Mills Quarterly, Summer 2023

Mills Quarterly

Summer 2023

Afirst-generation college student and mother of three, Tomia Patterson ’23 wasn’t thinking about a study-abroad program when she entered Mills, but when newly merged Mills College at Northeastern University offered a faculty-led tour of Israel through Northeastern’s Dialogues of Civilization program, she was quick to hop on board—and was able to do so through a Mills alum gift.

“I had to pay for my flight and food, but a Mills alum paid the majority of my tuition. I wouldn’t have been able to go otherwise; there was no way,” says Patterson, who heard firsthand of differing stances on Israel from Jewish and Palestinian leaders during her trip—an experience that will inform her perspective in a career as a public policy negotiator.

While a unique alum gift made this experience possible for Tomia and a handful of other continuing Mills students, just imagine how awards from the Mills College Annual Fund—powered by donors like you—could open the door to real-world opportunities for many more students. By making a gift to the Mills College Annual Fund, you can help scholars based on the Mills campus take advantage of these life-changing experiences.

Bring learning to life: Your gift to the Mills College Annual Fund supports Mills-based scholars exclusively, inside the classroom and out.

Please make a gift by calling 510.430.2366, visiting alumnae.mills.edu/give, or returning the enclosed envelope.

“It wasn’t just a textbook. It was a lot of real-world learning that broadened my understanding.”

—Tomia Patterson ’23

Major: History, Culture, and Law

CONTENTS

SUMMER 2023

8 Commencement 2023 by Allison Rost

A unique class celebrates its achievements.

12 The Producers & Directors by Dawn Cunningham ’85

Five alums working in showbiz share their struggles and victories.

18 The View from Here by Rachel Leibrock, MFA ’05

For better or worse, Oakland has a reputation, but what’s the real story? These Mills graduates add nuance to the conversation about The Town.

32 The Long (and Short) History of the Senior Paint Wall by Jim Graham

What started as a way to keep the campus maintained in the early 20th century has since evolved into vibrant farewell messages every spring.

On the cover : Victoria Ixchel Mayorga ’23, wearing a stole that honors her Dominican and Colombian roots, poses for her family in front of her entry (among many) on the Senior Paint Wall after Commencement on April 30. Read more about Commencement 2023 on page 8, and read more about the Senior Paint Wall on page 32. Photo by Zac Borja.

Volume CXII, Number 4 (USPS 349-900)

Summer 2023

Associate Vice President for Institutional Advancement

Nikole Hilgeman Adams

Managing Editor

Allison Rost

Design and Art Direction

Nancy Siller Wilson

Editorial Assistant

Danielle Collins ’24

Contributors

Zac Borja

Dawn Cunningham ’85

Jim Graham

Lila Goehring ’21

Michael Halberstadt

Rachel Leibrock, MFA ’05

Ruby Wallau

The Mills Quarterly (USPS 349-900) is published quarterly by Mills College at Northeastern University, 5000 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland, CA 94613. Periodicals postage paid at Oakland, California, and at additional mailing office(s). Postmaster: Send address changes to the Office of Institutional Advancement, Mills College at Northeastern University, 5000 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland, CA 94613.

Copyright © 2023, Mills College at Northeastern University

Address correspondence to: Mills Quarterly

5000 MacArthur Blvd. Oakland, CA 94613

Email: quarterly@mills.edu mills.quarterly@northeastern.edu

Phone: 510.430.3312

My dear friend Cathy Magill Good ’70, TCRED ’71, sent me the In Memoriam item in the spring Quarterly about Anita Aragon Kreplin ’63. I came to Mills in 1970 as a grad student and was the head resident in one of the three brand-new dorms, which were not yet named. (I was in Dorm 2.) I was working on my California teaching credential, and because I lacked a few prerequisite courses, it would be a twoyear affair. I filled up my course load with Spanish literature courses, and Anita was one of my professors. I just loved her! I was coming back from two years of teaching in Bogotá, Colombia, and was fluent in Spanish, so Anita would send girls in my dorm to me to be tutored. We got to be very close friends! She had a sporty little Datsun 240Z (I think), and we did weekend jaunts occasionally. She introduced me to Yosemite! We also took a group of girls to Duck Ski in North Lake Tahoe over the January term. I attended her wedding to Darl Bowers and kept in touch with them for a while.

I just wanted to share another friend’s remembrances of one really wonderful lady. The world will miss her!

–Kathy Riggs Van Wie, TCRED ’71, Houston

Share your thoughts

Submit your letter to the editor via email to quarterly@mills.edu, online at quarterly.mills.edu, or by mail at:

Mills Quarterly 5000 MacArthur Blvd. Oakland, CA 94613

The Quarterly reserves the right to edit letters for length and clarity.

Many thanks to the readers of Mills Quarterly for submitting their thoughts and opinions about the magazine in the 2023 Reader Survey, which was in the spring issue and closed on June 1. As of press time, we had heard from 125 members of the Mills community, and we will be crunching the numbers and reporting on the results in the fall issue. In the meantime, we received several anecdotes that we’re sharing here with the permission of their authors.

I only attended Mills for one semester—I got mono and was sent home! I met and later married my husband who died in 2018 after 52 years of marriage. And now, my granddaughter will enter Northeastern University in the fall as a health sciences major. I found my old Mills ring, polished it up, and gave it to her.

–Mary Anne McElroy Hanson ’65, Leawood, Kansas

Anita’s memorial service will be held at 1:00 pm on Saturday, July 22 at Montclair Presbyterian Church, which is located at 5701 Thornhill Drive in Oakland. Though she died in December, her family opted to postpone the event until more relatives could travel to the Bay Area. Hopefully, the delay may also make it possible for her Mills classmates and siblings to attend as well. -Ed.

I was married after Mills and had three children (and seven grandchildren) as well as an exciting career as a social worker in Kansas City. The last 40 years, I have been in committed gay relationships. I met my wife in 2005, and we married in Kansas in 2014. My wife is an alum of the Northeastern University School of Law, and she was awarded Northeastern’s Outstanding Alumni Award in 2001.

–Leatrice Endlich ’50, Prairie Village, Kansas

A Letter from the Senior Vice President of Global Network & Strategic Initiatives

It’s hard to believe, but we are approaching the one-year anniversary of the Mills merger with Northeastern, and it will likely be behind us by the time you receive this magazine. As Northeastern’s senior vice president for global network and strategic initiatives—and someone who has spent a lot of time on the Oakland campus over the last two years— it’s remarkable to look back and marvel at how much has changed, but also how much remains the same.

I was intimately involved in the conversations between Mills and Northeastern back when they first started in spring 2021, and it was a fascinating process right from the start. Our first discussions centered on what we could do together that we could not accomplish alone. Many things came up during that conversation, including compelling ideas around scaling the impact that the legacy of Mills College could have across the Northeastern global university system.

In December, we took a big step toward fulfilling that goal by hiring Nicole GuidottiHernández as the first executive director of the brand-new Mills Institute. In short order, a lot of discussion has been sparked as staffing increases and programs are designed. While we wait for the academic elements of Mills College at Northeastern University to fully form, I’m so excited to see how our students, faculty, staff, and alums will continue to make impact— especially across the worldwide Northeastern network. Given my own experience in the corporate world, it’s inspiring to already see the impact we can make together on issues of gender inequality and underrepresented populations.

As we had anticipated, Mills College at Northeastern University is now taking on the administrative structure of the network’s other campuses. Renee Jadushlever serves in the role of vice president of campus administration, and in the 2022–23 academic year, Professor of Chemistry Beth Kochly took on the role of interim dean of Mills College at Northeastern.

In addition, other key staff have been hired to support the campus and expand our partnerships and entrepreneurial exploration throughout Oakland, Silicon Valley and across the network.

Carrie Maultsby-Lute, MBA ’11, who is former director of the Center for Transformative Action and a marketing professor at Mills, has been

efforts of Christie Chung, associate dean for research, scholarship, and partnerships, will be critical in providing learning, research and workforce opportunities for our students and the Oakland community.

My own journey to spending much of these past two years with the Mills community is one that is perhaps not so unfamiliar to many of you: I grew up in Walnut Creek back when it was a sleepy little town, and I didn’t earn my own college degree until I was in my 30s. Before that, I was a full-time waitress and the young mother of three sons, and I thought a degree in accounting was the way to improve my circumstances. It did, in an indirect way, and not in the way I expected.

appointed head of partnerships on the Oakland campus. A longtime Oakland resident, Carrie brings a wealth of relevant leadership experience to this new role. (Read more on page 5.) And Shea Tate-Di Donna has joined the Oakland campus as our head of entrepreneurship. She will be responsible for developing strategies, programming, and staffing to develop the entrepreneurial mindset and skills of our students, faculty, staff, alums, and community while enabling the creation and support of new businesses. Shea has worked for and founded several startup and venture capital businesses and was a strategic advisor to the Melinda Gates Foundation on women’s initiatives.

Both Carrie and Shea will be actively and directly engaged in Oakland, across Northeastern’s global network, and with corporate and local community groups to develop partnerships, entrepreneurial initiatives, and innovative programs. Their work, in combination with the

I then spent 20 years in the private sector—working full-time while studying to obtain my MBA and a PhD in public policy analysis. (I truly believe that lifelong learning was an unlocking condition for my family and me.) Then, nearly six years ago, I joined Northeastern as an assistant professor in the College of Professional Studies, and my experience has been lifechanging. I have always wanted to be a teacher as I come from a family of teachers, and supporting our students in achieving their learning goals is a particular passion of mine.

I’m sure that my path will continue to cross with Mills alums, and I look forward to more meaningful interactions that have shaped so many of these reflections of the last two years. It’s been an honor to meet all of you, to hear your stories, and to understand the history of this important place as I’m walking around this beautiful campus. When it’s misty and you can smell the eucalyptus leaves, you can feel the legacy of these more than 150 years of Mills in Oakland. It’s a visceral experience. I want to take this opportunity to express my deepest appreciation to all of you for your continued support and for welcoming me into your community. I will look forward to deepening our shared partnership and being a part of all that we will accomplish together.

Mary Ludden

MATTHEW MODOONO

Mills Matters

Summer news in brief

Summer session on the Mills campus looks a bit different this year. The Jill Barrett Undergraduate Research Program in Biology is underway with a cohort of six students. Other usual summer academic programs—including Russell Women in Science, Summer Academic Workshop, and Hellman Summer Math and Science Program—are on hiatus until 2024 due to recruitment and space issues. Meanwhile, a handful of courses are taking place during two separate summer sessions, including an online class for incoming students to introduce them to the Mills campus and the experiential entrepreneurship tracks available to them once they enroll. More to come in the fall issue of the Quarterly

Carolyn Sherwood-Call, director of business programs at the Lorry I. Lokey School of Business and Public Policy and a professor of practice, was the lone retirement among faculty on the Mills campus at the end of the 2022-23 academic year. She started at Mills in 2010, and at a congratulatory reception on Tuesday, April 25, her tenacity and thoughtfulness were applauded by colleagues across campus. SherwoodCall is known as a champion for nontraditional students and a teacher who differentiates her instructional methods to accommodate a variety of learning styles. She also stepped up to serve as interim dean of the Lokey School several times during her tenure at Mills.

Faculty research receives post-merger boost

In joining with Northeastern University, Mills College became part of an R1 institution, which is defined by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education as doctoral universities with “very high” research activity. And with that change comes more funding and support for faculty members pursuing projects beyond the classes they teach.

In the 2022–23 academic year, those included seed grants for Associate Adjunct Professor of Ethnic Studies Natalee

Kēhaulani Bauer ’97, MA ’07, to participate in a reproductive justice research collaborative; Professor of Education Clifford Lee to research the use of game design and ecological justice in reforming education for BIPOC youth; and Professor of Psychology

Christie Chung for the development of an exercise bike that will incorporate physical exercise and language learning to boost brain health. (All projects are happening in collaboration with other faculty members from throughout the Northeastern network.)

Chung is also the associate dean for research, scholarship, and partnerships for Mills at Northeastern, and she reports that Mills faculty members received from

Northeastern three Tier 1 awards worth $50,000 each; submitted six proposals for Impact Engines, with one gaining funding (see “New partnerships director a familiar face”) and four others still under consideration; and were awarded one grant from the Inclusive Impact Innovation Fund (see “Legacy Mills program receives Northeastern award”). Departments such as the Northeastern Research Enterprise Services (NU-RES)

According to the City of Oakland’s Department of Transportation, the LAMMPS project (aka Laurel Access to Mills, Maxwell Park, and Seminary) is heading into a second phase, which will continue to beautify and improve MacArthur Boulevard around the Mills campus. (Check the winter 2019 issue of the Quarterly for more info.) The effects of the first phase are evident on the stretch of MacArthur starting at Richards Road through the Interstate 580 underpass into the Laurel District: wider sidewalks, demarcated bike lanes, and other improvements intended to reduce accidents and increase safety. This upcoming second phase aims to extend those same features down MacArthur from Richards Road all the way to MacArthur’s intersection with Seminary Avenue on the campus’s southern edge.

provide infrastructure to help with the full life cycle of a research project, from locating funding to closing out the project.

That’s a shift from the past, when professors were teaching full course loads while also setting up and contributing to research projects in their fields with limited time and resources. “There’s an entire team of people working with us and research development to help people look for opportunities,” Chung says.

RUBY WALLAU

On June 12, Mills College at Northeastern will be hosting a new summer youth employment program. The program is being coordinated by the Community to Community Impact Engine, launched this past year in Oakland and Boston by Carrie Maultsby-Lute, MBA ’11, former director of the Center for Transformative Action and the new head of partnerships for Northeastern in Oakland; and Alicia Sasser Modestino, a professor and the research director for the Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern in Boston. The program will last five weeks and employ teens from Oakland, San Leandro, and Hayward at the Mills Community Farm and Upward Bound, and with the departments of Sustainability, Facilities, and Husky Card Services. There will also be sessions on college prep and career development.

Academic progress continues

As the Mills campus prepares to welcome first-year undergraduate students this fall who will be majoring in Northeastern programs brought to the West Coast, faculty members are pushing forward the academic development of Mills College at Northeastern specialties set to debut in fall 2025.

In a faculty/staff meeting on May 3, Interim Dean Beth Kochly offered an update: A newly formed curriculum committee solicited proposals from Mills faculty members for new and resurrected undergraduate majors and minors, graduate programs, and certificates. When 31 ideas came in, committee members reviewed and refined them with their authors, connected them with possible collaborators across various Northeastern colleges, and prioritized the proposals.

“We can’t move forward on all ideas all at once. We just don’t have the capacity to do that,” Kochly said. “So, the idea is to build our curriculum in a measured and steady way over the next several years.”

Four undergraduate programs are being put through final approval, with more information to come in the 2023–24 academic year.

On the graduate level, among other proposals, four master’s and credentialing programs in the School of Education—Single Subject, Multi Subject, Early Childhood Education, and Educational Leadership—are primed for fall 2024 pending approval from the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

Kochly added that more programs will be added to the docket for approval and implementation as they are deemed fit for the evaluation process.

New partnerships director a familiar face

Carrie Maultsby-Lute, MBA '11, professor of practice and the former director of the Center for Transformative Action, has been named to the new position of director of partnerships for Northeastern’s Oakland campus. In that role, she will work with Mills College at Northeastern University and the Mills Institute along with other on-site programs.

“We want to build leaders while uplifting the region and its people,” she says. “I’m really excited about it, and my goal is to be of value and service to faculty, to staff, to students, to anyone who’s wanting to bring in external partners to campus.”

At a faculty/staff meeting on May 3, Maultsby-Lute outlined who she envisions those external partners to be: employers such as corporations, governmental entities, and nonprofits; and “place-building” entities such as small business owners, foundations, and community colleges. The goal of forging relationships with these various institutions is to expand opportunities for co-ops, jobs, faculty research, experiential learning in the classroom, and community development.

“The mission I put forward is one where as educational visionaries, we are a force that spurs innovation, develops leaders, and drives equitable economic growth in Oakland and the larger community," she says. “We do this by developing radical partnerships that build trust and empower people in place.”

This is familiar territory for MaultsbyLute; as CTA director, she established relationships with entrepreneurs and community leaders in Oakland to tackle local issues. She has also teamed up with Alicia Sasser Modestino on the Boston campus for the Community to Community: Finding Equitable Solutions to Local Policy Problems impact engine, a multicampus initiative that connects policymakers with Northeastern faculty and is funding 12 scholars participating in communityengaged research with the goal of reducing racial and economic disparities.

RUBY WALLAU

Legacy Mills program receives Northeastern award

On March 28, Northeastern’s Chief Inclusion Officer Karl W. Reid announced the first awardees of the Inclusive Impact Innovation Fund, which were culled from 59 entries submitted by faculty, staff, and students across the Northeastern network. One of the five winners was the Social Justice Peer Mentorship Program, which traces its roots back to sundry projects that have taken place in the public health and health equity major over the last several years.

As a result of this funding, faculty members—Assistant Adjunct Professor and program head Catrina Jaime; Professor of Biology Jared Young; Program Coordinator Vala Burnett ’06, MA ’17; Associate Adjunct Professor of Biology Charlene Betts-Ng; and Assistant Adjunct Professor of Public Health and Health Equity Miki Hong, PMC ’95—will build a support network to make more of those projects possible.

But Jaime says that all credit should go to the recent alums who first undertook these ventures while at Mills. “These were all student-led initiatives, and we want them to continue to be student-led,” Jaime says. “Our role as faculty is to help them operationalize their initiatives and mobilize them into action. Students were able to lead these projects not because they were my idea, but because they were theirs.”

The Social Justice Peer Mentorship Program aims to take the efforts already put forward by these former students to create pathways for their later peers to lead social justice initiatives in the sciences. Projects have included the creation of a doula course available through Mills starting in 2020 (as covered in the spring 2022 issue of the Quarterly) and a Being in STEM While Black virtual event for student networking and support.

McKenzi Thompson ’21, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and molecular biology, helped organize the latter. She says she felt compelled to do something after receiving discouraging feedback from a professor, especially given that STEM fields tend to enroll small numbers of Black students. “The event gave a platform for our Black student voices to be heard by peers, faculty, and staff in the Natural and Health Sciences Division. For the first time, I truly felt heard,” she says. Another initiative the program is aiming to replicate is the Black Wellness Project, which Ashlee Davis ’22 put together with Dylyn Turner-Keener ’21, MPP ’22; and Jessica Hairston ’23. As the mission statement lays out, it’s a series of policies and tools to improve learning environments for Black students. “We just wanted change not only for us, but the Black students that were silently or loudly struggling with the battle of being Black in America, and to make sure we gave that fight a voice and chance at change—even if it was just at Mills College,” she says.

Davis emphasizes the importance of a support system for this kind of work, no matter who provides it: “It doesn’t matter as long as you have someone in your corner willing to listen to all of the

emotions and frustrations that come with doing the work.”

Thompson adds that the planning process for the virtual event was tough, but it was worth it in the end: “Self-belief goes a long way when combined with determination and a well-executed plan.”

The kinds of lessons learned these alums have experienced are what Jaime and her colleagues aim to center through the Social Justice Peer Mentorship Program, connecting new students who are moved to do similar works with those who have already done them. “That lived experience is nothing I can ever capture because I wasn’t that student who felt it,” she says. “Yes, it’s a pathway to continue to support students in their agency to do socialjustice work, but more so an opportunity to maximize the learning experience and to foster broader peer connections between new students and a near peer or an alumna.”

With this first set of funds from Northeastern, Jaime and her colleagues are working on the basics of setting up the program, such as recruitment. Along with other recipients of support from the Inclusive Impact Innovation Fund, a presentation will be made this fall to provide updates on all five of the fund’s projects.

Campus kudos

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

Assistant Professor of Public Policy

Sahar Abi-Hassan is a co-author of “The Ideologies of Organized Interests and Amicus Curiae Briefs: Large-Scale, Social Network Imputation of Ideal Points,” which was published by the journal Political Analysis in January. The paper discusses a database that started as a project of Abi-Hassan’s in 2018 when she was a graduate student at Boston University. She soon joined two Harvard scholars with a similar idea to determine the ideological scores of the sponsoring organization and content of every amicus brief filed at the US Supreme Court.

◀ The California Task Force on Reparations met at Lisser Hall on Saturday, May 6, and the crowd included a very familiar face: current US Representative and Senate hopeful Barbara Tutt Lee ’73. Before the event got underway, she posed for a photo in the lobby with members of the Millsbased Black Reparations Project. Left to right: Communications & Technology Coordinator Magda Cooney, MM ’23; Visual Content Creator Imani Karpowich-Smith ’18; Director of Events Ife Tayo Walker; Lee; Co-Director Ashley Adams; Director of Curriculum Darcelle Lahr, MA ’17, EDD ’18; and Co-Director Erika Weissinger.

Associate Dean and Professor of Psychology

Christie Chung led a two-part virtual training on leveraging cultural diversity to bolster Asian leaders in higher education. The webinar was hosted by Academic Impressions and took place on April 14 and May 5.

Professor Emerita of Dance Molissa Fenley collaborated with another dance giant in Pat Catterson for a program titled “Taking the Long View,” which was staged at The Dance Complex in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on April 15-16. Fenley performed alongside two other dancers in three works, with music by John Cage; Professor Emeritus of Music John Bischoff, MFA ’73; and Vijay Iyer.

Mills Institute Executive Director Nicole Guidotti-Hernández is a coauthor on “No Refuge(es) here: Jane Doe and the Contested Right to ‘Abortion on Demand’,” which appeared in the March issue of Feminist Legal Studies. She also penned “The Renewed Black Genius of Lorraine Hansberry’s ‘The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window’” for Ms., which appeared online on March 31.

Professor of English and Ethnic Studies Ajuan Mance wrote an essay for YES! Magazine titled “Drawing While Black: A Reflection on Art, Activism, and Ancestry” that delved into the history of protest in Black art as well as her

own recent release, Living While Black: Portraits of Everyday Resistance. Mance also provided commentary on the documentary Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines after it aired at the Menlo Park Library on April 18.

Associate Professor of Art Yulia Pinkusevich’s chalk and charcoal drawing “Casualty Isorithm 2” was part of the Paperworks exhibition at San Francisco’s Legion of Honor Museum, which closed on June 25.

Professor of English Kirsten Saxton presented her paper “Troubling White Femininity through Delarivier Manley’s The Wife’s Resentment: A Micro-Critical Autobiography” at the American Society for 18th-century Studies Annual Meeting in St. Louis in March. A version of this paper will be published in the journal Eighteenth-Century Fiction.

Professor of Art Catherine Wagner was one of two artists honored by the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) at its annual benefit on May 6. Connie Butler, chief curator of the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, offered remarks in Wagner’s honor. BAMPFA Executive Director Julie Rodrigues Widholm said that this year’s honorees “have pushed the social, aesthetic, and conceptual boundaries of their fields and paved the way for many others.”

Christie Chung

Ajuan Mance

Nicole Guidotti-Hernández

Commencemen�

T GOES WITHOUT SAYING that the Class of 2023 has had one of the most singular experiences in the history of Mills. Four-year undergraduate students saw their studies interrupted in the second semester of their first year due to the pandemic, learned virtually for the bulk of the next two, and were upended again by the news that Mills would be transitioning to an Institute—and then merging with Northeastern University. The confusion of what came next brought out a level of resilience and tenacity in these students that befitted the activist history of Mills.

AND AT THEIR JOYOUS COMMENCEMENT CEREMONY, on April 30, the persistence of this graduating class was on full display with student speaker Edin Woldegebriel Haddis, who earned a degree in psychology. Her higher-ed journey started at a different four-year institution, which she left after taking two leaves of absences for mental-health challenges. But she was determined to “turn things around,” as she put it, and enrolled in City College of San Francisco. She aced all of her classes.

There, one of her English professors—Alisa Messer ’92—introduced her to Mills. “She told me about her experiences here [and] I became interested in attending the school,” Haddis said. “After more research, I knew Mills was the place for me.”

Haddis still faced challenges upon arriving at Mills—quarantine was coming to an end, and she was dealing with the anguish of war in her family’s home region of Tigray in Ethiopia. But she found her footing, becoming a resident assistant and joining the Black Student Collective, and she gave a special shout-out to Assistant Adjunct Professor of Psychology Erin Kinnally. “She made me feel safe and welcome,” Haddis said. “Her class helped me draw connections between the material and the things I was experiencing in real life. She heard me express my pain and gave me the outlet to do so even further.”

Her final charge to her fellow graduates was to use what they learned over the past few years—outside of the classroom just as much as inside—as fuel and motivation: “Don’t forget about these tumultuous times. Instead, use these experiences as tools in all your future endeavors. Draw on the roots you planted, the connections you made, and those who made you feel safe and welcome.”

Haddis was followed by this year’s Commencement speaker, Michèle Nichols Taylor ’88, who serves as the United States ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council. She first recalled sitting in the graduates’ seats, noting that her life had not at all turned out the way she thought it would at her Commencement. “There are no straight paths in life—they almost never exist,” she said.

Taylor hoped to be a Rhodes Scholar, but that didn’t happen. Her first attempt at a Ph.D. program in mathematics went sideways when she opted instead to stay in California with the man she eventually married. Her second attempt came up just short—she only needed to defend her dissertation—when she chose instead to focus on her two small children, a decision that drew criticism as anti-feminist. “Many decisions [I] made were formed by obligations to the outside world. It took a lot to give myself permission to take a big fork in my path,” she said. “I thought the whole point in creating opportunities for women and girls in all of our diversity was so we could make our own choices about what we want to do with our lives.”

Her experience with her own mother—a Holocaust survivor, same as her father and grandparents—played a big part in that decision, and it also informed the life’s work she eventually pursued. “I learned early what hate and prejudice can do,” she said, pointing not just to her family’s history but also to the assassination of Harvey Milk in

Photos by Ruby Wallau

1978, which opened her eyes to the struggle for gay rights. Nearly 45 years and many campaigns later, Taylor came to the Human Rights Council in 2022 just as Russia invaded Ukraine and the body voted to eject the former from its ranks. She also spoke about the efforts she’s taken in her current role to recognize what’s happening to Uyghur Muslims in China, which has not found success thus far, but she will continue to push.

“Being too measured about doing the right things might mean you don’t do the right things,” she said, before concluding with quotes from Winnie the Pooh and Oscar Wilde.

In all, the ceremony saw the graduation of 152 scholars—88 undergraduates, five certificate earners, 57 master’s candidates, and two new doctorates in education. Even though they received diplomas emblazoned with the Northeastern seal and graduated in different school configurations than in the past, they enjoyed many typical Mills graduation traditions: confetti poppers, a mariachi band, the singing of “Fires of Wisdom,” and recognition of Bent Twigs (see next page).

“Don’t forget about these tumultuous times. Instead, use these experiences as tools in all your future endeavors. Draw on the roots you planted, the connections you made, and those who made you feel safe and welcome.”

–Edin Woldegebriel Haddis ’23

Bent Twigs

1 Amelia Binnett ’23 and mother Thomlyn Gingell Binnett ’92

2 Em Kohl, MFA ’23, and aunt Jeannie Kohl ’89

3 Daisy Copperwaite ’23 and mother Jeannette Hudson Copperwaite ’05

4 Itzel Xiadani Diaz ’23 (right) and mother Mara Chavez Diaz ’04

5 Sasha Powers ’23 and mother Kara Bateman Powers ’99

6 Thalia Kelley ’23 and mother Tameeka JohnsonKelley ’15, MBA ’17

7 Ma’Kaya Washington ’23 and aunt Sandhya Rajan, MA ’03

A Bent Twig is a Mills student or alumna whose family tree includes another Mills alumna.

photos by zac borja

‘Tis education forms the common mind: Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined. —Alexander Pope, 1734

&DirectorsTheProducers

Mills alums create change behind the scenes in the film and TV industry, showing the world through their eyes.

ByDawnCunningham’85

Producers vs. Directors: Who Does What?

Among the various behind-the-scenes roles in the film/television/video industry, producers and directors have some of the greatest influence over what stories are told and who gets to tell them.

Producers typically manage all logistic and budgetary aspects of a film, broadcast show, or video from start to finish—including hiring crew members. A project may involve several types of producers, with differing levels of responsibility. Executive producers recruit and supervise key members of the project team (including the director and the producer) and handle business affairs. In the case of television series—including broadcast news—many producers are frequently also a show’s writers, with considerable control over story development.

More women work as producers than in any other behind-the-scenes role: They make up 31 percent of producers in film (but only 25 percent of executive producers) and 44 percent of producers in broadcast and streaming programs (but only 33 percent of executive producers).

For other genres—including feature films, documentaries, and music videos—directors typically have primary responsibility for shaping the way a story is told. They control a project’s creative aspects, including the work of the cast, cinematographer, and editor. On some projects, the director may also serve as a producer or recruit the producer.

Film and television shape who we are as a culture and how we view the world. At their best, they can help us understand ourselves, move us to empathize with others, and inspire us to create change. At their worst, they can dehumanize others and promote hatred.

The goals and perspectives of the directors and producers who work behind the scenes make all the difference. But these perspectives have long been constrained by the narrow demographic of directors and producers: the overwhelming majority have been white men.

A team of researchers* led by Kate Karniouchina, dean of the Lorry I. Lokey School of Business and Public Policy, recently examined 2,386 motion pictures widely distributed in the United States between 1994 and 2016. They found that women directed less than five percent of these films, and people of color (POC) directed less than 11 percent of them.

In addition, Karniouchina and team discovered “women and POC direct films that generate similar revenues to films directed by male, nonminority directors

when they are given the same opportunities. However, they are not currently being given the same opportunities. Biases against female and minority directors begin with project assignment and ‘build’ throughout the process to include decisions about budgeting and exhibition.”

The underrepresentation of women extends to a wide range of behind-thescenes roles. According to the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, in 2022 women comprised only 24 percent of directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors, and cinematographers working on the top 250 grossing films; 31 percent of those working on broadcast programs; and 37 percent of those working on streaming programs.

In the past decade, a convergence of diverse social movements—including #BlackLivesMatter, #OscarsSoWhite, and #MeToo—has spotlighted the lack of diversity and gender equity in the industry and helped instigate change. Many studios and media companies have made it a priority to hire women and people of color, and a number of grants for independent films

promote underrepresented filmmakers. And beginning in 2024, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will implement new representation and inclusion standards for the Oscars’ best picture category—standards that apply to a film’s creative leadership and project team as well as its cast.

Professor Emeritus of Film Studies Ken Burke, who was on the faculty at Mills from 1987 to 2013, says: “The more options there are for women to produce stories, to write and direct those stories on-screen, to participate in the technical aspects of making the story come alive, the better understanding audiences can have of perspectives that male writers/directors might not be best able to comprehend or convey.”

In the pages that follow, five Mills women share their experiences as producers and directors. They have all been affected while building their careers by the industry’s inequalities and biases. Yet they are succeeding, in varying ways, in drawing diverse people or perspectives into the creation of the films and videos we watch.

*The team also included Mills economics professors Siobhan Reilly and Lorien Rice and business professor Carol Theokary as well as University of Utah marketing professor Stephen Carson. The results of their research were published in an article, “Women and Minority Film Directors in Hollywood: Performance Implications of Product Development and Distribution Biases,” in the Journal of Marketing Research in 2023.

Rosanne Cunningham ’90, Executive Producer

At Mills, Rosanne Cunningham (who is the sister of this article’s writer) developed an interest in cinematography and directing. She designed her own major in film, video, and electronic music; Burke was one of her advisors. Soon after graduating, she started helping directors with low-budget music video productions. “I did everything,” she says. “I would help scout for locations. I would help with the art department.”

She and a director with whom she frequently worked landed bigger and bigger music video projects that enabled her to hire production assistants and managers. She quickly rose to the role of producer and then executive producer—roles in which she has helped directors develop creative ideas. Cunningham’s credits include producing commercials, MTV and ESPN specials, and music videos for Beyoncé, Alicia Keys, and scores of other hip-hop and R&B artists.

“I fell into production because I needed work,” Cunningham says, looking back at the reasons she became a producer rather than a director. “A lot of people who start directing at a young age have come from money, and I did not. They have contacts who can invest in their vision.”

She adds: “Women often go into production because people see it as a more

feminine skill set than directing. I was definitely pushed in that direction. And the truth is that it’s harder for me to pitch my own creative ideas than to support others. Directors have to be able to sell themselves and have a healthy ego.”

In the past, women and people of color were also disadvantaged when seeking jobs in the industry because, as Cunningham explains: “This business comes down to networking. Directors hire people they’re friends with, and it’s been a boy’s club.” Especially on commercial projects, “male producers could rise quickly by getting chummy with male clients,” she recalls.

Stereotyping posed another hurdle. “Black directors who were good at hip-hop music videos couldn’t easily cross over into mainstream work. They were stereotyped as being able to do a certain genre,” she says. “Women were also stereotyped in a certain way. You had to work extra hard to break those stereotypes.

“But times have changed since I first got into the business,” she says. “Now is a good time for minority directors as well as for women. People are looking for much more diversity.”

In her current role as executive producer at Robot Film Company in Los Angeles, Cunningham has pushed to hire more women as directors. For a recent MTV series she executive-produced that involved

multiple short videos, four of the 11 directors selected were women. “The women were so buttoned-up and so organized,” she says. “All had these beautiful storyboards and shot lists, while not one of the male directors did. The women were so much better prepared and worked a lot harder.”

Haley Moffett ’90, Executive Producer

A studio art major, Haley Moffett found work in an art gallery in San Francisco after college but struggled to pay rent. Cunningham, her roommate at the time, invited her to help with a music video in Oakland as a production assistant. “I didn’t know what it entailed exactly, but it was for this hip-hop group called Digital Underground,” she recalls. “It was totally chaotic and crazy and fun, and I fell in love with music video production.”

Moffett worked her way up through the production ranks, fending off casual sexism along the way—such as the time in Houston when she was negotiating rental rates with a lighting house employee who assumed she reported to a male producer. “He said, ‘Tell your producer that this is the best we can do.’ And I said, ‘You’re talking to her,’” she says. “I remember him laughing and my being really humiliated. But you just work through it and over time you develop a thick skin.”

Rosanne Cunningham and Haley Moffett

To further develop her skills and knowledge as a producer, Moffett enrolled in the Producers Program at UCLA, pursuing an MFA in film and television. “The program was fantastic, mainly for the connections,” she says. In 2004, she and friends she met at UCLA co-founded RockCorps, a pro-social organization that produced large-scale concerts featuring stars like Rihanna and Lady Gaga exclusively for young volunteers. “The whole idea behind it was to motivate young people to participate in volunteering in their community and then be celebrated for it,” she explains. “We would produce these concerts for them, and then we would shoot multi-camera concert specials.”

Today, Moffett is head of production at Artifact Studios in Los Angeles, which creates documentaries for public television as well as commercials and video game content. As ideas for projects come up, she says, “I’m really glad when I’m able to influence a project’s direction, to bring a perspective as a woman, and help shape what we’re putting out there in the world.”

Moffett uses her network and online resources—such as freethework.com, browngirlsdocmafia.org, and handy foundation.com—to seek out women and people of color for a range of positions with Artifact Studios projects. “We want to develop and hire underrepresented creators and below-the-line workers to build more diverse crews,” she says. “But this can sometimes be a challenge, especially when it comes to post-production roles, including editors, animators, and sound designers. It’s incumbent on the industry to invest in training people.”

Directors can have a huge influence on the diversity of the rest of the crew. “Female directors often hire female DPs [directors of photography] and heads of departments, like the art department or wardrobe department,” Moffett observes. Research by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film concurs: Films with woman directors employed substantially more women in other behind-the-scenes roles than films with male directors.

“I’m excited for the younger generations of women,” Moffett says. “They’re going to really kick ass and have these really amazing, diverse teams that tell stories representing different people’s perspectives.”

“ I can finally pitch projects that I care about and have people listen and say, ‘Let’s do that. Let’s tell that story.’ But that’s been 30 years in the making.” – Anonymous

Anonymous, News Producer

One alumna interviewed for this story asked to remain anonymous so she could speak freely about her experience grappling with both sexism and racism in the industry.

Within a year of completing her studies at Mills in the mid 1990s, she landed a job as an assistant producer in a network newsroom. “I was given extraordinary opportunities. I saw the world and covered some of the biggest stories of my generation,” she says. “But while I and other young women would do all the heavy lifting that went into building shows, older white people—mostly men—got all the credit and the pay.

“There were very few producers of color,” she adds. “There was one African American producer, no Asian producers, and no Latino producers. The narrative across the board was shaped by white people.”

After years at that network, she says, “I took a leap of faith and went somewhere else, to a place where my voice was valued and recognized as a person of color… I can finally pitch projects that I care about and have people listen and say, ‘Let’s do that. Let’s tell that story.’ But that’s been 30 years in the making.”

As a news producer, she explains, “I find people to be in the stories, hire the camera crews, watch the footage that we’ve shot, and figure out a way to tell the stories that humanizes people and helps folks to learn something new and different.”

Her storytelling talents have earned her an Emmy. She’s particularly proud of her work covering the events of summer 2020 following the murder of George Floyd. “Summer of 2020 was life-changing for African American journalists as a whole,” she says. “We were able to tell our stories in our own words and document what was happening in our lives.”

“The landscape is different now than when I started out,” she adds. “There are women directors, there are women of color running major networks. There are so many Black creators: we’re artists, we’re producers, we’re prolific writers. No longer are our narratives written by other people.”

Emelie Coleman

Mahdavian ’08, Director and Producer

Emelie Mahdavian attended London Film School and worked in the film industry before coming to Mills to study music and philosophy. After graduating, she earned a Ph.D. in performance studies from the University of California, Davis. For her dissertation, she directed a feature-length documentary, After the Curtain, about the lives of female dancers in Tajikistan.

In 2019, Midnight Traveler, a film she produced, wrote, and edited, won a Special Jury Award at Sundance Film Festival, a Peabody Award, and an Emmy. The film was directed by Hassan Fazili, an Afghan refugee who used cell phones to chronicle his family’s flight to Europe. Mahdavian set up contact points along the family’s route to collect their footage and edit it. After the film’s release, she was selected for the prestigious “40 under 40” list published by the DOC NYC festival.

Bitterbrush, which she directed, premiered at Telluride Film Festival in 2021 and won a Special Jury Prize at Visions du Réel in Switzerland. The documentary focuses on the friendship between two women range riders—and their dogs—as they herd cattle across a remote, mountainous Idaho landscape. Mahdavian met the range riders, Hollyn and Colie, while she was living near their cabin one summer, just before she joined the University of Utah’s Department of Film and Media Arts, where she is now an assistant professor.

“Both women faced tough choices by

virtue of the industry that they picked,” she says. Ranching, like filmmaking, has been male-dominated. “The three of us bonded over this. The things that they experience on a ranch—when they’re trying to convince others that they know how to run a ranch, that they know their job—are not that different from things that I experienced on a Hollywood set.

“The way I encounter it is people talking down to me. They don’t know I have a Ph.D. and an Emmy. Then they’ll turn to men who are younger than me and address them with a great deal of respect. When you’ve been around the block a few times, you recognize that this is just sexism. You have to fight to be treated right,” she explains. “I know what I’m doing. I’ve reached a point where I feel proud of my work and my ability to see something in advance and then actually realize it.”

Mahdavian was drawn to making a film about friendship between women because,

as she says, “It’s not something I’ve seen represented in a way that has the texture of an authentic female bond.” Such friendship will also feature in her new documentary project, about a women-led science team that is studying the rapidly melting Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica. During winter break, she stayed with the scientists on the glacier’s ice shelf, bringing a specially assembled camera kit and doing all the cinematography herself.

“I want to tell their story in a way that might be less tested but that I feel is true to who they are,” she says. But the less tested a film’s approach, the more difficult it can be to finance the project: “Often commercial viability is measured in terms of proven successes of comps [comparable films] and similar titles and past work,” she points out.

Mahdavian has had some success with finding grant support and distributors

for her films—Bitterbrush, for instance, is distributed by Magnolia Pictures. Still, “it’s a struggle to create a degree of equity and sustainability for yourself and your creative team,” she says. “The industry is not structured to support the artists. It’s structured to sustain the industry itself.”

This structure poses a conundrum for those who seek to bring diverse perspectives to filmmaking. “How can our approaches to storytelling be commercially viable and at the same time not just recast the same story, but rather fundamentally alter story structures in ways that allow us to imagine different futures?” Mahdavian asks. “How do we make work that allows us as audience members to engage with other visions of the world?”

Meg Smaker ’12, Director

The Quarterly first featured Meg Smaker in spring 2016, after she won a Student Academy Award for her short film Boxeadora. She had just graduated from Stanford University’s documentary film MFA program, and her career as a director seemed ready to take off.

In January 2022, her first feature-length documentary, The UnRedacted (originally known as Jihad Rehab), premiered at Sundance Film Festival. She was hoping for a distribution deal and better access to funding for future projects. Instead, she’s been caught in a national controversy that has upended her plans and prospects.

The UnRedacted focuses on four Yemeni men residing in a rehabilitation center in Saudi Arabia for former extremists. Previously imprisoned in Guantánamo for 15 years, they’d been accused of involvement with terrorist activities—though they were never charged or convicted. Besides interviewing them, the film depicts them in counseling sessions and classes as they prepare to re-enter society and follows up with them after release from the center. “The film is intentionally open-ended,” Smaker says. “It’s not saying rehabilitation works or doesn’t work. It’s not saying these men are good or bad. The audience can make up their own mind.”

Smaker first heard of the rehab center during the five years she lived Yemen, where she taught firefighting. She left Yemen to attend Mills and then Stanford,

Emelie Coleman

and after her studies, she began exploring the possibility of making a documentary about the center. “I wanted to give people an opportunity to hear from these men and their perspective,” she explains.

It took a year of negotiation, but she got permission from Saudi authorities to film, as well as agreements from both Saudi and Yemeni detainees to be interviewed. She says her years of living in Yemen helped the Yemeni men feel comfortable opening up to her.

Meanwhile, Smaker had to secure funding for the project—a challenge that proved greater than gaining access to the center. “No one in Saudi Arabia ever told me I couldn’t do this project because I’m a woman,” she recalls. “But in the United States, potential investors said, ‘There’s no way you’re going to be able to pull this off

as a woman.’” She was advised to team up with a male director—advice she declined.

Early on, the only investors who believed she could succeed as the film’s director were other women. Smaker says she “was always fundraising because we never had enough money. There were times when we just had to put our expenses on credit cards.”

Despite the obstacles, Smaker completed Jihad Rehab, and it was selected for screening at festivals around the world. The press reviews after the Sundance premiere were glowing. The Guardian’s reviewer wrote: “This is a movie for intelligent people looking to have their preconceived notions challenged.”

However, a few Muslim documentary filmmakers had begun raising objections to Jihad Rehab even before the premiere. Some opposed the idea of a white, nonMuslim woman telling the stories of Muslim men and asserted the film would be Islamophobic or an instrument of Saudi propaganda.

“At first, I thought this was all just one big misunderstanding, and that

once they saw the film, they’d realize what it is,” Smaker says. She and her Yemeni American executive producer offered to preview and discuss the film with objectors before it was fully edited, a suggestion that went unanswered. At Sundance’s request, Smaker submitted the film for an independent ethics review, which it passed. She renamed the film The UnRedacted to allay concerns that the term “jihad” could be misunderstood.

Yet after the premiere, the backlash gained momentum. Critics claimed that the film framed its subjects as terrorists and endangered them. In addition, some said that by attempting to humanize the detainees for a Western audience, the film was normalizing whiteness. Sundance apologized for premiering the film, and other US film festivals cancelled screenings.

Festivals in other countries, however, stuck with it. The UnRedacted won awards at the Rome International Film Festival and the Warsaw Film Festival. It also gained prominent defenders. The podcaster Sam Harris featured Smaker on an episode, and The New York Times and The Atlantic published in-depth articles praising the film and criticizing its censorship. Los Angeles Times television critic Lorraine Ali, a Muslim woman, wrote about her admiration for the documentary, saying, “The question now is how to move forward promoting authenticity in authorship without siloing diverse filmmakers.”

Today Smaker is self-distributing the film, raising support through GoFundMe and holding screenings and talks in independent theaters in the United States and abroad. “I just want people to watch it,” she says. “Then I have to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. I worked for a long time to be a documentary filmmaker. But now no one in the industry will touch me with a 10-foot pole.”

She remains proud of the film, the perspectives it illuminates, and its ability to spark conversation. She says, “After you watch a documentary film, when it’s done well, you feel like your world has been broadened just a little, because you can explore a space and a people and a time that you might never visit in your real life, but you’ve still had this experience with them.” ●

“After you watch a documentary film, when it’s done well, you feel like your world has been broadened just a little, because you can explore a space and a people and a time that you might never visit in your real life, but you’ve still had this experience with them.”

—Meg Smaker

the view from here

By Rachel Leibrock, MFA ’05

N SOME CIRCLES, THE CITY OF OAKLAND is a punch line, mentioned in the same breath as places like Chicago and Portland as supposed proof of America’s “failing” cities. In others, it’s an example of the hyper-gentrification that’s already laid claim to San Francisco, its glitzier neighbor across the Bay Bridge.

We wanted to cut through the noise to get to the more complex and nuanced truth behind life in The Town. These alums spend their professional and/or personal lives in Oakland and spoke with the Quarterly to share the paths that brought them here—and to offer their thoughts on what’s really happening.

Cathy Keyes

Cathy Keyes ’72 came to Oakland in 1968 and never left. Born and raised in Connecticut, she found Mills College and the city to be a welcome change. “It was such a discovery for me… to find a place that valued so many different people from different walks of life,” she says. “It grabbed onto me, and I wanted to stay in that environment.”

After receiving her bachelor’s degree in creative writing, Keyes went on to teach elementary school, including the third grade and special education classes.

Then, in 1998, she made a big midlife career change, joining the Oakland Zoo as a zookeeper. Keyes had volunteered there, admired its stature as a progressive zoo, and decided it was time for something new. She worked at what she calls “a real gem in the City of Oakland” until her retirement in 2015.

Keyes, who lives in the Oakland Hills, says she’s seen a lot of changes over the 50-plus years she’s lived in the city. Not all of them are for the best, she admits.

With a population of nearly 500,000, there’s no one story that can describe the Oakland experience. Nine Mills alums offer their takes.

“When you go uptown, you can see that it’s changed dramatically; that’s where the Sears store used to be, and now it’s every café and restaurant possible—upscale places,” she says. “You see a lot of people who are being displaced from the city where they’ve lived their whole lives.”

Those upscale businesses attract wealthy people—usually white— creating a reverse migration of sorts from suburbs to the urban center. “All of a sudden the people with money want to live in the city,” Keyes says. “And the people of color are getting pushed out.”

Nonetheless, she still sees the same city she fell in love with all those years ago. Despite the encroaching creep of gentrification, it remains largely diverse, politically progressive, and welcoming.

“It’s hard for me to imagine living anywhere else that doesn’t have the same diversity that Oakland does,” she says. “When I visit other places, it’s clear to me that I wouldn’t be comfortable living there.”

Jill Kunishima

It was the summer of 2020, and the nation was entrenched in a bitter divide. George Floyd’s death at the hands of police had

sparked hard conversations about police brutality and race. At the same time, the pandemic, which had been linked to an outbreak in China, had incited waves of violence against the country’s Asian American population.

Jill Kunishima ’03, who is Japanese American, remembers it at as an uncertain time, but looking back she also sees it as a pivotal moment of transformation for her community.

“Incidences of anti-Asian sentiment and hate crimes began skyrocketing,” says Kunishima, who then worked as senior vice president of development and communication with the East Bay Local Development Corporation. “While we were talking about how to be better allies to our Black brothers and sisters in such a volatile time, suddenly—for the first time in my life—people were also talking about how to be better allies to the Asian and Asian American population. It was an extremely painful but powerful time for Oakland.”

The shift, says Kunishima, who now runs her own consulting firm, is emblematic of Oakland’s culture and a reason that she loves the city she’s called home for the last 20+ years.

She grew up in the Los Angeles area and wanted to attend a liberal arts college, in part because she wanted a more intimate

educational experience. Kunishima toured several options before arriving in Oakland.

“I visited Mills and, like so many people, I stepped on campus and thought, ‘Wow, what is this magical place?” she says. As she studied psychology and communications, Kunishima enjoyed the scenic campus and small class sizes. After college, she moved around a bit, including stints in Washington, DC, and the Dominican Republic.

Her love for the Bay Area, however, drew her back. As a “career non-profiter,” Kunishima says she and her husband chose Oakland’s Laurel District because it was central, peaceful, and diverse.

“I like that it is not only is it ethnically diverse, but also socioeconomically diverse,” she says. “I could walk down my street and see every shade of person, every configuration of family. It felt good, it felt like Oakland.”

Gentrification is “clearly happening,” she adds, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing to watch Oakland get the attention it deserves as a “beacon” in the Bay.

Moreover, Kunishima says she’s glad to live in a city that isn’t afraid to ask hard questions and put in the work to find the answers. What happens in Oakland, she says, often sets the stage for a national conversation.

“Oakland’s struggles are a microcosm of the country,” she says. She points to its activist history, from the Black Panthers to more modern movements, such as The Town’s official designation in 2022 as a “sanctuary city” for abortion rights, a first in California and one of just a handful nationwide. “We see the effect of what [happens in Oakland] across the country,” she says.

And she’s happy she and her husband can raise their 7-year-old son here. “Oakland is not a place for those who are apathetic or complacent,” she says. “People here are always having a dialogue, always debating, and always diving into issues that need to be dealt with.”

Darcelle Lahr

To help a community, one must first listen to it.

This ethos is a guiding principle for Darcelle Lahr, MA ’17, EDD ’18, and the work she does as the founder and executive director of the Women’s Social Entrepreneurship Center (WESC), an Oakland-based organization that aims to dismantle the barriers to self-sufficiency and economic mobility for women, including non-cisgender women and non-binary individuals.

Lahr, who is also a professor of business practice at the Lorry I. Lokey School of Business and Public Policy, came to the College a decade ago, where—in addition to teaching—she received her master’s and doctorate in education.

Although she’d grown up in the Bay Area, Lahr says she wasn’t familiar with Mills until a colleague invited her to talk about a teaching opportunity there. As she explored the option, she quickly grew to appreciate the school.

“The more I found out about Mills, the more I really felt at home, and I’ve been there ever since,” she says. In the ensuing years, Lahr has worked to invest in the community from an entrepreneurship perspective. In addition to the WESC, she is also the president and chief executive officer for Integral Consulting Group, a woman/ minority-owned management consulting practice supporting BIPOC social entrepreneurs in East Oakland.

“There’s been a tremendous amount of disinvestment [here],” Lahr says. “There have been groups that have come in to ‘save’ Oakland without really understanding the lives of the people who live here.”

Some see disparities in the community and want to implement changes without trying to understand the people they serve, she says. “If anyone is going to serve populations in Oakland, they need to listen deeply to their stories,” she says.

Lahr does just that, working with marginalized groups—including the formerly incarcerated—to help them succeed on career

GREG LINHARES, CITY OF OAKLAND

paths that have long eluded them. The work includes pairing small BIPOC-owned businesses with local suppliers and distributors. The result creates a ripple effect through what Lahr refers to as a “multi-stakeholder value chain.”

“We bring them together to work collaboratively with the idea of not only lifting up themselves and their families, but those around them,” she says. “Connecting that collaboration with the purchasing community and the [residents] around it gives residents the opportunity to keep control of their local economy—and the trajectory of the community itself.”

The work is vital for the city’s health, she says, particularly in Black communities that have been “decimated” by what she describes as “white supremacist regimes.”

“This is one way for Oakland to build its own economic success,” she says. “This is a community investing in itself.”

Tiffany Rose Naputi Lacsado

When she sits on the front porch of her house on a quiet day, Tiffany Rose Naputi Lacsado ’02 can hear the El Campanil clock tower at her alma mater. In 2022, she bought the house in the Millsmont neighborhood, just a few blocks from the Mills College campus. It was cute, affordable, and big enough for her family, which includes three kids, ranging in age from 6 to 11. The house also kept her in her adopted hometown.

“I’ve lived all over Oakland, and now I’m raising a family here,” she says.

Lacsado, born in Guam, relocated with her family as a child: first, to Hawai’i, and then Washington State before arriving in Oakland. As a teen, she attended Castlemont High School where a relationship with a boy prompted her father to send her to Nevada to finish school. Lacsado applied to Mills so she could return to Oakland. There, she participated in Summer Academic Workshop and studied political, legal, and economic analysis—while also working in the campus bookstore and as part of the Expanding Your Horizons organization, a group that promoted women in math and science fields. After college, she watched friends and peers scatter to far-flung locales such as New York and Chicago in search of new experiences. Lacsado, however, says she knew the Bay Area would afford her that option, too.

“Oakland has allowed me to reinvent myself over and over,” she says.

For the last four years, Lacsado has worked as the director of economic development with The Unity Council in Fruitvale, an organization that provides “cradle-to-grave” services to more than 8,000 people and families in the Oakland neighborhood, including youth mentorship, career training, housing and financial stability, and neighborhood development.

The work, as well as her long history with the city, has put her front and center with some of Oakland’s biggest challenges, including the affordable housing crisis and the threat of a post-

pandemic recession. The Town, Lacsado says, is resilient and diverse, evolving as its citizens and leadership evolve.

“The economics that I work with on a daily basis [as part of The Unity Council] are more about the economics of marginalized cultures and communities,” she says. Often, she adds, this means helping people and businesses in the neighborhood’s informal economy transition move into the formal economy through a variety of services.

“It’s complex and requires a different type of leadership,” she says.

She’s hopeful for Oakland’s future. “There’s a new crop of people stepping up,” she says. “As someone who has been here a very long time, I feel like it’s a changing of the guard.”

Carrie Maultsby-Lute

She’d lived all over the country, from Orlando to Indianapolis to Seattle, and traveled the world as a professional figure skater. When Carrie Maultsby-Lute, MBA ’11, moved to Oakland, however, she finally felt at home.

“As a young Black woman in a sport where you don’t really find a lot of African Americans, I felt like I was an outsider in most places,” Maultsby-Lute says. “Coming to Oakland, I found my sense of self and found a place that saw me and appreciated the uniqueness I bring to the world.”

Maultsby-Lute arrived in Oakland in 2001, following her mother who had remarried and relocated to the area. She’d retired from figure skating, and after completing a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from UC Berkeley, she earned her MBA at Mills.

Post-graduation, Maultsby-Lute stayed connected to Mills. She taught marketing classes at the Lorry I. Lokey School for Business and Public Policy, and, in 2020, was hired as the director of the Center for Transformative Action, an organization that brings together students, business leaders, and policymakers to collaborate on building profitable, sustainable organizations and nonprofits that address social, environmental, and policy issues. In April, Maultsby-Lute stepped into a new role: head of partnerships for Northeastern’s Oakland campus. (See page 5.)

In the last 15 years, Maultsby-Lute has witnessed tremendous growth in her community. Whereas people used to regularly cross the bridge into San Francisco in search of fun, they’re now staying closer to home.

“Things started shifting, and top-notch restaurants and art galleries opened up,” she says. “We felt as though were having this renaissance. You got this feeling that development was happening, and we got to participate in witnessing our city give birth to something beautiful.”

With growth, though, comes pain, too. Over the years MaultsbyLute says she’s watched as the cost of living and housing has outpaced salaries, leading to a smaller Black population. In 2021, the CTA addressed the issue via a “Keep Oakland BIPOC” panel discussion featuring several local Black leaders.

Although Maultsby-Lute stresses that the population change

“I could walk down my street and see every shade of person, every configuration of family. It felt good, it felt like Oakland.” –Jill Kunishima

represents a more “complex narrative” than one of deprivation and gentrification—some families have left for reasons other than economics, for example—she wants to see the city preserve its roots.

“There has been a shrinking [in numbers] of different racial groups, but ours is the most pronounced given the history of Oakland,” Maultsby-Lute says. “I hope we continue to have a large cultural and physical presence here.”

Barbie Penn

Born and raised in the Bay Area, Barbie Penn ’10, MBA ’11, considers Oakland an integral part of her life. She was born in San Francisco but attended school in the 510 from pre-school through middle school. “Oakland is half my heart and San Francisco is the other half,” she says.

So much so that even though Penn now lives in San Leandro, she still makes a point of visiting nearly every day with her boyfriend. “We usually go on walks in downtown Oakland and Chinatown; sometimes, if we want to go further, we go around the lake,” she says.

Penn, whose bachelor’s degree is in business economics, is senior program manager at the Inneract Project, a non-profit that works with Black, Brown, and underserved youth, offering them training and resources in design education. Inneract was based in San Francisco pre-COVID but now Penn works remotely, spending much of her time in Oakland. She previously worked for the TRIO Programs on the Mills campus.

Too often, she acknowledges, outsiders view the city through a negative lens. Recently, for example, Penn came across a list of the top 10 most dangerous cities in the United States. There was Oakland, listed at No. 3.

There’s crime here, but there’s crime anywhere, she says. It’s frustrating to see her beloved city subject to misconceptions. “I don’t think a [list] is representative of the city as a whole,” she says. “Oakland gets a bad rep when you only focus on the bad things and never highlight the good things.”

And there are a lot of good things, she adds. Over time, Oakland has grown into a culturally rich destination. “They didn’t have events like First Fridays when I was a kid,” she says of the monthly event that draws upward of 30,000 folks to Telegraph Avenue to enjoy arts, culture, food, and community.

Despite its myriad cultures, she continues, it’s not just a “melting pot” where customs and ideas become diluted into a homogeneous blend. The city still has historic neighborhoods home to distinct ethnicities. Visit Chinatown for authentic Chinese food, for example, or head over to the Fruitvale neighborhood for tacos.

“We have so much diversity in terms of people from different places, backgrounds, languages, and foods,” Penn says. “We’re not all trying to be the same here.”

Kate Phillips

When Kate Phillips ’81 started college in the ’70s, she initially thought she’d stay close to her family—her father was then the head of the art department at Bard College. After two years studying art and music, however, Phillips decided Bard wasn’t a good fit and changed coasts altogether. She chose Mills, following sister Miriam who studied dance at the College, and never looked back.

“I fell in love with the area,” she says. “It was beautiful with so many wonderful neighborhoods. You’re an hour away from the ocean, wine country, the mountains—it just felt more like me than the East Coast.”

Decades later, Phillips is a real-estate agent who specializes in her own neighborhood: Maxwell Park, located across MacArthur Boulevard from the entrance to the Mills campus. Phillips, who bought her house there 27 years ago, says she loves introducing it to first-time buyers.

“This is a desirable city; people come here from San Francisco because they want the better weather and they want more house for their money,” she says.

Phillips acknowledges that, too often, Oakland has a national reputation for being unsafe and crime-ridden, but she dismisses those concerns. “Even the most expensive neighborhoods have crime,” she says. “I’ve traveled all over the world and it’s great here.”

For Phillips, Oakland has “only gotten better” with an influx of restaurants, boutiques, art galleries and other attractions. “Some people don’t like it—they call it gentrification,” she says. “But all kinds of wonderful people live in Oakland. It’s still culturally diverse.”

Natalee Kēhaulani Bauer

Initially, Natalee Kēhaulani Bauer ’97, MA ’07, hadn’t even heard of Mills. It wasn’t for a lack of chance: The Hawai’i native moved to the East Bay in elementary school and even attended high school just 10 minutes away from the Mills campus.

Then, although Bauer had already been accepted to UC Berkeley, a friend suggested she check out the school. Bauer agreed and, from the moment she stepped on campus, she was in love. “The leaves were beautiful colors, the bell tower was ringing, and the architecture was beautiful,” she says. “Berkeley felt like my grandparents’ goal; Mills felt just right.”

Nearly 20 years later, she’s still there. She lives in Faculty Village on the Mills campus with her two children and works as an associate adjunct professor of Indigenous studies. Bauer is also the program chair of ethnic studies, and department chair of race, gender, and sexuality studies.

Her love for the school extends to the Oakland community as well. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in English and studio art, Bauer taught elementary school in the Oakland Unified School District. It was during this period, she says, that she became rooted in the region.

“I was working and living in Fruitvale, and that’s when I really got to know Oakland,” she says. “I had my Oakland community and

“We have so much diversity in terms of people from different places, backgrounds, languages, and foods; we’re not all trying to be the same here.”

–Barbie Penn

my Mills alum community, and I felt like there wasn’t anywhere else I would want to live unless I moved back to Hawai’i.”

After a subsequent stint teaching in San Francisco, Bauer returned to Mills for her master’s degree in English. She dreamed of a job teaching higher education at a college just like Mills, so when Bauer heard about the associate professor position, she was excited to apply.

Now, living and working in Oakland, Bauer says she’s glad to raise her children in an open-minded, diverse city comprising people of myriad ethnicities, gender and sexual identities, and socioeconomic statuses.

“That’s what keeps me here, even more than my decades-old friendships and community connections,” she says. “This is where I want my kids to grow up.”

Still, Oakland faces serious challenges, she says. The public schools are underfunded, and gentrification has led to a ballooning unhoused population and the crime and blight that come with it.

She remains optimistic, however. Oakland’s rich history of political activism and community organization continues to serve it well, she says, pointing to organizers who gathered to hand out masks and check in on the elderly during the pandemic or a particularly bad season of smoke brought upon by nearby fires.

“The people give me hope,” she says. “It’s the people who take care of their own.”

Tracey Chin

When Tracey Chin ’95 graduated from Mills with a bachelor’s degree in economics, she thought she’d eventually land a job in academia.

Instead, Chin spent a few years painting houses, and then worked at a gym near Lake Merritt where she met some people studying to become firefighters. Interested, Chin took some related community-college courses, and in 2008, was hired by the Oakland Fire Department.

“I told myself, ‘The academic institutions will always be there, you can always go back to get your master’s degree,” she says.

Chin, who grew up in Orange County, eventually received a master’s in emergency services administration from Cal State Long Beach, but instead of pursuing academics, she’s spent her career as a first responder in Oakland; in 2016, she was promoted to battalion chief.

The job has given her a long view of a city that she loves. “Oakland’s got a lot of grit, a lot of determination, it’s very much a can-do city,” says Chin, who now lives in Martinez. “One of the best things about it are the people. They’re open and friendly, which is very different than other communities that I’ve been in.”

As a firefighter, she’s witnessed many of Oakland’s problems up close. “There’s homelessness, there’s crime,” she says. “There’s also infrastructure issues in regard to city funding and budgets.”

While such issues are not easily solvable, she adds, Oakland remains a wonderful place to work or live. “It’s culturally rich,” she says. “We have so many folks here who have so much to contribute to our society.”

Civic pride runs deep, she says, adding that she’s watched Oakland grow and thrive in the 30-plus years that she’s lived or worked here. And it’s still changing for the better.

“There’s a tremendous amount of hope and potential here,” she says. ***********

“Oakland’s got a lot of grit, a lot of determination, it’s very much a can-do city.” –Tracey Chin

A Message from the AAMC President and Board of Governors

Hello amazing alums,

As we conclude the first year of Mills College at Northeastern, I’m reflecting on the AAMC’s unprecedented journey as we governors maneuvered through this time of change, exploration, and transition. And everyone— from students to staff and faculty—followed a similar journey. First to be congratulated in this extraordinary year is the legacy Mills graduating Class of 2023. These 150 undergraduate and graduate students entered Mills College with a fairly predictable future that was upended by a two-year pandemic and a merger. Through it all, they matured and triumphed. Their accomplishments were celebrated at Commencement on April 30, and the AAMC wholeheartedly welcomes our newest alums. We look forward to their contributions for years to come.

Next, kudos and gratitude are in order for you, our 25,000 alums throughout the world, many of whom have shared journeys with our governors and voiced opinions during our two fall forums. Thank you for your continued patience and support of the AAMC as the Board of Governors has sought to find answers for many of the questions that surfaced through these outreach efforts.

I thank and commend the Board of Governors for their dedication, for their willingness to tackle the many unforeseen issues that surfaced, and for the forward-thinking that has prevailed. To the governors who have just completed their terms, your contributions have been invaluable. Thanks and best wishes to Vice President Pam Roper ’92; Treasurer Christina Hannan ’91; Debra Connick ’85; Catherine Ladnier ’70; Ellen Hines ’74; Mitra Lobrasb ’90; and Ariadne Wolf, MFA ’19. We will welcome new and returning governors at our orientation in August. But before we look forward to the new term, here is a quick summary of the activities and directions of 2022-23 term:

August-October 2022: A hybrid orientation was held where the BOG began to tackle the future of the AAMC. BOG procedures, expectations, and committee chairs were subsequently approved. The BOG hired Interim Executive Director Pam Herman. In following meetings, we formulated the options chart to gather input regarding the AAMC’s direction, which was previewed during Reunion and posted online for alumnae consideration. Two Zoom forums were held for additional feedback. Simultaneously, we planned events for Mills students and hosted monthly CommuniTea socials.

November-December: Upon reviewing data from the comment period, our focus turned to the prevailing issues, particularly the retention of Reinhardt Alumnae House. To work towards this, our

leadership team established communication with key Northeastern administrators. The BOG engaged Mill Law Center to validate the 2022 BOG slate and to begin review of the 2013 AAMC bylaws. The BOG promoted Lila Goehring ’21 to operations manager and welcomed Winnie Aldaz ’22 as administrative assistant and accounting clerk. We hosted the Winter Celebration for mid-year graduates, and celebrated a strong holiday merchandise season with healthy year-end donations.

January-February: AAMC officers met with key Northeastern leaders, including Senior Vice President for Global Network and Strategic Initiatives Mary Ludden, Senior Vice President for University Advancement Diane MacGillivray, and Mills Institute Executive Director Nicole Guidotti-Hernández. We shared with them how important it is that the AAMC continues to have a presence in Reinhardt Alumnae House. They all look forward to Mills alums participating and mentoring women entrepreneurs. In particular, Nicole Guidotti-Hernández is committed to preserving the legacy of Mills and its signature support of women and underserved populations. She welcomes alumnae involvement.

March-June: A musical fundraiser was held at Reinhardt, and branch activities continued, as did AAMC website improvements. Following a presentation held by the LAMCA on Mills history, an ad hoc historical preservation committee formed to investigate how to designate El Campanil as a National Trust historical landmark. Our leadership team met with Interim Dean Beth Kochly to learn about the projected academic plans of Mills College at Northeastern. Additionally, reactivation of the Fires of Wisdom oral history project is underway, with plans to present at Reunion. The BOG working group continued to define the bylaws revision process. As of this writing, the first ever all-virtual zoom Annual Meeting was scheduled for June 24, which will involve the selection of seven dynamic new governors for three-year terms, the election of a new Nominating Committee for the next term, and the presentation of financial and committee reports.

As of press time, the BOG continues to define realistic predictions and expectations before an options vote will be brought to the membership before the end of this year.

As the term comes to a close, the AAMC acknowledges the progress made during this transitional year and the hard work that still needs to be done. Please stay involved and in communication with me and your BOG, and have a great summer!

Sincerely,

Debby Dittman ’68, AAMC President

Pearl M Dinner

The Pearl M tradition was born in 1902, a year when 24 women graduated. Since then, it has lived on as the marker of the beginning of Commencement activities. According to a 2015 article in The Campanil by Sarah Hoenicke ’16, the Pearl M pin design was originally created by an art student and was taken to Granat Jewelry in San Francisco, where the pins were made. But getting a pin was not an easy task: “Students could only place their orders for a pin from the San Francisco jeweler, Mr. Granat of Granat Jewelry store, if they had a signed letter from then President Susan Mills confirming their status as seniors,” Hoenicke wrote. Luckily, at the time, alumnae passed their pins down to graduating seniors so a piece of them could live on through the next generation.

This spring, 121 years later, the traditional dinner carried on at Rothwell Student Center on Wednesday, April 12. As has been tradition in recent years, the AAMC and our Alumnae Student Relations (ASR) Committee co-hosted this event with the Office of Alumnae Relations and welcomed 30 graduating Mills seniors—all of whom were gifted with mugs featuring the Mills College seal in gold and “Strong, Proud, All Mills” pins. Seniors joined members of the Board of Governors and AlumnaeStudent Relations (ASR) Committee, as well as college administrators and staff, for a catered dinner with encouraging remarks from Associate Vice President of Institutional Advancement Nikole Hilgeman Adams; AAMC President Debby Dittman ’68; AAMC President Emeritus Viji Nakka-Cammauf, MA ’82; Dean Beth Kochly; Associate Dean Christie Chung; Mills Institute Executive Director Nicole Guidotti-Hernández; Assistant Vice Chancellor of Student Life Lillian Gonzalez ’09; and Assistant Vice President of Student Life Allie Littlefox, MA ’20, EdD ’21. AAMC members led the crowd in the singing of “Remember.” Following the dinner, attendees processed to Reinhardt Alumnae House, singing “Remember” once again as well as “Fires of Wisdom.” Desserts and refreshments were enjoyed at Reinhardt, and members of the Board of Governors and ASR Committee shared more words of encouragement and stories with the students. Conversations lingered long into the evening, and once again, the multigenerational spirit of Mills and the AAMC made its mark.

Have a story about the Pearl M tradition? We’d love to hear it! Email us at info@aamc-mills .org for a chance to be featured on our social media accounts.

LiberTEA: A Celebration of AAPI Heritage Month at Reinhardt

On May 13, the monthly CommuniTEA—which is steered by the AAMC’s Hospitality Committee—welcomed alumna and historian Catherine Ladnier ’70 at Reinhardt Alumnae House for a special event in honor of AAPI Heritage Month. With the event’s theme of LiberTEA, Ladnier gave a presentation on the Chinese and Japanese women who found refuge at Mills during times of injustice. Ladnier’s play, A Future Day of Radiant Peace, explores the experience of Japanese American students at Mills College who corresponded from internment camps with President Aurelia Henry Reinhardt during WWII.

While Ladnier was in town, she also spoke at the Rosie the Riveter National Historic Park in Richmond and shared the stories of many “Rosies” she came to know through reading letters written to her father, Harry. Learn more about Catherine Ladnier by visiting deareva.org.

The event also honored Mayor Sheng Thao, Oakland’s first Hmong mayor and the most prominent Hmong American officeholder in the United States to date. Mayor Thao was a single mother when she studied on the Mills campus, moving on to graduate from UC Berkeley. We are honored to have Mayor Thao as a part of our extended family.

Alumnae Awards deadline extended to August 15!

We are still looking for award nominations for:

►Distinguished Achievement, for distinctions in professions, arts, and sciences;

►Outstanding Volunteer, for commitment in serving the AAMC; and

►Recent Graduate, for volunteer efforts that exemplify a spirit of caring and community.

To nominate candidates, please send information about their achievements to info@ aamc-mills.org or to AAMC, 5000 MacArthur Blvd., MB #86, Oakland, CA 94613.

Nominations must be received by August 15.

Grace Fujii Kikuchi ’42 (left) and May Ohmura Watanabe ’44 (right) were two of the Mills students of Japanese descent who left the College to avoid getting separated from their families as detention approached. Suggested reading: “Safe Haven” by Allison Rost in the winter 2020 issue of the Quarterly also discusses this topic, and more.

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.

In Memoriam

Notices of deaths received before April 7

To submit listings, please contact alumnae-relations@mills.edu/ mills.alumnae.relations@northeastern.edu or 510.430.2123

Patricia Hildebrand Owen ’46, May 28, 2022, in Federal Way, Washington. She owned and operated an eponymous art school and gallery in the Seattle-Tacoma area for decades.

Ann Thomas Jones ’47, January 14, in Lincoln, California. She is survived by a sister, Jeanne Thomas ’51; cousins Sara Dale Peterson ’64, Sara Lohse Carlberg ’71, and Deborah Lohse Tobin ’75; and two children.

Nadean Hart Bissiri ’48, TCRED ’49, April 28, 2022, in Napa. She briefly taught in the Farmersville area of the San Joaquin Valley with her Mills teaching credential, then moved to Lakewood after marriage. After a brief foray into modeling and acting, Nadean moved with her family to Santa Maria and returned to the classroom—but still appearing in local theater productions. With a final move up to Napa, she learned Spanish and taught it until retirement, even attending month-long immersion trips in Spanish-speaking countries, and she curated beautiful landscapes in her home garden. She is survived by a son, two grandchildren, and a great-grandson.

Marianne “Beebe” Halbert Cooley ’49, February 4, in Murietta, California. She was a lifelong piano player who always had music playing in her home, and she taught elementary school in Lynwood for 20 years. Beebe was an original homeowner in the Palmilla neighborhood of Murietta and lived there happily gardening, entertaining, and traveling for more than 30 years—and she also outlived three husbands. She is survived by two children, eight grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

Jaine Roberts Springer ’49, February 7, in Mercer Island, Washington. As a Mills student, she interviewed Eva Peron in Buenos Aires for an assignment. In the Seattle area, Jaine belonged to Emmanuel Episcopal Church and the Women’s University Club, where she also chaired the book club, and she enjoyed playing golf at the Hayden Lake Country Club in Idaho. In recent years, she could be found walking the trails of South Mercer Island with her Sealyham Terrier. Jaine’s mother Flossie graduated from Mills in 1918. She is survived by seven children, 13 grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.

Barbara Bageman Hemming ’50, July 19, 2020, in Frankfort, Michigan.

Elizabeth “Betsy” Church King ’50, January 11, in Albuquerque. She was born and raised in Hawaii when it was a US territory, going to work on a pineapple farm during World War II. After Mills, Betsy returned, meeting her late husband when they both worked for United Airlines in Honolulu. Their careers took them across the mainland, but they finally settled in New Mexico in 1977. She loved the landscape and culture, volunteering for many years at the former St. Joseph Hospital. Over the recent holiday season, Betsy told her family to “pass the love forward.” Her sister Margaret Church Wendt ’52 predeceased her, and she is survived by four children and 10 grandchildren.

Nancy Kenealy Soper ’51, December 24, 2022, in San Francisco. She was a textile designer who owned and operated an eponymous firm.

Lucy “Bonney” Varney Reger ’52 , January 21, in Tinton Falls, New Jersey. After Mills, she returned home to finish her biology and chemistry degrees at the University of Nebraska. Bonney first worked at what’s now Pfizer in Detroit, which led her to the University of Michigan to pursue a master’s degree. That’s where she met late husband Paul, and they lived nearby while raising their family. After a move to New Jersey, Bonney volunteered widely, including founding an LGBTQIA+ organization, and embarked on

extensive travels around the world. She is survived by five children, 16 grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren.

Shirley Kendall Rippey ’53, January 20, in Tigard, Oregon. After Mills, she graduated from the University of Oregon, where she met her late husband, Jim. Shirley was a homemaker to their three children, taking a particular interest in their education through volunteering in the classroom up to the school district, as well as with the Girl Scouts and the United Way. She also loved to go on adventures with her family, nurture her pets, maintain bonds with lifelong friends, and play bridge. She is survived by three children, seven grandchildren, and one great-granddaughter.

Shyrlee Wertz Stanley ’53, February 5, in Arlington, Texas. She majored in education at Mills, and she is survived by five children.

Sara “Gerdi” Hord Heath ’56, January 8, in Scottsdale, Arizona. After Mills, she graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, then joined her family ranching business with new husband Stan. The ranch sold and the couple divorced in the last 1970s, so Gerdi returned to Lincoln as a model and fashion consultant for the store Hovland-Swanson, later spending a year in Los Angeles as a personal shopper. During the Reagan administration, she was selected to the DACOWITS Committee, which traveled to US military bases worldwide to support women in the military. She is survived by two daughters, two grandchildren, and two great-granddaughters.

Martena Allard Savage ’57, March 13, in St. Ignatius, Montana. After Mills, she attended the Electronics Radio & Television Institute in Omaha, Nebraska, which led to a job with the US Air Force’s Aeronautical Chart and Information Center in Washington, DC. Martena then moved back to Montana to marry and raise her family, and she worked at the University of Montana. After her divorce, she remarried her late husband, Luke, and they lived in Tucson and Los Angeles before returning to her family ranch in St. Ignatius. Before retirement, Martena worked for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. She is survived by three children.

Alice London Bishop ’58, February 13, in Belmont, California. She earned her degree in early childhood education and worked in nursery and elementary schools in San Mateo, where she settled with her late husband, Robert, and their family. Alice also held leadership roles in her church and with the AAMC, and she was a devoted volunteer. She is survived by three children, including Gail Bishop Welter ’87; five grandchildren; a brother; and nieces Amy Bishop-Dunbar ’83 and Molly Bishop Romero ’86.

Margaret “Margi” Roberts Tomczak ’58, February 11, in Sacramento. Her life was devoted to children’s well-being. After first working as a probation officer, she moved to Sacramento to serve as the first director of foster care education for the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office. The rest of Margi’s career was spent in similar roles with the County of Marin and American River College, and she held board positions with centers and councils dedicated to families and children. In her free time, she loved the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the symphony. She is survived by three children; two grandchildren; two great-granddaughters; and two sisters, including Joan Roberts Latty ’61.

Elaine Stewart Reeves ’58, January 8, in Altadena, California. She completed her college degree in music at USC, which is also where she met her late husband, Roy. For decades, Elaine sang with the choral group Pasadena Pro Musica and in the choir at the Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church. When her children were grown, she returned to USC to earn her MBA, which she used to start an HR consulting firm. Even after a 1992 medical event left her with a poor

prognosis, she pushed through to continue doing all the things she loved: attending USC football games, traveling, and doting on her family. She is survived by three children and nine grandchildren.

Natalie Thomas Malin ’58, February 2023, in Mercer Island, Washington. After Mills, she graduated from the University of Washington, later earning a master of philosophy degree and teaching her own curricula on the philosophy of feminism there. In more recent years, Natalie made a name for herself as a real estate broker, and she gave her time to organizations such as the Washington State Jewish Genealogical Society, where she was on the board, and her son’s Boy Scout troop. She is survived by her husband, Robert; three children; four grandchildren; and a sister.

Sara Garvin Meadors ’59, January 19, in Fort Worth, Texas. She later graduated from the University of Oklahoma. Sara loved choral music and participated with a number of choirs, including groups that performed at Carnegie Hall and the opening of Carmina Burana at Texas Christian University. Professionally speaking, she completed 25 years of service with the General Services Administration, and she also worked in the library and religion department at TCU. Sara loved spending time on the road with her late husband, Greg, on their motorcycles. She is survived by three children, five grandchildren, and two brothers.

Marcia Laing Golden ’64, January 29, in Goodland, Kansas. She kept busy; with late husband John, who was also a Kansas state representative, she owned and operated three farms. But Marcia also ran a clothing store in the 1970s, and in the 1980s, she helped develop the cultural arts, including foreign languages, in local public schools. Her philanthropic work followed that same track, and President George H. W. Bush appointed her to the National Endowment for the Arts in 1990. The Big Easel, a replica of van

Gifts in Memory of

Received December 1, 2022–February 28, 2023

Barbara Goldblatt Becker ’63 by Patricia Yoshida Orr ’63

Linda Nelson Branson ’77 by her husband, James Branson

Lynda Campfield ’00, SES ’01, MA ’02 by Gwendolyn “Gwen” Jackson Foster ’67

Elisabeth Engan ’79 by Mary “Belle” Sammel Bulwinkle, MFA ’80

Baki Kasaplagil by Irene Crown Merwin ’67

Anita Aragon Kreplin ’63 by Michelle Balovich ’03, MBA ’18

Ann McKinstry Micou ’52 by her sister, Evelyn “Muffy”

McKinstry Thorne ’48

Alan Parrish, MFA ’04 by his sister, Kimberly Parrish

Marion Ross ’44 by Rhoda Krasner ’64

Diana Russell by Susan Massotty ’70

Eleanor Marshall Schaefer ’29 by Nicole Bartow

Mary Lois Hudson Sweatt ’60, MA ’62 by her sister, Estrellita Hudson Redus ’65, MFA ’75

For information about making a tribute gift, contact 510.430.2097 or donors@mills.edu.

Gogh’s “Vase With Three Sunflowers” that became a tourist attraction in Kansas, owes its existence to Marcia. She is survived by three children and six grandchildren.

Barbara Bradford ’70, March 24, in Monterey. She was an accomplished artist who worked with clay, watercolors, oils, and collage, and her work was displayed throughout Monterey County. Barbara also took much pleasure in her association with the Salinas French Club, and she traveled to Paris with the Hartnell College French Club. She experienced challenges with mental health throughout her life, but she found camaraderie with fellow residents at Interim, Inc. housing in Monterey and at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Carmel. She is survived by her brother, two nieces, and her great-nieces and -nephews.

Nan Weintraub Fichtenbaum ’70, March 17, in Dallas. After Mills, she earned a master’s degree in urban education from Southern Methodist University, which she used as a teacher in Dallas before and after she raised her children. Nan took seriously her responsibility of teaching American history, a subject she loved so much that she volunteered at the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum despite disagreeing with his politics. Her family said that she died from “complications related to living a life of dualities, vacillating between a true class act and one uniquely badass lady.” She is survived by two children and two siblings, including sister Lynne Weintraub Kline ’63.

Sally Hinman Freeman ’83, February 20, in Brunswick, Maine. Sally was a passionate reader who worked for L.L. Bean on a seasonal basis. She is survived by two children and three siblings.

Helen Kranz Morrigan ’83, December 24, 2022, in Monterey. She worked as an interior designer, notary public, and the manager of an American Cancer Society Discovery Shop.

Beverly Lundell ’87, January 9, in Livermore, California. She came to Mills after raising her children as a stay-at-home mother. Beverly earned her degree in psychology, then studied hypnotherapy with experts in Berkeley with whom she later traveled the world to teach. She lived around the Bay Area but returned to Livermore in more recent years to be close to her family, who called her “loving, snarky, and fierce.” She is survived by five children, three stepchildren, 11 grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

Alan Parrish, MFA ’04, July 14, 2021, in Oakland. He came to Mills for his MFA in art after graduating from California College of the Arts. He is survived by his partner, Sarah Carlson ’01; his parents; and a sister.

Spouses and Family

Dennis Hoskins , husband of Kathleen Miller Hoskins ‘71, December 19, 2022, in Modesto, California.

Faculty and Staff

Carolyn Harper, former professor of zoology, January 11, in Union City, California.

Friends

Gordon Moore , March 24, in Waimea, Hawaii. A co-founder of Intel and the husband of Betty Irene Moore, he and his wife’s family foundation donated $4 million toward the completion of the new Natural Sciences Building in 2007, which was named after Betty in appreciation of their gift.

The Long (and Short) History of the

By Jim Graham

Senior Paint Wall

March is a wonderful time on campus. The winter rains start to recede (well, most years) and the temperature begins to rise as spring approaches (well, most years). March also brings the tradition of the Painting of the Wall, when seniors decorate the wall opposite the mailboxes in Rothwell Center with messages reflecting their challenges and triumphs, give thanks to their parents and friends, and revel in anticipation of their upcoming graduation and futures beyond Richards Gate. In preparation, every winter the wall is painted over in anticipation for the next set of graduates. The tradition continued this year for the Class of 2023.

It is a 21st-century tradition, but it has roots that stretch back— in various forms—to the 1940s, if not earlier. Within a short time frame, many of the College’s maintenance staff left Mills, which left the College with a shortage of personnel and a large campus that still needed maintenance work. When I was a child growing up on the Mills campus, I heard this was the result of World War II and employees leaving to join the war effort, though other reports indicate it was the result of the Great Depression. In any case, Heyday Playday was born. One day each spring, classes were cancelled, and students, faculty, and staff spent the day cleaning the campus: raking, sweeping, trimming, painting smaller wooden parts of the campus (fences, trash boxes, etc.), and performing other maintenance chores no longer done by the absent maintenance crews.

That tradition continued until the late 1950s, as the return of a full maintenance staff—and declining interest—lessened the original need. And for a time, Heyday Playday co-existed with an offshoot: Senior Paint Night, which started in 1948 as a competition between the junior and senior classes and continued as graduating students made their literal marks with class colors across campus. However, those who were perhaps a bit too enthusiastic also

painted items that were off-limits (such as fire hydrants and windows). When the costs of rectifying these mistakes became too great, it was time to pivot elsewhere.

So, in the early years of the 21st century, Heyday Playday and Senior Paint Night were replaced by the Painting of the Wall. It remains a symbol of the variety, vibrancy, and creativity of our students. It is a reminder that, though a comparatively recent tradition, it has roots that go back more than 80 years. And if there is something on the wall you don’t like (which does happen, very occasionally), all you need to do is wait and it will be gone, replaced with the next year’s expressions of joy, thanks, and enthusiasm for the graduating students’ time at Mills. v

Some almost-graduates pay tribute to faculty and staff members in their paintings. This year, that included Tea Shop stalwart Zhu Qiong "Cindy" Liu and Studio Art Technician Michael Halberstadt, who took these photos.

2023AAMC Travel

Volunteer with an AAMC Committee!

The following committees are seeking volunteers for 5–10 hours per month. Joining a committee is a great way to connect with fellow alumnae, shape the future path of the AAMC, and support students, faculty, and staff! To view a full list of the AAMC’s committees and their descriptions, visit aamc-mills.org/committees.

Alumnae-Student Relations: The mission of the ASR Committee is to sponsor programs that help create a positive relationship between students and the AAMC. This ongoing relationship encourages students to become supportive and active members of the AAMC when they become alumnae.

Autumn in Provence: Burgundy and Beaujolais

September 6–14, 2023

Discover the world-famous Burgundy and Beaujolais wine regions of Provence at the height of the harvest season. Cruise round-trip from historic Lyon, France, along the storied Rhône and Saône rivers. Visit the historical Hôtel-Dieu in Beaune; the medieval Popes’ Palace of Avignon; the Roman amphitheater in Arles; the Roman city of Orange; and the ancient Roman Pont du Gard aqueduct. Enjoy an exclusive tour of the Beaujolais wine region’s Château de Montmelas, with a specially arranged fortepiano concert and wine tasting. Enhance your experience with the Geneva pre-program option.

Island Life® in Ancient Greece

October 10–18, 2023

Call on the islands of Delos, Mykonos, Pátmos, Rhodes, and Santorini, including the Peloponnese Peninsula, on this epic voyage. Enjoy a tour of Delos’ classical ruins, including the Sanctuary of Apollo and the theater quarter; walk through the fabled Lion Gate of legendary Mycenae; and explore the Sanctuary of Asklepios’s perfectly preserved theater in historical Epidaurus. Discuss contemporary life on the islands with local residents during the specially arranged Island Life ® Forum. Extend your journey with the Athens pre-program and/or Delphi post-program options.

For more information, including a full itinerary for these and other planned trips for 2023, please visit the AAMC travel program web page at aamc-mills.org/travel-programs

Hospitality: The mission of the Hospitality Committee is to make AAMC members and guests feel comfortable in their clubhouse (Reinhardt Alumnae House) and at other AAMC events, and to create a congenial setting, uphold traditions of hospitality, and care for and oversee communal spaces. Travel : The mission of the Travel Committee is to create a travel program providing an opportunity for continuing education and expansion of knowledge through experience, to provide a group opportunity drawn together by an interest in Mills College, to reinforce a positive image for Mills College, and to bring in revenue to the AAMC endowment fund.

The Eucalyptus Suite

Bring the lovely Mills campus into your home with one or all three items from our Eucalyptus Suite! The AAMC has artisan-crafted eucalyptus-scented candles, gold and silver eucalyptus pins made from actual leaves picked on campus, and a beautiful brass ornament featuring a eucalyptus grove—all available in our online store. Purchase these and many other Mills mementos at aamcmerch.square.site. All proceeds benefit the AAMC unless otherwise noted.

Mills Quarterly

Mills College at Northeastern University

5000 MacArthur Blvd. Oakland, CA 94613-1301

510.430.3312 quarterly@mills.edu mills.quarterly@northeastern.edu quarterly.mills.edu

REUNION 2023

All alumnae are invited to campus Thursday, October 5, through Sunday, October 8, as we honor alumnae from class years ending in 3 or 8, including the Golden Alumnae of 1973

HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:

• Updates from College leaders, the Mills Institute, and the AAMC

• Faculty and student presentations

• Tours of the Community Farm, Lisser Hall, and the Art Museum

• Campus scavenger hunt

• Mills After Dark bingo and the Darius Milhaud concert

• Class luncheon and AAMC awards ceremony

• Class dinners and photos

REGISTRATION OPENS IN JUNE

Visit alumnae.mills.edu/reunion2023 for the full schedule, and register by September 22. Brochures will be mailed to all alumnae from class years ending in 3 or 8, and will be available by request.

RESERVE YOUR ACCOMMODATIONS NOW Take advantage of special rates available through September 5 at the Executive Inn & Suites or the adjacent Best Western Plus Bayside Hotel near Jack London Square. Visit alumnae.mills.edu/lodging2023 for details. Email: mills.alumnaerelations@northeastern.edu Web: alumnae.mills.edu/reunion2023

MILLS COLLEGE

OCTOBER 5–8

2023 REUNION