Mills Matters

Changes coming to Provost’s Office

Two valued members of the Provost’s Office are moving or have already moved on to new opportunities.

The first is the provost and dean of faculty herself. After 24 years at Mills, Chinyere Oparah will be the new provost and vice president of academic affairs at the University of San Francisco starting this summer. Oparah initially joined Mills as a faculty member in the College’s Ethnic Studies Department, working her way to the provost role in 2017 after spending time as department chair and associate provost. The Quarterly profiled Oparah in the fall 2019 issue for her research on and advocacy for Black maternal health and her commitment to inclusive excellence in the Mills faculty.

“Four years ago, it was my honor to announce the appointment of Dr. Julia Chinyere Oparah as Mills’ new provost and dean of the faculty,” said President Elizabeth L. Hillman in her announcement of the change. “While the faculty who participated in her selection and I both had great confidence in her potential, little did we realize what extraordinary capacity, vision, and dedication she would bring to leading at Mills.”

At press time, an interim provost and dean of the faculty had yet to be named.

In addition, Associate Provost for Student Success and Undergraduate Education Maggie Hunter stepped down from her position at the end of January to take the role of senior director for UC Berkeley’s Centers for Education Justice and Community Engagement. Hunter came to Mills in 2007 as a professor of sociology, becoming head of the discipline in 2014. She ascended to the role of associate provost in 2017, concentrating on bolstering first-year and transfer programs, as well as participating in many of the College’s equity and inclusion projects.

As of February, Professor of Psychology Christie Chung has been appointed to the role of interim associate provost. She is also the director of the Mills Cognition Lab and chair for the Diversity and Social Justice Committee, and she previously served as chair of the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program. Chung has been a member of the Mills faculty for 14 years.

Commencement 2021?

As of press time, Mills College is planning a virtual Commencement ceremony with additional in-person activities for the Class of 2021, though what they will look like is still unknown.

On February 16, President Elizabeth L. Hillman sent an email to the Mills community indicating that the ongoing pandemic would prevent the College from hosting a typical Commencement ceremony with thousands of guests visiting campus. Instead, a team composed of academic, events, and student life staffers are working on alternatives that will allow graduating students to celebrate with their family and friends, both virtually and in person where possible.

These plans are scheduled to be announced by late March— likely by the time you receive this magazine. For the most up-to-date information on Commencement 2021, visit mills.edu.

Mills College at a glance

Student body, 2020–21

Undergraduates 609 First year 129 New transfers 62 Living on campus 24% Students of color 65% First-generation 44% Resumers 17%

Graduate students 352 Women 79% Men 21% Students of color 58%

Faculty

full time part time Total 73 106 Female faculty 71% 81% Faculty of color 53% 43% Student-to-faculty ratio 8:1 Average class size 11

Affording Mills

Undergraduates

Tuition $29,340 % receiving financial aid 94% Total aid $14.5M Amount funded by Mills $8M

Graduate students

Tuition $34,833 % receiving financial aid 88% Total aid $6.6M Amount funded by Mills $1.5M For undergraduates, 92 percent receive some portion of their aid directly from Mills, and the average award is $25,428.

The 2020–21 Mills student body has 961 students

representing 41 states and 13 countries

94%

of undergraduates and 88%

of graduate students receive financial aid

Budget & fundraising highlights, 2019–20

Annual operating expense budget:1

$54 million

Total operating revenue:2

$66.8 million*

Total operating expense:3

$60.4 million

Endowment value (6/30/20):

$187.3 million *Revenue from the 2019–20 school year included several one-time, nonrenewable payments, such as funding from the Payroll Protection Plan, Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, and increased endowment payout.

1FY20 Approved Operating Expense Budget 2FY20 Year-End Audit 3FY20 Year-End Audit

Sources of gifts

Alumnae

22% Estates 43% Foundations & Corporations 11% Trustees 10% Parents, friends, others 14%

Sources of revenue

Tuition & fees ..........................................29% Housing, food, & conferences ..........13% Endowment payout 18% Gifts & grants 30% Other 10%

Senior Wall:

[Plath]

Mills creates new antiracism commitment

On January 14, Special Assistant for Equity and Inclusion Kamala Green announced the finalization of Mills College’s antiracism commitment. It will include: • The creation of a plan for the College to commit to racial justice and dismantle the barriers to educational opportunity that race, class, and other intersecting systems of exclusion and oppression have created. • The identification of goals for this academic year, including a thorough assessment of current policies and practices. • A commitment to sustained action through visible leadership and a willingness to change. • The acceptance of accountability in removing barriers and systemic racism. • An acceleration of three critical action items for the campus: equitable systems and inclusive culture; talent; and education and training.

These items come out of the Board of Trustees’ passage of its own Commitment to Antiracism in October 2020, as well as extensive training undertaken by the College’s Intersectional Antiracism Team in the summer and fall, including work in “liberatory design” with the National Equity Project. Various affinity groups and departments on campus are transforming these ideas into goals this spring, with evaluation and accountability measures still to come that ensure this work is sustainable and ongoing. One of the biggest elements will be continuing professional development for faculty and staff.

“We thank each community member who participated in voicing their concerns, and for providing valuable feedback and great ideas as we look toward the future in creating an antiracist campus,” Green said in her January 14 announcement. To learn more, visit mills.edu/blacklivesmatter and click on the “Antiracism Plan” link.

Raising awareness a world away

Virtual learning over the past year competed with any number of outside distractions, but this winter, Burmese student Moe Hay Mar Kaung ’22 attempted to complete her coursework while her native country was going through an ongoing coup. While Kaung is currently in the United States, her hometown of Yangon, the country’s largest city, saw massive protests over the Myanmar military’s refusal to accept last November’s election win of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Yet Kaung got to work. In partnership with the Muslim Student Alliance (MSA), she hosted an event on Instagram to demonstrate how to prepare the Burmese soup mohinga as well as provide information about current events and raise money for mutual-aid networks and grassroots organizations in Myanmar. Thus far, all proceeds from that event and other fundraisers have gone to help schoolteachers, journalists, and railroad workers in Myanmar. Kaung has also spoken on student panels with George Washington University and the College of San Mateo about Gen Z activism during the coup. “There is a chance you do not even know where Myanmar is on a map, so I strongly encourage you to read up on what’s happening,” she says. “While financial contributions are critical at the moment, what would truly guide us towards global democracy is your willingness to remember us as more than just a fleeting headline.”

Mills benefits from donor generosity

Mills College thanks the following members of the community for their gifts, grants, and pledges of $50,000 or more, received between July 1 and December 31, 2020.

Donald Cotton, husband of the late Fin Cotton ’58, continued to offer significant support to the Cotton-Prieto Ceramics Endowment, with the aim of conserving the Mills College Art Museum’s ceramics collection.

The Crankstart Foundation made a pledge to the Crankstart Re-Entry Scholarship Program, which provides support to resumer students looking to finish their college degrees at Mills.

Cheryl Haines and Meredith Palmer both gave gifts-inkind of artworks to the Mills College Art Museum, expanding the institution’s collection.

Kay Kewley ’65 directed an unrestricted bequest from her late husband, Wayne T. Lyons, and these funds will help the College respond to urgent demands, launch new initiatives, and meet students’ needs more effectively.

The Lumina Foundation for Education, Taube Philanthropies, and an anonymous donor offered funds to support the College’s Campus Optimization Project, which seeks out new partners for the Mills campus to diversify programs and boost revenues.

Karen May ’86 and Keith Schultz made a gift to Equity and Inclusion Training, which will help bring in outside experts to train faculty and staff as part of the College’s commitment to antiracism.

Mimi Miller ’50 generously gave to Mills’ Greatest Need, the fund that underwrites unexpected costs that pop up during the school year, such as pandemic-related campus adjustments.

Candace Pelissero ’68 and Brian Larsen donated to the Summer Academic Workshop Restricted Fund, bolstering the renowned bridge program that helps new first-generation students acclimate to the world of higher education.

Cris Russell ’71 continued her support of the Russell Women in Science Leadership Program, which empowers budding scientists through summer research, and she also made a gift to the Class of 1971 Endowed Scholarship in anticipation of her 50th Reunion.

The Quigley/Hiltner Fund of the San Francisco Foundation made donations to Faculty Development, to help professors continue to offer top-tier educational experiences, and to Lead by Learning—formerly known as the Mills Teacher Scholars Program—which enables the School of Education to cultivate the best possible teachers through professional development.

The Stuart Foundation also gave to Lead by Learning by funding grants for participants and the program’s marketing and communications efforts.

The estate of Katherine Zelinsky Westheimer ’42 offered support to the Buildings and Grounds Fund to help with maintenance of the beautiful Mills campus.

Calendar

Trans Studies Speaker Series

Trans Aesthetics: Juliana Huxtable and MacKenzie Wark in Conversation with Susan

Stryker ■ April 8 A conversation between media theorist MacKenzie Wark of the New School for Social Research (The Hacker Manifesto; Reverse Cowgirl) and visual artist and DJ Juliana Huxtable on Black and femme trans cultural production and worldmaking. 5:00 pm PDT. Visit performingarts.mills.edu to register.

Mills College Art Museum

The following exhibitions are free to view in person, but require timed ticketing. Visit mcam.mills.edu to make a reservation.

2021 Senior Thesis Exhibition ■ March

30–April 18

This exhibition gives these young artists their first show in a professional art museum. Presenting artists are Cecelia Bishop, Tri-an Cao, Lena Coletto, Emily Falco, Ely Gann, Lauryn Marshall, Bianca Mead, Angelica Navarro, Grace Patterson, Sophia Ramirez, Dio Ruiz, and Emma Sugarbaker.

2021 MFA Thesis Exhibition ■ May 8–June 6 The exhibition highlights each artists’ achievements as completed bodies of works. Featuring Laura DeAngelis, Ashley Garr, Sveta Gayshan, Sylvia Hughes-Gonzales, Marlys Mandaville, Thiago Mendes, Kara Nelson, Alex Salceanu, and Beau Thomas.

Contemporary Writers Series

April 2 ■ Aiden Thomas Aiden Thomas ’10, MFA ’15, is a YA author who’s originally from Oakland and now lives in Portland, Oregon. Aiden’s debut novel Cemetery Boys was published by Macmillan in July 2020 and has spent weeks on the New York Times bestseller list—the first time a piece of fiction by an openly trans author has earned the distinction. 5:00 pm PDT. Visit performingarts.mills.edu to register.

The 13th Annual Thought Leadership Conference

April 8–9 ■ Unfinished: Actualizing an

intersectional antiracist future

Building on the Center Transformative Action’s November 2020 event, this conference will continue to center race and equity in discussions covering the intersection of business, policy, technology, education, public health, and more. 12:00–4:30 pm PDT. Visit millscta.org for more info and to register.

Campus kudos

A selection of recent achievements by faculty, staff, and students

The Mills Book Art Program won the 2021 Institutional Award from the American Printing History Association, given to the department for its leadership in developing academic programming that became the model for other institutions, and for its centrality in establishing this “now-respected” area of study. Professor of Book Art and Lovelace Family Endowed Chair in Book Art Kathleen Walkup accepted the award for the department in January.

The Mills Music Department was featured in the Los Angeles Times article “How To Listen,” which mentioned several Mills music giants including John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Luciano Berio, and Terry Riley. “Little Mills College in Oakland overachieves,” stated the article, which was published on Dec. 31, 2020.

Adjunct Professor of Studio Art Jennifer Brandon co-curated the exhibition Magnetic Pull through the Bay Area Photographers Collective, a nonprofit organization that supports photographers and their exhibitions in the community. The show, which ran from January 16 through February 20, centered on how this artistic community adapts in times of isolation.

Professor of Book Art Julie Chen was featured in a new documentary, The Book Makers, which explores the “remarkable resilience” of the book form.

Interim Associate Provost of Student Success and Undergraduate Education and Professor of Psychology Christie Chung has been named digital associate editor of Psychonomic Society, an organization that trumpets the study of cognition.

Adjunct Professor of Studio Art Samara Halperin co-designed 2020 election billboards in Central Pennsylvania, with a goal to speak to viewers “who might vote for [Trump] out of perceived pragmatism and self-interest,” and aimed to appeal to what they could “see with their own eyes.”

Vice President of Student Life and Dean of Students Chicora Martin was quoted in an article for Idaho EdNews following their attendance at a half-day summit hosted virtually by Boise State, which focused on student needs during the pandemic. They remarked that colleges cannot simply shut their doors to students who call campuses home.

Yulia Pinkusevich, Sakha Mother Spirit (Aiy Aisyt), Charcoal, pastel and pencil on paper over birch panel, 2020.

Work by Associate Professor of Studio Art Yulia Pinkusevich is available for viewing in multiple exhibitions. Calm Under the Waves in the Blue of My Oblivion will be up through April 16 at archergallery.space, the website for Archer Gallery at Clark College in Vancouver, Washington. Rupture of the Mundane Plane can be viewed in person (depending on stay-at-home orders) through April at Qualia Contemporary Art in Palo Alto, California. And the group show Where the Heart Is: Contemporary Art by Immigrant Artists is on display at the Palo Alto Art Center through April 3.

Darius Milhaud Chair in Music Composition Tomeka Reid was featured in a Downbeat article in which she discussed her continuous search for challenges during her career, and what those challenges have offered.

Associate Professor of Biology Jenn Smith was quoted in a National Geographic article, “How Animals Choose Their Leaders, From Brute Force to Democracy”—just in time for the 2020 election—in which she made comparisons to the ways in which humans pick their leaders. She was also interviewed by CNN in January about behavior in female-dominated animal groups.

Jean Macduff Vaux Composer-inResidence Tyshawn Sorey was profiled by the New York Times in the Critic’s Notebook section; the article detailed his busy fall of 2020 and praised his composing career.

Barbara Lee Distinguished Chair in Women’s Leadership Susan Stryker has been awarded the 2021 Arcus/Places Prize. She will use the award to develop a project that examines how the 1966 riot at Compton’s Cafeteria has a legacy in today’s activism.

Student Noreen Swan ’21 was the subject of a January story in Cal Matters about college students and their experiences during the pandemic, and the story was written by Angel Fabre ’21. Swan spoke about their difficulties learning from home in Maine.

Professor of Biology Lisa Urry presented a webinar hosted by Pearson, “Teaching Majors Biology in an Online Environment,” in October 2020, in which she discussed her and Associate Professor of Biology Helen Walter’s process for transitioning their general biology courses online.

Professor of Studio Art Catherine Wagner is now represented by Jessica Silverman Gallery in San Francisco, which featured her work as part of the Art Basel Miami Beach OVR in December 2020 and again in a thematic retrospective show in April.

N THE WINTER 2021 issue of Mills Quarterly, we & Black Power: Mills Girls published an excerpt from “Black Power and the Mills Girl,” an academic article recently published in the Journal of Civil and Human A Roundtable

Rights by Denison University professor Lauren Araiza about the occupation of then-President Robert Wert’s office in 1969. One of the ways Discussion in which Araiza researched the piece was by interviewing a number of Mills alumnae who were involved in the Black Power movement at the College.

We gathered four of those participants over how a Mills girl should act. And the only reason Zoom in January to talk about the piece and the 1 Bize-Boutte wrote that she said was because I had a job. ups and downs of their time at Mills. The talk was lively, passionate, and filled with memories, a piece in the fall 2015 issue of the Quarterly, “Pride Debbie Harrison ’72: I had a job, so I don’t know why both good and bad. A shortened transcript of the and Pain,” that that was such a big to-do. It was part of my scholardiscussion begins below; read the whole thing at details much more ship, and I worked in the library. quarterly.mills.edu. about her experi-

Mills Quarterly: Now that the piece is out, what do ence at Mills from 1969 to 1973. Read it at quarterly.mills Bize-Boutte: I had a work-study job with two other white Mills students. So for some reason, you think about it? .edu/pride-and-pain. this professor had that old finishing school atti-

Cheryl Blankenship ’72: The article was a bit pro2 In her article, tude toward Mills, and just did not like the fact vocative. I hadn’t thought about the experience Araiza cited several that I was there doing something that she didn’t from the perspective that she laid out, nor the misogynistic feel that a Mills girl should do. impact of it, so I’m still mulling it over. It was a lived Tribune columns Generally speaking, I thought [Araiza] did a experience and I’m glad we did it. by Al Martinez, good job with the article, and she conveyed the who consistently belittled the efforts culture, the feelings, and the things that actually

Micheline Beam ’72: What surprised me about of Black Student happened during that period of time. I really liked the article was that I didn’t realize that demon- Union members. her adding in the view that the Oakland Tribune strations flew in the face of what “Mills girls” were One quote: reporter had of us.2 You see, his view of us was supposed to be. I never quite had a concept of what “... riot is such formed by the culture that surrounded the entire that was, but obviously if you were a woman of a masculine term, dear, and demoninstitution of Mills College, which is still there to color, you weren’t it. With the concerns we had, I stration is positively this day. The way he talked about us was so disredon’t think any of us were really concerned about lewd.” spectful and hurtful. it not being typical “Mills girl” behavior. 3 Despite her involvement with Beam: And demeaning. I had no idea that that

Sheryl Bize-Boutte ’73: That part of the article the BSU, Harrison was his perspective at the Oakland Tribune until I was what I was most familiar with.1 It’s interesting wasn’t able to read the article and found out about it. how our different experiences at Mills determined what jumped out at us. One of my early experiparticipate in the occupation of President Wert’s [Araiza] did a fantastic job. I think she was true to the time and what was going on at that particular ences at Mills was having a professor call my office due to illness. time; it was a great article. mother and basically tell her that I wasn’t acting

Harrison: Yes, I enjoyed it. I started to look at all the pictures and thought, I remember that! And then I said, “You know what, Debbie? You weren’t there for that part!”3

Beam: And I’m struck by the similarities between some of the things we experienced way back when with what’s still going on. Not that much of a difference—nooses, professors saying inappropriate comments, stuff going on in the residence halls—so it’s disturbing to me, that all of these decades later, not too much has changed. It seems as though every generation of students has to go through this because the institution has not adequately addressed the concerns and made the fundamental changes needed to keep this from rearing its ugly head, generation after generation.

Bize-Boutte: In terms of what a Mills girl was defined as back then: even though that definition has changed, there is still a separation between students of color and white students in the way a Mills girl is supposed to be. Many Mills women are now at the age where they’re writing memoirs, and white women who were students at Mills [when we were] are revealing things that would not necessarily be considered what a good Mills girl would do, like having to spend the night at Alta Bates hospital because they had overdosed. All of this stuff was hidden from us so that they could maintain the facade.

Quarterly: The article proposes that 1969 was a turning point in Mills history. What did you see in the aftermath of those protests?

Bize-Boutte: The aftermath helped to launch my writing career, because I started writing for the college newspaper as a freshwoman, and I kept doing it until I graduated. And there was no topic that I wasn’t allowed to talk about. When I go back and read some of that stuff now, I go, “Ooh, that’s really bad,” and then some of it I read and go, “Oh, that was so good! You were so perceptive!” I wrote about the war, relationships between Black men and Black women, the Black Panthers, and professors at Mills who were trying to thrust white values down our throats. Some of it [my writing] was met with a smirk, though some of it was welcomed. I really don’t know how it helped with the situation; all I can say is that the era ushered in my ability to do that. And I haven’t stopped writing since then.

Blankenship: The article opened my eyes to the fact that that woman was going back to Dean Micheline Beam ’72 (left)

Debbie Harrison ’72 (above)

Sheryl Bize-Boutte ’73 (below)

Cheryl Blankenship ’72 (below, left)

[Patricia] Brauel and telling her what we were talking about.4 I remember all of our meetings over by the Tea Shop, and I remember pushing into Wert’s office and the demonstrations. I remember when we took over the bookstore,5 because most of the Black students were short: Micheline is short, and Debbie and I are probably around the same height, but we were pushed to the front door like we were supposed to block everything, so that was a little scary. I found myself in the thick of it, but I didn’t

know what I was doing. So yes, I think it opened up activism for me, and for us, just because it was there. And the article laid bare that Mills women did it in a “respectful and dignified” way. I mean, we were strong—which I think Black women are, period—and forceful, in the way we conduct ourselves. We’re direct, we follow through, and we keep pushing.

Bize-Boutte: I have to tell you three sisters, that what you did in 1968—you know, we all say that we stand on someone’s shoulders—you laid the groundwork for me to be able to do what I did when I came in 1969. So for that, I thank you.

Beam: You’re welcome. That groundwork was laid in the spring,6 before we got there in the fall of ’68. When a group of people feels oppressed, there should be activism, and I think the activism has continued because the institution has not changed enough. If things that happened 40 years ago had changed, we would not be having this conversation.

We were swept up in everything that was happening at San Francisco State and UC Berkeley. But Mills had its own unique issues. And we didn’t need men on campus—we just decided that it was enough and we were not going to accept it, and we just kept plodding right along. I drew my support from the sisters around me, as well as some white allies.

Every sister that I knew at Mills has done well. We’ve had attorneys, judges, educators, scientists— all of us did well. After all of that, [our experiences] did not put out any of our lights, and it did not stop us from whatever course we were going to take. We persevered and did quite well in institutions that were not unlike Mills, except bigger, and probably more racist, but we persevered because Mills was a microcosm of the rest of the country.

Participants in the 1969 occupation of President Wert’s office Bize-Boutte: Amen!

Harrison: I happened to start teaching in Los Angeles when the district made a mandatory transfer of Black teachers into the San Fernando Valley. By the way, I lived in the city of Carson, and that was 50 miles from my school. So I called my union. And ladies, that’s where I did my activism. I went from being just a teacher to the chapter chair at the school—which is like the union rep—to an officer of United Teachers Los Angeles. (I went to jail for teachers, you know.) And then I went from there to the board of directors for the California Teachers Association.

Bize-Boutte: You became a true activist!

Beam: You’re a Mills woman.

Bize-Boutte: That’s the key right there. We are Mills women. Mills reinforced for me the feeling that I could do anything that I wanted to do. And I hear that in each and every one of you, and that’s a wonderful thing.

“Every sister that I knew at Mills has done well. We’ve had attorneys, judges, educators, scientists— all of us did well. After all of that, it did not put out any of our lights, and [our experiences] did not stop us from whatever course we were going to take.” –Micheline Beam

Blankenship: It’s not so much that Mills did it; it’s the people who came together, who interacted and supported one another. It’s about the relationships. And so what Mills did was bring us together, and allowed us to understand that the sky was the limit, that we didn’t really have boundaries. And I think the activism probably pushed that perspective. At that period of time, our culture was coming out of segregation, so that helped us understand that the sky was the limit, that we could be activists, that we could push boundaries in every kind of way.

Quarterly: What were your impressions of your

classmates, especially your white classmates, when you first arrived at Mills?

Beam: I applied, I got in, and my mother and I went to a reception for Oakland students who had been accepted. It was at [former art professor] Ralph Du Casse’s house, and my mother and I rang the doorbell. This white lady came to the door, and she said, “Oh, you all can go around the back.” Clearly, I wasn’t there to be a student; my mother and I were obviously working! At that point, I said, “I’m done” and my mother said, “No, you got in, you’re going to go.” Du Casse came to the door and he apologized and he was ever so gracious. But this was in the middle of Oakland, and this woman was so put out by people of color coming to her door that she assumed we were there to work, as opposed to being one of the incoming students.

And then we got on campus, and there were so few of us that we knew all of the Black students. You see one: “Hey, how are you doing? What’s your name? Where do you live, what dorm?” We were few and far between, but we were glad to see somebody who looked like us on campus because there wasn’t any faculty or staff who looked like us.

Blankenship: When I got to Mills, I was coming from South Carolina, and that was the very first time I was in an environment with anyone except African Americans, and at first I was a little intimidated. One of the things they did was pair us with other Black students as roommates, but I remember white students saying things: “Let me touch your hair.” “Does your skin color come off, like get around your shirt collar or something like that?” There was a sense that we weren’t supposed to be there, that we were affirmative action enrollees. I graduated high school as valedictorian, and in the South, we had incredible educations because we were taught by PhDs—Black teachers were [kept] out of white schools. We all knew that we had to be better than the next person just to achieve, and we also knew that our success was bound up in everybody’s success. So you had to make your race proud, your family proud, and in this case, make the other Black students proud.

Bize-Boutte: I only lived a few blocks away from Mills, so it didn’t make any sense for me to spend that extra money [on housing]. Once I set foot on campus to go to class, it surrounded me—it was unmistakable that the atmosphere was one of “we really don’t want you here and you need to prove why we should let you stay.”

Harrison: First of all, I’m from South Central Los Angeles, and the only white people I knew were my teachers. And I really wanted to go to Radcliffe, so I applied, but I didn’t get in because it had already reached its racial quota. One of my counselors said, “Well Debbie, if you’re truly interested in a women’s college, I know one in Oakland.” I applied to Mills and was accepted, and I received a nice scholarship. But my aunt, who was supposed to be taking me to school, refused because of everything you all are talking about. She said, “Why should I take my child over there?”

But I really enjoyed my experience at Mills, because I did meet so many wonderful African American students, but I also met some wonderful white students. I wanted to live with white people—I wanted to try it, see what it was like— and I always tell people, it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. [Laughs] But I had a good experience, and the article just brought back memories. ⓦ

4 Araiza noted in her article that the house mother of Orchard Meadow reported to the administration when the BSU met in that residence hall.

5 Before the occupation of the president’s office, BSU members organized a collective action at the Mills College Bookstore, preventing any customers from entering until the financial aid committee agreed to assist students who could not afford to buy books.

6 In the aftermath of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in April 1968, Black students began protesting conditions at Mills through newspaper editorials and requests to the administration to add Black professors and advisors.