18 minute read
Mills Matters
Hefty support for Mills projects rolls in
Mills College gratefully acknowledges the following members of the community for their gifts, grants, and pledges of $50,000 or more, received between July 1 and December 31, 2021.
An anonymous donor gave generously to multiple funds, first supporting the Summer and J-Term courses, which offer educational support to current students, alums, and the general public. They also gave to the Student Hardship Fund to assist students experiencing financial issues due to COVID-19, and to Mills’ Greatest Need, another fund that underwrites unexpected costs for the campus.
Catherine Coates ’65 offered funds to support Mills’ Greatest Need as well, and has additionally donated to the upcoming Mills Institute. Building on the legacy of Mills College, the Mills Institute strives to meet changing educational needs in higher education, committing especially to social justice and the advancement of marginalized communities.
Barbara Wolfe ’65 and former trustee Richard Barrett both graciously contributed to the Campus Optimization Project, an ongoing initiative dedicated to making Mills economically and environmentally sustainable through strategic partnerships.
The Stuart Foundation made a significant donation to Lead by Learning— previously known as the Mills Teacher Scholars Program—which will enable the School of Education to train and prepare the next generation of teachers. The Yellow Chair Foundation also renewed its support for the program by pledging a gift.
Through the bequest of the late Emily Bourne Grigsby ’44, funds were given to the Lisser Hall renovation project to help with maintenance of and general costs for the revitalized building.
Alumnae of Color scholarship hits milestone
As of this February, the Alumnae of Color Endowed Scholarship in Honor of Alecia A. DeCoudreaux has reached a landmark $250,000, with the help of more than 200 donations from the Mills community and beyond. In total, the scholarship has raised $253,750, with $4,158 just this fiscal year.
Created in 2011 to support students of color, the fund was endowed in 2015 by the Alumnae of Color Committee (AOCC) in honor of President Emerita Alecia A. DeCoudreaux, the first African American president of Mills College. In the following years, the committee embarked on fundraising efforts that have included campus concerts, online campaigns, and contributions from private foundations. So far, the scholarship has been awarded to 12 students since 2012.
In a recent email sent to fund donors, members of the AOCC—Lynette Castille-Hall ’75; Myila Granberry ’05; Estrellita Hudson Redus ’65, MFA ’75; Micheline Beam ’72; and Connie Swan-Davidson ’73—celebrated the achievement: “We plan for our scholarship to continue for generations to come,” they wrote. “As Mills celebrates its 170th anniversary, and prepares to enter a merger with Northeastern University, we are excited to continue to lend our support to all students of color in President DeCoudreaux’s honor.”
“Receiving this scholarship made me feel like people are taking notice and are proud of having me in their community.” —Tagira Alvarenga ’22
President Emerita Alecia DeCoudreaux (center) with two recipients of the Alumnae of Color Endowed Scholarship in her honor: the late Sharon Robinson ’14, MPP ’15 (left); and Bryana Jones ’17 (right).
Doula course offers equitable training for future public health workers
A spring semester offering since 2020, the Full Spectrum Doula Training course at Mills remains the only known doula class offered for college credit in an undergraduate program, and it became reality thanks to one student’s initiative. Tess Waxman ’22 first became interested in birth justice and doula training when she did her senior thesis in high school on the state of birth in the United States. “I just think [reproduction] is the most important part of life. It’s literally creating the next generation, and yet we don’t talk about it in school,” Waxman says.
In the world of reproductive health, doulas provide physical and emotional support to clients during pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period. Yet, affordable doula training is rarely accessible in California, and it is almost never taught at the higher education level. When Waxman discovered that she couldn’t afford any of the online options, she turned to former Mills public health professor Karen Scott for suggestions. Scott then connected Waxman with other prominent experts in the birth work community—including Nickie Tilsner ’16, who co-founded Oaklandbased Cornerstone Doula Trainings. “We do charge market rate in the Bay Area for doula training, which is hard for a lot of people to access,” Tilsner explains.
With the additional help from Scott, Assistant Adjunct Professor of Public Health and Public Health and Health Equity Program Head Catrina Jaime—and Health Sciences Coordinator Vala Burnett on the administrative end—Waxman pushed the groundbreaking idea for an equitable doula training course at Mills: not only would it offer college credit to students regardless of their major, but it would also give students access to financial aid to pay for the course. According to Tilsner, Mills participants were then charged 25 percent below the market rate, in addition to being covered by financial aid. Cornerstone has also provided two full scholarships to BIPOC students in each cohort.
“Students were able to access financial aid by us making it a class,” Jaime says. “So it’s very structurally important that we added it as a way for them to both get graduation credits [and financial support]. It’s the core of what our program is offering: being more equitable and accessible to a specific population that is our students.” Alumnae also provided financial support through several fundraising initiatives.
This plan helped students who wanted the training without becoming a nurse or doctor—especially firstgeneration students of color, who made up the majority—and it also provided research and internship opportunities through the public health and health equity (PHE) program. “These students would actually reduce disparities in their communities,” Jaime adds. “And we know that from [public health] literature and doula services, especially for women and birthing people of color.”
Under the guidance of the administration (including former Provost Chinyere Oparah and former Associate Provost for Curriculum Development Elisabeth Wade), Scott, and Jaime, community partners like Tilsner were brought on for the course. The first class was a huge success, and since then, the course continues to be packed with students interested in health equity and reproductive justice. “It’s knowledge that everybody needs to have, regardless of whether people want to become doctors or not,” Waxman says.
SOE centers antiracism in teacher education
“History with a ‘y’ denotes a singular narrative, but when we think about histories, our histories have multiple perspectives.” So said LaGarrett King, the keynote speaker of the School of Education’s (SOE) Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action. “When people say you cannot teach history this way, or you cannot teach about Black history, what they are really saying is that they don’t believe in our humanity, because they understand who we are through their history [...] But for us to be effective citizens, we have to understand all of our citizens.”
King, an associate professor at the University of Buffalo and the director of the Center for K-12 Black History and Racial Literacy Education, spoke to a virtual gathering of students, faculty members, and School of Education alumnae/i on February 3—one event in a schedule of activities meant to underscore the importance of a common understanding about the events that have formed American society. It was a timely discussion; not only at the beginning of Black History Month, but also as national discourse around removing certain books from school libraries and teaching sensitive subjects in “inoffensive” ways was reaching a fever pitch.
“History is not about patriotism. It’s not about making someone feel good, and it’s not even about something or someone,” King added. “Our country’s history is about helping us understand our humanity, whether it’s the good, the bad, the ugly, or the indifferent.”
The current national discussion on teaching American history can arguably be traced back to the 2019 publication of The 1619 Project, a special section in The New York Times spearheaded by the journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones. The project, a series of essays and poems, reframes American history by positing that the arrival of enslaved people in what eventually became the United States is as important to what the country is today as the American Revolution. Other events during the week celebrated Black art through a virtual art exhibitions and panels—which included Yétúndé Olagbaju, MFA ’20, and Cristine Blanco, MFA ’20, about their Black Lives Matter art installation at the front gates—but the majority centered on the question of what comprises an authentic history, and who gets to decide what that is.
Two works that came out of The 1619 Project took center stage at two separate events. The 1619 Project: Born on the Water is a children’s book that discusses these themes in an age-appropriate manner, and Children’s School Head Debbie Brown read it aloud to students in fourth and fifth grades on the morning of February 3. Brown also got in touch with a wide spectrum of Children’s School parent affinity groups to address the practicalities of antiracism in the classroom.
That evening, a group gathered online for a book discussion of The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story, the updated version of the original project that was published by Random House in November 2021. The driving force of the discussion, attended by Mills faculty members and SOE alumnae/i, was how educators can teach about the history of racism in the United States during a time of such politicized opposition.
Student journalists explore Mills stories in new podcast
At the end of 2021, students in the Digital Journalism class unveiled Cyclone Radio, an audio magazine made for the members and stakeholders of the Mills community.
Supervised by Assistant Adjunct Professor of Communication and Communication Program Head Keli Dailey and supported by We Are the Voices, this student-centered project shares the opinions, feelings, and advice of students and faculty members on the Mills campus. Not only do these students handle audio editing and help conceptualize the podcast’s website, but they also conduct the interviews themselves—searching for stories and topics that mean as much to them as they would to the community as a whole.
For instance, Cyclone Radio released an episode on the experiences of current first-generation college students titled “I Am The First” on December 9, 2021. First-gen students Erin Maher (who pitched the story) and Rosina Ghebreyesus spoke with two firstyears—Cielos Santiago and Alia Phelps— about their perspectives on being “the first” in their families to go to college. The episode opened with a striking quote from Santiago: “I don’t know what I don’t know,” she pointed out. “Being a first-generation student means not knowing what you have to do and also not knowing how to do that.”
From there, Ghebreyesus conducted an authentic conversation with Phelps about the struggles of being a firstgen student. “I looked at my peers—who seemed to have it figured out—and really questioned if I had made a big mistake spending my time and money on college,” Phelps said. “I felt like an imposter. As if my hard work wasn’t mine, and I cheated my way up to that point.”
But these personal admissions weren’t limited to only the guests. Ghebreyesus closed the dialogue with an uplifting message inspired by her own journey: “We see our ability to grow and know that it is directly tied to the pain and power we’ve experienced, but it’s also directly tied to all the layers that [is] being first-gen, and we’re proud.”
To listen to more stories like this one, check out the Cyclone Radio website at anchor.fm/cyclone-radio/.
King’s keynote took place between the two 1619 readings/discussions, and he answered audience questions about how to teach Black history at such a fraught moment in time. “The beautiful thing about history is that we don’t have to indoctrinate anybody. All we got to do is show them the proof,” he said. “Show them the primary source documents, have them read those for themselves, and call it a day.” He also recommended, especially for the younger grades, a focus on familial histories and tying the stories that come up to moments and eras of the past. Visit linkt.ree/MillsSOE to access a recording of the keynote address.
Through its credential program— Educators for Liberation, Justice, and Joy—the SOE has been preparing its student teachers to use antiracist methods such as these for years. Britt McClintock ’21, who received her social studies teaching credential from Mills, now teaches ethnic studies to juniors at the Oakland School for the Arts. “Antiracist teaching looks like centering humanization,” she said in an interview. This year, she has based much of her curriculum around the book My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem, bringing a focus to her classroom on healing generational trauma and reimagining what society considers the ideal body.
Another way in which she humanizes her students takes place before any curriculum is conveyed. McClintock begins each school year with an invitation to students to introduce themselves individually, with guidance on how their names should be pronounced and their pronouns. “Many of my colleagues scoff at this process because of how much time it takes out of instruction,” she said. “However, taking the time to get to know them individually sets the groundwork for what we hope to accomplish.”
As a woman of color, McClintock said that she did not regularly feel seen or heard while a K-12 student herself, so she’s dedicated to ensuring there’s space for her own students to be their true selves. “Teaching to help break down and expose discriminatory systems and racialized trauma while humanizing everyone in that process is important to me,” she said. “This generation is quite incredible, and it has the ability to heal and rebuild a very divided nation.”
Campus kudos
A selection of recent achievements by faculty, staff, and students
The Mills Book Arts Department and Professor of Book Art Julie Chen were recognized in the The Mercury News article “Bay Area bookbinding: The history and people behind the craft,” published October 9, 2021. The article described Chen’s books as interactive structures, using magnets, faceted oloid, and fanning pages to illustrate transformation. A similar article was published in Bookish.
The Mercury News also mentioned the Heller Rare Book Room in a separate story. Posted on November 23, 2021, the article recommended 10 public and university libraries across the Bay Area for their comfy environments and interesting reading material.
Assistant Adjunct Professor of
Sociology Dana Chalupa Young cowrote “Microaggressions and Coping Mechanisms among Latina/o College Students” with María Isabel Ayala, the director of the Chicano/Latino Studies Program and associate professor of sociology at Michigan State University. The article was published in the Sociological Forum in March 2022. Young’s upcoming work, “’Where in Mexico is Peru?’: The Racialization and Identities of South American Immigrants in Ohio,” was also accepted for publication in Latino Studies.
In December, Lead by Learning
Executive Director Mizgon Darby
spoke with KRON4 about the fatal shooting of an Afghan refugee. She has been an outspoken activist in the Bay Area’s Afghan community for the past 20 years.
Professor of Education Tomás
Galguera shared his insights on accessible education in the US News article “How English as a Second Language Affects Learning,” published December 6, 2021. He encouraged teachers to be supportive of bilingual students.
The San Francisco Classical Voice revealed that vocal instructor Anne Hege, MFA ‘04, is the new artistic director for the Peninsula Women’s Chorus. Her debut concert, “Hark, I Hear the Harps Eternal: A Ceremony to Celebrate Being Together,” was held on December 11, 2021 in St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Palo Alto and on December 17, 2021 in Mission Santa Clara.
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Mario Hernandez has two forthcoming works: “Bohemia and New Urban Tourism,” to be published in The Power of New Urban Tourism: Markets, Representation and Contestations (Routledge Press, 2022); and “We are without God Now: Benign Neglect and Planned Destruction of Brooklyn’s Bushwick Neighborhood,” appearing in a future issue of the Journal of Urban History.
Associate Professor of Political
Science Martha Johnson co-edited the volume Women and Power in Africa: Aspiring, Campaigning, Governing (Oxford University Press, 2021), while
Professor of Ethnic Studies and
English Ajuan Mance created the cover art. The book offers unique insights on how women in African countries participate in governance and their access to political power.
Associate Adjunct Professor of
Education Nolan Jones wrote a piece for The Conversation titled “Hip-hop’s love-hate relationship with education.” Posted on November 12, 2021, the article goes over the stories of several famous Black rappers who struggled in school, and Jones encourages schools to use hip-hop as a tool to engage students of color.
Associate Professor of Chemistry Beth Kochly’s current research student,
Calendar
April 3 ■ Pow Wow 2021 The Mills College Pow Wow returns this year as an all-day affair, with the Indigenous Red Market participating as special guests. This longstanding gathering celebrates the Bay Area’s Indigenous community and culture, with support from the Indigenous Women’s Alliance and the Mills College Ethnic Studies Department. Those who would like to volunteer with the Pow Wow committee or on the day of the event can email powwow@mills.edu, and follow Mills College Ethnic Studies on Facebook or RGSS on Instagram for more announcements and for vendor applications. 10:00 am–4:00 pm, The Oval.
Daneasha Zackery, presented her project at the ninth annual Black Doctoral Network Virtual Conference research poster session held on October 28–30, 2021. Kochly also published the paper “The effect of ionic liquid cosolvents on a unimolecular solvolysis reaction in 2,2,2-trifluoroethanol” with four former chemistry summer research undergraduates: Anne Marie Deh-Lee
‘16, Nicole Jean Lemon ‘16, Jenn Rath
‘17, and Amber Escobar-Meza ‘18.
In 2021, Mayor Libby Schaaf selected
Professor of Business Practice
Darcelle C. Lahr as a member of the Oakland Economic Recovery Advisory Council to identify short-term recommendations that would facilitate the reopening and recovery of Oakland’s economic sectors post-COVID-19, as well as longer-term systemic strategies for a more equitable economy into the future.
Famous cellist Yo Yo Ma paid tribute to the late Professor Emerita of Studio Art Hung Liu in a video posted on November 15, 2021 to his YouTube channel. Listen to his musical tribute at tinyurl.com/hung-liu-tribute.
The Texas Observer honored the late Darius Milhaud Professor of Composition Pauline Oliveros in a story covering her extensive work in experimental and electronic music.
Over the past year,
Professor of English
Kristen Saxton ‘90 has published numerous essays, such as “Spectacular Materials: Afterlives of the Eighteenth-Century Murderess Mary Blandy,” which appeared in the collection Making Stars: Biography and Eighteenth-Century Celebrity (University of Delaware Press, 2021). In another essay, “Writing With Aphra: Solidarity, Generosity, and Fight Club Rules Beyond Summer 2020,” published in ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, Saxton and co-writer Bethany Qualls discussed the successful transnational Write With Aphra summer program. Besides her publications, Saxton also co-organized the “Anti-Racist Pedagogies for 18th and 19th Century Studies” teach-in with the University of Texas at San Antonio’s Department of English and the Early Caribbean Society, which occurred on May 26, 2021.
Associate Professor of Biology Jenn
Smith contributed to a study that was published in Behavioral Ecology on
December 7, 2021. The study examines intergenerational wealth in animal societies that results in inequality. Articles by Salon and The New York Times touched on this study as well, with the latter including quotes from Smith herself.
Professor of Studio Art Catherine
Wagner was mentioned alongside other artists in a Datebook article about Bay Area art events in 2021. She had a solo show that was hosted by San Francisco gallerist Jessica Silverman.
Visiting Associate Professor of
Biology Helen Walter was a principal investigator on the Small World Initiative, a crowdsourcing project to discover new antimicrobials from soil organisms. Walter also participated in Boston University’s NSF Inclusive STEM Teaching project and became a digital content author for the third edition of Campbell Biology in Focus (Pearson Education, 2019). Additionally, Walter extended Mills’ NSF S-STEM SURPASS award until June 2022. April 11 ■ Russell Women in Science Lecture Dean of the School of Education Engineering for Societal Impact: One Woman’s Journey to Engineer Therapies Wendi Williams edited WE Matter!: for Sickle Cell Disease Intersectional Anti-Racist Feminist In this presentation by Gilda Barabino, she reveals Interventions with Black Girls and how her lifelong interest in social justice led her drive to advance sickle cell disease research. Sickle cell Women (Routledge, 2021), which was disease is a complex genetic blood disorder that published in November. impacts millions worldwide, and it disproportionately On December 10, 2021, Adjunct impacts African Americans in the United States. Professor of English Stephanie Young As a distinguished leader in STEM research and education, Barabino remains steadfast in her work participated in an in-person reading toward impactful outcomes for individuals living with with Chris Nelson, English professor at sickle cell disease and the broader community. Johns Hopkins University. Hosted by This lecture is free and open to the public. 5:30 pm, The Poetry Center at SFSU, Young and Student Union. Doors open at 5:15 pm. Nelson read and discussed their works.
