Good afternoon! What a joy it is to be with each of you today. I hope that you have had a truly marvelous reunion thus far. These few days together are a grand way to capture the essence of your Hollins experience: joy, learning, compassion, and a deep commitment to the mission of Hollins University.

And our mission today is as steadfast as it was yesterday and so it will remain forever: 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.

This mission is timeless. In fact, I went back to check what I believe to be the original purpose of the institution,  it reads: “The plan and policy of this school recognizes the principle that in the present state of society in our country young women require the same thorough and rigid training as that afforded to young men.”.

Please be assured that our foundational mission: a rigorous education for women, is unyielding, unchanging, and undeterred. In fact, our new strategic plan Transforming Learning, Transforming Lives: The Levavi Oculos Strategic Plan is squarely focused on ensuring that we can, forevermore provide the type of education that nurtured each of you. Creating a fellowship of women who rely upon one another is central to the strategic plan, especially as we think about access, academic excellence and wellness.

But as resonant, relevant, and rich as our mission and strategic plan are, I know that what brings you back home cannot be captured in a mission statement or tagline. Rather it is the indescribable nature of Hollins that summons you. It is the nature of Hollins that beckons to over 200 young people who will join us in the fall. It is the nature of Hollins that makes our hearts flutter when we step on front quad.

Esteemed alumna Annie Dillard wrote:

Institutions have characters just as people do. After all the cells in a person are replaced, and after every single person in an institution changes, those distinctive characters persist. My high school headmistress was Marion Hamilton. She went to Hollins; now she lives near me. The Hollins I knew from 1963 to 1975 is the same Hollins that Marion Hamilton talks about and loves, that she knew best in the thirties. In the accounts Hollins students wrote in the nineteenth century, we read about the same place: its wonderful blend of intellectual seriousness (with its search for the good and the beautiful), and hilarious good times (in the company of rather much singing). Many people have described returning to Hollins, after a long interval, full of fear – fear that changes would have wrecked the place. These people report, glowing, that it’s all still on campus. New ideas come in and out, new information and theories, and Hollins stirs with excitement, as it always has. New buildings arise, new leaders emerge, new talent pours into the freshman class, and it’s still Hollins: where girls become women, where students have time to learn in depth and professors have time to give them, where the grass is green and the mountains are blue, where friendships thrive, minds catch fire, careers begin, and hearts open to a world of possibility.

Friendships thrive, minds catch fire, careers begin, and hearts open. That’s what Hollins was for you, what Hollins is today, and what we are determined to create well into the future. That is the character you sense in the air, in the beating hearts of our students and in the vision we have to move forward. Friendships thrive, minds catch fire, careers begin, and hearts open.

As you look around you, you see the way friendships thrive at Hollins. You know that the people who have journeyed with you in good times and bad, who have been there for life’s most important moments, were met in this place. She may well be sitting next to you. Today, I think about Ti-Shawn and Zoe. These two young women arrived at Hollins from very different places. Ti-Shawn grew up in Jamaica and currently lives in NYC. Zoe grew up in the Bay Area of CA. But at Hollins, they have become sisters. They cheer for each other. They work together. They foster dogs for the day and bring them to the office. They make each other study and go to the doctor together. I know that they will see one another through relationships and marriages, births, and death. I know that their bond – like yours – is because of this place.

What Hollins does so well today is welcome in students from around the globe and from all demographics and gives them the opportunity to build bridges and friendships and hope. Today Hollins serves, with distinction: First generation: 44% of undergraduates; Students of color: 34% of student body; Pell eligible: 39% of the student body. 50% of our students study abroad and 60% engage in undergraduate research. Because we embrace access, Hollins looks and sounds and has all the strengths of the world. Hollins students are the answer to the world’s troubles.

For example, Rebecca Mullins from Richmond, VA has shared the power of friends: “My very favorite part of my experiences thus far have been the relationships I have made. Hollins attracts phenomenal, kind, artistic, and beautiful human beings. My close friend group last year was from all around the world: Rwanda, Cameroon, Congo, Ivory Coast, Seattle, Belgium, Argentina, and, of course, Appalachia! So many different people from different places have come to this tiny campus, and we became a family.” In our strategic plan we call this wellness. Wellness means the ability to be at peace in one’s mind, peace in one’s body and peace in one’s spirit. At peace with where you are. At peace with those around you.

By facilitating peace and friendships, we create a space for hope, trust, and vulnerability. And when we allow vulnerability, we allow students to stretch their minds. What enables minds to catch fire and careers to begin is Hollins deep belief in each and every student we serve. In this chapel right now we have illustrious leaders from every industry: journalism, business, higher education, non-profits, community leaders, medicine, philanthropy, the law, and more. Your minds caught fire at Hollins. Your careers began at Hollins. We continue to ignite the intellects of young women each and every day.

In our graduating class of 2023, 92.4% were employed or enrolled in graduate school* within six months of graduation. Of this group, about 2/3rds went straight to work at places like the NIH, CDC, Edward Jones, or the Smithsonian. More than one in five 2023 Hollins graduates went on to some of the best graduate schools and programs in the world including NYU, Georgetown, UVA and the London School of Economics. Six percent of our 2023 Hollins graduates began volunteer work or entered the military within six months of graduation, giving their lives to service.

Minds also caught fire and careers have begun in the class of 2024, wherein we have students heading to graduate school at Sarah Lawrence, Duke, UVA, Chapel Hill, Tufts Veterinary School, and EMLyon Business School in France.  Employers include Hershey companies, Disney, and the City of Charlotte. Our returning students are spending the summer doing research at Tech and the U of MO, as actuarial interns at NY Life, and more.

You see, when you light a mind, you release an unstoppable force in the universe and these students have only just begun to transform the world around them. Our strategic plan focuses on this in our academic excellence gear. We are a preeminent institution and that continues unabated. Allow me to describe two students who reflect this in the words of their faculty:

Eleanor Robb – an Art History major, Eleanor is a tremendous student who’s done it all: she’s been inducted to Phi Beta Kappa and Omicron Delta Kappa; she’s written a wonderful senior thesis in art history focused on the myth of Narcissus; she’s also presented at a series of academic conferences; she’s been a campus tour guide and a Latin tutor; she’s studied abroad in Greece; she’s done spectacular work across the liberal arts (Genevieve Hendricks sings her praises in art history; Tina Salowey extols her abilities as a Classics student; Elise Schweitzer extols her abilities as an artist; and, Professor Florio sings her praises as a student of history). Eleanor spent last summer working in the field school in Jamestown, VA, and she did such a great job that she’s received and accepted an offer to return to work there after she graduates.

Zoey Tyson Taylor – Zoey is another phenomenal student and person. To begin with, Zoey took a non-traditional path to Hollins, having completed community college classes and classes at Radford before enrolling here. Zoey has also had to overcome obstacles along the way to earning her degree. She graduated in May with a double major in Business and History. Zoe completed a wonderful senior thesis in history on the role of Black women in the U.S. women’s suffrage movement. She was inducted to Phi Alpha Theta, the national honor society for students of history. Zoey studied abroad in France, where wrote a terrific blog. More impressively still, she was accepted to William and Mary’s MBA program.

Our students deserve and thrive with an excellent liberal arts education, which leads to my last point.

At Hollins, hearts open. To me the most compelling part of the liberal arts is the call to love. William Cronon wrote: “Liberal education aspires to nurture the growth of human talent in the service of human freedom, which is to say that in the end it celebrates love.” He argues that that love is what those of us educated in the liberal arts reflect in a shared set of intellectual qualities:

They listen and they hear.

They read and they understand.

They can talk with anyone.

They can write clearly and persuasively and movingly.

They can solve a wide variety of puzzles and problems.

They respect rigor not so much for its own sake but as a way of seeking truth.

They practice humility, tolerance, and self-criticism.

They understand how to get things done in the world.

They nurture and empower the people around them.

Cronon continues, “Being an educated person means being able to see connections that allow one to make sense of the world and act within it in creative ways.” He concludes: “Whether we speak of our schools or our universities or ourselves, I hope we will hold fast to this as our constant practice, in the full depth and richness of its many meanings: Only connect.”

As each of you exemplify, to be a liberal arts graduate is to open your heart and connect. Open your heart and connect to the people around you who will enrich your life. Open your heart and connect to the natural environment in the shadow of Tinker Mountain. Open your heart and connect to learning, knowledge, and wisdom that calls you to be more and do more. Open your heart and connect to yourself and your grandest aspirations. Open your heart and connect to love and be loved.

You see, the one thing I ask of every student is that they, we, choose to open our hearts and connect; to extend compassion, grace, gratitude, and care to each person we encounter. That when we are faced with a variety of ways to reach out to, respond to, and engage with one other, that we choose to do so with love.

At Hollins our hearts and minds are tethered. Love empowers the learning that happens across our campus. Love is the fuel that powers our community as a whole, because, in the end that’s what matters most. That we choose to see one another’s humanity; that we choose to see the purpose of our work and the liberal arts as connecting with joy. Then we are left with no choice in the end but to work – daily – to become the beloved community.

Bessie Carter Randolph, Class of 1912 and President from 1933-1950 wrote:

The foundations of life and learning must be deeply laid in the liberal arts – in knowledge, wisdom and understanding – in that rich, inalienable heritage, that precious residuum of human experience which must furnish the guide to the far-off ends of human destiny. Higher institutions must, if they are to survive, adhere with unflinching faith to the long-run task of preparing thinkers, never selling truth to serve the hour.

Because Hollins is a liberal arts institution, we never sell the truth to serve the hour. Rather, we create and hold space for new souls to join us, for friendships to thrive, for minds to catch fire, for careers to begin, and for hearts to open.

Levavi Oculos

“While there is much work to be done [to address period poverty], there is a strong global community committed to driving positive change.”

— Charvi Gangwani ’24

Relying on data collected over the past fiscal year from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, Forbes employed nine components to measure operational vigor and balance sheet fitness for almost 900 private colleges with 500 or more full-time students. These markers included endowment assets per full-time equivalent student, primary reserve ratio, viability ratio, core operating margin, tuition as a percentage of core revenues, return on assets, admissions yield, percent of first-year students receiving grant aid, and instruction expenses per full-time equivalent student.

University Business magazine notes that “Endowment assets per FTE was the most important determinant in a college’s long-term financial health, per Forbes.”

Emma Whitford, who covers higher education for Forbes, explains, “Balance sheet strength is never mentioned on the list of must-haves. But it should be. For any student who wants to spend their college days on the same campus—especially if that school is small to begin with—selecting a financially sound school is more important than ever.”

During the showcase, posters like the ones you see depicted here were hung throughout the room. Faculty, staff, and student visitors could explore and view or even ask questions of the student presenters, who shared memorable stories and highlights from their experiences.

This was the fourth annual Leading Equity, Diversity, and Justice (EDJ) Conference, a program that continues to evolve since it began in 2020. The theme for this year’s conference was “The Heart of Social Justice” and kicked off on Thursday night, February 15, with a special showing of Professor of Film Amy Gerber-Stroh’s Hope of Escape, a new feature-length historical drama she wrote, directed, and coproduced.

The last three years, classes have been canceled on the day of Leading EDJ to give all members of the campus community—students, faculty, and staff—an opportunity to engage in the conference, either by attending or presenting.

Recent experiential learning experiences:

Cummins received an engraved medal and a $1,000 cash prize for Our Pool, published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers.

Judges for this year’s Margaret Wise Brown Prize also named one Honor Book: Stranded! A Mostly True Story from Iceland, written by Ævar Þór Benediktsson, illustrated by Anne Wilson, and published by Barefoot Books.

“I am thrilled by this year’s choices,” stated Elizabeth Dulemba, director of the graduate programs in children’s literature and illustration at Hollins. “Our Pool highlights the simple joys in life that picture books can so elegantly share, while Stranded! showcases science through an unusual and fun ����Բ�.”

Each year, Hollins invites nominations for the prize from children’s book publishers located across the country and around the world. A three-judge panel, consisting of established picture book authors, reviews the nominations and chooses a winner.

Hollins established the Margaret Wise Brown Prize in Children’s Literature as a way to pay tribute to one of its best-known alumnae and one of America’s most beloved children’s authors. Margaret Wise Brown graduated from Hollins in 1932 and went on to write Goodnight Moon, The Runaway Bunny, and other children’s classics before she died in 1952.

Inducted were seniors Sophia Ciatti, Gabriella de Ornelas, Natté Fortier, Naomi Gakusi, Zeina Ghanem, Ally Goguen, Marie Gruver, Alexa Hulse, Amy Nguyen, Linh Nguyen, Viktor Oler, Eleanor Robb, Olivia Sacci, and Meisoon Shalaby. Matilda Sieger and Sam Stuhlmiller were also welcomed as junior class members.

Since 1776, Phi Beta Kappa has championed education in the arts and sciences, fostered freedom of thought, and recognized academic excellence. As America’s most prestigious academic honor society, Phi Beta Kappa honors the best and brightest liberal arts and sciences undergraduates from 293 top schools across the nation through a highly selective, merit-based invitation process.

Consisting of seven days of racing events, the championships will feature over 1,500 athletes competing for national titles. The multi-day competition will combine cross-country and marathon mountain bike events. Next year, cyclists will compete July 14-20 in a variety of landscapes, including the trails of Carvins Cove, Explore Park, and Elmwood Park.

The Roanoke Times reported that “Carvins Cove will host the marathon on the first day and will use Hollins University for parking and to serve as a beginning and end location for the race.”

“We are thrilled that Virginia’s Blue Ridge has been selected as the host destination for this event,” said Visit Virginia’s Blue Ridge President Landon Howard. “It will help build on our already shining reputation as America’s East Coast mountain biking capital.”

USA Cycling President and CEO Brendan Quirk added, “With this exciting announcement of the Endurance Mountain Bike National Championships, it’s evident why Virginia’s Blue Ridge is one of America’s foremost cycling destinations.” The area hosted the Amateur Road National Championships in 2022 and 2023.

Rita McClenny, president and CEO of Virginia Tourism Corporation, noted that the event “will not only highlight our beautiful trails and vibrant community but also contribute to our local economy,” bringing in an estimated $2.2 million in direct visitor spending.

Each year, The Simple Gifts Fund (SGF) awards scholarships to high school seniors graduating from a school within Sampson County, North Carolina. The scholarships are intended to address unmet need in order to help students attend a private liberal arts college or university outside the state and earn a four-year degree. The scholarships are given to students who graduate in the top quarter of their class, demonstrate academic achievement and excellence, and epitomize outstanding character and leadership.

“The Simple Gifts scholarship has had a significant influence on my life,” said Jennifer Moreno-Gomez ’25, a psychology major. “It’s not just about financial support; I’ve had endless opportunities to create some of the best memories, study abroad, and figure out what I’m truly passionate about. [I’m helping to] prove that first-generation Latina students have the power to make a difference.”

Lilibeth Arzate ’25, a double major in Spanish and political science, says, “Being a first-generation student, I grew up with little to no resources in my life around the idea of access to higher education.” Arzate learned about the SGF scholarship through her family and her high school, and “Hollins caught my eye at a college fair. The ambassador happened to be an SGF scholar, and instantly I knew that if she could do it, I could, too.”

Ariana Romero ’26, who is also majoring in psychology, called the ability to attend college debt-free “a blessing” and believes she has “learned a lot about myself, grown independently, and [gained] an opportunity to achieve and prosper” while at Hollins.

Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters, a documentary by Rosalynde LeBlanc M.F.A. ’11 and Tom Hurwitz, was honored at the 84th Annual Peabody Awards in June in Beverly Hills, California. The film is one of 34 projects to receive the distinction this year out of 1,100 entries.

“We are profoundly honored to have our work recognized by this award that speaks to excellence in storytelling,” said LeBlanc and Hurwitz, “and we sincerely thank everyone involved with us in funding, making, and distributing Can You Bring It.”

The documentary received unanimous critical acclaim during its theatrical release. Kimber Myers of the Los Angeles Times said, “Death and grief may exist in the soul of ‘D-Man in the Waters’ but Can You Bring It is full of vitality and energy, a testament to the power of art in the face of tragedy.”

Elani Spencer ’27 earned the title through a competition sponsored by the Roanoke Arts Commission in partnership with Roanoke Public Libraries and Soul Sessions Roanoke. The initiative welcomed young poets between the ages of 13 and 19 who are civic-minded and whose quality of work is demonstrated through their performance and commitment to the community.

Meighan Sharp, visiting assistant professor of English and creative writing at Hollins and volunteer chair for the Roanoke Arts Commission, said, “Our program identifies powerful youth poets who have a history of artistic success, civic and community engagement, social impact, and youth leadership.”

The Roanoke Youth Poet Laureate program is part of the National Youth Poet Laureate Program founded by Urban Word to celebrate youth at the intersection of artistic excellence and civic engagement. The Roanoke Arts Commission is working with Spencer to provide opportunities for her to share creative thought at various city and state events.