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