Smithie '89 Up for an Oscar

Cynthia Wade, class of 1989, is nominated for an Oscar in the short documentary category for her film Freeheld. The film follows NJ policewoman Laurel Hester's fight to have her pension transfered to her partner while dying from cancer.

Wade says, “Our film is the story of a dying police officer who wants to give her pension to her partner. She died and never got to see the film. I spoke to her surviving partner today, and she was very emotional. Her case changed the law in parts of New Jersey and the elected official who was against it is now running for Congress, so it’s still very much in the press. Our hope is we can make a difference in the elections. We have to tell this story. Hopefully the Oscar nomination will bring more awareness to couples around the country.”

Sylvia Plath’s Youthful Art

Paintings and drawings by the poet Sylvia Plath, many never seen before, will be published in Britain this October by Oxford University Press to mark the 75th anniversary of her birth, The Guardian newspaper in England reported. The book “Eye Rhymes: Sylvia Plath’s Art of the Visual,” edited by Kathleen Connors and Sally Bayley, includes illustrated childhood letters, found in the Plath family attic in 1996, that Plath wrote when she was 7. There are also schoolbook sketches, portraits, photographs and paintings, including a self-portrait, that Plath made while an art student at Smith College. The works were all completed by the time she was 20, when she decided to concentrate on writing. Oxford plans to publish “Eye Rhymes” in the United States in January.

Guardian article: Revealed: Sylvia Plath's unseen art, discovered in the attic
The Book: Eye Rhymes: Sylvia Plath’s Art of the Visual

Remembering Madeleine L'Engle, Smith '41

Madeleine L'Engle, a well known writer of classic children's books, including the Newbery Medal-winning A Wrinkle in Time, passed away on September 6, 2007.

L'Engle believed that storytelling "... does indeed have something to do with faith. Faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically." In her 1963 Newberry acceptance speech, she mentions that "a book, too, can be a star, explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe." This is why children's stories remain relevant to adults today.

In memory, I posted a tribute to Madeleine L'Engle in my blog here.

Feminist Fatale

The current issue of US News and World Report is doing a retrospective on major events in the year 1957. Betty Friedan ('42) is profiled because that year she began writing an article in that would later become her book The Feminine Mystique. The article was in response to a popular new book of the day, "Modern Women: The Lost Sex", which suggested American women were overeducated and not properly adjusting to their role as women. To say the least Ms. Friedan set out to prove differently.

Feminist Fatale:Betty Friedan and the book that changed women's lives
The housewife in Grandview, N.Y., was busy doing what so many women were doing in 1957: hustling three kids to school, running the Cub Scout meetings, cooking hamburgers for dinner. When Sputnik flew overhead, Betty Friedan woke up her son and carried him outside to see it tracing its way across the sky.

But Friedan, then 36, still had time to become annoyed over a popular new book, Modern Women: The Lost Sex. The authors, Freudian psychoanalysts, said that American women were over educated and not properly "adjusting to their role as women." Friedan, who had reveled in debates over politics and economics at Smith College, didn't buy it, and she set out to prove that the academic experiences of her fellow alumnae had made them better mothers. "I knew my Smith classmates were doing great things in their own communities, and having a great time, as I was, fixing up their houses, getting their kids educated," she later wrote.

The rest, as they say, is history. Friedan polled her peers about their marriages, their sex lives, their children. Two hundred women responded. The ones who were focused solely on home and family seemed depressed and frustrated. Those with other interests seemed to be enjoying their children and marriages.

Maybe it wasn't education that was making women frustrated, Friedan thought, but the limited role that women were asked to play.

Read the rest of the article

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Highlights Carolyn Kuan

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer had a great article on our own Carolyn Kuan and her post at the Seattle Symphony Orchestra last week. I have included the first few paragraphs below with a link to the full article.

If you are in the Seattle area show your support of Carolyn and check out one of the shows she is conducting. See her bio at the Seattle Symphony site.

Congrats Carolyn on all your success!

******

New Seattle Symphony associate conductor is aiming for the top
By R.M. CAMPBELL - P-I MUSIC CRITIC

It was only last year when Marin Alsop was named music director of the Baltimore Symphony that she became the first woman to lead a major American orchestra.

However, for Carolyn Kuan, women on the podium is a non-issue.

"It's not a subject I bring up," said Kuan, who recently was promoted, a year ahead of schedule, to associate conductor of the Seattle Symphony. "There are so many other things to discuss." But, she added, "I think I have been very fortunate."

Two decades ago, no major management firm represented a female conductor, top-flight orchestras rarely had women musicians and female music directors were, almost without exception, found only in regional orchestras. The pioneers were few, among them Antonia Brica, Sarah Caldwell and Eve Queler. Today, there are 30 or so scattered across the country, from nations as diverse as China and Finland, and leading the parade into more important jobs.

Kuan, whose biggest conducting assignment of her first season in Seattle comes this week, is with an orchestra that had one of the first women music directors. Mary Davenport-Enberg took the baton in 1921 and led the symphony for a couple of years.

It's no surprise that Alsop is a major role model for the 30-year-old Kuan, who not only admired her from afar but up close.
Read the Rest of the Article

Sucker for stories about older alums

At Smith I worked for the Alumnae Association, which included being a student representative at a table during volunteer dinners and luncheons. Basically, chat with the old ladies while they ate and talk about life on campus now. Most students tended to gravitate towards the younger alumnae class tables, but I always sought out the oldest classes in attendance. It took only one lunch experience to find out that not only did these wonderful ladies have interesting stories and worldly insight, they were by far the most fun ladies in the room*! So when I saw this news bit come through my email I just had to post it.

Tugboat Lucy gives lessons in boating, fear

HAINES -- For the 400-mile trip down the Inside Passage from Haines to Ketchikan in a 32-foot well-used Nordic tug, my captain wore canvas Carhartt work pants, a T-shirt with "Uff'Da" printed on the front (that's Norwegian for "darn it" and "oh well"), a porkpie hat and a pair of suede sneakers.

She has two pair in case one gets wet, because she doesn't like to wear rubber boots.

"She" is 82-year-old Lucy Harrell. We are heading south to pick up her friend Pat, 78, for their summer ladies-only "ancient mariner" cruise around Prince of Wales Island.

Although she dresses like a hired handyman, Lucy has manners befitting a 1946 graduate of Smith College in Massachusetts.
Read the rest here.

Happy Monday All!
Tiffany

** one of many examples to prove this is
the class of 1933 asked if i would please buy them some whiskey. when i said i was not yet 21, they began to discus whether sending me with a note or calling pretending to be my grandmother would get me past the clerk

Commencement Address 2007

Commencement address to the Class of 2007
by Gloria Steinem '56

Feminist leader and Smith alumna Gloria Steinem took the stage to a standing ovation from the audience at the commencement ceremony for the Class of 2007 on May 20 inside the Indoor Track and Tennis (ITT) facility.

To Carol Christ who leads Smith College (and does the most amazing introductions); to the faculty who create its purpose and the staff who give it daily life; to the honorary degree recipients in whose presence I am so very proud to be; to all the families and friends and partners and children who have sustained today's graduates -- especially those of you who have performed the miracle of guiding children through an experience you could not have -- and most of all, to you, the beloved, brave, tired and now headed-for-the-world graduates of the Class of 2007:

The first generation of Facebook and YouTube Smithies; the class to shape and survive the most changes in the way Smith lives; the second class of the Iraq War, and the most diverse class in the history of Smith College, from Adas -- who made sure that Class (economic class) Is Never Dismissed, and to all those who help Smith College look more like the world:

I thank you for including me in your historic day.

It's historic for me, too, because I was sitting where you sit today exactly fifty-one years ago.

I wasn't sure I should bring up this half-century fact. For one thing, I feel connected to you, not distant. For another, I feared you might go into as much age-shock as I did when I woke up after my seventieth birthday, and thought, “There's a 70-year-old woman in my bed! How did this happen?!”

But then I realized that fearing separation by age was probably more my generation's problem than yours. If I conjure up my own graduation day, for instance, even life after thirty seemed a hazy screen to be filled in by the needs of others – and there were not yet even Adas to show us that life and growth continue. In our age ghetto, we pretty much accepted the idea that women were more valued for giving birth to others than for giving birth to ourselves.

Read the Rest of the Speech

Yolanda King '76

Sadly, Yolanda King died Tuesday at age 51. She was a graduate of the class of 1976 and was honored by Smith during our graduation ceremony in 1999.

From the Smith Press Release:
Yolanda King ’76, daughter of the Rev. Martin Luther King, died May 15 in California. An author, performer, and activist, King is being remembered for pursuing her father’s dream of racial harmony through her words and performances. Throughout her career, she appeared in numerous television shows and films, including Ghosts of Mississippi, Odessa, and King, in which she played Rosa Parks. King, who majored in theatre and Afro-American studies, had returned to Smith on numerous occasions to meet with students and talk about her father’s legacy. In 1989, she spoke to more than 1,000 students on campus about what her father tried to achieve and the problems related to race and equality that remained. In 1999, the college honored her, along with a group of other "remarkable women," for her commitment to empowering people to lead better lives.

Alumnae reflect on Yolanda King - AASC Website
Ms. King's 1989 address to students - AASC Website
Smith College Press Release - Smith.edu
A Remembrance of Yolanda King '76 by Prof. Len Berkman
Yolanda King Was More Than King's Daughter - BlackNews.com
Mourning a friend and an ally - Good as You
Public Memorial Planned for Yolanda King - Washington Post
Daughter of Martin Luther King Jr. Dies - NY Times
Yolanda King Blazes Her Own Spiritual Path - WSB-TV Atlanta

Goodbye Molly Ivins

I am sure that many of you heard about the passing of Molly Ivins. She was a brilliant women who was proud and outspoken about her Smith education. At a 2002 round table during Pres. Christ's inauguration she said "...the biggest gift I got from Smith: It wasn't that Smith taught me that women can do anything. Smith taught me to simply assume women can do anything! And as I went forth to conquer the world in 1966, I didn't yet realize what a great gift that [concept] was. It took me a long time -- and I'm still grateful for it."

From President Carol Christ this morning...
I was greatly saddened to learn of the death of Molly Ivins '66, someone I've long admired. Molly was courageous, and she was funny. Those two qualities may not seem related, but, in her work, they were. Through her writing, she gave her readers the boldness to see hypocrisy and absurdity and the resilience to laugh at it. She was one of our country's great political satirists, and she was a gracious, generous lady to boot. The Smith community, and the nation, have lost one of our most insightful and authentic voices.
-- Carol T. Christ, President

Her Last Article: Stand Up Against the "Surge"
Smith College Press Release
2000 Profile on Salon.com
2003 Interview on Salon.com
Remembering Molly Ivins
NY Times Obit
Boston Globe Obit
Texas Observer

Some other great Ivins quotes which only illustrate her ability to balance humor and passion.

"The first rule of holes: when you're in one, stop digging."

"What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority."

"I believe that ignorance is the root of all evil. And that no one knows the truth."

"It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America."

"Politics is not a picture on a wall or a television sitcom that you can decide you don't much care for."

"I believe in practicing prudence at least once every two or three years."

"I still believe in Hope - mostly because there's no such place as Fingers Crossed, Arkansas."

On Texas: "I dearly love the state of Texas, but I consider that a harmless perversion on my part, and discuss it only with consenting adults." (Fort Worth Star-Telegram column, March 1, 1992)

On Camille Paglia: "Christ! Get this woman a Valium!" (Mother Jones, 1991)

Fantastic NYTimes Article about '97 Alum

From the Smith Press Release: In Clarkston, Georgia, soccer coach and Smith alumna Luma Mufleh '97, spends as much time helping her players' families build new lives as coaching. Her team is made up of refugees from war-torn countries around the world -- some enduring unimaginable hardship to get to America.

Refugees Find Hostility and Hope on Soccer Field

CLARKSTON, Ga., Jan. 20 — Early last summer the mayor of this small town east of Atlanta issued a decree: no more soccer in the town park.
“There will be nothing but baseball and football down there as long as I am mayor,” Lee Swaney, a retired owner of a heating and air-conditioning business, told the local paper. “Those fields weren’t made for soccer.”

In Clarkston, soccer means something different than in most places. As many as half the residents are refugees from war-torn countries around the world. Placed by resettlement agencies in a once mostly white town, they receive 90 days of assistance from the government and then are left to fend for themselves. Soccer is their game.

But to many longtime residents, soccer is a sign of unwanted change, as unfamiliar and threatening as the hijabs worn by the Muslim women in town. It’s not football. It’s not baseball. The fields weren’t made for it. Mayor Swaney even has a name for the sort of folks who play the game: the soccer people.

Rest of the Article

Today is Julia Child Day

Today the Smith campus celebrates the third annual Julia Child Day! Smith is serving a sampling of Child’s in dining rooms around campus and a faculty panel is happening tonight titled “What I Learned in the Kitchen.”

Julia Child '34 donated her home in Cambridge, MA to Smith, and in 2002 proceeds from the sale of the home were used to help fund the Campus Center. Her name is etched in honor on a window of the Campus Center Café.

The best part is that Smith has published a few of Julia's recipes on their website. Everything looks so tasty and is making me really hungry!

Julia Child Day
The Recipes

"Life itself is the proper binge." - Julia Child

Cute Squirrels and Sylvia Plath

Hello Class of '99
A few things of note this week. I didn't intend to save them all up, but it has been a crazy work week.

A few weeks back we were in Northampton for the day and stopped by the Alumnae House to check out the class locker. We are currently sharing the locker with the class of 1938. The photo is of the cute little squirrel/fish that graces our locker. Sadly, the only real thing we have in our locker is the orientation photo from first year. The class of 1938 on the other hand had some amazing scrapbooks, photo albums and banners. So I issue a call to arms. Is there anyone out there interested in being a class historian? If so, EMAIL me and lets talk!


A sonnet that Sylvia Plath wrote while at Smith College, inspired by F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Great Gatsby," has been discovered and is appearing the online literary journal, Blackbird. It was not discovered at Smith, but I think it is pretty amazing that they found previsiously unknown work. If you are ever back in Northampton and have never seen the Smith rare book room's Plath collection I would high reccommend a visit.


New York Times Article
Washington Post Article


More posts to come in the next week and have a great weekend!
t-

Julia Child Corn Maze

Julia Child is the new famous face in a Sunderland, MA corn maze. I just loved Julia on PBS and when I saw her speak at Smith. I think this may call for a my own Mountain Day pilgramage to the valley!

I found this tidbit in the story about the maze:
In "The French Chef Cookbook" she [Julia Child] described her appearance on WGBH's inaugural airing of "The French Chef" as follows: 'There is this woman tossing French Omelettes, splashing eggs about the place, brandishing big knives, panting heavily as she careened around the stove, and WGBH-TV lurched into educational television's first cooking program.'

Bon Appétit!