foot extension to her modest home in Santa Fe; it is chock-full of bicycle wheel rims, wood shelving, dolls, and other “everyday stuff” that serves as inspiration and materials for her art. Such striking differences abound. Take, for example, the contrast between painter Paul Sarkisian’s showroom-like, 6,000square-foot Santa Fe studio, and the cluttered, attic-like yurt that serves Suzanne Vilmain, whose unique, custom-designed books are works of art. Or the austere minimalism of painter Gloria Graham’s space and the homey warmth of weaver Rebecca Bluestone’s studio. Artists of every stripe are represented here, working in every kind of media: painting, weaving, ceramics, metalwork. It’s hard to tell at first glance, though, because the genre is not highlighted in the text. But this quibble takes nothing away from the visual and emotional impact of this captivating book. —Pat Soberanis

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers: Stories by Yiyun Li; Random House <www.atrandom.com>. These short stories by Assistant Professor of English Yiyun Li are an astonishing display of virtuosity. The narrators and points of view vary from story to story. Many are set in China, and they gave this reader a glimpse of life in modern China, where individuals may be struggling to come to terms with a history of revolutionary fervor and a present of capitalistic opportunities. Other stories in this debut collection involve Chinese émigrés and visitors to the United States. Yiyun Li seems at the beginning of a brilliant career as a writer. A Thousand Years of Good Prayers has already received much attention. Li was awarded the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, the world’s largest monetary short story prize. The wonder of these stories is that Li writes so well in English, a language that is not her native tongue. Perhaps one of her characters gives us a clue to what makes this possible. A father from China comes to visit his daughter in the United States and accuses her of not having communicated well with him when she was young, and of talking on the phone in English “with such immodesty.” In trying to explain herself to her father, she says, “If you grew up in a language that you never used to express your feelings, it would be easier to take up another language and talk more in the new language. It makes you a new person.” Yiyun Li has taken up a new language and used it marvelously well. These stories are a wonder and a delight. —David M. Brin, MA ’75

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Your New Alumna Trustee: Susan Brown Penrod, ’71 This year there was only one nomination for Alumna Trustee. The candidate was approved by the Nominating Committee and the AAMC’s Board of Governors. According to our bylaws and Robert’s Rules of Order, which govern our bylaws procedurally, when only one name is presented on a slate, that person is declared elected. The Board of Governors, through the executive director and the Nominating Committee, certifies that all Alumnae Association of Mills College procedural requirements were met, specifically and in a timely manner, and that this election meets all requirements of parliamentary procedure. Susan Brown Penrod will begin her three-year term on July 1, 2006. —Leah Hardcastle Mac Neil, MA ’51

Statement by Alumna Trustee-Elect Susan Brown Penrod, ’71 I remember arriving at Mills as an entering student in the fall of 1967 with anticipation of a great adventure about to begin, meeting my classmates, some of whom were to become lifelong friends, and settling into my new home, Mills Hall. Since graduation almost 35 years ago, I’ve continued to be inspired by Mills. Living nearby, I became an active member of the Alumnae Association, where I learned about fundraising, committee planning and board governance. In the mid-70s I became a member of the Alumnae Fund Committee, recruiting volunteers for branch and national telethons. At the time, this was an effort by alumnae across the country, but is now done very effectively by current students. I was Alumnae Fund chair from 1986 to 1989 and at that time served on the Board of Governors, as well as on the Finance and Personnel Committees. From 1995 to 1998 I held the position of president of the AAMC and with the

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board and staff oversaw and managed the programs of the organization. More recently, I was co-chair of the CSMS Society, a member of the Alumnae Fund Committee, and a participant in the Campaign Network during the Sesquicentennial Campaign. As an alumna, I’ve had many opportunities to meet with current students and hear their enthusiastic energy as they spoke of recent favorite classes and of their ambitions for the future. I’ve been struck over the years by how Mills continues to nurture, challenge, and educate students, both undergraduate and graduate. I find myself frequently speaking proudly about the accomplishments of Mills students, faculty, and of the institution as a whole. Because of my involvement with Mills, I have met many amazing people—Mills people—and I can simply say they have enriched my life. Over the years I have experienced the energy of our loyal alumnae in many ways and believe it is one of the lega-

cies of our Mills education. Mills alumnae care a great deal about the future of the College; they are eager for news from campus, opinionated about proposed strategies and program changes, and excited by the College’s successes. We are proud of our diverse, capable alumnae who are equipped for the challenges they face in the world. On a personal note, my current interests and activities involve education and opportunities for students. I am currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Environmental Careers Organization, a 30-year-old nonprofit organization that promotes and supports paid internships for college and graduate-level students interested in pursuing careers in the environmental field. I am also involved at the Oakland Museum of California as a history docent; I enjoy studying the many interpretations of California history and leading young students through the gallery. My husband, Jim, and I follow with love and interest the lives of our three grown sons. I am pleased to have been nominated and elected as the new Alumna Trustee and look forward to the opportunities for leadership that will be presented to me during my work on both the Board of Trustees of Mills College and the Board of Governors of the Alumnae Association of Mills College. The recent consolidation of fundraising efforts and the continued independence of the Alumnae Association represent an adjustment in the relationship between the College and the AAMC. I intend to work toward the success of these changes and the implementation of the efforts to strengthen fundraising and alumnae programs. I am honored to be succeeding Alumna Trustee Leone Evans, MA ’45. Leone and I have worked together on innumerable occasions and I continue to be amazed by her energy and zeal in participating in the life of the College and in encouraging other alumnae to be informed and supportive of Mills’ educational advantages—the value of a liberal arts education, the opportunity for leadership, and the training ground for a future that recognizes no limitations for women. m

Passionate Pediatrician L O R A M E L N I C O E , ’ 7 7 , B R I N G S M E D I C A L C A R E T O AT- R I S K C H I L D R E N AT H O M E A N D A B R O A D

by Jo Kaufman

ora Melnicoe, ’77, probably wasn’t focusing on her undergraduate work at Mills when she traveled to tsunami-ravaged Thailand a year ago. She was there to provide medical care as part of her work with Medical Wings International, where, in addition to being on the board of directors, she serves as the pediatric director. Lora describes the relocated school in Khao Lak—an hour’s drive from Phuket—where she and a team of 14 doctors had set up camp as being “kind of like a MASH unit. You go in, see what you’ve got, what needs to be done, and then set up a clinic, sometimes in a tent, sometimes in a school or church.” Because Medical Wings is a nonprofit organization, it relies on charitable contributions and donations, which include everything from airline tickets to medical supplies and professional volunteers. “We got to Thailand about three or four weeks after the tsunami hit,” she explains, “with doctors, dentists, eye doctors, and a pharmacist.” Interestingly enough, one of

Medical Wings to these countries, but an ongoing, critical need for medical attention—treating everything from common infections to diabetes and HIV. Treatment for these conditions is something that most of us in affluent countries take for granted, but Medical Wings’ clients don’t have access to rudimentary health care. Take this trajectory, for instance: A patient has a severe head and chest cold. Left untreated, it could develop into bronchitis and then a lifethreatening pneumonia. By seeing people at the onset of an illness, Lora and the other Medical Wings doctors are not only able to assess their needs, but in some cases, create a blueprint for wellness. All told, Lora has made 12 trips with Medical Wings during the past five years. The itinerary is impressive: Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay. “That first trip wasn’t even something I’d been planning on,” she admits. “I got an email on a Wednesday that a doctor was needed to go to

Lora Melnicoe checks the vital statistics of children in El Salvador.

the biggest needs was for ophthalmologists. “You don’t really consider things like eyeglasses when a disaster of this magnitude strikes, but we gave out about 500 pairs to people whose glasses had been lost in the storm.” Think about it. Thanks to round-the-clock news coverage, we all watched the disaster unfold. We saw people clinging to trees, infants being torn from their mothers’ arms, frantic family members combing the debris for any sign of loved ones. Seldom did we stop to think about something so basic as eyeglasses. Lora and her fellow doctors provide more than the basics, however. And they provide them throughout the world, working most often in Latin American countries. According to Lora, it’s not usually a disaster that brings

Ecuador for a five-day medical relief trip. I had Friday off, so I just packed up and went.” Clearly, the experience changed her. “It reminded me how passionate I am about my work.” That work, when she isn’t traveling to faraway places to offer her services, is as a pediatrician at the Eastside Family Health Center in Denver. She’s also a faculty member in the department of pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Oh, and in case these commitments aren’t enough to give even the most capable, Type A personalities an anxiety attack, she’s married and the mother of two teenagers. “My husband is wonderful,” she demurs. “I couldn’t do it without him.” But it seems that magnanimity—of the sort we all dream—is part of the family M I L L S Q U A R T E R LY W I N T E R 2 0 0 6

legacy. Her husband, Mel, is busy with his work in natural resources development, and her children, Hannah and Ian, are well on their way to becoming movers and shakers of the next generation. Hannah, 17 and a high school senior, went with Lora on one of three trips she made to Lima, Peru. “She speaks Spanish, which was a tremendous help,” Lora says of her daughter. “She just got in there and did whatever needed to be done, down to sorting vitamins.” Hannah is considering majoring in international studies, and has more than a passing interest in community development. Ian, now 13, was too young to accompany Lora when she began her Medical Wings trips in 2000, but he went with her to El Salvador last summer, eager to follow in the footsteps of his mother and sister, to do his part to make the world a better place. For all her passion and achievements, Lora, like most of us, didn’t enter college with a clear-cut idea of what she wanted to do in life. After attending the University of Montana for two years as an undergraduate studying wildlife biology, she realized that she wanted to focus on a career in medicine. Seeking out various colleges and campuses that not only would be a good match but would also satisfy her premed requirements, she settled upon Mills. Of her decision to transfer in her junior year, she says, “For what I was interested in, Mills was the place to go, which at the time sort of surprised me.” Realizing that the larger, co-ed “name” schools might not lend themselves to the

directed study she craved, she found her way to Mills. And what she discovered when she arrived was exactly the kind of environment and education she’d been looking for: small classes, dedicated teachers, and “lots of excellent science classes.” She pauses to reflect on the time she spent at Mills. “It was a heavenly environment that allowed you to flourish; at the same time it gave you time to decide who you were and where you wanted to go. . . . Maybe it’s because it’s such a calm atmosphere. I never felt overwhelmed, because there was a perfect balance of academics and serenity.” The classes, she explains, fostered both confidence and independence. “There was so much encouragement, but also the pressure to do well.” She laughs easily, the way one would when recalling, with great fondness, a period in one’s past that is such an integral part of the present that there is little need, unless asked, to dwell on it. “My calculus teacher was so great. . . . She gave this huge push about women in science, and it really had an impact on me.” It was during a “January term,” between fall and spring semester, that she enrolled in a course that she admits changed her life: a public health class taught by Telford Work, MD, a professor from UCLA’s School of Medicine. “It was a course in tropical medicine, and there I was, an undergrad, soaking up all these lectures, getting a sense of a larger world. What I thought to myself at the time was

In El Salvador (left to right): Lora poses with new friends, while taking a break at the clinic, and with a new patient.

“What struck me during my rotations was that when you have adult patients, you’re dealing with the consequences, but when you’re dealing with kids, you have a chance to impact health.”

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that I would love to do this.” If we’re lucky enough to experience these “Aha!” moments in life, the path to our goals is undertaken with both exuberance and exhilaration. For Lora, it became increasingly clear that her calling was in the public health sector, not only as a practitioner but also as an advocate. “This is where I want to be,” she recalls thinking during and after Dr. Work’s class. Following her graduation from Mills in 1977 with a BA in biology and Phi Beta Kappa honors, she entered medical school in Iowa—her home state—at the University of Iowa College of Medicine. As for her decision to pursue pediatrics, she has this to say: “What struck me during my rotations was that when you have adult patients, you’re dealing with the consequences, but when you’re dealing with kids, you have a chance to impact health.” After completing medical school in 1981, she was a pediatric intern at San Francisco’s Mt. Zion Hospital, which was immediately followed by a two-year residency; by her third year, she was the chief resident of pediatrics at Mt. Zion. “But even before I finished my residency, I knew that I wanted to do more, that I wanted to go beyond being a pediatrician.” At a time when many young doctors would be congratulating themselves on a job well done, and settling into a life treating ear infections and broken arms, Lora had just begun the trajectory that would eventually take her around the globe. As a fellow at Harvard, with a grant from the

Health Department, where kids come in with “everything from having been exposed to tuberculosis to not having access to immunizations.” By the time these children reach Lora, many have brought their illnesses with them, particularly chronic problems such as asthma or childhood diabetes. “With kids, you have the opportunity to work on early detection and treatment,” she says. “It’s so important to go directly into the schools and advocate on their behalf.” Under her care, many of these children will be able to avoid disabling illnesses later in life. Despite her academic and career successes, Lora concedes that her first trip with Medical Wings was “an eye opener.” Already well-established in her profession when she first heard about Medical Wings, her involvement with this grass roots, community-supported organization would prove to be a life-altering next step. It’s hard not to wonder if a key component of Lora’s success isn’t humility—the ability to take one’s accomplishments in stride. Never once during the course of the interview did she seem rushed. Never once was she anything other than modest, attentive, and fully present. The impression she gave, more than anything else, was of a woman who, despite her professional achievements, continues to engage herself—with equal intensity—in the stuff of everyday life: her work, certainly that, but also basketball games, college applications, and family commitments. At the close of the widely anthologized and much

In Thailand (left to right): Lora vaccinates a little boy, checks the heart of another boy, and poses with the Child Clinic staff.

National Institute of Mental Health, she worked in the field of child abuse, family violence, and child development. In 1986, she received her master’s in public health from Harvard and headed for Colorado, where both she and her husband had promising job prospects and where, in the ensuing years, she has worn many hats: pediatrician at the Miner’s Colfax Medical Center, medical director of the Las Animas/Huerfano Counties District Health Department, pediatrician at the Teen Clinic of the Eastside Family Health Center in Denver. She’s also been appointed to countless boards and committees and, in her spare time, has authored several publications. Lora continues to work as a pediatrician for the Denver

quoted poem “Wild Geese,” Mary Oliver writes, “The world offers itself to your imagination / calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting— / over and over announcing your place / in the family of things.” It’s not an exaggeration to say that Lora Melnicoe has not only discovered her place but is continually expanding its depth and scope. San Francisco-based writer Jo Kaufman has recently completed a memoir, a chapter of which was published by A Modest Proposal Press. Jo received her MFA in creative writing from the University of San Francisco, where she also taught English composition.

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Profiles

PAI NTINGS S PEA K LO U DER T H A N WO R D S : DEBORAH BARR, ’95 by Sarah J. Stevenson, MFA ’04 For Deborah Barr, ’95, teaching basic painting techniques to a learning-disabled student or helping an experienced artist loosen up and have fun is all in a day’s work. In fact, she says, being an art instructor often doesn’t seem like work at all. “I love painting. I love watching students’ lights come on.” At Modesto Junior College, where she teaches fulltime, she is able to do just that. Teaching to different ages and skill levels can be a real challenge. Despite the difficulties, Deborah enjoys working with beginning and experienced students alike, whether in traditional media such as watercolor or acrylics, or in mixedmedia painting, a brand-new course she created. No doubt her passion for art helped her land a rare full-time teaching position. However, she also stands out because of her ongoing involvement in children’s rights. She credits her years at Mills for nurturing both of these interests. At the time, she was commuting from San Ramon, with three children and a niece living at home. “I didn’t pick an easy road,” she says. Still, her life was starting to change: “When I went to Mills College, it felt like I belonged there.” As an art major, Deborah—then Deborah Dague—looked up to Professor Hung Liu, and was awed and inspired by a visit to the professor’s studio. Now, Deborah imparts that sense of inspiration to her own classes. It was also at Mills that Deborah began to focus on children’s issues. The abduction of Polly Klaas in 1993 was in the news then. “I let out all my anger, my frustration, every emotion that I had inside of me into a painting that I called Missing Children.” That painting led to a full body of work that would be exhibited on four continents. Before traveling the world, though, Deborah entered the Master of Fine Arts program at San Jose State University in 1995. During this time she also started working with high school students in San Ramon. Students would visit her studio on weekends, wanting to talk about serious issues such as drugs and eating disorders—issues that their parents were reluctant to acknowledge in their own community. It was then that she real-

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ized “there was nobody speaking for them.” So Deborah gave them the opportunity to speak. She helped them express their concerns and fears with a mask-making project, and included the students’ artwork with her own in a show in Danville. She went on to produce a series of murals in collaboration with students from area schools and youth from the juvenile hall in San Leandro. Meanwhile, she continued her graduate study in San Jose. One day in 1996, she received a serendipitous phone call from a woman whose husband—a university architecture professor Arsen Melitonyan—had started UNICEF in Moscow. Deborah asked if he would be willing to speak to her graduate class about activism and political art, and he agreed. After the lecture, he saw some of her paintings in the school gallery. His reaction was immediate: “Please come to Moscow.” A representative of the Heal the World program in Kenya attended her show at Phoenix Cultural Center in Moscow; he in turn asked her to exhibit her work in Nairobi. Six months later, her whirlwind journey continued with a show at the Centro Colombio Americano in Medellin, Colombia. On all of her travels, she visits orphanages, meets with nonprofit agencies, and offers lectures. Her art presents a less confrontational way to discuss children’s issues, and her silhouettes and schematic drawings of children enable her to bring her work to a variety of settings. “The child is faceless and raceless. . . . Everyone can identify with it.” Teaching is keeping her busy, but she continues to reach out to the community, with recent murals at Columbia College and Lake Don Pedro Elementary School adding to her list of public artworks. Clearly, Deborah is driven to use her passion for art to help others, both in and out of the classroom, and she credits her education at Mills for giving her the inner strength to tackle the challenges of her profession. “It pushed me beyond the acceptable to be more extraordinary in everything I do.” Above: From the Thoughts series by Deborah Barr. Ink on Duralene, mounted on 1917 Collier’s magazine articles.

Profiles

E DUCATION DIPLO M AT: K R I S H E N L A E T S C H , M A ’ 0 1 by Pat Soberanis Garden; soon after, he cofounded the California Ecosystem Education Consortia, bringing together the Insect Zoo, the Lindsay Wildlife Museum, the Botanical Garden, and other natural history museums to share their educational resources. Those appointments led to long-term, executive-level volunteer positions with the Friends of the UC Berkeley

supported and trained more than 1,100 teachers in science education,” Krishen says. Thus began a stellar 12-year career at Mills College. In those years, which ended in 2005, Krishen led three other highly visible programs: the Oakland Education Cabinet (a consortium of city, business, labor, and community officials to monitor, support, and improve Oakland schools), the CrossCity Campaign for Urban School Reform (a national network of community and educational specialists from nine cities working to improve large public school districts), and Mills Community Link (providing undergraduates access to community service options and linking the community to Mills), where he worked closely with President Janet L. Holmgren as well as Provost and Dean of the Faculty Mary-Ann Milford. Krishen thrived at Mills and accomplished much. “It was a spectacular 12 years,” he says. “I learned a great deal, interacted with many wonderful people. . . . Mills is much like a little village: A great deal of gossip and infighting, but that is balanced by tremendous loyalty and friendship, with a united focus on learning, leading, and educating.” During his Mills career, Krishen worked with “several persistent and talented Mills mentors,” as he puts it, who encouraged him to earn his master’s degree: Visiting Professor of Education Pete Mesa, current Oakland school board president Gary Yee, former Oakland school superintendent Dennis Chaconas, and Professor of Education Joe Kahne. “For that I am truly grateful. I would not have completed the program without their constant support.” And he joined the AAMC Board of Governors. “After securing my master’s in education,” Krishen says, “I was invited to serve on the AAMC Graduate Committee. Eventually people such as [Quarterly editor] David Brin and [Alumna Trustee] Leone Evans convinced me that I should be the first male on the AAMC Board of Governors, and it has been a great pleasure. “But I have yet to wear a Pearl M!” DAVID M. BRIN, MA ’75

They say if you want to get something done, ask a busy person. That would certainly apply to Krishen Laetsch, MA ’01, whose list of simultaneous career roles, executive board positions, and volunteer work would wilt the average career person. Take his current activities. Besides his demanding job as senior field representative for state Assemblywoman Wilma Chan of Oakland, Krishen serves on the board of Chabot Space and Science Center, on the advisory board of the McClymonds Youth and Family Center, is a member of the City of Oakland Head Start Advisory Panel, and—last but far from least—is a member of the AAMC Board of Governors, where he serves on the executive committee and chairs the graduate committee. Krishen is on leave from the EdD in educational leadership program at Mills because, in part, “I have just added two more volunteer positions to my routine.” One theme threading through Krishen’s résumé is his commitment to K-12 education. Certainly it shows in his MA in education and in his work toward a doctorate in education at Mills. It is also revealed in his current position, where he works on Assemblywoman Chan’s priority issues of children, health, and education. His work is sure to have high impact if they succeed: Two of the Assemblywoman’s legislative priorities are universal health insurance for all children under 19 in California, and universal preschool for all four-year-olds in California. He is excited to be working in the political arena, where his work will have a broad effect. “It’s fantastic,” Krishen says. “Now it’s not just Oakland, everything [Assemblywoman Chan] is working on has statewide implications. It’s no longer working for a city with a 40,000 student population; it’s for a state with a 10 million student population. The impact is substantial.” But his commitment to education appeared much earlier, and came by way of his long-standing interest in nature and science. Three years after earning a bachelor’s degree in history from UC Berkeley in 1987, Krishen joined the advisory board of the San Francisco Insect Zoo and served on the program committee at the UC Berkeley Botanical

Botanical Garden and the Bay Area Science Technology Collaboration in Oakland. “Starting at an early age,” Krishen says, “my parents exposed me to science centers, museums, and botanical gardens. . . . I learned to enjoy, understand, and appreciate natural history through science centers, so I support them and utilize them when I can.” Those appointments also led him to Mills. In 1992, Krishen joined Professor of Education Jane Bowyer and several others to initiate the Leadership Institute for Teaching Elementary Science (LITES) program, a $3.5 million, National Science Foundation–supported series of educational opportunities for teachers. LITES attempted to bring a science program to every Oakland elementary school. As the administrator, Krishen managed a broad coalition made up of institutions of higher learning, informal science centers, the Oakland Unified School District, and community agencies. He ran the program for five years, and many Mills faculty were involved; it also had the “absolute support” of Mills President Janet Holmgren. “It was based at Mills College but was a national model and

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cerned about how to maintain that part of the agreement. Every day, history is made by people whose names remain Our modest home in the Fruitvale community of Oakland had unknown as well as those who become eternal icons. In May of served as a cultural center and refuge to many writers, filmmakers, 1980, Rosa Parks, a woman who forever changed our country, artists, and activists including the musical group Sweet Honey in spent a week in our home. the Rock, novelist Alice Walker, and poet Gwendolyn Brooks. The East Bay Area Friends of Highlander Research and Although we’d never even met, when Rosa Parks walked through Education Center joined with founder Myles Horton to honor two our front door, she instantly became family. She and my then of the civil rights movement’s most courageous pioneers, almost seven-year-old daughter Anyania melted into one anothSeptima Clark and Rosa Parks. The two women met in 1955 at er’s arms like a grandmother seeing her grandchild for the first Highlander, a place where my own mother-in-law, Margaret time. The hug lasted a long time. The next morning, Mrs. Parks Landes, was trained during the 1930s. Founded in 1932, was delighted to arrive at a breakfast Highlander is a civil rights training table where fried apples, salmon croschool located on a 104-acre farm quettes, and fresh-squeezed orange near New Market, Tennessee. Over juice were among the offerings. the course of its history, Highlander As Anyania was about to take off has played important roles in many for school, the button on her dress major political movements, including popped off. It was a jumper, made by the Southern labor movements of my mother’s own hands and filled the 1930s, the civil rights movement with multiethnic images of children. of the 1940s–60s, and the AppalaMrs. Parks asked if I had a sewing chian people’s movements of the box, threaded the needle, and sewed 1970s–80s. the button back on. My spirit spilled Like millions of other African over and I just burst into tears. Americans, Mrs. Parks was tired of the Anyania was so good at keeping racism, segregation, and Jim Crow the secret. I, on the other hand, wantlaws of the times. Through her comed to blurt out to my family, friends, mitment to freedom and her training and students at Mills, “Guess who’s at Highlander Research and Education sleeping in my bed?” One evening, Center, her refusal to move to the she read poems from Eloise back of a bus in Montgomery, Greenfield’s Honey, I Love and Other Alabama, on December 1, 1955, spawned a movement. Mrs. Parks Love Poems to Anya. On another, she took a seat in the section of a pored through our record collection Montgomery city bus designated for and listened to everybody from whites. She was arrested, tried, and Aretha Franklin and Sarah Vaughan to fined for violating a city ordinance. the Freedom Singers and Miles Davis. Mrs. Parks, a seamstress, often had Some of her shyness disappeared as run-ins with bus drivers and had been she got down in the music. evicted from buses. Getting on the A few months ago, a former Anyania Muse, left, currently a student at Mills; front of the bus to pay her fare and neighbor came by to pay a visit and Rosa Parks; and Kai Beard, currently a graduate then getting off and going to the started searching the scores of phostudent at Georgetown University. tographs hanging on the walls in our back door to get back on was so living room. She stopped, turned around, and blurted out, “No, humiliating. There were times the driver simply shut the door and that isn’t.” I instantly knew the photograph to which she was referdrove off. Her very conscious decision turned into an economically ring. Along with pictures of Fannie Lou Hamer, Eleanor Holmes crippling 382-day boycott of the buses in Montgomery, and ended Norton, and Jim Forman hangs a very precious photograph of legal segregation in the United States. Rosa Parks surrounded by Anyania and her playmate Kai Beard. Before Mrs. Parks' visit, she told members of the planning Dottie was simply undone that in all the years she’d come into our committee that hotels just didn’t suit her spirit, and she prehome, she, like so many others, simply thought the woman sitting ferred the tradition extended through Southern hospitality that next to Anyania was her grandmother. included putting people up in private homes. The committee A few weeks after she returned to Detroit, Mrs. Parks sent then asked if I would mind hosting Mrs. Parks during her weekAnyania an exquisite portrait of herself painted by Paul Collins. That long stay in Oakland. Mrs Parks made only one request of us: portrait now hangs in Anya’s home in Brentwood, California, where that we keep her presence a secret. She and her longtime friend Elaine Steele were eager to be in a place where they my grandchildren Maelia and Elijah live, read, and play every day. could relax, listen to music, and eat great food without being disturbed. The “being disturbed” part was my greatest worry, Daphne Muse is a writer, social commentator, and director of for between bullet-blasting drug wars and the press, I was conthe Women’s Leadership Institute at Mills College.

Our Week with Rosa Parks: Her Presence Remains a Gift in Our Hearts and Homes by Daphne Muse

DONALD B. JOHNSON, OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA, 1980

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PASSAGES Kevan Thatcher-Stephen, son of Patrice “Pat” Thatcher, ’75 / February 12, 2005 Margaret Kathryn Jepsen Tracey, daughter of Ruth Nemoede Jepsen, ’58 / September 24, 2005 Jeffrey Church Wendt, son of Margaret “Mary” Church Wendt, ’52 / September 20, 2005 Margaret Werthheimer Wolf, mother of Susan Wolf Kaufman, ’64 / June 11, 2005

Gifts in Honor of Lila Abdul-Rahim, ’80, by the Oakland Branch, Mills College Alumnae Association Annis V. Aiyar, by Michelle Balovich, ’03 Sara Shuttleworth Anderson, ’56, by Sue Wood Spence, ’56 Isabelle Hagopian Arabian, ’45, by Laura Lundegaard

Anderson, ’45 Marguerithe Dietrich Baxter, ’28, Happy 99th Birthday! by Barbara Baxter Pawek, ’56 Anne Gillespie Brown, ’68, by Katie Dudley Chase, ’61 Barbara Fankhauser Butzbach, ’50, by Mary “Mimi” Glide Miller, ’50 The Class of 1935’s 70th Reunion, by Phyllis Cole Bader, ’35 Elaine Wertheimer Ehrman, ’47, by the Palo Alto Area Mills College Club David J. Graham, by Barbara Manning Graham, ’61 Jane Hasfurther Harvey, ’55, by Barbara Newman Kines, ’55 Barbara Hunter, ’57, by Helen Drake Muirhead, ’58 Diane Smith Janusch, ’55, by Barbara Newman Kines, ’55 Judith “Judy” Greenwood Jones, ’60, by the Oakland Branch, Mills College Alumnae Association

Marilyn Endres Larsen, ’47, by Sterling Loftin Dorman, ’47 Sandra “Sandy” Pitts Malone, ’74, by Ellen Goldschmidt Figueira, ‘75 Margery Foote Meyer, ’45, by Carilane Newman Vieregg, ’65 Helen Drake Muirhead, ’58, Happy 70th Birthday! by Nancy Bernheim Rogers, ’47 Eleanore Lundegaard Nissen, ’42, by Laura Lundegaard Anderson, ’45 Annabelle Lewis Patton, ’47, Happy 80th Birthday! by Sterling Loftin Dorman, ’47 Patsy Chen Peng, ’51, MA ’53, by Joel Gerber, Peter Sih, Nancy Kenealy Soper, ’51, and V. P. Steinhauer Sarah Pollock, by Michelle Balovich, ’03 Sally Schrepferman Reeds, ’55, by Barbara Newman Kines, ’55 Erwin and Emma-Jane “Emmie” Peck White, ’35, Happy 65th Wedding Anniversary! by Phyllis Cole Bader, ’35 Dr. Andrew A. Workman, by the Palo Alto Area Mills College Club

Reverend Doctor Seigen H. Yamaoka, by Tomoye K. Tatai

Gifts in Memory of Camilla Austin Andrews, ’43, by Margaret Hincks Dyer, ’43, and Lydia Nelson McCollum, ’43 Barbara Seal Borden, ’49, by the Palo Alto Area Mills College Club Mary Lou Brooks, ’61, by Katie Dudley Chase, ’61 Jane “Jae” Giddings Carmichael, ’46, by Elizabeth Barnhart, Olaf Bolm, Jean Boswell, Nancy Bennett Colace, MA ’91, Patricia Boadway Cox, ’43, MA ’44, Paul and Eric Darrow, Ruth Fettes, Lucile Pedler Griffiths, ’46, MA ’47, Jeanne Sook Hill, M. Ivey, Elizabeth Lent, Elizabeth and Garnet Mason, Doris Shields, Paula Merrix Sporck, ’46, Gretel Stephens, Esther and Mark Steyaert, Martha Wickland Stumpf, ’46, Adalene Todd, Patrica Smith Tomaso, Marilyn Monsour

Nathan Rubin, 1929–2005 Violinist Nathan Rubin, a longtime faculty member at Mills, died October 13, 2005. Born in Oakland in 1929, he was a soloist with the Oakland Symphony when he was 15 and with the San Francisco Symphony when he was 20. Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle called him “a violinist of broad musical interests and an elegant, expressive technique.” He was director of the Mills Performing Group, described as “one of the finest chamber ensembles in this country” by the Chronicle. His performances with the group included appearances with Darius Milhaud, Aaron Copland, Luigi Dallapiccola, Luciano Berio, Henri Pousseur, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and other notable composers. He also taught at UC Berkeley and California State University, Hayward (now Cal State East Bay). Mr. Rubin served as concertmaster of the Oakland and Oakland East Bay Symphonies for more than four decades. He also served as acting concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony and as concertmaster of the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, the San Jose Symphony, the Skywalker Ranch Symphony, and many other orchestras. His solo recordings include performances with André Previn, Leon Kirchner, Naomi Sparrow, Robert Hughes, and many others. His orchestral recordings include a performance of the music to Star Wars conducted by its composer and a large number of film scores. His work outside the classical realm included recordings with Linda Ronstadt, Aretha Franklin, Van Morrison, Sly and the Family Stone, Patti LaBelle, Diana Ross, Art Pepper, Herbie Hancock, Kitaro, the Pointer Sisters, and Jerry Garcia. He was the author of two books: Rock & Roll: Art & Anti-Art and John Cage and the Twenty-Six Pianos of Mills College. The Oakland East Bay Symphony has established an endowed chair, the Nathan Rubin Concertmaster Chair, honoring his service to the orchestra. He is survived by his wife, Martha Henninger Rubin, ’75, and daughters Sara, Adrienne, and Deirdre. M I L L S Q U A R T E R LY W I N T E R 2 0 0 6

Passages Tyler, Kate Morrow Whitley, ’43, and Nancy May de L’Arbre, ’46 Daval Chang, by Patsy Chen Peng, ’51, MA ’53 C.Y. Chung, by Patsy Chen Peng, ’51, MA ’53 Nancy “Nan” Colhouer, ’55, by Christine Ascher Evans, ’55 Elizabeth “Liz” Abreu Cravalho, ’60, by Betty Anne Mathewson Mahoney, ’60 Dr. Howard Everett Crofts and Mary Isabelle “Mig” Gifford Crofts, ’46, by Muriel “Tex” Johnston, ’42, MA ’46, and Betty Taves Whitman, ’46 Janet Tuthill Davenport, ’55, by Carolyn Everett Wellington, ’55 Josephine Holzman Demuth, ’31, by Katie Dudley Chase, ’61

Diana Munger Dieter, ’55, by Marilyn McMillan Stratford, ’55 Marjorie Putnam Edel, ’35, by Phyllis Cole Bader, ’35, and Sheridan Mason Murphy, ’37 Lori Chinn Fong, by Marilyn and William Learn Mary Compton Goni, ’22, by Mary Johnson Foraker, ’55 Glenn Gordon, Jr., by Nancy Kenealy Soper, ’51 Samuel W. Hudson, Jr., by Mary Lois Hudson Sweatt, ‘60 Sheila Morrow Joost, ’48, by Kay Peabody Lins, ’48 Katherine Bryan Kalin, ’42, by Katie Dudley Chase, ’61 Charles Larsen, by Elizabeth Terhune, ’90

James Lewis, husband of Mary Garner Lewis, ’56, by Katie Dudley Chase, ’61 Dorothea “Deddy” Meyer London, ’33, by Jane Heberling Egner, ’59, Mr. and Mrs. Allen Hasse, and the Palo Alto Area Mills College Club Douglas Nichols, by Myrna Bostwick Cowman, ’57 Elvira “Ellie” Nishkian, by Ann Stone Doris Estey Powell, by Andrea Powell, ’86 June Burley Rensch, ’52, by the Los Angeles Mills College Alumnae

Anne Sherrill, by Elizabeth Terhune, ’90 Col. James Short, by Kimberly Kim Lim, ’55 Carmen Campbell Smith, ’47, by Sterling Loftin Dorman, ’47 Marilyn “Mitzi” Orlob Thornton, ’55, by Helen Drake Muirhead, ’58 Ann Wert, by Lucile Pedler Griffiths, ’46, MA ’47 Lynn White, by Linda Denny Knox, ’56 William D. White, Jr., by Lois Strittmatter White, ’47 Mason and Katharine Young, parents of Cornelia Young, ’60, by Gloria Nishida Wu, ’60

Jae Giddings Carmichael, ’46, 1925–2005

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KEVIN HASS

Jae Carmichael and I were assigned to be roommates the summer of 1947 when both of us returned to campus for special courses, I in ceramics, Jae in painting. We were given one of the Olney top-floor balconied rooms so coveted when I was in school; Jae’s friends used to climb up the vines to visit us after hours without getting caught. One of Jae’s many endearing qualities was to find ways around perplexing or unsolvable problems. That summer brought a bonus of knowing and growing artistically with each other for almost 60 years. Jae died on November 5, 2005, in Pasadena, California, after four months of suffering head and neck complicaJae Carmichael in front of her watercolor, “Bouquet 4C,” in May 2005. tions resulting from tearing around a corner on the first floor of her house in an area where she did most of her computer work. Characteristically, “tearing around” was her usual speed and were her words when she told me on the telephone about the fall. Her sudden death was shocking, taking away an enchanting artist too soon. Jae had a PhD in cinematography from the University of Southern California, in addition to her MFA from Claremont Graduate School and the BFA from USC. She was a war bride, a Mills student for just a few semesters, but our college was the one uppermost in her heart. Our class of ’46ers will remember the video that she made for our 50th Reunion. She was always helping Mills in one way or another. Jane Giddings Carmichael signed her work Jae Carmichael. She was a fine painter, she sculpted in wood and titanium, she investigated and then executed monumental stained glass installations, and she made astonishingly beautiful silver and gold wearables. Her full-length color film of the sculpture of Claire Falkenstein—her friend, colleague, and a Mills drawing professor in our day—received international acclaim. Jae always broke new ground, and was one of the very first artists ever to use mixed media with lights, motion, and film for extravagant presentations. Her own light was somewhat under a barrel because she spent so much energy helping others as adjunct professor of film at USC, as president of the California Watercolor Society, as director of the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, as a political activist, an art historian, and as a cinematographer. Jae was a remarkable Renaissance woman, and her gift resides now in the hearts and minds of those whose lives she touched professionally and profoundly, locally and abroad. —Susan Harnly Peterson, ’46

Class Notes do not appear in the online edition of Mills Quarterly. Alumnae are invited to share their news with classmates in the Mills College alumnae community. To submit notes for publication in the next available Quarterly, send your update to classnotes@mills. edu.

Class Notes do not appear in the online edition of the Mills Quarterly. Alumnae are invited to share their news with classmates in the Mills College Alumnae Community, alumnae.mills.edu. To submit notes for publication in the next available Quarterly, send your update to classnotes@mills.edu.

“Fling,” (detail) by Elizabeth Murray, MFA ’64, eight-color lithograph, 1997. Collection of Mills College Art Museum. The Museum of Modern Art in New York recently presented a major retrospective of Elizabeth Murray’s work. Of her role in the world of modern art, artdaily.com writes, “Over the course of more than four decades, she has transformed painting’s conventions to forge an original artistic idiom through the use of vivid colors, boldly inventive forms, and shaped, constructed, multipaneled canvases.”

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