At Hollins, women have been the central theme, and played a central role in the plot since its earliest days. Her agency. Her empowerment. Finding and using her voice.��

Hollins’ recently approved, updated – and significantly shorter – mission statement reflects the institution’s need to honor its founding vision while creating space and embracing the societal challenges and opportunities that have arisen since 1842. “We lift our eyes, Levavi Oculos, to create a just future as we build on our past,” it concludes. Our understanding of what a “just future” looks like has evolved, and it will continue to evolve in the decades to come.��

This summer issue is, perhaps more than usual, focused on honoring the past upon which Hollins continues building. We remember a beloved professor, Richard Dillard, and the indelible influence and inspiration he provided for so many of his students over almost 60 years. We honor the legacy of the lacrosse program that endured for slightly longer – almost 70 years – celebrating its peak of success, falling just shy of a national championship in 1979, to the recent years-long struggle to field a full team. And, finally, we raise a glass (full of whatever liquid you may prefer for the occasion!) to the Williamson Road Apartments, which were demolished this summer after over 50 years of housing happy Hollins students. Sarah Achenbach ’88 was a proud inhabitant during her later student years and took on a piece that meant so much to her and a great many others who cherish their memories in those apartments.��

Hollins University is dedicated to academic excellence, creativity, belonging, and preparing students for lives of purpose. Hollins provides an outstanding and academically rigorous undergraduate liberal arts education for women and entrepreneurial and innovative graduate programs for all in a gender-inclusive environment. We lift our eyes, Levavi Oculos, to create a just future as we build on our past.

In the most important ways, our updated mission statement is merely a condensed version of our prior, much longer, mission statement. As we met with several hundred stakeholders over the course of�� just under a dozen mission feedback sessions held from 2021 to 2023, I heard clearly the charge to preserve the best of who we are, emphasize the power of Levavi Oculos, and, importantly, craft a mission statement that is concise enough that we can all carry it in our hearts and minds. I am so grateful to have heard your hopes, aspirations, and concerns for our beloved Hollins.

The aim of this new mission is to spotlight and honor the essence of what Hollins as an institution has always valued and prioritized; to acknowledge the scope of what we currently represent; and to remind the world that we are always striving to look upward and forward with what we do in the world.

This summer, as we prepared for the roll-out of our new mission statement, I was repeatedly struck by how it, and Hollins overall, is more relevant and resonant than ever at this cultural moment.

For example, this summer, “Barbenheimer”—that mashup of the two summer blockbusters, Barbie and Oppenheimer—quickly became a cultural touchstone that seemed to be exploring territory connected to Hollins’ own mission. Issues of gender roles, stereotypes, struggles for equality and self-acceptance, of men in positions of power, and scientific legend.

I am keenly aware that our mission has everything to do with so many of the topics and themes these two movies explore. The complex issues around gender in society. The role of science and technology in shaping our future. And the historic (and, arguably, continuing) paucity of opportunities for women to engage in and influence those spaces. Community and our duty to one another and ourselves are central to our empowering liberal arts education.

As I watched these films, my hope was that Hollins will continue to build a world where women will play a more substantial, central, role in the plot. Not only as a doll who symbolizes what is possible (Barbie), but as an expert on the cutting edge of discovery and exploration who has lived out what is possible (Oppenheimer).

What you will read in this issue touches on all these themes. Our “Women in STEM” feature celebrates just a sampling of Hollins alumnae/i who have made a major impact in the world of science. Our features on the legacy of lacrosse at Hollins, on the memories of the Williamson Road apartments, and this summer’s Reunion Weekend remind us that the bonds formed here really do last a lifetime and are themselves part of the power a Hollins education provides. And we conclude the issue by celebrating a song inspired by our motto, Levavi Oculos, written by a 2023 graduate, the newest cohort entering the long green and gold line of alumnae/i. A song about looking up, looking forward, and believing in yourself.

May you all lead lives of purpose with your eyes lifted!

Student research is a hallmark of studying STEM at Hollins. Encouraged by professors and inspired by a robust curriculum and opportunities through January Term and more, Hollins science majors have conducted independent research projects throughout the university’s history.

In 1957, the Hollins science faculty created the annual Hollins Science Seminar for students to give oral presentations on their research to an audience of students, faculty, parents, and others.

“Faculty at Hollins recognized the value of offering research opportunities for undergraduates long before it became a buzzword for academic institutions,” says Renee D. Godard, professor of biology and environmental studies and chair, environmental studies.

In recent years, the Science Seminar format has migrated from all students doing oral presentations over two days to some students doing oral presentations and others presenting in a research poster symposium. “This format mirrors the major scientific research meetings,” Godard explains. Another recent innovation is the program’s partnership with the Wyndham Robertson Library to digitize the last three years of Science Seminars to enable students to cite their work in their resumes. Scan the QR code above to see the 2022-23 proceedings.

Every seminar includes a STEM expert invited to present keynote remarks on a topic in their field. The 2023 keynote speaker, Michael Olson, Ph.D., social psychologist at the University of Tennessee, discussed “The Science Of Bias: Implicit Attitude Formation, Change, & Impact.”

The Science Seminar also hosts the induction ceremony for Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Honor Society founded nationally in 1886 to “honor excellence in scientific research and encourage a sense of companionship and cooperation among researchers in all fields of science and engineering.” In 2023, Hollins’ Sigma Xi chapter inducted six students, who conducted an independent research project outside of a course-embedded experience and were nominated by a biology, chemistry, environmental science or studies, mathematics, physics, or psychology faculty member.

“The process of inquiry is vital to science, and engaging in research is very valuable to any student moving on from Hollins,” says Godard. “Students interested in graduate programs (MD, PhD, DVM, OT, PA) can distinguish themselves from the rest of the applicant pool by conducting research, and the critical thinking and analytical skills that are honed in the process benefit all students.”

Sarah Achenbach ’88 is a freelance writer who fondly remembers her only STEM class at Hollins before retreating to the humanities: computer programming with Professor of Mathematics Caren Diefenderfer, a national leader in quantitative reasoning who taught at Hollins for 40 years until her death in 2017 and a wonderful, patient human being.

By Billy Faires

Above: 1954 team photo

In the early afternoon hours of Sunday, May 14, 1979, the weather was close to perfect. Perhaps a bit on the warm side.

Hollins—the home team, the host team, welcoming schools from across the country for the Division II Lacrosse National Championships—entered halftime of the finals with a 3-1 lead over second-seeded Lock Haven State.

1979 photo

Hollins rolled into the finals on “College Field 2” – Field 1, which would later be named for beloved longtime coach Marjorie Berkley, was unplayable due to a thunderstorm earlier that day* – having walloped their first two opponents. They first plastered the University of Richmond 16-3 in the quarters, and then Cortland (now SUNY Cortland) 9-2 in the semifinals.

Everything seemed to favor the Green and Gold. Head Coach Lanetta Ware, who today is professor of physical education emeritus, was in her 16th season at Hollins, a tenure marked by numerous undefeated seasons and regularly competing with, often besting, better-knowns like Dartmouth and even home-state rival University of Virginia*.

Her team included a handful of first- and second-team All Virginia talent, led by All-American Leslie Blankin Lane ’79, a four-sport super-athlete who would go on to play on the United States’ Women’s National Team* for lacrosse in 1982, where she would earn All-World honors as a midfielder on that gold medal team.

Ware’s team emerged from halftime and quickly built on their momentum, scoring a fourth goal barely a minute into the second half. They wouldn’t score again for the remainder of the game.

A high-speed, no-holds-barred barrage by Lock Haven commenced, and despite 19 saves by first-year student and goalie Lee Canby ’82, the game was tied with just under 15 minutes remaining. Lock Haven’s winning goal came just two minutes later, and the 5-4 score would hold the remainder of the time.

“When you play a top-level opponent, you have to be at top speed all the time, particularly when you have the ball,” Ware told the Roanoke Times & World News, and the opposing coach noted that they picked up the key loose balls in the midfield in the second half. “And a lot of times, that’s where a game is won.”

No one on that field, or in the audience crowded around it, or living in the dorms or on Faculty Row, could have known that May 14, 1979, would be the pinnacle of Hollins lacrosse.

Ware’s early ’80s teams remained intensely competitive, although they never returned to the nationals. The coach, who led the team to two Virginia state championships in addition to coming up a goal shy of a national title, would retire from coaching Hollins lacrosse in 1984* to become an internationally rated and revered lacrosse umpire. Her 28-year officiating career would find her serving as head technical delegate for the 1986 and 1989 World Cups, among other career highlights. Ware’s leadership in the women’s lacrosse world would only grow, and she eventually served eight years as the president of the International Federation of Women’s Lacrosse Associations (IFWLA) from 1993 to 2001.

Left: “The Rock” Christi Hays ’74 in goal. Right: 1975 game photo

Forty-four years after that loss in the national finals, in February 2023, Hollins announced its decision to discontinue the program. Lacrosse at Hollins had begun facing roster challenges and coaching consistency in the late 1980s, and by the late 2000s it was fighting to survive. Hollins struggled to find a coach who could right the ship with recruiting and victories. By 2016, the once proud and successful program had requested a temporary reprieve from the Old Dominion Athletic Conference to step away from conference competition due to the inability to field a full and competitive roster.

After an extension of that waiver in 2018, and another to 2022, it was clear the team could not “reach a roster size that would allow us to sufficiently compete and to ensure the health and safety of our student-athletes,” as Athletic Director Chris Kilcoyne noted in the announcement. Lacrosse at Hollins spanned over 70 years, beginning in 1952, and left its imprint on the lives of hundreds of Hollins alumnae and their families.

Nancy Dick ’62 picked up her first lacrosse stick in 1947 when she was just seven years old. Her home at Washington College in Maryland was “mere steps away” from where the men’s lacrosse team practiced and played. “I became the team’s informal mascot,” she said.

Dick entered Hollins as a legacy, following her mother Dorothy Quarles Dick ’30, and was a four-sport athlete as a student.

“The athletics were great at Hollins, and I loved being able to do all those things all year ‘round,” Dick said. “For one thing, I had a lot of energy, and I needed to get it out! I loved the camaraderie of being on a team, and it was very different from being in a classroom. I was a fine student, but not Phi Beta Kappa or anything. But every afternoon I was out there somewhere on a field or a court, practicing. I was so very team-sport oriented.”

Ware began her Hollins coaching career the year after Dick graduated, in 1963.

Coach Ware’s teams lost only one game during her first four seasons at Hollins, going undefeated in 1963, 1965, and 1966.

“They were what I called a push-button team,” Ware recalled. “All I had to do was get them in good shape and get them to cooperate with each other and place them on the field properly for their talents. They did the rest.”

Ware noted Deborah Snyder “Snickie” Bussart ’65 as “one of the first really great players I ever had. She and Ann Howson Dixon ’65 had played together in high school, and they could hit one another on the run going down the field and never miss a stride and go to goal no problem.”

In 1967, women’s lacrosse had begun to expand to other schools in Virginia and beyond, and the competition for players increased. Going undefeated became an increasingly difficult bar to reach. “As the years went on,” Ware said, “I knew we’d have to start using fillers who hadn’t come to Hollins playing lacrosse, so I had to find athletes and work with them to fill in those spots to make a competitive team.”

Mary Willson Pinder Schill ’73* was just such an example. She had never played team lacrosse before coming to Hollins, but Ware noted her athleticism and recruited her. Lacrosse quickly became Schill’s “favorite sport of all time.”

“Back then, there were so few rules (to women’s lacrosse), and you played with natural boundaries. You could just go anywhere, and the ball would just soar,” she said. “I was an attack wing, so my job was to get the defense to the offense, and my job was to pass to Anne Grauer ’71, because she could score from anywhere.”

Christi Hays ’74, just a year behind Schill, was crushed when Denison turned her down, a rejection which led to her attending Hollins. She thought, as teenagers with dreams so often do, that her life was over at that point.

“What I didn’t know was that my life as I know it still today was just beginning. Going to Hollins turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me,” Hays said.

Hays’ cousin is Carol Semple Thompson ’70, who was known affectionately and respectfully as “The Hulk,” and who went on to become one of the greatest amateur golfers of all time. Following in Thompson’s footsteps was a little frightening for Hays, even though the latter was a five-sport athlete in high school. But it didn’t take her long to leave an impression on her classmates, quickly earning the nickname “Hulk Jr.” before earning one that stuck for life: “Rock.”

“I know it was because of the way I was built,” Hays said, “but I like to think it was because I was steady and reliable in the goal! Admittedly you have to be a little ‘off’ to be a goalie and put yourself in front of a lacrosse ball. But I thrived on it.”

She shared an “urban legend that Lanetta likes to tell” about an away game road trip where the team’s car got a flat tire. “In the process of changing the tire, the jack started to shift, and Lanetta yelled for me to grab the car. Apparently, I did, and my teammates yelled, ‘My god, she’s a rock!’”

Hays, like so many players from years past, remembers and cherishes so many memories. From the unforgettable buffet available for their away game at The Homestead to watching the “G Bits” (the Great Britain and Ireland national lacrosse team, which stayed and practiced at Hollins during a state-side tour in the early ’70s). “It was awe inspiring. It was so fast. Basically, three passes, shoot, and score!”

The number of lacrosse alumnae who went into illustrious coaching or officiating careers is well beyond a mere handful, and several interviewed referenced their Hollins coaches as vital to their paths. Hays, after briefly flirting with social work and nursing as professions following graduation, found her way into a thriving 45-year career as a teaching tennis pro (as well as platform tennis and pickleball).

“If I am a good teacher and coach, it is because I was given the ‘blueprint’ for the rest of my life at Hollins,” she noted. “My time on all the teams at Hollins taught me how to be a contributing and supportive teammate. Having phenomenal coaches like Lanetta Ware and Marjorie Berkley gave me the model that I have drawn from all these years in my own coaching.”

Mary Elise Yarnall ’80 was another alumna who found herself in the coaching/referee ranks, working in high schools as a lacrosse referee for the past 14 years, and in the college ranks for the last four.

“The game has become very rough,” she said. “It’s so much different from what we played. It’s not as fluid. It’s gotten much closer to the men’s game. We played with wood sticks and didn’t have out of bounds. We now have offsides and field restraints, and the game has turned into something more like basketball. Things flowed so much easier, and now things are a lot more physical.”

Yarnall cherished her time at Hollins and was hesitant to name any one player for fear of leaving out someone else on the team she adored.

“It was a whole team of people who were incredible,” she recalled. “We played as a team, and we did well. Everybody had their strong points and weak points, but combined together it really worked. Obviously you can’t go back, but it was a wonderful experience. The fact that we were able to compete with those bigger schools like UVA made us really proud. It was a great experience. Obviously winning is nice and makes it an even better experience.”

By the late 1980s and early 1990s, Ware’s concerns that Hollins could not compete salary-wise for coaching talent in a sport growing and expanding to the country’s elite colleges and universities was playing out. Losing seasons began piling up, and Spinsters routinely—almost annually—begin using words like “rebuilding” and “struggled,” and finding reference to actual season records becomes harder to find.

The decision last February to discontinue the sport was made following years of discussion and attempts to address issues that, ultimately, could not be overcome.

“This is not a decision we made lightly or without significant consideration,” said Ashley Browning M.A.L.S. ’13, vice president for enrollment management at Hollins. “We are grateful for the many contributions the lacrosse program and its players have made to Hollins over the years and feel confident that reinvesting resources within the division will help strengthen our collegiate athletic program overall.”

While those interviewed for this piece were all disappointed by the news, few were surprised, and most ultimately supported Hollins’ decision.

“I was sad to see the sport be discontinued, but by the same token, you have to go with the times. You have to do what’s right and work with what’s working,” Dick said, reflecting a sentiment shared by several others.

Ware, whose steel-trap memories of her time at Hollins are as sturdy as ever even as four decades of life and time have passed, preferred to reflect on the gratitude she felt for the players and experiences.

“I was very privileged to teach so many people that wanted to learn. I had a fine time. “

Hays, apropos of a true Hollins alumna, referenced an Annie Dillard ’67, M.A. ’68 quote to conclude her reflections: “Dillard said (Hollins) is ‘a place where friendships thrive, minds catch fire, careers begin, and hearts open to a world of possibility.’ It certainly was all of those things to me.”

_________________

EDITOR’S NOTE: This feature has been edited and updated based on corrections provided by Lanetta Ware and differs from the print version in a number of places throughout the article, noted by asterisks (*). Our thanks to her, and we apologize for the errors.��

Margaret “Peggy” Wood Doss and her fellow members of the class of 1953 were unfortunately unable to gather at Hollins this summer to celebrate their 70th reunion. So Doss and a classmate came up with the creative idea to have, as she puts it, “a 70th reunion in words,” and share “snapshot scenes and some important events that took place during our four years, 1949 to 1953.”

Doss and the class of ’53 entered Hollins under the presidency of Bessie Carter Randolph, a Hollins alumna (class of 1912) who had guided the institution since 1933. But, with Randolph’s retirement in 1950, Doss and her classmates began their sophomore year under a new leader: John Rutherford Everett, who was just 31 years old when he took office.

“Eastnor was then the president’s home, and Everett lived there with his wife, Betty, and three-year-old daughter, Peggy,” Doss recalls. “The family became a part of our college experience.”

In addition to his administrative duties, Everett was also a member of the Hollins faculty. “He taught a course in economics — a welcome addition,” Doss says.

Doss majored in art history at Hollins, and she notes that “the class of 1953 had about 12 majors in both ‘history of art’ and ‘art.’ Our classes were held in the Art Annex behind the Little Theatre. Upstairs was a huge room that was home to those who were painters. It was dotted with easels and full of good light from both tall windows and skylights. Professors John Ballator and Lewis Thompson were both much-loved teachers.”

Downstairs “in more modest space” in the Art Annex “was the realm for art history students,” Doss says. “Our professor was Frances Niederer, a talented young woman who founded and shaped this major. Professor Niederer taught a variety of courses, from Egyptian, Greek, and Roman arts to architecture and medieval and modern art.” Niederer instructed her classes “in a room with high desks where slides were projected on a screen wall. In the darkened room we took notes by a light on each desk.”

During those years, Keller Hall, located downstairs in Main Building, served as the college’s student center. Doss remembers four art majors taking the initiative to decorate it. “They composed two fresco murals depicting Hollins people, spaces, and ceremonies for future students to enjoy.”

Doss is also proud of how the art majors from the class of ’53 established another enduring legacy. “They came together to donate funds for the Art History Viewing Room, a place where both art history and art majors could study together.”

Paula Brownlee named President Emerita

Paula Pimlott Brownlee served as president of then Hollins College from 1981 until 1990. During Reunion Weekend, at a special ceremony held in the duPont Chapel, Brownlee was honored as president emerita, by special resolution of the Hollins Board of Trustees.

Their resolution concludes, “Resolved, that Hollins has benefited from your bold, progressive, collaborative, and innovative leadership. As our seventh president, you brought preeminence to Hollins. You reflect the epitome of Hollins women everywhere. Indeed, we are beyond lucky and exceptionally proud. Named president emerita, the Board of Trustees expresses its deepest gratitude for your stellar leadership and commitment to Hollins throughout your presidency and beyond.”

Read the full resolution.

Reunion 2023 Photo Gallery

His impact on generations of students and writers was noted time and again at the memorial service held for him at Hollins last May. Perhaps The Hollins Critic is as powerful and tactile a symbol of Dillard’s literary influence and presence as any. Begun in his first year at Hollins, it has been published in print five times a year since. A special section in the June 2023 edition of the Critic was dedicated to Dillard, and we are including much of what was in that issue here, with permission from Managing Editor Amanda Cockrell ’69, M.A. ’88, and with our gratitude.

In Memoriam: Richard Dillard

R. H. W. Dillard, longtime editor of The Hollins Critic, died April 4, 2023, in Roanoke, Virginia.

A short, declarative sentence that those of us who worked with him, and were taught and mentored by him, find it hard to believe still.

I first met him as a freshman creative writing student in his first years at Hollins. Richard made us all feel as if we were individually special to him, and I do believe we were. He gave each of his students our own voice and taught us how to shape it, teaching us to write like ourselves and not like anyone else.

Later he hired me to run the Hollins children’s literature program and as managing editor of The Hollins Critic. He was endlessly kind, endlessly encouraging, funny as hell, and I was never afraid to ask him anything or to confess when I screwed up. I still keep thinking, “I need to ask Richard about that.”

He used to talk about one’s encyclopedia, the personal reference library in our head that we draw from for recognition when we read. His office always seemed to me like that idea made solid—only apparently in disarray but always searchable by its owner. Whatever peculiar and esoteric bit of knowledge you had just discovered, or were looking for, Richard generally had it.

He began his teaching career at Hollins in 1964, the year the Critic was founded. He stayed for 59 years, sending generations of writers and teachers out into the literary world. For 33 years he was chair of the department of English and creative writing and became the senior editor of the Critic in 1996. He taught creative writing, British and American literature, and film, and founded Hollins’ graduate program in children’s literature in 1992.

In 1987 he was named Virginia’s Professor of the Year and in 2007 he was given the George Garrett Award of the Association of Writing Programs for his contribution to other writers. He received both the O.B. Hardison and Hanes poetry prizes and was inducted into the Fellowship of Southern Writers in 2011. The Virginia Writers Club honored him with its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.

He was a prolific writer and scholar. His works include volumes of poetry, fiction, and criticism.

In 2016 he founded Groundhog Poetry Press, named for the creatures who populated his backyard and seemed to him among the most lovable of the animal kingdom.

We don’t know where the Critic will go without him. His imprint was indelible.

— Amanda Cockrell, managing editor

In Memory of Richard Dillard

From contributors to the Critic

Is there deeply zany seriousness? Or deeply serious zaniness? Are they the same or different? They are different, and both express and confer the kinds of wisdom that Richard Dillard made available with seeming effortlessness. We met when I was an undergraduate at the University of Virginia, and he was finishing his Ph.D. there. Because he joined the Hollins faculty in 1964, I came there for my M.A. in 1965. For the rest of his life we shared advice, stories, poems, essays, and adventures. I never knew his equal in imagination and what to do with it. He helped me become a grownup, and helped me remain one. Years ago I began to reread his wonderful books with loving attention, and I’ll be at it as long as I can read.

— Henry Taylor M.A. ’66

Though it was 43 years ago(!), I clearly remember Richard warmly welcoming [my] incoming class of M.A. students. He told us that by the end of the year we would all wish the program were longer, and though I doubted it at the time, he was right. He made me, and everyone, feel as if we were already successful writers, despite our all being in our early 20s. And that, as Frost wrote, has made all the difference.

— Wyn Cooper M.A. ’81

I was introduced to Richard Dillard in 2001 by George Garrett and Irving Malin with a thought that I might contribute to The Hollins Critic. At that time, he did not know me at all and, aside from a few academic articles, I had not published very much. Moreover, I was proposing to write about Octavia Butler, a writer at that point mainly known within the science fiction world and nowhere near her wide popularity today. Richard, to my great surprise, was warmly receptive to my idea, and published not just this article but several more I wrote over the years. Given his wide range of sympathy, I knew he would be enthusiastic about most writers under the sun, especially if they were quirky, undervalued, or explored from a different angle than the critical norm. Writing for Richard, you felt he had the quiet confidence in you to let you do your own thing as a writer, and that kind of tacit editing is perhaps the most empowering of all, especially when you knew Richard was so widely read and had such a fine-grained sense of critical discernment.

Richard had a taste in fiction that was very transgressively “experimental.” His interests crossed genres, from horror to the Gothic to science fiction, which was very rare in Richard’s own cohort. He was always on the cutting edge in terms of new ways to write and to think about writing, and indeed he could be said to have made the cutting edge his own.

Himself a writer of great originality and achievement, he was endlessly generous in appreciating the work of other writers, creative or critical, no matter what was the writer’s identity and background, and no matter how the literary world tried to classify the writer’s work. As with Malin and Garrett, Richard’s posture toward a literary world often intensely guarded and competitive was one of enthusiasm and gratitude. Richard Dillard made the literary world better not by fitting into a prefabricated mold but by being exuberantly and outstandingly himself, and, even though we will always feel his loss, he has shown us a way to read, write, teach, and think that will continue to inspire.

— Nicholas Bims

After Dillard

The poet [he loved this] is the enemy
      within the gates; the poem, a prayer
or manifest. Richard loved the monster:
      lurching, stitched, combinatory. Its face
of death. Loved baseball, crosswords. The spinning stars,
      Albania, Zembla, the Magic City. Sad clattering
Tristram, gentleman. Hermes Thrice-Greatest.
      Labyrinthine groundhog burrows, gorilla
language, semaphores, Poe’s cryptogram.
      Genius babies, beanstalks, tough guy noir. Slant
truth / slant rhyme. Links, bobolinks, the Library
      of Borges. Synchronicity. The crazy.
All those directors. All those films. Dana
      Scully. Comic books, & strips. Loved twins.
Loved Monk, Ornette, Dawn Upshaw, Sheryl Crow.
      Fireworks. The Great War, the Green Drawing Room
mirrors, black holes, Ovid in exile, fook
      the begroodgers, Augusto capering while the White
Clown frowns. Lit Fest. John / Paul / George / Ringo / Iggy
      Pop. Eclipses. Plumbing. Whim. The poetical
works of Sean Siobhan. An equinoctial
      egg. Migraine auras, solar wind. Treasure
���������Ի�’s map. Holmes. Eyes that do see. Norse
      longships that bore burning the body forth
in honour… Each delighted him. Each is a sign
      for the gifts & grace of art, the artist’s turns & twists.

— Jeanne Larsen M.A. ’72

I don’t know what I did to deserve a 50-year friendship with Richard Dillard. After I left Hollins, with an M.A. in hand, hoping it would get me a teaching job, which it did, I saw Richard in person only a couple of times. But we kept in touch, and his support for my writing was generous, to say the least.

One thing that our friendship was based on was our shared eccentric passion/admiration/affection for the old horror movies. My application to Hollins contained, in the samples of my work, a poem called “In Memory of King Kong.” Looking back, I’ve wondered whether it might have been that poem that got me accepted.

Many years later I sent him a poem called “Frankenstein,” which dealt with both the 1931 original and the 1935 sequel The Bride of Frankenstein, which some people think belongs on an all-time top 10 list along with Citizen Kane and The Godfather. Richard’s response was succinct, as his critical comments usually were. He said that I had “nailed it.” That was a great moment for me. I don’t mean to compare myself to Eudora Welty, but just to say, I think what I felt having Richard say that about my Frankenstein poem must have been similar to what she felt when William Faulkner wrote to her, “You’re doing all right.”

There’s a memorable scene in The Bride where the monster (as we call him) has found refuge with a blind hermit in the forest, and as they share bread, wine, and cigars together, Boris Karloff gets just the right intonation when he says, “Friend, good.” My long-time, massively intelligent, funny, generous friend has passed. I am more grateful to him than I can easily express, so—“Friend, good.”

— Howard Nelson M.A. ’70

“My Hollins liberal arts education was bedrock,” she told the 179 undergraduate and graduate students who received degrees during the morning ceremony, “and because of your success and persistence at Hollins, you have that firm foundation to support whatever you choose to do in the future.”

Fall Term 2022 Senior Class President Chamolis Mout and Morgan DeWitt, senior class president for Spring Term 2023, also addressed their fellow graduates. Mout thanked her parents for allowing her “to experience the joy of growing up and cherishing their love while going through all the obstacles life threw my way. They taught me how to be hopeful and work toward my dreams. I still am a dreamer and a doer.”

DeWitt praised her classmates for persevering through the COVID-19 pandemic and expressed her confidence that “the class of 2023 is prepared for anything. There truly is nothing we can’t overcome. I am grateful to have gotten this opportunity to experience this university, and all it has to offer, throughout the past four years.”

Commencement 2023 Photo Gallery

Over the next year, HESA will develop recommendations for ensuring that higher education institutions can deliver the workforce and educated citizenry necessary to address the United States’ most critical national priorities. They will propose new models for higher education policy, funding, and collaboration.

Hinton is among the organization’s Council Commissioners, national thought leaders who share an interest in advancing the mission of the Council and who can amplify and expand the reach of its work.

“Technology and global interconnectivity are fundamentally uprooting workforce priorities,” said Michael Crow, president of Arizona State University and a cochair of HESA. “The United States is falling behind its vision for higher education, which is already endangering our security and competitiveness. We must act swiftly to reimagine collaborative approaches for higher education policy and funding that reflect changing economic realities.”

HESA plans to deliver its recommendations to the president of the United States and targeted members of the administration, select members of the U.S. Congress, state governors and legislators, and higher education governing boards and chief executive officers by June 2024.