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A New Preside*
At Agnes Scott
Baring the Breast-
Cancer Myths
A Foil to Danger
Please Pass the . . .
Rootenanny?
EDITOR'S NOTE
In the present and in the past sleeps the purpose of the future: the new
president brings an unfolding vision, a world-view to Agnes Scott College.
President Mary Brown Bullock '66 opened her first
convocation address to the Agnes Scott College
community with a quote from T. S. Eliot's Four
Quartets, lines from "Burnt Norton":
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past. . . .
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
Disturbing the dust pondering the journey that has
brought her once again to Agnes Scott
Bullock explored the meaning of "time
future contained in time past" both for the
College and for herself. The pageantry of
the day's convocation procession, the
academic regalia, she said, are colored by
the medieval origins of the university and
by the variety of alma maters represented by
the ASC faculty. Along with the splendor
of this universal scene, "more than a century
of Agnes Scott's own traditions" continue.
Bullock's connections with the College
date back almost a century to when her great-aunt Mary
Thompson was a student here. The president's mother,
Mardia Hopper Brown, graduated from Agnes Scott in
1943. More recently, Bullock's brother, George Brown,
served as a director of the Global Awareness program for
the College. "Long forgotten metaphors of time and place
haunted me," said Bullock, as she prepared late this
summer for her transition from Washington, D.C., (where
she directed the Asia Program for The Wood row Wilson
International Center for Scholars), back to Agnes Scott.
During the address, Bullock expressed gratitude to
those from Agnes Scott's past. "Ruth Schmidt's
determination to forge a multicultural, aesthetically
beautiful and technologically up-to-date campus
transformed this community. Sally Mahoney found much
to celebrate during her year as interim president. She and
I shared a special Stanford bond, and I pledge to continue
encouraging Agnes Scott's renewal as a community of
civility, collegiality, intellectual vitality, warmth and
good humor."
Out of the old forms and patterns, out of successes,
mistakes and lessons, she said, emerge opportunities for
new beginnings at the College. "We are at a crossroads,"
she said, "the future is before us, looming, beckoning,
challenging."
As institutions face "their own
beginnings and endings," Bullock
envisioned an Agnes Scott College that will
survive and become great: as it develops
strong links with the world, as it responds
to the needs of women and their changing
roles, as it continues to engender in
students the joy of learning, and as it
embraces all people.
"Transitions" was the title Mary Brown
Bullock chose for her first formal conversa-
tion with the Agnes Scott community.
To express the wonder of that circle made of endings
and beginnings, she turned again to a passage from
Eliot's remarkable Four Quartets, "Little Gidding":
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. . . .
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started.
And to know the place for the first time.
ullock '66
?j2c*-^<s?~t~&y^^J
CONTENTS
Agnes Scott College Alumnae Magazine
Fall 1 995 , Volume 72 , Number I
7
Welcome Home
By Tish Young McCutchen '73
Photos by Laura Sikes
Deeply rooted both in ASC history and in
international experience, President Mary
Brown Bullock '66 brings a singular vision
to the college.
^^Htft^t **
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Hush and Eat Your
Rootenanny
By Jane Zanca '83
Illustration by Mac Evans
If food geneticists mate rutabagas and
bananas, will the result be a rootenanny?
Even if it is easier to peel, will the kids
refuse to eat it?
L 18
Baring the
Breast Cancer
Myths
By Carol Willey '80
Photos by Laura Sikes
An alumna writer and a
New York artist/ activist reveal
the onerous ambiguities , the deep
scars of breast cancer survival.
A Foil to Danger
By Mary Alma Durrett
Photo illustrations by Monika Nikore
ASC Public Safety officers are active
on a number of fronts, helping to ensure
campus safety.
COVER: Agnes Scott's first alumna president Mary Brown Bullock '66.
PHOTO BY LAURA SIKES
DEPARTMENTS
2
On Campus
32
Excerpts
35
Lifestyle
40
Letters
Giving Alumna
Editor: Celeste Pennington
Contributing Editor:
Mary Alma Durrett
Design: Everett Hullum,
Harold Waller
Student Assistants:
Tina Backus '97
Rolanda Daniel '98
Danyael Miller '99
Jennifer Odom '98
Samantha Stavely '97
Publications
Advisory Board:
Christine Cozzens
Kim Drew '90
Bill Gailey
Ellen Fort Grissett '77
Sandi Harsh '95
Tish McCutchen '73
Kay Parkerson O'Briant '70
Edmund Sheehey
Lucia Howard Sizemore '65
Copyright 1995, Agnes Scott
College. Published tor alumnae and
friends twice a year hy the Office of
Publications, Agnes Scott College,
Buttrick Hall, 141 E. College
Avenue, Decatur, GA 30030,
(404) 638-6315. Postmaster: Send
address changes to Office of Develop-
ment and Public Affairs, Agnes Scott
College, Decatur, GA 30030. The
content of the magazine reflects the
opinions of the writers and not
necessarily the viewpoint of the
College, its trustees or administration.
ON CAMPUS
A Cultural Olympics, collaborative research and PEACH, tree tour, high
marks in science and math, ads for girls, finding the unexpected and more.
ASC OPENS
CULTURAL
OLYMPIAD
With nine months
and counting, plans
are taking shape tor the
International Conference
on Southern Literature to
be hosted by Agnes Scott
College. It is the kick-off
event for the Cultural
Olympiad's Olympic
Summer Festival scheduled
for June 2-9, part of the
100th anniversary celebra-
tion of the 1 996 Olympic
Games in Atlanta.
With the slate of writers
yet to be announced,
spokesman Tom McHaney,
director of graduate studies
and English at Georgia
State University, says the
conference will bring
together "three generations
of writers" established
writers, writers of promise
and writers heretofore
overlooked.
"The idea is to bring
half of the writers from the
Southern states and to
invite people from around
the world who translate,
publish, write and talk
about Southern writing
and its influence on their
culture," says McHaney.
The event will include
book signings, a book fair,
readings and one-person
shows along with confer-
ence panel discussions.
Audrey Arthur
A PEACH OF
AN IDEA
As Washington
wrestles with welfare
reform, PEACH (Positive
Employment and Com-
munity Help) is Georgia's
nearly decade-old answer
for those who receive Aid
to Families with Dependent
Children to move from wel-
fare to work.
Last semester five ASC
students helped document
the progress of 1 7 women
involved in DeKalb's
PEACH program.
One outcome: students
like Christina Costes '95
gained an insight into the
lives of PEACH women
who juggle child care, GED
or college classwork and
on-the-job training in order
to prepare for, and to estab-
lish, careers. Costes was
assigned to Charemon
Shanks, a mother of five
(ages 2 to 16) who is earn-
ing a degree in social work
from Georgia State
University and who serves
on the Georgia Welfare
STROLL THROUGH THE TREES
Agnes Scott College
is one of a few
areas in Decatur where
the trees have remained
relatively undisturbed for
more than a century.
Recently the College has
produced a
self-
guided
tour of
trees (with
funds provided by
an Urban and
Community Forestry
Assistance Program
Grant, under the aus-
pices of the Georgia
Forestry Commission).
The booklet "A Stroll
Through the Trees at
Agnes Scott" provides
pictures and profiles of a
number of the largest
and oldest trees in ASC's
urban forest including
DeKalb County's
champion black gum
tree, the second
largest magnolia in
the county (on a
campus that boasts
72 magnolias),
and a
white
ash that
predates
the Civil
War. The
tour also
includes
more
recently
planted specimens like
a spectacular pair
of gingkoes added
by biology professor
S. Leonard Doerpinghaus,
among about 30 trees he
planted around campus.
Reform Task Force.
"Sometimes we have
stereotypical images.
Students found it exciting
to interview women who
are working to provide a
better quality of lite for
their children and who are
taking control of their
lives," notes Bienda Hoke,
ACNES SCOTT COLLEGE FALL IW
ON CAMPUS
ASC assistant professor
of sociology.
Hoke designed the pro-
ject to connect sociology
research theory and
practice, and to provide
ASC students an opportu-
nity to work with her,
collaboratively.
For the project, stu-
dents created a set of ques-
tions which Hoke helped
refine "so that it was like a
professional instrument."
Students conducted
interviews with a sample of
PEACH participants and
published the information
in a spiral-bound PEACH
Family Album complete
with profiles and photos of
each of the women.
Out of the experience,
ASC students established a
Saturday morning tutorial
to assist PEACH women in
math, science, economics
and social studies.
The pilot project was
noted both by PEACH
Fulton County staff who
have talked to Hoke about
creating a similar publica-
tion and establishing a
tutorial, and by Georgia's
First Lady Shirley Miller
(wife of Gov. Zell Miller),
who has a strong interest
in adult education.
HIGH MARKS
IN SCIENCES
AND MATH
Agnes Scott College
has been identified
by Peterson s Guides as one
of 200 colleges and univer-
sities in the United States
that "offer an outstanding
undergraduate program in
the sciences and math-
ematics." As such, ASC
EXPANDING LANGUAGE ACROSS THE CURRICULUM
A gnes Scott is expanding its
German component and the
attend the humanities course.
J. Vmulti disciplinary Language
Church in Latin America with a
The grant money also supports an
Across the Curriculum program
Spanish component.
intensive language study for
which pairs humanities (or fine arts
"You get a deeper understanding
humanities faculty who want to
or social sciences) with language
when you study German history in
upgrade language skills.
studies. The pilot project (begun in
German," notes Martha Bailey '97
Benefits to students are an
the fall of 1992 for students with at
whose study of European History
enhanced understanding of a
least two years of German) paired
since 1945 included reading the
discipline based upon the
European History 1914-1945 taught
German constitution and German
opportunities to discuss and read
by Associate Professor of History
journal entries written during
authentic texts in the original
Katherine Kennedy with
World War II and viewing contem-
language and to improve their
a German language component
porary German films. "The native
foreign language skills with an
taught by Professor of German
language authenticates the material.
additional course hour each week.
Ingrid Wieshofer.
There are no English or American
Students involved in the LAC
The College now offers these
overlays of bias. Language puts you
programs have gone on to use their
additional LAC courses: European
inside the culture."
improved language skills in various
History since 1945 with a German
Funded by a $152,000 grant
ways, including one woman who
component; Medieval Art and the
from the National Endowment for
spent a semester abroad studying in
History of Art with French
the Humanities, the program is
Germany and another who recently
components; Native Peoples of the
designed to enrich the study of
completed a six-week scholarship
Americas and the African Diaspora
humanities disciplines through
at the Goethe Institute.
and Women in Latin America with
established links with foreign
At the close of the grant, the
Spanish components.
language skills. The funds support
College will offer an invitational
The College plans to develop
course development work for the
symposium (April 1996) for
two more courses over the next two
two-teacher teams and provide the
institutions in the Southeast
years, Women in Music with a
language faculty release time to
considering a similar program.
ON CAMPUS
SOUTHERN ASSOCIATION
FOR WOMEN HISTORIANS
MOVES TO AGNES SCOTT
Agnes Scott College will be the new home of the
500-member Southern Association for Women
Historians (SAWH), a professional organization for
academicians who research the history of Southern
women. Agnes Scott Assistant Professor of History
Michele Gillespie, a member of the association since
1988, assumes the duties of secretary/treasurer for a
three-year term beginning in December. She will also
serve as managing editor of an organizational newsletter.
The Southern Association for Women Historians was
founded in the early 1970s to foster the status of women
as historians in the South and to promote the research
of Southern women's history, especially across racial
lines. The membership, a subgroup of the Southern
Historical Association, produces volumes of research
on Southern women's history following its regular
conferences every three years.
Gillespie's relationship with Agnes Scott was fortu-
nate for SAWH's officers, who selected Agnes Scott, an
historic women's college in the South, as their new
center. Gillespie believes the College's association with
SAWH will dovetail nicely with Agnes Scott's new
program for Women in Leadership and Social Change.
The association had been housed at the University of
Arkansas and at Clemson University in South Carolina.
will be included in a book,
Top Colleges for Science
Leading Programs in the
Biological, Chemical,
Geological, Mathematical,
and Physical Sciences , due
out in early 1996.
ASC was selected from
among 1,500 four-year col-
leges and universities iden-
tified through the 1994
Carnegie Classification
of Institutions of Higher
Education. The schools
were analyzed according to
the number and percent-
age of baccalaureate alum-
nae having earned degrees
in science and math
between 1988 and 1992;
and the number and per-
centage of baccalaureate
alumnae having been
awarded National Science
Foundation Fellowships
1990-94.
WCC UNVEILS
AD CAMPAIGN
Expect the best from a girl.
That's what you'll get.
If a 15-year, multi million
dollar ad campaign works
the way the Women's
College Coalition and the
Ad Council hope it will,
this slogan will become as
familiar as the American
Negro College Fund's
slogan, "A mind is a terri-
ble thing to waste."
The two organizations
invited Mary Brown
Bullock '66 and the
presidents of many of the
nation's 84 women's
colleges to Washington,
D.C., for the launch of the
national campaign to raise
expectations about girls'
competence and abilities
and to encourage girls to
perform at their maximum
level of potential.
"Today, women like
Madeline Albright, our
ambassador to the U.N.,
and Sadako Ogato, U.N.
High Commissioner for
Refugees, are providing
international leadership,"
said Bullock. "Our future
world will need more
women like these to be
engaged in solving the
problems of the next
century. The campaign
we unveil today will have a
positive impact in equip-
ping girls and women with
tools and confidence to be
their successors."
Role models for the
WCC-Ad Council ads-
depicted in childhood pho-
tos include Julie Willey,
director of the Delaware
State Police Crime Lab;
Lauren Lazin, award-win-
ning documentary film-
maker; and Nicole Lang,
pediatrician.
Regional campaign
launches occurred simulta-
neously throughout the
United States, including
one at Spelman College in
Atlanta, hosted by WCC
members: Spelman, Agnes
Scott College, Wesleyan
College in Macon and
Brenau University in
Gainesville.
WCC member colleges
will serve as resource tor
programs that foster the
participation of girls and
women in the classroom.
COMPARISON
OF WOMEN IN
ECONOMICS
W
omen s colleges
produce propor-
tionately more female
economics majors than do
co-ed liberal arts institu-
tions. That's one oi the
findings of Associate
Professor ot Economics
Rosemary Cunningham in
her study "Undergraduate
Women in Economics: A
ai :ni-s m utt con i-i if fai i wos
Comparison of Women's
and Coeducational Liberal
Arts Colleges" presented at
the International Associa-
tion for Feminist Economics
Conference in Tours,
France, this past summer.
Results indicate that
women's colleges average
31 economics majors per
year, compared with 1 1.9
female economics majors a
year at co-ed institutions.
The number of female
majors who enter a graduate
economics program is
higher at women's colleges
(4-6 compared with 2.1).
Women's colleges also
employed more female eco-
nomics faculty, 35 percent
compared with 23 percent
at co-ed colleges.
Cunningham began her
study when economists
became concerned that
fewer undergraduates,
especially women, were
majoring in economics.
Cunningham built her
study on previous research
linking women's colleges
and female faculty members
with the success of their
graduates. She surveyed
40 women's colleges with
degree programs in eco-
nomics and 58 highly
ranked co-ed institutions
with fewer than 5,000
students. Fifty percent of
the women's colleges and
65 percent of the co-ed
institutions responded.
Next, Cunningham
plans to research why there
are fewer economics majors
of either sex in this country
than at any other time since
1979, and why women's
colleges are successful in
attracting and training
women in economics.
COMPUTER
LITERATES
With a $2,500 grant
from BellSouth to
the College, Associate
Professor of Economics
Rosemary Cunningham
devised a way to become
an Economics 306 "coach"
instead of lecturer by devel-
oping a microeconomics
course that helps students
solve economics problems
in a computer lab rather
than in a traditional
classroom.
Cunningham designed
the course in order to train
students to work collabora-
tively in small groups, using
different types of computer
technology to gather data,
and using the Excel
spreadsheet program for
seeing solutions.
Cunningham hopes the
course will produce more
active learners. She also
notes the importance of
integrating computers
with course materials.
"Computer skills are not
just an add-on anymore."
VIEWPOINT
Agnes Scott Assistant Professor juan Allende spent the
summer researching the growth of evangelical religion in Chile,
his traditionally Catholic homeland.
REMAIN WATCHFUL, FOR GOD'S
OTHER NAME IS SURPRISE
From a meditation for First Friday Community
Worship by Juan Allende
Summer is as much a
state of mind an
attitude as it is a season.
I began my summer with
certain expectations
about what I would find
returning to Chile, the
country where I grew up;
expectations of winter in
summer remember,
Chile is in the Southern
hemisphere and the
seasons are reversed;
and, finally, expectations
about my research.
You see, I go to Chile
to visit family and to
continue my research
which often costs me a
chunk of my summer,
both in sunshine and in
leisure. The topic of my
research is evangelical
movements, and as the
word "movements"
suggests, I learned early
on that this was not a
topic that one can
approach as one would
the study of minerals.
No, to study evangeli-
cals, one has to be willing
to participate actively in
the life of evangelical
communities, and that
is always a challenge for
the research self the so-
called objective observer.
Let me explain this
with a story.
As part of my research,
I traveled 300 miles south
from Santiago to Coronel,
a small town that sits in a
depressed economic area
once famous for its coal
ON TAMPI IS
VIEWPOINT
and textiles industries
women sat me between
that no longer exist. This
two matrons, let me peek
is an area where the
in their open Bibles and
number of evangelicals is
hymnals, hugged me,
very large.
touched me, and brought
One afternoon, I was
me into the circle. I forgot
invited to a meeting of
why I was there: with my
evangelical women. I was
research-self gone, I joined
expecting to find three or
them in prayer and praise,
four stern women-pastors.
and soon I felt in my
Instead, I walked into a
well-trained, skeptical
tiny room in a house so
soul the unexpected
poor that the roof could
presence of God.
not stop the rain from
So much for objectivity.
coming in. There I discov-
So much for expectations.
ered 20 or 25 women
Back in the States, I
sitting close to each other,
read in Sojourners a mag-
heating the cold, damp
azine of faith, politics and
room with their bodies,
culture another story of
while clapping hands,
encountering the unex-
singing and sharing their
pected, this one told by
experiences of hard living.
Daniel Goering. He writes:
I felt uncomfortable in
I was walking north on
my American clothes. I
15th Street in Washington,
didn't know what to do
D.C. , when 1 ran into one
or say. i
of my former clients from the
But these j
food distribution program. It
evangelical
^ was 6:15 a.m., and
jJ^^^L there signs he
^WL'^^L had already
'^^^A ^L been drinking.
^^^^X 9L was
HB^^^ heading
^^^^^^- -
~ ^j^^iaJi
to the 7 -Eleven for coffee , to
drown one of those "I-don't-
want'to-get-up-and-gO'to-
work mornings" in an ocean
of caffeine .
"How you doing? " J
asked him .
"Fine," he answered.
"How you doing? " His
words were very slurred.
"Man, 1 am not doing
well at all. I didn't feel like
getting up this morning. I
wish I were still giving out
food with you guys . " Having
initiated my little pity party,
1 continued to complain.
"Hold up, man," he said.
"You woke up this morning,
right?"
"Yes. . ."
"You're going to a job,
right?"
"Yes, that's right."
"Well, you're all right
then! What are you
complaining for? "
Having been thus
restored to my senses, I
realized that 1 really was
all right, and that, moreover,
1 had met God that morning.
How many of us got up
this morning with an "I-
don't-want-to-get-up-
and-go-to-work"
attitude?
How many
of us came
back to
school still
in a summer
state of mind '
How many
of us think we know just
what to expect from our
semesters here ?
How many of us are
ready to take refuge in
our research-selves
objective, analytical,
rational?
These stories point to
another reality, the reality
of encountering the
unexpected, the strange,
the other like finding
winter weather in
summer's season. But, as
someone said, "God's
other name is surprise."
Our task, I think, is to
remember amid the
books and the computers
and the teachers and
students who drive us
crazy that the unexpect-
ed is out there, too.
Surprise awaits us
always. God is among the
stacks in the McCain
Library, as surely as God
was in that damp little
room in Chile and was
walking the streets of
Washington, D.C.
In our daily routines,
may we be ready, willing
and able to let the
unexpected in and to
receive what it is teaching.
And may we all be so
attuned to creation that
we come to see God
everywhere.
]uan Alknde is assistant
professor of political science
at Agnes Scott College
\i .NI^MOTl i i>] IH',1- . FALL !)<
WELCOME HOME
By Tish McCutchen 73
Photographs by Laura Sikes
Mary Brown
Bullock ASC's
first alumna
president takes
office, bringing
to the College
a new vision
drawn from her
international
background and
experience, and
promising to meet
the challenges
of women's
education in the
century ahead.
The year is 1952. The scene is
Asia, a continent still wracked
by the vestiges of World War II,
by ongoing civil war and by
the struggle to find its place in
the second half of the 20th century. A dark-
haired, 8-year-old girl along with her
mother, father and brothers, 7 and 1
disembarks after the journey from America.
Her family has arrived with a dream: to
bring the good news of Christianity to the
people of Asia.
Skip to 1995. In Washington, D.C., a
city filled with people struggling to find
their place in the last years of the 20th
century, a dark-haired woman with
husband, son, 19, and daughter, 15
bids farewell to friends and supporters
before embarking on another journey. The
woman the child of missionaries, Dr. Mary
Brown Bullock '66 will soon move to
Decatur to become the first alumna
president of Agnes Scott College.
In anticipation of her new challenge, this
evening Bullock greets well wishers gathered
at the U.S. Capitol ASC alumnae and old
Washington friends here to celebrate at the
invitation of the Washington Alumnae
chapter, Senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and
Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-
Ga.). Outside, the U.S. Marine Corps Band
is winding down a summer evening concert.
"The Man of La Mancha" highlights this
week's performance, and as Bullock's friends
wander out of the Capitol and into the
warm Washington dusk, the band plays:
"To dream the impossible dream ... to
reach the unreachable star."
Bullock's family has often reached for dis-
tant stars. Her parents, and grandparents
before them certainly following that road
less traveled devoted their lives to mission-
ary work in Asia. "I grew up on my grand-
father's romantic stories of fleeing from the
warlords in China," she says. "His capture by
the Communists in 1949 and then his dra-
matic release is one of my earliest childhood
memories."
Interest in China, the focus of Bullock's
graduate study at Stanford University, led
her to Washington, D.C, where in 1973 she
became a staff member and, four years later,
director of the Committee on Scholarly
Communication with the People's Republic
of China (sponsored by the National
Academy of Sciences, the American
Council of Learned Societies and the Social
Science Research Council). She helped plan
the first scholarly exchange program which
during its first year sponsored 10 American
students and now includes hundreds
of American and thousands of Chinese
participants each year.
In 1988, she joined The Woodrow
Wilson International Center for Scholars
as director of the Asia Program, housed
in the Smithsonian Institution. Among
other duties, Bullock (a Woodrow Wilson
Fellowship holder, 1966-67 and a Wilson
Center Fellow 1983-84) nurtured scholars
from an area reaching from Afghanistan to
Japan. "Mary has been marvelous, much bet-
ter than any other person at the center, at
dealing with the Fellows," notes Center
Director Charles Blitzer. "We don't have
undergraduates, but she has certainly been
deeply involved in the care and feeding of
scholars. That's true of her whole career."
Professional priorities during that time
have included teaching and serving on
numerous academic advisory/trustee boards.
Since 1991 Bullock has served as a professo-
rial lecturer with The Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity School for Advanced International
Studies (in 1992 she was ranked among the
top 10 of Johns Hopkins SAIS faculty). For
many years she has been a trustee of the
United Board for Christian Higher Educa-
tion in Asia. Since 1992 she has served on
A NEW PRESIDENT FOR ASC
In 1952, Mary and George
Brown posed with their
mother, Mardia Hopper
Brown '43 , at the Emperor's
Grounds in Tokyo (above
The children studied in ]apan
at the international school
there. Mary Brown Bullock
(right) pauses outside her
offices at the Smithsonian
Institution in Washington,
D.C. , prior to moving
to Atlanta.
\t MK Si DTT mil ROE FA1 I 1995
the executive committee of the board of
directors of the National Committee for
U.S. -China Relations.
Her recent academic/conference travel
includes Korea, Japan, Taiwan, India, Sri
Lanka, Thailand and Europe.
"Mary is at home in a very broad world,"
notes Interim ASC President Sally Mahoney.
Bullock's great-aunt, Mary Thompson,
was the first family member to make
herself at home in this wider world.
After attending Agnes Scott from 1903
to 1905, she went directly from Atlanta
to China as a pioneer missionary. Two
years later Mary's paternal grandmother,
Charlotte, joined her. She met her husband,
Frank Brown, in China. Meanwhile, Mary's
maternal grandparents headed for Korea,
and in the early 1920s Mary's mother,
Mardia Hopper, was born in Korea.
Fast forward 20 years, and Mardia Hopper
has become Mardia Brown '43, an Agnes
Scott graduate wooed and won beside the
Alumnae Garden pond. She and China-
born husband Tommy began both a family
and their plans to make their way back to
Asia. While he attended seminary, she
concentrated on rearing young Mary
and George.
After Mary finished second grade in
Gastonia, N.C., the young family packed up
their household goods and made the arduous
journey to Japan.
For two years, Mary and her brother took
a train every day to an international school.
When Mary was 10, her family moved across
the Sea of Japan to South Korea, settling in
Kwangju, a city of a quarter million in the
south. "It was the provincial capital," Mary
Bullock recalls, "but it was the capital of the
least developed area of Korea. The Korean
War had just ended. I remember an impres-
sion of grinding poverty ... of riding the
train and looking out onto houses with beer-
can roofs." Mary's father began his work at a
seminary for Korean ministers, and their
family grew to include Charlotte and Bruce
(14 years younger than Mary). No mission
school existed in Kwangju, so Mardia taught
Mary and George along with the other mis-
sionary children, using the Calvert home-
schooling method. By the end of seventh
grade, Mary had exhausted the Calvert
method, so her parents sent her and
George to Japan, to the Canadian Academy
in Kobe.
"Travel in those days was very difficult,"
"My whole world
view had been
influenced by
the East, and this
trip through
Europe gave me a
chance to see what
most Americans
grew up much
more familiar
with. I think it
helped me make
the transition."
A NEW PRESIDENT FOR ASC
The "young girl" who went
with her missionary family
to Asia 40 years ago has
changed over the years . But
her abiding "world view" will
add to that dimension of the
College as it moves into the
2 1st century.
Bullock says. "It took us three days to get
from Kwangju to Kobe . . . overnight trains
to the Korean coast, then a small ferry
across the strait to Japan, then more trains.
A few times we were able to make the trip
by air."
At the Canadian Academy, Mary Brown
studied in the company of both missionary
children and children of the small but grow-
ing number of businessmen beginning to
explore the Asian markets.
Over the next several years she made
infrequent trips back to Korea. "George and
I had an aunt and
uncle living in
Osaka, and cousins
at the same school,
so we really weren't
on our own," she
recalls.
Her mother sees
it differently.
"Basically, Mary has
been on her own
since she was 14,"
Mardia Brown says.
"I think that com-
bined with the fact that she was the
oldest child, and I depended on her for so
much helps ex-plain why she is capable of
doing anything."
When it was time to consider college,
Bullock was familiar with her mother's alma
mater. "My parents did want me to go to a
church-related college. I looked through the
college bulletins and eventually applied to
Agnes Scott 'early decision.' I think the
early decision part was my dad's idea, and I
went along with it because Agnes Scott was
in a big city."
With a significant detour, Bullock made
her way to Agnes Scott College.
"I traveled through Europe with my aunt
and uncle on the way back to the States.
That was wonderful for me, because I saw
for the first time what Western civilization
was all about. My whole world view had
been influenced by the East, and this trip
through Europe gave me a chance to see
what most Americans grew up much more
familiar with. I think it helped me make
the transition."
The pace, the campus with its
American Gothic architecture and
the prevailing bobby-sox-and-Elvis
youth culture posed an adjustment for
Bullock that September 1962.
"I came from a cosmopolitan environ-
ment into college, and at that time Agnes
Scott was a pretty provincial place." That
experience, she later discovered, was shared
by other Canadian Academy graduates. "It
definitely wasn't just me and Agnes Scott
it was a universal experience for all of us
coming back to the States."
Bullock quickly made a name for herself
on campus "the girl from Korea" and
confused a few students by her non-Asian
appearance. Agnes Scott College Director of
Alumnae Affairs Lucia Howard Sizemore '65
remembers. "I'm sure she got tired of being
called 'the girl from Korea'," says Sizemore.
"In fact, I think she was almost grateful
when she had some problem with one of
her knees and became 'the girl in the
cast' instead."
Dean of Students Gue Hudson '68 recalls
walking across the quadrangle with a group
of students including Bullock, who veered
off into some newly sprouted grass in fla-
grant violation of a sign: "Caution New
Grass." When her companions asked what
in the world she was doing, Bullock replied
that in Japan and Korea grass was rarely
seen and even more rarely walked on and
she thought it wonderful that the college
groundskeepers were actually inviting
students to walk on the grass, albeit warning
them to do so with caution.
During the turbulent 1960s, other signs
of culture shock must have sprung up along
the young missionary daughter's path. As
she noted in 1989 during a Mortar Board
address as Centennial Distinguished
Lecturer, "No one was talking about the
Pacific Century in the mid-1960s, especially
not in Atlanta. The big issues were closer to
home: my freshman year, the Cuban missile
crisis; my sophomore year, Kennedy's assassi-
nation; my junior year, civil rights and the
Selma march. By my senior year, the war in
Vietnam began to loom on our horizon, but
if anyone thought about China it was as a
closed, radical, communist regime under
Mao Tsetung."
Somewhat sheepishly, Martha
Thompson '66, a classmate, recalls, "Mary-
tried so hard to have us just one night a
week sit in Letitia Pate [dining hall] at a
table and discuss international events.
She had no takers."
In fact, says Thompson, "We really did
not get too far beyond the confines of the
college physically or in any other way. I
knew one way into Atlanta, one way to
_10
AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE FALL 1995
Lenox Square. Mary kept trying, and some
of us took courses at Emory. But for the
most part, we were in our own small world."
That Bullock was processing current
events and seeking her own course of
response was evident in 1965 during
a bus ride to Montreat, N.C., to visit rela-
tives. She picked up a Time magazine and
read about an upcoming civil rights march
in Alabama. "It just seemed like something
we should be involved in," she says.
Returning to campus, she persuaded
several other Scott students to join her.
"We signed out to go on a picnic," she
recalls. "That was when you had to sign
out whenever you left campus. But Dean
Scandrett caught us before we could get
away, and she knew something was up."
Dean of Students Carrie Scandrett told
the students that if they wanted to partici-
pate in the march, they must have parental
permission. That eliminated a good number
of students. But Mary Brown slipped
through that net: "I didn't have time to get
a request to my parents and hear back from
them," she says. "I just went."
Before they left, Professor Mary Boney
gave them her support and one piece of
advice. "Look like real women," she said.
"So," says Bullock, "we put on dresses and
makeup and drove to Birmingham for the
final stage of the now-famous Selma march.
"We must have looked so out of place
the marchers ended up putting us in the
middle of the group; we were so clearly dif-
ferent. I guess they wanted to protect us
from the observers lining the streets. I'll
never forget the stone-faced people we saw."
The Agnes Scott students left before the
end of the march and drove with many
mixed emotions back to Decatur to greet
general disinterest in what had just taken
place. "I don't remember anyone asking
anything about it," says Bullock. "It seemed
to be a non-event."
During her last two years at ASC,
Bullock helped organize a week-long
exchange program with Spelman
College. She served as president of
Christian Association, was a member of
Mortar Board and was named to Phi Beta
Kappa. She decided to attend Stanford
University to study Chinese history and
was awarded the first of her two Woodrow
Wilson fellowships.
"Agnes Scott was fortunate to have
Dr. Kwai Sing Chang in the Bible depart-
ment, and I took his courses in Oriental
religion and Oriental philosophy," she
recalled in her 1989 mortar board address.
"The entire history department under
Dr. Walter Posey, and two members in
particular Penny Campbell and Koenraad
Swart believed in me enough to supervise
independent study and direct reading in
Chinese history.
"I chose graduate study at Stanford partly
because I wanted to go West, and partly
because it had a better climate. But also it
had women under-
graduates, and at that
time Yale and
Harvard did not. I
thought it might be a
better environment
in a lot of ways."
'^'U^l-C^?;
Several Agnes
Scott graduates
were studying
at Stanford at the
same time as
Bullock, living in a
house in Palo Alto. When Martha
Thompson visited them in California, she
met Bullock's future husband, George, also a
Stanford graduate student. "I was the only
one who would go with him to a rally for
Nixon," recalls Thompson.
At Stanford, Mary Brown began inten-
sive study of Chinese history at a time
when scholars had little notion that within
a few years they would be able to study the
country and its culture from the inside. The
door to China, closed since 1 949 when
Bullock's grandfather was among those
Westerners ejected, seemed firmly bolted
shut during the mid-to-late 1960s. "I arrived
at Stanford well-prepared to begin my grad-
uate career just as the Cultural Revolution
and Mao's Red Guards threw China into a
convulsive paroxysm from which many
wondered if she [China] would ever
recover," Bullock recalled in 1989.
In 1968, she earned a master's degree, in
1969, married George Bullock (after making
all the arrangements herself, since her par-
ents were still in Korea) and headed off to
Dallas, Texas, where George was teaching
at Southern Methodist University. But soon
they were moving North to the University
of Alaska "the first place among the hun-
dreds of universities we wrote to that offered
positions to both George and me," she says.
Prior to moving to Asia with
her family, Mary (left) and
a friend play in Japanese
kimonos . "I grew up on my
grandfather's romantic stories
of fleeing the warlords in
China," Mary remembers.
11
A NEW PRESIDENT FOR ASC
For much of her childhood,
Mary Brown was a student in
a student body of siblings,
taught by their mother Mardia
Hopper Brown '43 . Now she
comes to direct the instruction
of more than 600 students at
Agnes Scott College. The
College "has potential and
prospects" that are different
from Mary's student days,
says ASC interim president
Sally Mahoney. "It looks
outward at a much broader
world, and Mary looks
outward at a much
broader world."
n
AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE FALL 1995
After a year in Alaska, George's work
drew them to Washington, D.C. As the
great, closed doors of China began to crack
open, Bullock finished her doctorate and
began work at the Committee on Scholarly
Communication with the People's Republic
of China the "China Committee." Housed
and sponsored by the National Academy of
Sciences, the China Committee spearhead-
ed the revival of decades-dormant academic
relarions with China, establishing training
and research programs for American gradu-
ate students and faculty in China as well as
for Chinese students in the United States.
First as a staff member, then for 1 1 years as
director, Mary Bullock says that she was "in
the right place at the right time." Her disser-
tation and later book on American medi-
cine in China provided the background for
her work in scientific exchanges.
During those years, Bullock honed her
skill as a bridge builder: between
nations, between institutions and,
perhaps most difficult, between her very pub-
lic life and her family life. She and George
and two children, Graham and Ashley,
moved from young-couple digs on Capitol
Hill to a house in northwest Washington,
where George immediately began to organize
a neighborhood baseball team so his children
would learn the true American sport.
Meanwhile, his wife was telephoning
Beijing in the morning and cheering at the
ballpark in the evening and giving each
responsibility the attention it deserved.
"It's kind of amazing to me that Mary has
traveled so far and wide, she goes to Asia,
she makes speeches and does research, yet
on Friday night at 6 o'clock she's at the kids'
Little League games," notes classmate
Thompson. "She is able to have a foot in a
very ordinary life and in an exotic, scholarly
other kind of life too."
Thompson tells of going to a neighbor-
hood bookstore one evening and hearing
that a famed China scholar from Yale was
expected momentarily to discuss his new
book and the current situation in Asia. She
phoned the Bullocks' house, knowing that
Mary would be interested in what the man
had to say, and found that Mary and
Graham were already on their way. "Graham
and I sat on the front row, and Mary sat way
in the back," recalls Thompson. "And
throughout the evening, the speaker deferred
to Mary. In his eyes, she was the expert."
Bullock embarked on a new challenge in
1988 when she accepted the position as
director of the Asia program at the
Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars. The center was established by an
act of Congress in 1968 as the nation's
memorial to President Wilson one of
only two university presidents (along with
Dwight Eisenhower) to serve as president of
the United States. "Congress decided to
make it a living memorial rather than a
statue," notes Center Director Charles
Blitzer. "We've already got a lot of statues."
Through an international competition,
the nonprofit research institution selects
fellows each year to study under the aegis of
one of the center's programs: Asia, Europe,
Russia, Latin America or the United States.
About his former Asia program director,
Blitzer says, "When 1 had to say a few words
at her going-away party, I decided to risk
being sexist and said she was motherly. She
would do things like take her Chinese
fellows out to dinner . . . things that none
of her colleagues think of very often."
Bullock continued to nurture scholars; do
research, publish a book and several essays
and articles; and shepherd her own children
into adolescence. Then she received a call
from the presidential search committee for
Agnes Scott College.
"I always wanted to be a college presi-
dent," Bullock says. "I think I must have
inherited that interest from my dad. He has
been an institution-builder, and I guess I
have some of the same qualities. To take an
institution, and the people that make up the
institution, and help them to fulfill their
potential, is an incredibly exciting chal-
lenge. And to be doing this at my own alma
mater is a great honor."
So Bullock brought her family George,
a government relations professional who
works with investor-owned utilities;
Graham, a sophomore at Princeton, and
Ashley, a student at The Paideia School
to the president's house, which has not had
teenagers in residence for almost 30 years
(and has undergone extensive renovation
to make it family-friendly, dog-friendly
and capable of housing the Bullocks'
5,000 books).
Bullock brings her wide perspective to
the Decatur campus. "When she looks
at the institution, she talks about
internationalization," says Dean of the
College Sarah Blanshei, "not about the
international relations program that the
ASIA READING LIST
Here are some of President
Bullock's favorite recently-
read books on Asia. Almost
all are available in paperback.
Jung Chang, Wild Swans:
Three Daughters of China.
(New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1991)
Shusako Endo, The Samurai.
(Viking, 1978)
Kenneth Lieberthal,
Governing China: From
Revolution through Reform.
(Norton, 1995)
The Mahabharata, retold
by R. K. Narayan
(Vision, 1987)
Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy.
(HarperCollins, 1993) "
Nancy Tucker, Taiwan, Hong
Kong, and the United States.
(Macmillan, 1994)
13_
A NEW PRESIDENT FOR ASC
College has in place we're not talking
about specific curriculum here. What Mary
Bullock has because of her particular
international experiences is the ability to
appreciate the importance of international-
ization now and for the next decade."
Notes Interim President Mahoney,
"I think Mary will help the College move
from the two or three percent international
students back to the eight or nine percent
that Agnes Scott had at one time."
Bullock is not the first in her family to
guide Agnes Scott through the global maze;
her brother George is former director of the
Global Awareness program, which was
The First Family surround
restaurateur Rai Shao outside
a favorite eating spot in
Washington, D.C. George,
(left) a native of California
who met Mary while both
were students at Stanford,
works as a consultant. Ashley
is a student at The Paideia
School. Graham is a
sophomore at Princeton.
designed to provide all students with the
opportunity for study abroad sometime dur-
ing their four years here. If the program
were fully funded, all students would be able
to participate. Currently, the College has
two global destinations a year, with an aver-
age of 25 students participating. "Over 50
percent of our students have had some kind
of international experience before they
leave," reports Dean Blanshei. "Just through
Global Awareness, almost 25 percent of any
graduating class has gone abroad. That's a
phenomenal statistic."
Bullock believes an international per-
spective is "absolutely essential to anyone
graduating from Agnes Scott or any other
college today. All the cliches about the
global village, the shrinking world, are true.
One of the major emphases of higher educa-
tion today is for each institution to find its
way to deliver that perspective."
To define its major emphases, the
College spent much of the past year in an
academic review. The result is "an enor-
mously powerful document," believes
Mahoney. It involves a strategic agenda and
statement of values: a series of commitments
to women, to the liberal arts, to teaching
and to learning that focuses on collaborative
learning between faculty and students, to
diversity, and to community life based on
honor and integrity. It addresses the chal-
lenge of curriculum in a small school, which
has to be selective about what it does, and
emphasizes connections connected learn-
ing through curriculum, pedagogy and a
tighter academic organization.
"It's a good foundation document on
which Mary can build and provide leader-
ship in areas of her own interest," says
Mahoney. "She will bring insights, contacts
and opportunities. The faculty can chew
on the review and continue the dialogue
with her."
The immediate challenge facing the
College and Bullock as its new
chief executive is an anemic
enrollment. While Agnes Scott is by no
means the only prestigious institution facing
that dilemma "We're in a bad place in
good company," says Mahoney its small
size may make the task harder. With com-
pletion of the academic review and corre-
sponding administrative review and with a
student life review in the works the
College has taken steps to figure out how to
make its size an asset, not a liability.
Another challenge faces Bullock her
status as the College's first alumna president.
"The people who remember Mary Brown
from their school days," says Mahoney, "will
inevitably find a different, deeper person . . .
a woman whose person and profession have
evolved in the 30 years since she was a
student here.
"She is coming to an institution that she
knows has changed over the years. It has
potential and prospects that it may not have
had when she was here, in part because
Atlanta is a different kind of place, more
cosmopolitan than it was in 1966. It looks
outward at a much broader world, and Man-
looks outward at a much broader world."
Mary Brown Bullock, that little girl who
set her sights toward the East more than 40
years ago, has come a long way.
Tish Young McCutchen '73
is a freelance writer in Lufkin , Texas
14
AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE FALL 1995
THE FIRST FAMILY
By Audrey Arthur
Among George Bullock's most trea-
sured mementos are his auto-
graphed baseballs from his college-
playing days. His anecdotes of starting the
Capital City Little League while living in
Washington with wife Mary, son Graham
and daughter Ashley also reveal a deep
commitment to baseball and to family.
Ashley caught the baseball fever early
and now plays varsity softball at The Paideia
School. "My dad taught me how to play
when I was six or seven," Ashley says.
"When he attends my games, it's encourag-
ing; it makes me work harder he knows
whether I do my best."
Both parents have tried to arrange work
and travel schedules to include their
children's ballgames and they have shared
responsibilities for raising their children.
"George has always been the one who
has taken the children to the doctor and
dentist. He has cooked as much as I have.
He pitches in and does everything. He does
not see gender roles within the family,"
says ASC President Mary Bullock '66.
Bullock met Mary while the two were
graduate students at Stanford University.
After his graduation, Bullock taught at
Southern Methodist University (SMU) in
Dallas while Mary finished her graduate
work at Stanford. SMU had a strong policy
against nepotism, so after the couple mar-
ried, they searched for a university where
they could both teach. They accepted
positions at the University of Alaska, where
Bullock taught American history and Mary
taught Asian history.
While in Alaska, Bullock appeared on
television and radio and wrote for newspa-
pers. His work gained the attention of
Alaska's U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, who
asked Bullock "out of the blue" to run his
senate office in Washington, D.C.
"Given my interest in American
government, I decided what better place
to be than Washington."
In the early 70s, Bullock served as a
senior policy adviser on performance
contracting, government reorganization
and revenue sharing in President Richard
Nixon's administration. "When Nixon went
out, I felt it was time for me to go back to
teaching, but instead, I got a job running
the D.C. office of Washington State
Gov. Daniel Evans."
Evans did not seek a fourth term in 1976,
so in 1977 Bullock was hired by Michigan
Gov. William Milliken to set up a procure-
ment program to assist Michigan-based
companies to vie competitively for federal
government contracts. In 1980, he began
directing the D.C. office of Wisconsin,
under Gov. Lee Sherman Dreyfus.
That experience later translated well into
consulting for businesses seeking representa-
tion in Washington, D.C. "Some companies
were interested in lobbying on legislation to
make sure they were protected in Congress
on tax-related matters or legislation that
vitally affected their doing business. Others
were interested in selling to the govern-
ment. I was either influencing the course
of legislation or selling products to the
government," Bullock explains.
Currently, Bullock works for the
Washington-based Edison Electric Institute,
a trade association for 180 investor-owned
electric utility operating companies in the
United States, including Georgia Power.
"Investor-owned utilities have an interest in
the activities of state government. I assist
these companies in their dealings with state
legislators who make laws that set parame-
ters for the public service commissions for
each state that impact the electric utilities."
Bullock is a native San Franciscan, but
he essentially grew up in Portland, Ore.
His father, who died in 1971, was in the
construction business and his mother was a
homemaker. He has a brother who lives in
Japan; his sister and mother remain in the
San Francisco Bay area.
Out of Mary's first six weeks at Agnes
Scott, Bullock was at home for only two.
However, he plans to travel less during this
period of adjustment, to oversee the final
phase of the renovation of the President's
home and to organize his office and library.
Modest and humorous is the way Ashley
characterizes the first husband of an Agnes
Scott president. Mary agrees: "George is
outgoing, jovial, opinionated, very family-
oriented and supportive of my career.
We see this as a job we will do together."
From the early
days of their
marriage, the
Bullocks have
supported each
other's career
development.
George's willing-
ness to move to
Atlanta is just the
latest in a series of
moves that have
brought out the
strengths of both.
15_
A NEW PRESIDENT FOR ASC
HUSH AND
EAT YOUR
ROOTENANNY
By Jane A. Zanca
%&&&&*
If food
geneticists
mate cucumbers
and sugar cane,
will the result be
sweet pickles?
hat do you
get if you cross
soybeans and apples
A cash crop that
grows on trees?
Apparently that's just
what the food industry
hopes will be the out-
come of using genetic
technology to develop
the perfect food.
So what is the perfect food?
It will have its own, built-in
defenses against infestation and
disease. It will grow abundantly,
year-round, in poor soil,
through dry spells and floods. It
will look luscious and stay fresh,
until you get it home and put it
on the windowsill, where it will
go directly from rock-hard to rot
(this is called the keep-them-
coming-back feature and is
being tested in markets across
the country).
The bottom line is: the
perfect food will increase
profits down on the old
corporate farm.
While we know that our
foods are, to some degree,
contaminated with
pesticides and other
unsavory things, the thought
of orchards a-dangle with
genetic mutations stops us in
our tracks. If it's true that
Illustration by Mac Evans
&
C
you
are what you eat,"
what will we be in 2025?
If food geneticists mate cucumbers
and sugar cane, will the result be sweet
pickles? If they jumble the genes of
rutabagas and bananas, will the result be a
rootenanny? And even though it's easier
to peel, will the kids still refuse to eat it?
Not long ago, the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration, the agency
charged with overseeing the safety of
foods, drugs, biologicals and medical
devices, said in Science that we're
fretting over nothing. Americans
have been eating such products for
years, says the FDA; tor example, the
kiwi was once a small Asian berry,
until plant breeders bloated it to an
egg-sized, nutritious fruit.
That may be so, but how much
harm can a kiwi do, if you take it off
the cheesecake before you eat it?
Besides, the difference between what
was done to the kiwi and what exper-
imenters would like to do in future
transformations is the approach:
Instead of breeding selectively or
hybridizing, it is now possible to play
with genetic constituents of the plant.
And who's going to monitor such
experiments? FQA
WW
4
going
^ to be
_16
AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE FALL 1995
<v
watching. Well, most of the time. For the
same reason that a shopper wouldn't try on
six shirts that differed only in color, FDA
feels it "would waste its resources and would
not advance public health" if it formally
reviewed all new plant varieties. The
agency will concentrate on changes in pro-
tein, carbohydrate, fat and oil components.
Changes that affect nutrition, such as a
new variety of tomato that lacks vitamin C,
would be dealt with by "appropriate label-
ing." But why would anyone purchase a
tomato if it has no nutritional value?
This image problem will be left to the
marketing experts, already aglow with the
concept of cucamonga, a leafy-bumpy-
crunchy-silky vegetable produced by mixing
cucumber, celery, lettuce and avocado genes
(using the fine blade in the food processor,
presumably) and splicing them with the
corn genes that encode for stalks. Rumors
are that several famous franchisers are ready
to chuck the burger business for exclusive
rights to this fashionable Cob Salad.
Maybe the government agencies involved
in food and nutrition should sit down and
talk to each other about this. Certainly, the
National Cancer Institute, which not long
ago announced its "Five-A-Day for Better
Health Program," would have appreciated a
forewarning from FDA about the vitamin-C-
less tomato of the future.
Not that anyone pays attention to any of
these agencies. By the NCI's own account-
ing, 34 percent of American adults think
that one serving of vegetables or fruit per
day is sufficient for good health. Only
8 percent think that "five or more" would
ensure good health, and half of those later
rescinded their responses when they realized
the questions were about diet, not fry-it.
Ironically, if our worst suspicions about
genetically altered foods come true, the
one-fruit-a-day group may fare best. Those
smug, vegan guerrillas from the Diet for a
Small Planet era may have a little trouble
fitting six mutated toes into those clunky
wooden clogs they persist in wearing.
Could genetically altered foods make you
sick? FDA assures us that toxic or potentially
toxic substances in genetically altered foods
would be given "closer inquiry." Besides, says
FDA, those corporate food developers will
t be doing lots of _^^S. "Ov Gp^Q r*%
[testing to SA : - ifVJ ^fc%jggg;
assure the safety of their products. You know.
Sort of like the toymakers do.
One promising aspect of the genetic
approach to the labors of our fruit is that lots
of new jobs will open up, especially as
burnout rises among nutritionists who have
enough trouble explaining the difference
between high-density and low-density
lipoproteins. The ranks of nomenclaturists
persons who come up with appealing names
for new foods will surely swell.
Will bananas plus onions equal bunions,
a tear-free, easy-to-peel product for pungent
splits and sweet liverwurst sandwiches? Or is
that name already taken?
Nevertheless, in a country that is still
reeling from the trauma of learning that
Classic Coke isn't really the real thing (the
company replaced sugar with corn syrup
years ago), the acceptability of mutant food
seems highly dubious. I hope the FDA
remembers what happened to New Coke.
Nutrition-minded Americans, unite.
Stick together, keeping food as American as
apple pie real apple pie, with apples that
smell sweet and wormy, with peeling that
responds to mistreatment by bruising, crunch
that's wet and giving, flesh that turns brown
when exposed, and slices that won't fit to-
gether into photogenic, geometric patterns.
People laughed when Woody Allen
proposed that, in the future, science would
determine that hot fudge sundaes are good
for our health.
Maybe we should stop laughing and look
at the facts.
We know that sugar causes cavities and
weight gain, but that's about it. If sugar
weren't safe, would it be in cat food? Of
course not.
We also know that fat causes . . . well, fat.
Ergo, sugar and fat could well be the most
honest, unassailable foods on the planet. So,
if the new American alternatives are amber-
grain-that-only-waves-when-you-honk and
genetically fruited plains and fancies, it's
not at all preposterous that Krispy Kreme
donuts long recognized as the secret
underlying the academic superiority of
Agnes Scotties may be the soybean of the
future. Are you listening, FDA?
Jane Zanca '83 is co-author of The Cancer
Recovery Eating Plan
If they jumble
the genes of
rutabagas and
bananas, will
the result be a
rootenanny?
BARING THE BREAST-
An alumna writer
and a New York
artist reveal
through potent
analysis and
arresting self-
portraits the
scars of this
malignancy.
A WRITER'S
JOURNEY
By Carol Willey '80
Photographs by Laura Sikes
Sometime during my years at
Agnes Scott, perhaps when I was
22, 20 or younger, a mysterious
transformation began in my right
breast. For a complex series of
reasons that medical science does not
understand, healthy cells mutated into can-
cer cells and formed a minuscule region of
disease. By the time I was 28, a lump, hard
as bone, had emerged. When I was diag-
nosed with breast cancer at 29, the tumor
was revealed to be a genetically complex
little world unto itself, established
and aggressive. It had reached into a
microscopic portion of one of the lymph
nodes near my breast and was poised to
spread through my body.
Eight years later, after surgery and
chemotherapy, I have survived. I will not
be one of over 46,000 American women
expected to die of breast cancer this year 1
but the emotional wounds left by breast
cancer will shadow my life.
Breast cancer is a curious phenomenon.
In a culture of commercialized medicine, it
has its own publicists. Women are taught to
fear it and to fight their fears with trips to
luxuriously appointed "breast centers" that
have sprung up in hospitals, marketed now
as "medical centers." In October, Breast
Cancer Awareness Month, we read a fusil-
lade of stories about the disease and profiles
of the heroic women who have survived
and the heroic women who have died.
These martyrs will be canonized as the can-
cer, a silent disorder of the cells, is clothed
in loud sentimentality. We are told that
breast cancer is evil and that the fight is
good. Perhaps, for some, these simplistic
messages make it easier to manage.
Sentimentality is polite and practical in
comparison to the authentic emotions
fear, grief, rage and despair.
Our cultural understanding seems caught
in the second century, when medicine was
more superstition than science. It was then
that the Roman physician Galen postulated
the four-humor theory of disease and gave
cancer its name, Latin for crab. Aside
from occasionally cutting the crustacea-
resembling tumors, there was not much
Galen could do for his doomed patients.
He theorized that cancer resulted from an
imbalance of black bile, the humor of
melancholia, and observed that
"melancholy women" were more likely to
develop breast cancer. After a near fatal
bout with breast cancer almost 20 years ago,
writer Susan Sontag described cancer's still
pervasive myths and their historical roots
in Illness as Metaphor. For the 20th century
and a society uncomfortable with moral
concepts, Sontag explains, cancer is a
compelling surrogate for evil. "And
conventions of treating cancer as no mere
disease but a demonic enemy make cancer
not just a lethal disease but a shameful one."
Those of us diagnosed with breast cancer are
both idealized and blamed. We are urged by
best-selling authors like Dr. Bernie Siegel to
be "exceptional." To "survive" we need that
all important "positive attitude."
Medical science has been cast as the
righteous warrior since 1971, when Congress
passed the Conquest of Cancer Act. Yet,
since my diagnosis, medical practice has
become more blatantly absorbed into what
Dr. Arnold S. Relman, the former editor in
chief of The New Englarul Journal of Medicine
and a professor emeritus ot the Harvard
J8
AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE FALL 1995
ANCER MYTHS
AN ARTIST'S
IMAGES
t's around noon.
Matuschlca offers to
share the noodle and
vegetable dish she's
steamed no fat in a
small iron skillet. It looks
pure and simple yet exotic.
The meal she moves to her
sleek, stainless steel-topped
dining table which she says
is worth the price of a car
and eats, beautifully, right
from the pan with chop-
sticks. As she talks she
quickly peels fresh green
husks from two ears of
between her fingers with
brown umiboshi paste
(salted plum butter). After
10 minutes here it seems
that in her hands anything
Behind her, rows of
framed photographs and
books, perfectly arranged,
climb up the wall to the
10-foot ceiling. Hardwood
floors lead to her living
space that's also full of her
art: hand-crafted furniture,
continued on page 20
trompe 1' oeil painting on the woodwork
and walls. Her artist's studio/home of
21 years is gorgeous, full of natural
elements, hold and creative as can be.
My eye returns to the famous photo-
graph that brought me here, discreetly
placed on the bottom left corner of the
grouping, a 16 x 20 color print,
its sheer beauty dominates the wall. First
appearing on the cover of The New York
Times Magazine in 1993 to illustrate a story
oil breast cancer, the color photograph has
been published internationally, received
numerous awards, a Pulitzer nomination
and serves as an icon for breast cancer
awareness. continued on page 24
Medical School, describes as "the medical
industrial complex," a wandering maze of
financial interests supporting drug compa-
nies, the health insurance industry, medical
equipment manufacturers, hospitals and a
growing cadre of pencil pushers, marketers
and administrators.
An estimated 24 percent of all medical
costs now go to cover administrative ser-
vices associated with private health insur-
ance and an annual $2 billion is spent on
advertising and marketing for hospital ser-
vices, according to Dr. David Himmelstein,
an associate professor of medicine at
Harvard Medical School. Marketing, tradi-
tionally an ethically questionable practice
in medicine, has become widespread within
the last 10 to 15 years. The $2 billion in
hospital costs does not account for the mar-
keting of HMOs, pharmaceutical products
or physicians' services, Himmelstein says,
adding that a comprehensive figure for
marketing costs in American medicine
would be much higher. In 1995, federal
breast cancer research funding will total
less than one fourth of hospital marketing
costs at $497.7 million, while $6.6 billion
will be spent on increasingly expensive
breast cancer treatment and care, according
to the National Institutes of Health.
For those of us who live with the
disease, breast cancer encompasses
difficult ambiguities of life and of death,
of dignity and stigma, and of medical care
and medical economics. It punctures our
carefully nurtured 20th century delusion of
immortality, assaults feminine identity and
requires entrance into the unnatural world
of medical technology. At diagnosis my
survival became dependent on medical
care. This was particularly troubling for me
because in 1987 I was employed in a job I
planned to leave. Breast cancer locked me
in for health insurance benefits. At 29,
with what should have been bright
prospects ahead, this felt like being forced
into a grave. My experience is not unique.
Health insurance status is a constant source
of stress for cancer patients and lack of
insurance has been implicated as a factor in
unfavorable breast cancer outcomes. In a
Harvard Medical School study, published in
a 1993 issue of The New England ) ourrial of
Medicine, researchers found that women
who did not have private health insurance
were significantly more vulnerable to breast
cancer. The uninsured had a 49 percent
higher risk ot death.
FOR THE PAST FIVE YEARS,
because health insurance discrimina-
tion for pre-existing conditions is
legal in Georgia and I cannot afford a
limited plan that would be of any use, I have
been uninsured. In 1993, the hardships and
risks to my health fostered by my insurance
status became dramatically apparent.
After more than two years of feeling
unhealthy and consulting my doctors about
recurring throat pain, a thyroid tumor was
discovered during a regular breast cancer
follow-up examination. The tumor had
been denting my trachea, obstructing my
breathing so that I sometimes feared that
the cells from my breast cancer might have
spread to my lungs. Hypothyroidism (low
thyroid) had contributed to my weariness
and depression. Although the tumor was a
suspected cancer, the surgical oncologist I
had regarded as the orchestrator of my
breast cancer treatment and follow-up, hesi-
tated to schedule surgery with me because
I was uninsured. Throughout my six-year
relationship with him, he had been paid
handsomely and on time. At his insistence,
I called Medicaid and a state program but
I was not eligible for help. After a crisis of
fear, greatly enhanced by the surgeon's
reluctance to help me, I had surgery. The
tumor was benign. I was not able to forget,
however, the surgeon's hesitation over my
insurance status.
I learned that a possible relationship
between thyroid disease and breast cancer
has been explored in the medical literature
for over 30 years. It also became apparent
that every woman I knew, diagnosed with
breast cancer before the age of 35, all had
thyroid problems. When I confronted the
surgeon with my concerns, both that the
hypothyroidism might be related to my
breast cancer and my horror that it had
gone undiagnosed for years, he patronized
me. I began to feel that he was not qualified
to provide follow-up services and cancer
screening adequate to my needs. An ardu-
ous search has led me to what I hope is reli-
able medical care but my trust in profes-
sional medicine is broken.
My experience is typical of women seek-
ing help in a medical world that, in my
view, does not clearly understand or recog-
nize women's health problems. Thyroid dis-
ease is overwhelmingly found in women.
And, as with breast cancer, medical science
has only a limited understanding of it. I
cannot entirely blame my physicians:
although researchers have looked for a rela-
tionship between thyroid disease and breast
cancer, none has been established. Perhaps
for women, the answer for dilemmas like
mine may be found in a new movement for
a women's specialty in medicine.
"Traditionally in medicine, women's
health has been thought of as reproductive
health, but reproduction is only one com-
ponent. You find that many specialists are
oblivious or unknowledgeable where larger
body function is concerned. Physicians just
don't have the training or expertise to
diagnose and address women's problems
correctly. Often, women have to do a lot of
their own problem solving and a lot of
footwork to find teams of specialists who
can address simple issues. It is not fair:
women should not have to bear this bur-
den; many find that they just can not do
it," says Dr. Karen Johnson, a psychiatrist
with a background in family medicine, who
is part of a nationwide effort among physi-
cians of various specialties to structure a
medical specialty that focuses on women's
care. Johnson, affiliated with the University
of California at San Francisco Medical
School and a clinical scholar at the
Institute for Research in Women's Health
at Stanford University, observes that as is
often the case in women's illness, breast
cancer is not recognized as a disease that
affects the whole woman.
IN THE YEARS SINCE MY
DIAGNOSIS, as the American
healthcare crisis had its day in the first
years of the Clinton administration and
faded into political obscurity again, breast
cancer has remained a recalcitrant mystery,
difficult to treat because it is not simply a
disease of the breast. Before a palpable
tumor forms, cells have been involved in
the process of malignancy for up to 10
years. By diagnosis, the cancer is usually
mature enough to spread or metastasize.
Relapse may occur as long as 25 to 30 years
after the tumor is removed. Ninety-four
percent of women will survive the first five
years after diagnosis, but only 64 percent
will survive 10 years and, by 15 years,
survival falls to 56 percent, according to
the American Cancer Society.
Cancer is a subtle disease of the cells.
Only within the past 30 years, as the
sciences of molecular biology and genetics
have advanced, has the possibility of a real
Breast cancer
embraces onerous
ambiguities of life
and deatb, of
dignity and stigma.
It assaults our
feminine identity.
21
RARING Till I'.KI \ST-< \N< KR MYTHS
After long,
solitary walks by
the ocean, and
time spent in
prayer, I realized
that it was most
important for me
to do everything
I could to save
my life.
GARY MEEK PHOTO
answer emerged. Many discoveries of the
past five years have been especially
promising. After years of work with families
afflicted by a rare familial breast cancer,
researchers in 1994 identified BRCA1, an
inherited genetic defect that predisposes
women to breast and ovarian cancer.
BRCA1, on chromosome 17, and BRCA2,
mapped at chromosome 1 3 and expected to
be identified soon, are discoveries that
promise to help uncover breast cancer's
means of forming at the molecular level.
Whether or not it is hereditary some cases
are, most are not breast cancer is a disease
that arises from miscues in genetic coding
that transform healthy cells into malignant
In a moment of reflection, Carol Willey '80,
diagnosed with breast cancer at age 29, says
the emotional wounds will always shadow her.
cells. Genetic therapies, arising from dis-
coveries such as BRCA1, BRCA2 and
nm23, a gene believed to play an important
natural role in the suppression of breast
cancer metastasis, probably hold the
ultimate promise for effective treatment.
Eventually, genetic tests may reveal
breast cancer in women before it has
advanced to the stage that it can be found
on a mammogram. A test for genetic sus-
ceptibility, based on the BRCA1 research,
has already been used within afflicted fami-
lies. And, sophisticated gene therapy may
repair genetic codes scrambled into cancer
before they manifest as disease. According
to Dr. Patricia Steeg, the molecular biolo-
gist who discovered the nm23 gene, genetic
therapies are in sight, but far away. In her
work at the National Cancer Institute labo-
ratories in Bethesda, Md., she is conducting
experiments in mice, trying to find a way to
harness nm23 to suppress breast cancer
metastasis. In research so far, tumors with
less nm23 are more advanced; nm23 appar-
ently impedes the last step in tumor maturi-
ty and ability to colonize. The discovery
and the work are exciting and promising,
says Steeg, but actual applications for
women with breast cancer will require more
time and work than is comfortable to con-
sider. Steeg will not venture a guess as to
when genetic therapy for breast cancer with
nm.23 may become reality.
In the meantime, adjuvant (or assisting)
chemotherapy and hormonal therapy have
shown the most promise for prolonging
breast cancer remission. The first
chemotherapy was developed nearly
50 years ago when research chemists recog-
nized that mustard gas, used as a weapon in
World War I, poisoned cells. Drugs that
were toxic to tumors were developed and
used successfully in the treatment of a
number of cancers. Adjuvant chemotherapy
for breast cancer was conceptualized
35 years ago, when it was confirmed that
advanced breast cancer, though eventually
lethal, did respond to chemotherapy drugs.
It was thought that using the drugs before
metastasis occurred might prevent spread
of the disease. For some tumors, where hor-
monal influences on tumor growth are
found to be present, hormonal medications
like tamoxifen are used to prevent
recurrence. In 1992, an extensive survey of
women treated before 1985, confirmed that
those who undergo adjuvant chemotherapy,
therapy with hormonal medications, or
_22
AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE FALL 1995
both have significantly longer survival.
News of the 1992 study was an
enormous relief to me because my own
experience with chemotherapy was a source
of tremendous personal conflict. Before
diagnosis, I had been in excellent health.
Afterward, I understood that I had a
deadly illness but its treatment was the
source of all my pain and discomfort.
Chemotherapy was only of theoretical ben-
efit; it caused tangible fatigue and nausea
and possible long-term effects. The loss of
my hair was devastating. My life was threat-
ened by cancer, and I was trapped in a
meaningless job that, in combination with
the chemotherapy, took all of my energy
leaving little psychic space for emotional
healing. It took a lot of faith to undergo the
wrenching six months of treatment. I often
thought of the animal's basic response to
poisoning: to crawl off somewhere to die.
Even worse, chemotherapy had been
presented in a manner that threatened my
femininity in a more primal way than
mastectomy. After deciding on my surgery
over a sleepless 24 hours in June of 1987, I
underwent a series of two operations to
remove and restore my breast. Diagnosed
on Wednesday, my decisions were final
Thursday, and I was admitted for surgery
Sunday night. In the hospital a few days
later, reeling from the surgical assaults, I
was confronted with a pathology report
revealing that the tumor was aggressive
and likely to recur.
No one had bothered to tell me that
there would be a pathology report to
consider. And soon after my surgeon
recommended chemotherapy, a medical
oncologist I had never met came into
my room to tell me about clinical trials,
a good manner of obtaining care in which
participants are followed over the course of
many years to evaluate treatment protocols.
I WAS ALONE, without the support
of a family member or friend, as she
hurriedly presented information.
In the material she provided, the effect of
chemotherapy on ovarian function was
mentioned. I asked her about it. She
told me that chemotherapy caused
menopause that it would likely cause
menopause in me. Grief-stricken by the
sacrifice of my breast, I couldn't imagine
risking such a horrible consequence, even
to save my life. I refused to consider
chemotherapy for the next week and,
insisting on a vacation from the breast can-
cer ordeal, went to the beach.
After long, solitary walks by the ocean,
and time spent in prayer, I realized that it
was most important for me to do everything
I could to save my life. In consultations
with two other medical oncologists the
next week, I learned that the chemotherapy
that they recommended did not cause
menopause in women my age. But the
first medical oncologist had planted a
destructive image at a time when I was
vulnerable and traumatized. Her careless
remarks continue to haunt me.
As I went through the ordeal of thyroid
surgery in 1993, Hillary Clinton was
organizing a national bid for healthcare
reform that would have provided universal
accessibility. I was hopeful that some sort of
reform would take place and that I would
no longer be a medical untouchable. When
the initiative failed, with insurance compa-
nies maintaining their hold on American
medicine, I was amazed. Although there is
a multi-million dollar publicity push for
breast cancer early detection every October,
the problems of accessibility to healthcare
for women with breast cancer are rarely
addressed. A lot has been done to make
mammograms more accessible but
treatment and quality of life issues for
women after diagnosis are not significantly
considered. All of the multitudes of articles
in the women's magazines are aimed at
women who have never had breast cancer,
as if those of us who have had it are
beyond the pale.
Since 1993, accessibility problems have
grown more widespread. In 1992-93, an
estimated 37 million Americans were
uninsured. That figure now stands at
around 40 million, and 6 million have been
added to the Medicaid rolls, according to
Himmelstein of Harvard Medical School.
For that reason, the figures don't complete-
ly illustrate the magnitude of accessibility
problems, he says. "Insurance companies
are shutting more people out with pre-
existing clauses and higher prices and
private insurance is becoming harder and
harder to come by. Businesses are offering
insurance coverage less and less frequently
to their employees," he says.
Ultimately, people who are ill are
dependent on the professional expertise of
physicians, according to Relman of
Harvard Medical School. He maintains
MATUSCHKA IORSO
It took a lot of
faith to undergo
the wrenching
six months of
treatment. I often
thought of the
animal's basic
response to
poisoning: to
crawl off some-
where to die.
23_
BARING THE BREAST-CANCER MYTHS
Believing artists are messengers,
Matuschka has a commitment to other
women who face mastectomy. Most of
the photographs she has seen dealing
with the issue have always hid the
damaged breast or covered or chopped
off the model's head.
With her pho-
tographs, she wanted
to be honest, to
return dignity to this
Matuschka at 13
lost her own mother
to breast cancer. I
believe her mother
would be proud of
daughter Joanne, a
young New York
artist who in face of
the health risks
decided against
surgery after her
mastectomy at
age 37.
Her body had been the focus of her
work and soon after her mastectomy in
In that acclaimed self-portrait,
"Beauty Out of Damage," she wears a
simply elegant dress, one side cut away
to reveal her mastectomy scar. The idea
for the dress occurred when her doctor
recommended reconstructive surgery.
"Ah," she told him, "I was thinking of
going topless on that side."
Through personal courage, determi-
nation and her art Matuschka has
shed her clear light on breast cancer
and created a lasting image for women.
Matuschka has given breast cancer
a face. A brave and dignified face. A
beautiful face.
Written by Laura Sikes , a photographer
that physicians, from the dawn of history,
have viewed their responsibility to patients
as more important than their own financial
interests, but in an environment in which
medicine has become driven by the market
values of the American medical industrial
complex, medical practice has taken on
much of the mien of commerce. Until very
recently, the commercial advertising and
marketing of medical practice that is so
common today, was considered unethical.
Physicians, says Relman, have also become
involved in medical enttepreneurialism,
imperiling professional objectivity and
causing unnecessary expense and unfortu-
nate outcomes for patients. Relman feels
that medical care should be delivered on a
not-for-profit basis and that physicians
should not be in private practice, but
salaried. He is an advocate of not-for-profit
HMOs, such as those sponsored by the
Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and Florida.
PHYSICIANS are not necessarily
faring well either. A notable
American College of Physicians
research poll, published in a 1991 issue of
the Annals of Internal Medicine, found that
physicians are frusttated with the "loss of
autonomy and control over clinical deci-
sion making" and the "increase in adminis-
trative butdens" necessitated by the great
variety of insurance and other health
financing provisions that patients bring to
the doctor-patient relationship. Forty
percent of those surveyed were so frustrated
and concerned about the future of their
profession they indicated that they
discouraged students from pursuing careers
in medicine. Only 39 percent said they
would pursue a career in medicine, if they
had the choice to make ovet.
As a child in the 1960s and 1970s, I
sometimes accompanied my father, an
imaginative, enthusiastic young man, to the
places where he practiced medicine. In
many of our conversations, he spoke of the
joy of his "art." The hospitals and offices
where he practiced were modest, of the
unpretentious institutional atchitecture of
the early and mid-20th century. He often
spoke of the earlier location ot the hospital
where I had my mastectomy and recon-
struction in 1987. In the 1960s, it was in
downtown Atlanta. Now that it is located
in the northern suburbs, the hospital has an
austere and corporate teel. Its new, adjoin-
ing building for physician's offices is luxuri-
ous, reminiscent of Phipps Plaza Mall, a
palace of commerce in affluent Buckhead.
From the upper floors is an impressive view
of the old suburban forest of my childhood,
giving way to skyscrapers, pavement and
pretentious cluster housing the spec man-
sions of Sandy Springs. Over the eight years
following my diagnosis and treatment, as I
visited physicians in their shining corporate
suites, medical costs rose 65 percent. As a
young woman saddled with breast cancer's
stain of death, I did not experience
comparable growth of income.
Coming full circle for yet another of
many emergency mammograms this summer,
I returned to the hospital (now a "medical
center"), where I had my first mammogram
in 1987. Still centered in its modest 1960s
architecture, the complex has begun to take
on corporate airs with new, more imposing
buildings and multi-level parking decks.
There, where the introductory question
deals with the dark issue of insurance
coverage, is now a luxurious "breast
center" with vivid interior decoration to
complement colorful paintings, vases,
pottery and wall-hangings. Yet in my view,
patient care should be the work of art.
Of course, I am fortunate to have lived.
And there were mercies in my treatment
and medical care. The plastic surgeon I
worked with is a brilliant, internationally
known innovator of breast reconstruction,
and I continue to be pleased with his work.
He performed the tram-flap, a technique
that harvests abdominal tissues to form a
new breast. Much of the external surface
of my breast was preserved I do not have
a mastectomy scar. The hospital where
my thyroid surgery was performed did
eventually forgive my bill. Of course, I was
very frightened undergoing surgery there,
facing the ambiguities of my insurance sta-
tus along with the unknown of a potentially
malignant thyroid tumor. Within the past
year, I have found physicians and an institu-
tion willing to work with me. For my breast
cancer follow-up care, I now go to an out-
of-state comprehensive cancer center, partly
funded by the National Cancer Institute.
OTHER WOMEN have lost
more than I can imagine. I
know many who are not here to
raise their children, see careers to fruition,
or complete relationships. Early this sum-
mer, I learned of Meredith Winter Mabry's
death in March. After graduating with the
class of 1982, Merry became a prominent
graphic artist, known for her outstanding
work for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. I
remember her well from the late 1970s
when she first came to Agnes Scott and
from our earlier lives as students at The
Lovett School in Atlanta. Dark-haired and
unassuming, vivacious Merry had special
presence and charm. She left two young
children, a husband, family and friends.
Coming back to the Agnes Scott cam-
pus for my 15-year class reunion this spring,
I felt the presence of the girl I once was. I
have not lived happily ever after nor died a
noble early death. I was not able to find a
corporate job with insurance benefits or
that other avenue a husband with insur-
ance benefits. The medical publishing
company I worked with in the early 1990s
was savvy, but no early comer to the trend
of hiring freelancers and contract workers
in order to avoid paying health insurance
benefits. At a freelance corporate editing
assignment last year, I witnessed the break-
down of an important company division
lots of people were abandoned by their
former "corporate daddy" and his health
insurance benefits.
The daughter, granddaughter and
great-granddaughter of physicians, I was
raised to be a Southern lady by my honey-
voiced mother and grandmothers. This
made me particularly ill-prepared to face
today's dishonorable world of medicine.
This year, thanks to breast cancer, I have
found a new and mysterious register in my
own voice. After eight years, I have learned
to rave and scream.
Having been
raised the
daughter,
granddaughter
and great-grand-
daughter of
physicians, I am
ill-prepared to
face today's
dishonorable
world of
medicine.
Writer Carol Willey
tucked in the arm of
her physician father,
L.W. Willey Jr., and
pictured (above)
in the Agnes Scott
yearbook, 1979.
25
BARING THE BREAST-CANCER MYTHS
BREAST-CANCER REFORM
Activists among
Agnes Scott's
alumnae and
students have
joined forces with
others to call
attention to the
ravages of breast
cancer and to
push for funds
for research.
MEDICAL REFORM, a failed
political cause for the Clinton
administration, is neverthe-
less a thriving reality where breast cancer is
concerned. Since the 1970s, a multi-faceted
movement has driven important changes.
Harriet Miller '61 and Return-to-College
sophomore Jane Green, board members of
the Atlanta chapter of the Susan G. Komen
Breast Cancer Foundation, belong to a
strong tradition of positive reform brought
about by women who refuse to accept the
unacceptable.
Journalist Rose Kushner fired the first
shot in 1974 when she rejected the brutal
one-step mastectomy and insisted on hav-
ing a say in her treatment. In the one-step
mastectomy procedure, a woman submits to
surgery without knowing if she will have a
breast after the procedure is over. A biopsy
is performed while the patient is anes-
thetized; if the results are positive, a mas-
tectomy is completed as she sleeps.
Up to 15 years ago, women expecting a
minor procedure awoke to find they had
undergone the radical Halsted mastectomy,
a maiming operation that removes pectoral
muscles and other structures along with the
breast. When Kushner refused the one-step
and arranged a biopsy followed by a modi-
fied radical mastectomy, which removes the
breast and lymph nodes but leaves pectoral
muscles intact, she set up a hue and cry
that eventually led to the one-step's
near extinction.
Before 1974, when public figures like
First Lady Betty Ford, who had the
Halsted mastectomy, and the Vice
President's wife, Happy Rockefeller, were
diagnosed and went public with their expe-
riences, women suffered in silence. Breast
cancer was a closely guarded, shameful
secret like out-of-wedlock pregnancy.
Women like Ford, Rockefeller, Kushner and
journalist Betty Rollin, author of the 1976
best-selling breast cancer memoir First You
Cry, opened a new world for breast cancer
patients and survivors.
Physicians, in the 1970s, when 90 per-
cent of the mastectomies performed were
radical Halsteds, and in the 1980s, were
encouraged toward the less disfiguring,
modified radical mastectomy and the
breast-preserving lumpectomy by patient
demand and research confirmation that the
procedures were just as safe as the
Halsted. Cancer specialists and plastic
surgeons developed better approaches to
surgery, treatment and breast reconstruc-
tion. With chemotherapy drugs, and hor-
monal medications, a new era of medical
treatment was launched. Women now
work with a team of physicians which,
depending on the type of cancer, includes a
surgical oncologist, medical oncologist,
radiologist or plastic surgeon.
By the time National Alumnae
President Lowrie Fraser '56, underwent her
mastectomy in 1981, Atlanta physicians
used sophisticated techniques. She had a
modified radical mastectomy and recon-
struction with a silicone implant. "I imme-
diately decided that I wanted to have
reconstruction," she says. "It absolutely
held me together."
Openness about her experience was also
an important coping tool. "I was open from
the first. I think that enabled me to get
more support, especially at work." When
she was diagnosed at 45, Fraser was the
mother of three adolescents and was a
career educator, adjusting to an exciting
new role as innovator of the magnet
schools program for the City of Atlanta
Public Schools.
"When I was treated, breast cancer was
not regarded as such a systemic disease. It
was a disease of the breast. Women did not
have chemo and radiation as they do now.
Years later, I've occasionally wished that I
had had it but I didn't. The main thing
that occupied me was getting healed from
surgery," says Fraser.
With the dawn of the 1990s and the
example of AIDS activists, a new, more
political breed of breast cancer activism
began to emerge. In 1991, frustrated with
the relative lack of attention to breast
cancer as a public health issue, lawyer Fran
Visco and prominent breast surgeon
Dr. Susan Love formed the National Breast
Cancer Coalition, a grass-roots movement
and lobbying organization. The coalition
brought a more political tone to advocacy
efforts as it increased federal funding for
breast cancer research and began to lobby
_26
AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE FALL 1995
for greater treatment and follow-up
availability.
Over the course of four years, 300 breast
cancer advocacy groups from throughout
the country have joined in the coalition. So
far, its efforts have brought $325 million in
government funding to researchers. The
New Jersey Breast Cancer Coalition was
instrumental in enacting statewide health
insurance reform in 1994- Now insurance
companies can no longer discriminate based
on pre-existing conditions. The coalition is
the descendant of older groups, developed
in the 1970s and 1980s, when new treat-
ment options and the need for support
inspired Y-ME, a 17-year-old information
and counseling service based in Chicago,
and the Dallas-based Susan G. Komen
Breast Cancer Foundation, founded
12 years ago.
Susan Komen was a Midwestern woman
who died at the age of 36 after she failed to
receive the aggressive treatment that her
breast cancer required. Komen foundation
founder, Nancy Brinker, Komen's sister,
survived the same deadly type of pre-
menopausal cancer, armed with better
information about breast cancer and treat-
ment options. Still in remission, Brinker
has fought to inform women and to build
funding for research since her sister's death.
The national foundation has contributed
$28.5 million in funding for research over
1 2 years and has raised breast cancer
awareness with innovative early detection
and fundraising efforts such as the annual
Race for the Cure held in cities across the
United States, including Atlanta.
ASC's Miller and Green are glad to be
involved. After a lumpectomy, Miller
decided to become active with the fledgling
Atlanta chapter founded in 1991 as she
underwent radiation treatments.
Stepping into that volunteer role was
therapy, and Miller, a long-time Atlantan,
was able to garner important corporate sup-
port. From 1991 to 1994, the Atlanta chap-
ter raised approximately $500,000. Now a
thriving presence, the group expects to raise
another $500,000 in 1995.
An ASC chemistry major, Green, whose
64-year-old mother was treated for breast
cancer last year, works in the medical field
in cancer care and research as president of
the American Research Institute. "Women
have got to demand better treatment. An
incredible number are affected," says Green,
adding that she is at risk, due to family his-
tory and the fact that the primary predictor
for developing breast cancer is simply being
a woman. Of 182,000 new cases expected in
1995, 60 percent will be diagnosed in
women with no specific risk factors.
Many women with breast cancer band
together in support groups, over Internet
lines, and nationwide informal networking
groups like Y-ME. Some learn how to read
medical papers and conduct Medline
searches for the latest clinical studies and
opinions. Some haunt medical libraries and
show up at conferences. After surviving
diagnosis and treatment decisions, emerging
information becomes a sort of life-line
oddly comforting in its familiar welter of
numbers and medical terminology.
"Research is at an exciting place
and, with so many lives at stake, it is
important to see that it proceeds as
expeditiously as possible," says Miller.
"Women's involvement is important.
We need to be heard."
Carol Willey '80 is a freelance
writer living in Atlanta
1 Zampinik K, Ostroff JS. The post-treatment resource
program: portrait of a program for cancer survivors.
Psycho-oncology: 2:1, 1993.
^ Ayanian JZ, Kohler BA, et al. The relation between
health insurance coverage and clinical outcomes
among women with breast cancer. New England
Journal of Medicine 1993; 329: 326-331
Goldman MB, Monson RR, et al. Cancer Mortality in
Women with Thyroid Disease. Cancer Research 1990;
50:2283-2289.
^ Steeg PS, De La Rosa A, et al. Nm23 and breast
cancer metastasis. In: Breast Cancer Research and
Treatment. Netherlands 1993. Kluwer Academic
Publishers; 1993; 25: 175-187.
Early Breast Cancer Trialists' Collaborative Group:
Systemic treatment of early breast cancer by hormon-
al, cytotoxic or immune therapy: 3 randomized trials
involving 3 1 ,000 recurrences and 24,000 deaths
among 75,000 women, lancet 1992; 339:1-15
Kushner R. Alternatives: New developments in the war
on breast cancer. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Warner
Books Inc.; 1986: 14-15.
7 Blichert-Toft M, Rose C, et al.: Danish randomized
trial comparing breast conservation therapy with mas-
tectomy: six years of life-table analysis, journal of the
National Cancer Institute. Monograph 1 1:19-25, 1992.
American Cancer Society Facts and Figures 1995.
American Cancer Society, Atlanta, Ga., 1995.
" Seidman H, Stellman SD, et al. A different perspec-
tive on breast cancer risk factors: some implications
of nonattributable risk. CA-A Cancer Journal for
Clinicians 1982;32:301-313.
"Women have got
to demand better
treatment," says
ASC's Green
whose mother was
diagnosed with
breast cancer.
2]_
BARING THE BREAST-CANCER MYTHS
A FOIL TO
DANGER
By Mary Alma Durrett
Photo illustrations by Monika Nikore
Across America,
crime has emerged
as an issue of
common concern.
While dangers
exist at Agnes
Scott, Public
Safety officers
work to make
the campus a
safe environment.
As shades of red and pink and
orange sink below the hori-
zon, the sky repaints itself in
darkening shades of blackish
blue. Night comes to Agnes
Scott in typical fall fashion with leaves and
students blowing in and out of Evans,
McCain Library and Buttrick, and whirling
about the quadrangle. Visible is the white
blur of a bike helmet as Officer Dana
Patterson whizzes across campus on pedal
patrol, checking door locks at Walters and
Winship and the other residence halls.
Steps quicken along the brick pathway and
a dozen street lamps pour hundreds of watts
of light out onto the darkness of the central
campus. The pulse of the campus calms as
students drift off to take refuge in Main and
Inman for study and later, sleep.
In one glowing corner of Rebekah, a
public safety dispatcher huddles over a
transmitter, receiving updates from the beat
officers, calmly repeating the familiar
response, "10-4-" Across the quad, a small
group of women gathers in the aerobics
room of Alston Center, listening intently to
a martial artist whose self-defense instruc-
tion reaches to their very core. "It doesn't
do you any good to learn how to rip off
somebody's lower lip or gouge out their eyes
if you aren't going to use the techniques,"
chides instructor Paul Guerucci, a part-time
public safety officer who attained fourth-
degree Black Belt proficiency.
These are not pretty thoughts by
anyone's standards and some students are
noticeably disturbed. But uglier are current
statistics that one rape occurs every five
minutes or that every other woman in
America (literally one of two) will be con-
fronted by a sexual predator during her life
time. Add to that the overall escalation in
violent crime in recent years and the
picture worsens.
"You've got to decide what you are
willing to do," stresses Guerrucci. "Self
defense is a state of mind as much as a
physical ability."
While class members momentarily deal
with the mental exercise, Guerrucci moves
on to their physical preparation in his
semester-long self-defense course held
weekly from September through December.
Since Guerrucci began instruction in 1989,
more than 150 Agnes Scott students have
perfected twists, turns, punches and kicks.
"What do you want to learn from this
class?" he queries the group, which responds
predictably: "To be able to get away from an
attacker. To feel more secure."
Gone are the days when ASC
President Wallace Alston could
stand on the front porch of his
house and shoo away potential intruders.
Atlanta, though attractive culturally,
demonstrates the same crime excesses as
other major cities, with property and violent
crime in the five figures. Agnes Scott has
worked hard to hold down its property crime
to around 25 and violent crime to two or
less, annually, over the past three years.
The Agnes Scott self-defense class is just
one component in the College's very
deliberate efforts.
Rus Drew, ASC's public safety director of
10 years, heads a team of 10 full-time, state-
certified police officers and two part-time
officers. With a minimum of two officers on
duty at all times, ASC's officer-to-service-
community ratio is 1 to 400, better than
twice the national average (1 to 1,000). Its
response time, tracked by the year-old
Automated Records Management System
(A.R.M.S.) software, is 4-8 minutes on
service calls and less than 3 minutes on
emergency calls, also better than average.
ASC's public safety department has
primary policing responsibility tor more than
the 50-acre campus; its full jurisdiction
(bounded by King's Highway, Columbia
Drive, Ponce de Leon, Kirk Road and
18
AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE FALL 1995
29
A FOIL TO DANGER
Some students
are sensitive to
the issues of crime
but most are not.
Often people this
age have a sense
of invincibility.
Oakview Road) extends 500 yards beyond
the 50 rental properties owned by the
College, which encircle the campus. And
in September, the campus of Columbia
Theological Seminary was added to
its watch.
Public Safety provides escorts at night to
individual students, faculty or staff who feel
insecure about walking alone between build-
ings, to and from parking lots, and to and
from the MARTA Station in Decatur.
Phones strategically located at three remote
Emotional Havens
Even as the Department of Public
Safety works to keep both campuses
secure, Margaret Shirley '81, ASC
counselor, has a part in helping students
find their own emotional "safe place" in
this increasingly violent world. Often
she walks students through a series of
anxiety reduction exercises when their
feelings of fear become overwhelming.
At other times she must remind stu-
dents that self defense is, ultimately, a
state of mind.
"Having been a student myself,
1 know it's real easy to get on this
campus and not think about being in
the real world. So I'm all for telling
students to pay attention. No place is
completely safe."
sites on campus and telephones located out-
side of each residence hall, are part of
Agnes Scott's plan for self defense.
Last year the ASC police department
also offered 13 distinct crime prevention
programs on campus. Beginning with pro-
grams during orientation weekend for first-
year students and their families, public safe-
ty launched a series of lectures and demon-
strations dealing with general crime preven-
tion, self-defense, acquaintance rape and
defensive chemical sprays (such as pepper
spray). Overall awareness and education are
critical to each student's safety.
"Some students are sensitive to the issues
of crime but most aren't," admits Lt. Amy
Lanier '72, on ASC's force since 1991.
"People the age of the traditional students
have a sense of invincibility. Being the vic-
tim of a crime is not an overriding concern."
For instance, during orientation public
safety encourages parents to remind their
daughters to call for escorts or to walk in
groups on campus in the evening, but,
Lanier laments, "A lot of students don't
take it to heart."
However, both Lanier and Drew (who
earned his degree in criminology from
Auburn University and worked two years
for the Marietta Police Department before
joining the staff at Agnes Scott) recall sev-
eral instances in which students have dettlv
turned around potentially dangerous situa-
tions. For example, a few years ago, Drew
30
AUNES S( OTT COLLEGE FALL 1993
says, a man in the Hopkins parking lot
"followed two students and forced himself
into the car with them we don't know if
he was going to try to assault the students or
try to take the car." Together, the students
attacked the man who fled the scene. "We
weren't able to apprehend him but we were
very proud of the way they dealt with it
and the students were proud of themselves."
As a state-certified law enforcement
agency (since 1983) and a recipient
of federal funds, Agnes Scott com-
piles, publishes and distributes campus crime
statistics, in compliance with the Campus
Security Act of 1990. Through a "Playing it
Safe" handbook, notices in the student
newspaper and the campus-wide newsletter,
Campus Connection, and through reminders
posted in the residence halls and in other
buildings around campus, students receive
updated information about crime and crime
prevention.
During the summer months, when fewer
students remain on campus, public safety
turns more attention to the surrounding
community. From about 6 p.m. to dusk the
bike patrol is active, with officers talking to
neighbors of the College and listening to
their concerns.
"For some reason," says Drew, "people
particularly kids just want to come up and
talk to you when you're on a bike. That's
been a wonderful tool. It also provides
greater flexibility for our patrol in parking
lots. Officers are able to move in and out,
pretty much unnoticed. Again this year, the
number of incidents occurring in parking
areas has steadily declined."
Agnes Scott is hoping to have a similar
effect as it handles security for the Columbia
Seminary campus.
"Since we are so close in proximity to the
CRIME AT ASC
As a state certified law enforcement
agency since 1983 the Agnes Scott
Department of Public Safety reports
campus crime statistics to the Georgia
Bureau of Investigation which in turn
is reported to the Federal Bureau of
Investigation.
YEAR
Charge
94/
95
93/
94
92/
93
Burglary 3 4 2
Criminal Property Damage 5 2 2
Harassing Phone Calls 7 3
Motor Vehicle Theft 2
Rape 1
Sexual Battery 2
Theft by Taking 20 6 20
Underage Alcohol 2 4
The above is partial list of crimes reported to
the GBI and FBI.
seminary and have faculty and staff who live
in the area, as well as students who walk, jog
and baby sit in those areas, we felt it impor-
tant to expand," Drew says of that decision.
The one-year renewable agreement
between the two campuses calls for ASC to
patrol seminary campus buildings, parking
areas and on-campus housing, as well as
provide motor vehicle assistance and
escort services, after hours, to on-campus
personnel.
According to Drew, the seminary
provided funds for hiring four officers and
purchasing two vehicles primarily for use on
the seminary campus. However, through this
year the Decatur Police Department will
remain Columbia's primary policing agency.
CRIME AND COMML
A look at Crime in the United States 1 993 , Uniform
(Rapes are a subgroup of the violent crimes total.)
Location Property Crime
INITY
Crime Reports
Violent Crime
29,321
(Rapes)
1,336
492
217
Atlanta MSA (19 counties)
209,778
Atlanta (city)
53,633
16,281
3,836
DeKalb (county)
43,334
Decatur
1,244
185
4
Agnes Scott College
27
1
"For some
reason," says
Drew, "people
particularly kids
just want to come
up and talk to you
when you're on a
bike. That's been a
wonderful [crime
prevention] tool."
31
A FOIL TO DANGER
EXCERPTS
Silver Rights ... A true story of the civil rights struggle in the South
TAKE CARE
OF MY KIDS
From Chapter 2
News of the enrollment
of the Carter children
spread like wildfire through
Sunflower County, and
Mae Bertha felt sure that
someone from the school
superintendent's office had
called Mr. Thornton,
the plantation overseer.
Early the next morning,
Thornton drove up in his
pickup truck and blew his
horn in front of the
Carters' house.
"Mary," Matthew said
softly over his shoulder,
using his special name for
Mae Bertha, "it's starting."
He went outside to the
waiting truck.
Thornton's mission was
simple. He told Matthew
that he'd heard about the
enrollment and he believed
that the best thing for
Matthew and Mae Bertha
would be to go back to
Drew and withdraw the
children. He believed they
could get a better educa-
tion at the black school.
He explained to Matthew
that the children would
have no friends at the
white school. Neither black
folks nor white folks would
have anything to do with
the Carters anymore.
Those poor whites who
lived over on federal land
near the Carters would
cause them a lot of trouble.
He offered to go to Drew
with Matthew and help
"withdraw 'em out."
Matthew said that he
didn't need the help and
that if he decided to
withdraw the children,
he would go himself.
Mae Bertha, who had
been standing on the porch
listening, went into the
house. She came out a few
minutes later carrying a
chair, a single record, and a
little record player. She set
the player carefully on the
chair, close to the porch
door so the cord could
reach an outlet in the
living room, and she put
on the record. It was the
June 11, 1963, speech that
President Kennedy had
given on national radio
and television calling for
the Civil Rights Act. The
speech was delivered only
a few hours before the
Mississippi NAACP leader
Medgar Evers was mur-
dered outside his Jackson
home just after midnight
on June 12. Mae Bertha's
son Man had sent her the
record, and it was one of
her greatest treasures. Mae
Bertha started the record
player and turned the vol-
ume way up:
"And when Americans
are sent to Vietnam or
West Berlin, we do not ask
for whites only. It ought to
be possible, therefore, for
American students of any
color to attend any public
institution they select with-
out having to be backed up
by troops. . . . We are con-
ABOUT THE BOOK AND THE AUTHOR
From 1964 to 1975, Constance Curry '55 worked as a
field representative jor the American Friends Service
Committee, assigned to the Mississippi Delta to help the
family of Mae Bertha and Matthew Carter and
others involved in desegregation mandated by
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Silver
Rights, released this month, grew out of Curry'
relationship with the Carters who psiive
in 1 965 enrolled seven school-age
children in a formerly all-white
school in Drew, Sunflower County
Mississippi. Curry was at the fami-
ly's side through several troubled
years, which included their eviction from the plantation on
which they were sharecroppers, nightriders' gunfire into their
cabin and harassment from the community and school. The
book is based on Curry's personal observations, later inter-
views with the family and correspondence with Mae Bertha
Carter, a mother fiercely determined that her children would
have the best possible education.
Curry studied abroad as a Fidbnight
Scholar after graduation from Agnes Scott
with a degree in history . She holds a post-
doctoral fellowship at the University of
Virginia s Center for Civil Rights and a
fellowship in Women's Studies at Emory
University. She has a law degree from
Woodrow Wilson College of Law. From
1975 until 1990 she served as Director of
Human Services for the City of Atlanta.
Kirkus Reviews lias described Silver Rights as "a solid
contribution to the literature of recent political history . . .
a moving story of a family's unforeseen contribution to the
civil-rights struggle in America."
_3_2
AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE FALL 1995
fronted primarily with a
moral issue. It is as old as
the Scriptures and as
clear as the American
Constitution."
I can imagine Mae
Bertha standing by her
front door, firm and proud,
arms folded, as John
Kennedy's voice spilled
across the early morning
silence talking about
what it was like to be a
black person in America,
and about the great oppor-
tunities available to all
except black children. Mae
Bertha let the record play
on as Matthew stood out
by the truck. Finally
Thornton said he would go
down to the barn to give
Matthew time to talk to
Mae Bertha.
Mae Bertha remem-
bered what she had then
said to Matthew. "You go
out there, to the barn," she
had told him, "and you tell
Mr. Thornton that I am a
grown woman. I birthed
those children and bore the
pain. He cannot tell me
what to do about my chil-
dren, like withdrawing my
children out. And I'd be a
fool to try and tell him
where to send his kids."
Matthew answered,
"Well, Mary, I'm not going
to tell him all that."
They told Thornton
simply that they had decid-
ed to keep their children in
the white school.
The morning after the
shots were fired into
the house, a neighbor took
Mae Bertha to Cleveland,
Miss., to see Amzie Moore,
a black businessman and
NAACP leader, and
Charles McLaurin, the
The Carter children, books in hand, await the schoolbus.
Sunflower County project
director for the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee. When Mae
Bertha finished telling her
story, Moore and McLaurin
called the FBI in Jackson.
The next day the Deputy
Sheriff John Sidney Parker
received a call at his home
from the county sheriffs
office in Indianola, five
miles away. Parker was
asked to go to Crew to join
an FBI agent to investigate
the shooting at the Car-
ters'. The agent was from
FBI headquarters in Wash-
ington; he had flown in
because local FBI agents
were on other assignments.
He and Parker drove in
separate cars to Busyline.
When they reached the
Carters' house, the agent's
first question to Mae Ber-
tha was, why had she gone
all the way to Cleveland to
call when she could have
gone to some of the white
people's houses nearby?
Mae Bertha chuckled
at the memory of her
response. "Go where?" she
answered the agent. "Let
me tell you one thing,
man, I ain't got confidence
in any white man living in
Mississippi. I can't be going
to no white folks' house
calling, 'cause that's proba-
bly the ones who shot into
my house."
Parker and the FBI
agent inspected the
Carters' house carefully.
Mr. Thornton, the
plantation overseer, was
present as well, and helped
them take each of the
bullets out of the walls.
The Washington agent
took the bullets with him
as evidence, and that was
the last the Carters heard
from the FBI or anyone
else about the shooting.
The story circulated in the
white community was that
the Carters, prompted by
black militants eager for
publicity, had done the
shooting themselves ....
[But African-Americans
knew the dangers facing
the Carters. Recalls one,] "I
believe I made three or
four trips out there and was
scared every time. I
thought about we had
already had Schwerner,
Chaney and Goodman
murdered by these patrol-
ing Klansmen, and every
trip I thought that one
might be right around the
corner somewhere. And I
was supposed to be the
brave one, you know."
As the first day of
school drew near, life for
the Carters proceeded as
usual, for the most part.
The older children picked
cotton, but they talked
among themselves about
the changes that would
soon take place. Matthew
had extra work in the
evenings sewing underwear
for the girls from cotton
sacks and hemming dresses.
The children remember
the day he announced,
"Mary, I have stopped
smoking. We need money
too much to send these
children."
The only money the
Carters had in August
1965 was $40 hidden in a
mattress, saved in case Mae
Bertha needed to go to
Toledo to see her mother,
Luvenia. Matthew knew
that Mae Bertha missed
Luvenia and he had
insisted that they save
the bus fare.
The sharecropping
system of buying food and
supplies on credit from the
plantation store, paying
when there was a little
money, and always being
33
EXCERPTS
beholden to the plantation
owner and in debt to his
store was still very much
in effect at Pemble
Plantation. A few days
after enrolling his children
in the white schools,
Matthew Carter went to
Bob's, the store that usually
gave him credit. Had he
heard right? the owner
asked. Had Matthew been
over to Drew and enrolled
his kids in the all-white
school? When Matthew
nodded, he was told he had
until three o' clock that
day to take the children
out of the school. Matthew
went home with only a
package of food in his
hands, rather than the
weekly order of staples
needed to feed ten people.
Mae Bertha took the $40
bus fare from under the
mattress and gave it to
Matthew, who drove to
Cleveland to buy food.
For several days it
seemed that the enrollment
of the children and the
night shooting had never
occurred. No one came to
the house. But the bullet
holes had made the truth
clear for the Carters. The
family slept on the floor
for three nights after
the shooting.
Mae Bertha told me
what she thought about
during those tense days;
she remembered what a
preacher in Cleveland had
said once: "Everybody's
afraid and it's okay to be
afraid but you can't let it
stop you." She explained to
me that the "covering" she
had felt first as a young girl
came over her during those
days and she felt confident
that her family was protect-
ed. On the fourth night
after the shooting, the fam-
ily moved off the floor and
back into its beds and
never slept on the floor
again. Mae Bertha told
Matthew that she was call-
ing to the Lord.
Mae Bertha has forgot-
ten none of the
details of Sept. 3, 1965, the
first day of school in Drew,
Miss. Matthew was up at
5:30 a.m. to get water from
the pump, heat up the ket-
tle and the big dishpan on
the stove and fill the tub in
the bedroom. He bathed
and dressed Deborah and
Beverly, the two youngest
girls. The older ones got
themselves ready. Mae
Bertha remembers how
mute they were. She also
Mae Bertha Carter and Constance Curry '55
AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE FALL 1995
remembers how she lay in
bed wondering if she had
the strength and will to get
up and face the fear that
pressed in upon her.
It was the first day in
Drew history that black
children would attend
public school with white
children. Those black
children were hers. They
would be desegregating
both Drew High School
and A. W. James
Elementary School. But
the principles of "freedom
and choice" and
"desegregation" seemed
high-flown and irrelevant
as Mae Bertha imagined
the day that stretched
ahead of Gloria, Deborah,
Beverly, Pearl, Stanley,
Larry and Ruth.
After breakfast, the chil-
dren, each with a quarter
for lunch, went out on the
porch with Mae Bertha to
wait for the school bus. By
7:30, the sun was out in
strength. The heavy wet
heat of late summer
settled over the cotton
fields. Would the new bus
driver know where to stop
for the Carters? Would they
be the first ones on the bus?
Where would they sit? How
would they know where to
go when they got to school?
A newly painted yellow
school bus was spotted
turning onto Busyline. In
silence Mae Bertha and the
children watched its slow
passage down the rutted
dirt road. Finally the bus
stopped at the house and
the children stepped down
from the porch and one by
one climbed in to discover
that they were indeed the
first to be picked up. They
sat two by two near the
front of the bus, with Ruth
taking a seat by herself.
Mae Bertha stayed on
the porch and watched
until the bus was out of
sight. Her eyes filled and
she took the baby, Carl,
back into the house. She
later wrote Jean Fairfax:
"When the bus pulled
off, I went in and fell down
cross the bed and prayed. I
stayed on that bed and
didn't do no work that day.
No 'covering' in sight this
time. I didn't feel good and
stayed cross the bed and
when I heard the bus
coming, I went back to the
porch. When they came off
one by one, then I was
released until the next
morning. But the next
morning I felt the same
way, depressed, nervous,
praying to God. I wasn't
saying a whole lot of words;
just saying, "take care of
my kids" no time for all
those words. And I didn't
do housecleaning until the
children came home. After
about a month, I started
easing up a little bit. I had
prayed to God so much! I
had been going to church
and talking about trusting
in Jesus, but never trusted
Jesus until my children
went to that all-white
school. That school sure
brought me to God!"
Editor's Note: The Carter
children graduated from
high school in Drew arid
enrolled in the University of
Mississippi; all sevei\ earned
their undergraduate degrees.
Silver Rig/its: A True Story from the
Front Lines of the Ckil Rights
Struggle. By Constance Curry.
Algonquin Books (25S pp.)
$21.95, Oct. 1995.
ISBN: 1-56512-095-7.
Rt'^rinted uith pemussion. Cofwight
1995 \rj Algonquin Books o/ Chapel Hiii.
a diiision of W'oiknum PuHishing
Company N.Y..N.Y.
LIFESTYLE
Horsing around with country music; Atlanta Project volunteer, medicine
for migrants, eat your veggies, a grand hike, Shakespeare & company
COWPATTYS:
TAKING THE
STAGE WEST
Performer ]oy
Cunningham '77
If you ain't heard us, you
ain't heard shee-ut," goes
the promotional slogan for
the original "western,
almost vaudeville-style
comedy" CowPattys,
co-written by and starring
Joy Cunningham 77.
Cunningham and three
singer and actor friends
created the "country-and-
western ha ha capella" pro-
duction at a party several
years ago. Since 1994, the
four "wild, nutty an' sassy"
cowgirls named Patty
Cake, Crash Patty
(Cunningham), Patty
Addy and Patty Lorraine
LaWanda Louise Linda
Letisha LaBelle, have
taken their popular
show nationwide.
Decked in boots, fringe
and other outrageous cow-
girl wear, the four open
their show with Shero, a
musical story of a cowgirl
who starts out low and
ends her career as head of
45 men on the range.
Another tune in the
"moosic, cowmedy and
brahma" is "Cowgirls put
The "Udderly Amoozing"
CowPattys , started by
Cunningham (second from
right) and friends as a lark,
is growing in popularity with
appearances set nationwide.
the 'W in Wrangler."
"And Wrangler put the
Oooow! in cowgitls," go
the words to the song
about tight jeans.
CowPattys' extreme par-
ody, "Stand By Your Fan,"
laments hot Texas weather
their music meshes
while meshing the styles
of Gregorian chants,
country and rap.
CowPattys delights
I audiences with visions of
the new West where
"the only weapons carried
are congealed weapons, the
children play cowboys and
Native American Indians
and where the rodeo uses
only animals who volun-
teet to participate."
Making its debut at
benefits, CowPattys has
opened for the Smothers
Brothers, performed for the
Trout Fishing in America
organization and are
booked for multiple weeks
in theaters from its home
state of Texas west to
California and east to
Virginia. CowPattys also
made news in the August
issue of Texas Monthly.
To ride the range with
her cowgirl cohorts,
Cunningham left her job
teaching writing at Austin
Community College. She
notes with some disbelief
that she's actually making a
living. "Not many people
get to make their
living as a performer,"
she says.
Her travels have also
changed her role from
creator and director of
"The Girl Project" to
adviser. The ASC
English and history major
conceived the theater
workshop program after
reading Harvard psycholo-
gist Carol Gilligan's
ground-breaking book A
Different Voice. The book
highlights the immense
loss of self-esteem suffered
by American girls aged
10 to 18.
Cunningham received
two grants for the program,
which "gleans girls' stories,
taking raw material in an
35
LIFESTYLE
improvisational manner
and turning it all into a
combination of movement,
scenes and dance for
performance."
Impressed with
Cunningham's idea,
Gilligan plans to start the
program at Harvard.
VOLUNTEER
HERITAGE
Margaret "Maggy"
Harms '63
T
he Atlanta Project,
former President
Jimmy Carter's vision for
healing urban ills, was
Margaret "Maggy" Harms'
dream job the one the
Class of '63 graduate says
she was "born and bred for"
by her own committed
volunteer parents.
However, it took the
financial analyst/manager
two years to persuade the
Kansas City-based corpo-
rate office of Sprint, her
employer, to "loan" her as
an adviser to the West
Fulton cluster, an inner-
city area of 8,000 predomi-
nantly black residents.
Sprint feared lack of
participation on the part
of its relatively small
(1,500 employees)
Atlanta office. But
Harms and her two co-
advisers from Emory
University and The
Carter Center found the
volunteers. Their mighty
task: to reduce poverty
and hopelessness and
empower urban commu-
nities to solve as many
problems and take
advantage of as many
existing programs and
opportunities as possible.
One successful program
resulting from their work
targets middle school stu-
dents needing tutoring and
help with homework. The
program aims to "interest
girls in staying in school, to
keep them from getting
pregnant and going on wel-
fare rolls," explains Harm.
She adds that during her
Atlanta Project involve-
ment, her cluster the
Bankhead Highway region
of Atlanta has had no
reports of violence.
Recognized several years
ago as an Outstanding
THE BEST MEDICINE
Jimmie Ann Collins '51
It could have been a scenario from the movies. High
on a primitive village hillside. Rugged and muddy
terrain. At last, a drenching, tropical rain brings after-
noon relief. Amid the downpour, a rustic, 15-passenger
bus, carrying a busload of Americans maneuvers down
the rain-slick hillside, begins slipping and sliding and
nearly spins out of control. Another curve in the unpaved
road is rounded; and again the native driver loses control,
this time sliding further, finally stopping at the brink of a
20-foot drop.
That was when Jimmie Ann McGhee Collings '51
and her Baptist Medical Dental Fellowship co-volunteers
decided they would skip the bus ride and walk the rest of
the way.
"We had had a scare and decided we
needed the exercise."
The mission trip with her pediatri-
cian husband was Collings' second
to Venezuela.
At various points in the countryside, the medical team
set up clinics. Using one-room buildings with bed sheets
as partitions, the volunteers staffed a pharmacy, a dental
office and offices for a nurse practitioner and Collings'
husband, Tom. Poor and anxious villagers lined the street
waiting for care.
Stateside, the Collingses work with migrants in East
Tennessee, teaching Sunday School and English-as-a-
Second-Language. Jimmie Ann, who says she is a
"practicing Christian," works to show God's love and
kindness to the migrants, most of whom are from Mexico.
"They are economically persecuted and their children are
shoved around by their peers in school."
Other travels take the Greenville, Tenn., resident to
flower shows nationwide with daughter Sharon
Ann Collings 77, a sculptor/potter. Where
Jimmie Ann is a Master Flower Show
judge, she also demonstrates flower
arranging in Sharon Ann's unique
flower vessels.
36
Ai INES SCOTT COLLEGE FALL 1995
LIFESTYLE
Atlantan for her volunteer
work, Harms plans to keep
alive the bonds formed
with her cluster communi-
ty. Her daytime attention,
however, will soon be
directed at the Auditory
Education Center, a non-
profit United Way
agency that has
/\
named her
v V
executive
- *&
director. The
center works
with hearing-
impaired chil-
dren and adults.
A RECIPE FOR
RECOVERY
Jane Zanca '83
When Jane Zanca '83
decided to co-
author The Cancer Recovery
Eating Plan with Daniel W.
Nixon, M.D., she was
unsute about some of the
oncologist's concepts. But
as she researched and
wrote, she too became a
believer in the cancer-
preventing powers of a
high-fiber, low-fat diet.
The 450-page book,
published by Times Books/
Random House, was writ-
ten for people who have
had cancer and want to
"take charge and prevent
its recurrence."
Nixon had the medical
and nutritional expertise;
Author jane Zanca has written a "warm and
friendly" book on the nutritional approach to
cancer prevention and cure. Eat your veggies.
Zanca, a medical
writer for the American
Cancer Society, possessed
the ability to ptesent the
data to the lay public, to
make it "warm and fuzzy,
friendly and enjoyable.
There are not a lot of
things to enjoy when
you're recovering from can-
cer," she says.
Zanca knows.
Three of her family
members died of cancer.
The ASC English litera-
ture and creative writing
major drew from experi-
ences of her loved ones
and from her own struggle
with a chronic illness. The
mother of two "twenty-
somethings" says she knows
the feeling of having
"chunks" of her life taken
away. Diagnosed a few
years ago with a form of
rheumatoid arthritis, she
empathizes with the some-
times scary feelings of her
book's readers: "I'm going
to lose my life, or have to
sell my house, live in a
one-room efficiency and sit
in a wheelchair."
For 15 months, Zanca
slept, ate and breathed her
freelance assignment. No
television, no pleasute
reading. "I wrote a good bit
of the book in my sleep,"
Zanca says and laughs. She
also worked with nutrition-
ists, a chef and other
experts in nutrition and
cancer, editing recipes and
massaging the material.
She's excited and proud
that the book empowers
her readers to become full
partners in their health
and explains how they can
cope with the side effects
of cancer treatment.
Zanca adds, "One of the
many impacts of cancer
and its treatment is that
the patient feels lousy
about food. Cooking is
hard, especially when you
are so fatigued. One of the
best ways to help a petson
experiencing cancer is to
provide meals."
BECKONED
BY THE BARD
Evelyn Sears
Schneider '39, Mary
Ann Gregory Dean '63,
Jeanne Addison
Roberts '46, Mary
Price Coulling '49 and
Giddy Erwin Dyer '38
In a lecture called
"The Brou-ha-ha of
Hamlet," Evelyn Sears
Schneider '39 explained
that the centuries-old
play is the Mona Lisa of
literature. "It has puzzled
everyone more than any
Shakespeare play."
And it has captured the
imaginations of more than
a few Scotties.
Schneider delivered her
lecture in conjunction with
last year's production of
Hamlet by the Orlando
Shakespeare Festival.
(Mary Ann Gregory
Dean '63 is the annual
Festival's new executive
director.) Twice, eager
audiences heard the retired
professor of literatute share
her views on "what all
the ruckus surrounding
Hamlet is about," once at
37
LIFESTYLE
Schneider's church, First
Unitarian of Oakland, and
also at the Unitarian
Universalist Society.
Schneider hypothesizes
that "Shakespeare knew
that life is not always black
and white. . . . [He] did not
choose to dictate definite
answers to the questions he
raises. Instead, he invites us
to come up with our own
conclusions."
As presiding judge of
The Elsinore Appeal:
People vs. Hamlet, a mock
trial hosted by the New
York City Bar Association,
Jeanne Addison Roberts '46
drew her own set of con-
clusions. Three-hundred
people attended the trial
which acquitted Hamlet
of Ophelia's murder but
found him guilty of
murdering Laertes,
Claudius, Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern.
Before retirement,
Roberts, a Shakespearean,
taught literature includ-
ing many years of Hamlet
at American University.
The professor had observed
similar Shakespeare trials,
which are becoming popu-
lar, and was invited by a
former student to partic-
ipate in the New York trial.
She has authored two
books on the Bard, includ-
ing The Shakespearean Wild,
highlighting the women in
Shakespeare's writings.
J58
AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE FALL 1995
Roberts has presented two
lectures on Shakespeare
for the Washington, DC,
Agnes Scott alumnae. For
the first, alumnae read and
discussed Winter's Tale
with the professor.
Love of Shakespeare
enticed two more Scotties,
Mary Price Coulling '49
and Giddy Erwin Dyer '38,
to embark on a "Hamlet to
Hardy" cruise.
Coulling's husband
teaches English at Wash-
ington & Lee University,
the cruise sponsor, and
Dyer is married to a W&L
alumnus. Cruise partici-
pants sailed the North Sea
from Copenhagen to
Elsinore, the assumed cas-
tle of Hamlet. From there
they journeyed north to
Scotland, the setting of
Macbeth. On they went to
the Scottish Islands, and
in between England and
Ireland, where they ven-
tured to Thomas Hardy's
country and literary Dublin.
Before the cruise
launch, participants dined
with the American ambas-
sador to Denmark. Dyer
and Coulling were pleas-
antly surprised to learn the
ambassador's wife is Susie
Goodman Elson '59.
All of these graduates
except Gregory studied
Shakespeare under profes-
sor George P. Hayes. And
all believe that Shake-
speare authored Hamlet
and other works, a view
disputed by some scholars.
SEEKING NEW
HEIGHTS
(AND LOWS)
Emily Evans Robison,
Joanna Russell
Hogan, Vivian
"Biba" Conner Parker
and Jan Whitfield
Hughen, '62
The typical visitor to
Arizona's Grand
Canyon stands on a
tenced-off cliff and gazes at
the beauty of the natural
wonder. Not good enough
for four soul mates from the
class of '62.
Emily Evans Robison,
Joanna Russell Hogan,
Vivian "Biba" Conner
Parker and Jan Whitfield
Hughen donned their hik-
ing boots, polished their
walking sticks and hiked
the canyon from its north-
ern to its southern rims.
Twenty-six friends and
family members (including
Robison's sister, Becky
Evans Callahan '60), rang-
ing in age from 1 5 to 60,
joined the summer '94
expedition. Day one was a
14-mile hot-and-dry hike
"down, down, down,"
recalls Hogan. Night was
spent along the Colorado
River at Phantom Ranch, a
rustic lodge that once slept
Teddy Roosevelt. Day two
was a nine-mile trek "up,
up, up" malodorous and
dusty trails littered with
mule dung.
Parker, Hogan and an
assortment of 10 friends
went on to higher sights
during the fall of '94. The
group began their hike in
the rice patties of Nepal at
an elevation of 1,500 feet.
They averaged six to 10
miles daily, up and down
Intrepid hikers from the class of '62: (1-r) Emily Robison,
Joanna Hogan, Becky Callahan, Jan Hughen, Biba Parker.
the Himalayas, criss-cross-
ing hundreds of trails.
Their destination was
14,000 feet, in the shadow
of Mount Everest. In total,
the two Scotties and clan
walked 127 miles and
climbed 44,000 feet in alti-
tude. "A lot of up and
down," admits Hogan.
The venture was much
more strenuous than fitness
buffs Hogan or Parker
anticipated. There were no
roads. Anything other than
the clothing they wore was
carried on their backs, by
Sherpa guides or by yaks.
They tottered across sus-
pension bridges, bamboo
bridges, stones in a stream
amid hot, humid weather.
The group also waded
through leech-swarming
rice patties. Five mornings
they awoke shivering in
their tents as temperatures
plummeted to 20 below
zero, so cold that among
other things, their
wash cloths froze.
During their jour
ney they saw people
who "in 1995 live
the way people lived
200 years ago, with
no roads, electricity
or water," recalls
Hogan.
The two Scotties,
plus Hughen and
Robison are among a
"nucleus" of 14 class of
'62 graduates who have
remained in contact. The
group gathered at Sea
Island the year they turned
30 and again at age 40.
At 50 they went to
Nantucket, where Parker
declared they were getting
older and wouldn't have
too many more decades.
This year, she hosted the
gang, who celebrated 55,
at her part-time home
in Jackson Hole.
"We were lucky to have
stayed in touch," says
Backdropped by Mt. Everest
(on left) and. Ama Dablam (on right) , Joanna Russell Hogan
and Biba Conner Parker relax before their trek up, up and up.
Kitsie Riggall works to sell
Wall Street on the value of
Turner Broadcasting stock.
Hogan, who recalls some-
what sheepishly that
smoking at "The Hub" was
the 14 graduates' drawing
point at Agnes Scott. "We
all liked to smoke. That
was back when smoking
was cool. We gravitated
toward The Hub (a former
student center). None of us
smokes anymore."
It's a good thing. Next
spring, Parker and Hogan
plan a 20-day New Zealand
hike.
Leisa Hammett-Goad is a
freelancer in Nashville, Term.
TAKING
STOCK
Kitsie Bassett
Riggall '83
Kitsie Bassett Riggall's
days swirl around
Wall Street and the value
LIFESTYLE
of stock of Turner
Broadcasting System
(TBS), the company
she serves as vice
president of finan-
cial communica-
tions and director of
investor relations.
"Investor rela-
tions is really
marketing the
company's stock
making sure that
the market has the
right information to
fairly value the stock,"
says Riggall.
To monitor the percep-
tion of Turner in the news,
her office overlooking the
interior of Cable News
Network (CNN) Center is
filled with everything from
the Wall Street Journal to
trade publications like
Cable World and Variety.
Riggall's own view of
TBS has been formed from
the inside, out. She began
her career at the Turner
subsidiary CNN as an
intern during her senior
year at Agnes Scott. Just
after graduation, she was
offered a full-time job.
"I publicized CNN's
coverage of major news
events," says Riggall. "That
was back in the days when
CNN was still trying to
establish itself as a credible
news source." It involved
heady days of working in
the media camp of the '88
39
LIFESTYLE
Democratic National
Convention in Atlanta
and the Reagan-
Gorbachev summit.
In 1989 she left CNN
as senior manager of public
relations. From there
she became director of
corporate communications
for Turner.
She served a nearly
two-year stint as vice presi-
dent of Turner's entertain-
ment division which
required frequent flights
between Atlanta and Los
Angeles. "A large portion
of our publicity efforts was
focusing on the original
movies that TNT
produced," says Riggall,
"so there was a real
Hollywood angle."
Today, the red-haired
Riggall assesses the impact
of changes that will occur
at Turner in the face
of the late September
announcement that
Time- Warner would
acquire the company.
In the meantime,
Riggall has the "perfect
liberal arts job," she says,
one that requires both
strong analytical skills
and excellent writing.
"At 25,1 don't know
that I would have thought
that dealing with Wall
Street analysts was for me.
At 34, 1 think the work is
incredibly interesting."
Karen Young '84
_40
AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE FALL 1995
LETTERS
Harassment is a state of mind; memorializing mink.
Congratulations on a
very interesting summer
issue of ASC Alumnae
Magazine. I sent copies of
several articles and the
poem to a number of
people and the whole
issue to a cousin who does
community theatre in
North Carolina.
Mary Anne Kernan '38
Nashville, Term.
I was pleased as I am
surprised to see that you
published the letter from
Susan Smith Van Cott in
the summer issue. There
are others of us who feel
the same way.
I spent four years at
ASC learning to think for
myself It would appear
that today's students are
being taught to let the
liberal media do their
thinking for them.
It seems to me that
"liberated" women should
be as capable of defending
themselves from harass-
ment as we were back
then. I find it rather ironic
that they need government
protection in personal rela-
tionships. For some reason,
Anita Hill reminds me of
a neighbor who had an
obscene phone call that
lasted 45 minutes!
Frances Vandiver
Puckett '52
Jacksonville, Fki.
I was shocked, shocked
SHOCKED, to read in this
distinguished publication
that a grown woman does
not know what a mink
coat is for. . . .
Pay attention to what I
am going to tell you.
A mink coat is not
something to wear. It is
the outward and visible
symbol of the wild,
extravagant, luxuriant,
sensual love of beauty
streaming from the heart
of every woman. It is your
soul sister, your trusted
accomplice, financial
commiserator, counselor,
love advisor, supreme
fashion visionary, friend,
healer, ally!
And you keep such a
being locked up in a cold
vault in a stuck-up place
like Northbrook Court?
Now a Dallas woman
would do that, but here in
Houston we understand
MINK. After all, this is
the drive it or wear it city.
A mink coat is not
something you save for
cold weather. If you put
your mink in the vault in
summertime, you couldn't
turn the air conditioning
down way low and sleep
nude snuggled up under it.
You can't put it on to pay
the bills. You cannot weep
into its thick folds and
silken lining when life's
hurts assault your heart. . . .
There are plenty of
places to wear your mink
when it does get a little
chilly, you know, under
75 degrees Farenheit.
With boots and jeans,
wear your mink to the gro-
cery store, to the car wash,
to drop the kids off at
school, to the Oilers games
(the Astrodome is air-con-
ditioned, after all), and on
all airline flights. Also,
wear it when you go out in
the morning to pick up
the newspaper. . . .
On holidays, wear your
mink: on Halloween
(bleach your hair, get big
earrings and go out as a
Dallas woman) and
Christmas, at all parties
whether formal or infor-
mal. Remember: mink is a
state of mind.
There is nothing more
extravagant and luxurious
than a mother's love for
her daughter.
It is true that one day
we all have to give our
mothers up. But we do not
have to lock away their
glorious love for us. We
revel in it and pass it freely
to our own daughters.
Many thanks for shar-
ing your feelings about
your beloved mom. I bet I
know exactly how she telt
about you.
Sonja Nelson '66
Sugar Land, Texas
Re: the article on violence
to children. My wife is too
modest to send this [a
Birrnmg/umi News article
featuring lawyer Wendy
Brooks Crew 'SO, founder
of Street Law, a program
for 2nd- 12 th graders
taught by students at the
Cumberland School of
Law it helps prevent
juvenile crime by teaching
young people subjects
from the basics of conflict
management to the conse-
quences of crime], but
I'm not!
Thought you might like
to see this.
Richard D. Crew
Birmingham, Ala.
GIVING ALUMNA
"ASC is one of the best investments 1 can make in the future I wont see."
ASC fundraiser Dorothy "Dot" Addison '43
DOT ADDISON H3
Home: Atlanta, Ga.
Age: 72
Occupation: Homemaker
Husband: Thomas E. Addison Jr., retired from the
Addison Corp, wholesale building materials
Children: Two, one grandchild
ur money says a lot about what we think is important.
For a student who might
never have attended
Agnes Scott College,
Dorothy "Dot" Addison
has made quite a mark on
her alma mater. (Addison's
parents were convinced
that all good women's
colleges were in her home
state of Virginia until she
chose Agnes Scott. )
A trustee for 10 years,
she has served as a member
of the development com-
mittee for much of that
time, although at first her
heart was not in fund-
raising. "It was the life of
the mind 1 wanted to talk
about," explains Addison.
"As I got into it, though,
I found fundraising to be
important. How we use our
money says a lot about what
we think is important."
Addison has contributed
to some of the most impor-
tant fundraising initiatives
at ASC in recent years,
holding positions in the
Centennial and Campbell
Science Hall campaigns,
serving as fund chair for
the Alumnae Association
and establishing, with for-
mer Board Chair Betty
Cameron '43, the Laney
Fund in memory of English
Professor Emma Mae
Laney. In addition to being
a Founders' Club donor,
Addison is a charter mem-
ber of the Frances Winship
Walters Society.
"Agnes Scott is one of
the best investments I can
make in the future," Addi-
son believes. "I give in
gratitude, as well, because
I've been conscious all my
life of what ASC gave me."
While travel and a new
granddaughter ("she is my
hobby; she gives me a new
lease on life . . . ") add joy
to her life, these days,
Peachtree Road United
Methodist Church benefits
most from her volunteer
service.
Addison also takes great
pleasure in playing dupli-
cate bridge with her hus-
band Tom. "I have all my
support systems right
around me," she concludes.
"From my Peachtree Road
apartment, I can see the
steeple of my church, the
tower of Main at Agnes
Scott and my husband at
the breakfast table."
41_
GIVING ALUMNA
Agnes Scott College
141 E. College Ave.
Decatur, GA 30030
IUL.IL.,,11,11 il,l.t!l,ll.tlll,l,l!
***************** *****}i*s-ntr.n 300301
._ Jrive
Decatur, TJ^ 30030-3706
WOMEN WHO SURVIVE
More than 46,000 American women will
die ot breast cancer this year. Among the
survivors is Matuschka a New York artist
(above) who has continued to create
immutable self-portraits after she underwent
a mastectomy. In this issue, Matuschka and
another breast cancer survivor, alumna write]
Carol Willey '80, team up to bare many of
our breast cancer myths.
LUMNAE MAGAZINE
Summer/Fall 1996
The Inauguration of
Agnes Scott President
Mary Brown Bullock '66
EDITORS NOTE
Even occasional rain couldn't dampen the
joy or drown the high hopes of Inauguration Day.
The air was full on the morning of
April 19; excitement and humidity
made for an anxious concoction.
As the prayers of the many seemed to will
the gray clouds back from the impending
inauguration of President Mary Brown
Bullock '66, a sea of black robes trickled in
to the low lit cavern of Winter Theatre and
formed a convivial pool of representatives
from colleges, universities, learned societies
and professional organizations. More than
200 congregated, bedecked and orderly,
awaiting a signal from earnest Grand
Marshal Michael J. Brown, Charles A. Dana
Professor of History.
For many in the group, the events of the
day were a routine part of the collegiate life.
For me, the pomp and circumstance was
exceptional. I had not donned a robe and
mortar board since my own graduation from
Spring Hill College some 17 years earlier
and had forgotten the sort of dignified mood
academic regalia can effect. I was proud to
represent my alma mater and thrilled to be a
part of the historic event as an Agnes Scott
employee.
When Mike Brown announced the deci-
sion to "risk it" and proceed with an outdoor
ceremony, the news was met with the first of
the day's many rounds of applause. As the
cloaked legion spilled out of Dana Fine Arts
to Berlioz's Triumphed March and flowed
across campus, behind the rainbow of ban-
ners and beneath the canopy magnolia to
Presser Terrace, I was reminded of the words
of William Butler Yeats: How hut in courtesy
and ceremony are innocence and beauty bom'
It was truly a beautiful day.
The audience of more than 1 ,000 heard
warm greetings from students, faculty, staff,
trustees, alumnae, as well as civic and educa-
tional leaders, presented in praise of Mary
Brown Bullock '66, the first alumna presi-
dent of Agnes Scott College.
President Bullock's own words, a chal-
lenge to be "more global, more local, more
interdisciplinary, more faithful," offered light
on a morning that was occasionally damp-
ened by drizzle. To a group of listeners that
included her missionary parents, her hus-
band and children, and 55 members of the
class of 1966, Bullock spoke of the accom-
plishments of past presidents, of the
College's future, of "a destiny not yet ful-
filled." Pushing her words of promise past a
lump of emotion that intermittently settled
in her throat, Bullock personified the joy of
the day. "Let us make a joyful noise," she
said, "and let us love one another!"
What follows in this edition of AGNES
Scott Alumnae Magazine is a special look
at the inauguration of President Bullock.
For those of you who were able to attend
the ceremonies, we hope you will accept this
as a souvenir of the day. For those of you who
were unable to attend, we hope you will
savor this pictorial summary of the inaugura-
tion as we did the actual events and help us
in our endeavor to fulfill Agnes Scott's des-
tiny. As President Bullock said, "Our time is
now. We are going for the gold ! "
Mary Alrfra Durrett
CONTENTS
Agnes Scott College Alumnae Magazine
Summer/Fall 1 996 , Volume 73 , Number I
INAUGURATION DAY
A special report on the inauguration
of Mary Brown Bullock '66
Agnes Scott College's seventh and first
alumna president is ushered in with pomp
and circumstance . . . and a pervading sense of
hope and courage to face the century ahead.
DEPARTMENTS
Editor:
Mary Alma Durrett
Design: Everett Hullum
2
Student Assistants:
On Campus
Tina Backus '97
Rolanda Daniel '98
30
Danyael Miller '99
Jennifer Odom '98
Alumnae Weekend
Samantha Stavely '97
31
Publications
Lifestyle
Advisory Board:
Mary Ackerly
Christine Cozzens
38
Kim Drew '90
""
Mary Alma Durrett
Letters Aa
Bill Gailey
Ellen Fort Grissett '77
Tish McCutchen '73
Kay Parkerson O'Briant '70
W Edmund Sheehey
JBaffPffl^^
' Lucia Howard Sizemore '65
Copyright 1996, Agnes Scott College. Published for alumnae and friends
twice a year hy the Office ot Publications, Agnes Scott College, Buttrick Hall,
141 E. College Avenue, Decatur, GA 30030, (404) 638-6301. Postmaster: Send
address changes to Office ol Development, Agnes Scort College, Decatur, GA
30030. The content of the magazine reflects the opinions of the writers and nor
rhe viewpoint oi the College, irs trustees or administration.
ON CAMPUS
Olympic dance, in the news,
a fourth bright Fulbright
"THE RIGHT
TO WRITE:"
THE BEAUTY
OF WORDS
Her Majesty Queen
Noor of Jordan may
visit Agnes Scott College
this fall in conjunction
with the visiting art
exhibit "The Right to
Wtite: Calligraphic Work
from the Jordan National
Gallery of Fine Arts
Collection," on display in
the Dalton Art Gallery
through Oct. 16.
The exhibit features a
unique and rarely viewed
collection of paintings and
sculpture produced by con-
temporary artists from
Islamic and Arab cultures.
"The Write to Right" was
organized by and made pos-
sible through an agreement
with Her Royal Highness
Princess Wijdan Ali,
founder of Jordan's Royal
Society of Fine Arts and
the Jordan National
Gallery of Fine Arts. The
first woman in Jordan to
entet the ministry of for-
eign affairs and who also
represented Jordan at
United Nations meetings
Ai iNES SCOTT COLLEGE SI MMER/FALL lK>
Jl J*
DIRECTING THE OLYMPIC DANCE
Alvanita Hope '96 of Mobile,
Ala., (pictured at a rehearsal in
Olympic Stadium in May) was one of
three Agnes Scott graduates or stu-
dents who served as assistant choreo-
graphers for the opening and closing
events of the 1996 Centennial
Olympic Games held this summer in
Atlanta. Also serving as assistant
choreographers were Anne Mitchell '97
of Chesterfield, Mo., and Brittany
Allen '97 of Doraville, Ga.
The three "Scotties" were among
the 23 part-time choreographers who
assisted the full-time choreography
staff of eight in the production of the
spectacular opening and closing. This
group directed a cast of 7,000 which
began rehearsing May 6.
On campus this summer, Agnes
Scott played host to more than 700
Olympic-related guests during the
17-day sportsfest. The campus was
temporarily draped in official
Olympic banners and its sports facili-
ties were frequently used for practice
by a number of countries. The
College also hosted a reception for a
delegation of athletes from Burkina
Faso in the Woodruff Quadrangle
and welcomed a group of Jordanian
athletes to campus to view "The
Write to Right: Calligraphic Works
from the Jordan National Gallery of
Fine Arts Collection," in the Dana
Fine Arts Center.
in Geneva and New York,
Princess Wijdan received
her Ph.D. in Islamic art
from the School of Oriental
and African Studies at the
University of London. Her
work, found in major muse-
um collections around the
world, represents an
attempt to close the gap
between the Arab, Islamic
and Western cultures
through her paintings or
the exhibits she has orga-
nized. She is presently a
lecturer of Islamic art and
aesthetics at Al al-Bayt
University in Jordan.
The exhibit is sponsored
by Agnes Scott, the Jordan
National Gallery of Fine
Arts, the Royal Society of
Fine Arts In Jordan, Royal
Jordanian Airlines and
Mohannad Malas, through
the Malas Family Fund at
the Metropolitan Atlanta
Community Foundation,
and the Arab- American
Business and Professional
Association.
The exhibit is open to
the public. For more infor-
mation, contact Michael
Tinkler, ASC exhibit co-
ordinator, 404/638-5039.
ON CAMPUS
FULBRIGHT
NO. 4: A
WOMAN
WI TH DRIVE
Not unlike the three
Fulbright recipients
who directly precede her,
Ann Roberts '96 has found
"receiving the Fulbright
and being inducted into
Phi Beta Kappa has
changed my self-percep-
tion. It's proof that hard
work can pay off. I have
sacrificed a lot sleep,
social life, even my health
but it was worth it."
Roberts admits she is
"an over-achiever, disci-
plined, a perfectionist. I
consider those assets."
For her Fulbright grant
to study Kant and German,
the Mableton, Ga., native
will be enrolled at the
University of Mainz in
Germany from September
through July 1997.
Roberts, who is fluent in
GARY MEEK PHOTO
German, has traveled over-
seas as an exchange stu-
dent. "I made friends from
all over Slovenia, Israel,
Sweden," she recalls.
Roberts believes her
field of study, philosophy,
is critically important: "We
live in an anti-philosophy
age," she says, "even
though it is so important.
"Most people seem
unaware of the contradic-
tions in life; philosophy
opens people's minds,
broadens their horizons
makes them deal with their
world helps them see life
in new ways."
Roberts credits her
teacher and advisor, David
Behan, professor of philos-
ophy, with much of her
academic success. "Dr.
Behan has a way of making
things interesting, fascinat-
ing. He pushed hard and
didn't let me give up. He
worked me because he
wanted me to do my best.
ASC IN THE NEWS
Agnes Scott College continues
to make news. Not only has
news of the College made it into the
pages of The Atlanta Journal or
Constitution more than 3 5 times
since the beginning of January and
into numerous other local publica-
tions more than 40 times, the events,
programs, personalities and opinions
of ASC continue to make it into the
Scholar Ann Roberts
He took me to my limit."
ASC has provided
Roberts ample opportunity
to engage in the exchange
of ideas. "I get bored easi-
ly," she says. "I need a lot
ot intellectual stimulation.
I find that in books, espe-
cially philosophy."
There was no question
that Agnes Scott would be
her choice when she scout-
ed colleges four years ago:
"I chose ASC because the
financial aid was great and
it was close to home."
"I only looked at wom-
en's colleges. I feel a
woman gets a better educa-
tion at a woman's col-
lege it's not as limiting."
Academics and the
student-faculty 7 ratio of 8:1
also were factors.
Roberts' advice for stu-
dents coming to Agnes
Scott: "Do your best from
the start. Know what it is
you want and why you
want it, then figure out
how to get there. Be realis-
tic regarding the sacrifices.
Have a back-up plan. It
things do go wrong, try to
understand what happened
and simply do better. Don't
get emotionally wrapped
up in what went wrong."
Upon returning from
Germany, Roberts will dive
head-first into graduate
study in modern philoso-
phy at Vanderbilt Univer-
sity on a full scholarship.
As always, she knows
the road ahead won't be
smooth or easy.
"You have to have
internal drive. I'm always
going to be me ... might as
well be the best ot me."
Man' Elizabeth Zarauk
national
media.
While the
most recent
inclusion is in Money Magazine's
"Top 100 Best Buys," the coverage
has run the gamut from the New
York Times to The Chronicle of Higher
Education to USA Today Magazine to
Georgia Trerui and Georgia Forestry,
as well as CASE Currents.
The stories have included the
increase in first-year enrollment,
the two $1 million gifts to the
College, the International
Celebration of Southern Literature
Conference and the inauguration of
the first alumna president.
Look tor more College news in a
publication near you.
AGNKS SCOTT COI I lilil- Sl'MMFR/FAU. IW
INAUGURATE'
DAY
Mary Brown Bullock
comes home as Agnes
Scott's seventh
and first alumna
president.
We welcome you, the first Agnes Scott
alumna President of the College. You
bring us special capabilities. Through
your strong faith, commitment to excellence,
distinguished career, and your devoted life as wife
and mother, you have blended qualities which
are the essence of an Agnes Scott graduate.
Lowrie Fraser '56, immediate past president, ASC Alumnae Association
Officially beginning on April
17 with the Awards Day
Convocation in Rehekah
Scott Hall and a luncheon in Evans
Dining Hall, the inaugural celebration
of President Mary Brown Bullock '66
continued on April 18 with a rousing
performance by Agnes Scott's gospel
choir, Joyful Noise (upper right). The
group brought to life, the words
Bullock would speak the next day,
"Let us make a joyful noise, and let us
love one another!"
Photography by Paul Obregon
and Mark Sandlin
_6
AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE SUMMER/FALL 1996
The inauguration represented the culmi-
nation ot months of work by a host of
alumnae, students, faculty and staff. A
symposium, "Our World in Our Time" (far
left), which addressed educating women tor a
new century in a global community, was mod-
erated by Ina Jones Hughs '63, a syndicated
columnist for the Knoxville News Sentinel. The
Honorable Jean Hoefer Toal '65, justice on
the Supreme Court of South Carolina (left)
was among alumnae on the panel, which took
place in the Winter Theatre of Dana Fine
Arts Center. Others included Martine Watson
Brownley '69, professor ot English and director
of women's studies at Emory University; W.
Burlette Carter '82, associate professor of law at
Georgetown University; The Rev. Laura
Dorsey Rains '66, founder of Gardens for
Peace; Kitsie Bassett Riggall '83, vice president
for financial communications, Turner
Broadcasting Systems; and Dr. Jean Stewart
Staton '46, former chief of medicine at Wesley
Woods Geriatric Hospital.
INAUGURATION OF A NEW ASC PRESIDENT
_ >* t..
^-
*
I
c
*,
I make three predictions for the future of Agnes Scott. The first one is the continu-
ing move toward greater multiculturalism and cross-cultural awareness. The
second is through her valuing of and commitment to teaching and scholarship,
Mary will again be open to diversity. Finally, Mary will contribute immensely to
building bridges among us, as well as between us and our surrounding communities.
Ayse Carden '66, associate professor of psycholo,
Despite the gray
clouds that hung
over the
Woodruff Quadrangle in
the early hours of April 19,
the color and exuberance
of the day were apparent
everywhere, from dozens
of balloon clusters that
stayed aloft for two days
straight to the hundreds
of sunflower blossoms
that decked the luncheon
tables Anne Schatz (left
photo), inaugural commit-
tee member and director
of donor relations, was
among the many who
lent a hand to the
arrangements.
Mildred Love Petty '61
was a hands-on co-direc-
tor of the inaugural com-
mittee from start to fin-
ish. Anchoring balloons
early Friday (right) gave
way to escorting the Rev.
C. Benton Kline Jr. to
the processional line up
in Dana Fine Arts Center
by midmorning (above).
Adding to the proces-
sional palette that day
were 36 banners designed
and carried by representa-
tives of student organiza-
tions and activities at
Agnes Scott.
INAUGURATION OF A NEW ASC PRESIDENT
As society changes, the pressures on institutions of higher education to adapt
not only continue they increase. Yet we are convinced that the need for
high quality liberal arts education in general and especially for the women
who will assume the leadership of the next generation has never been greater.
Joseph R. Gladden Jr. , chair of the Board of Trustees
The faculty of Agnes Scott
College (right) joined more
than 200 delegates from
colleges, universities and learned
societies from the United States and
abroad in the inaugural processional
from Dana Fine Arts Center to the
Presser Terrace.
Among those extending formal
greetings to the president that morn-
ing were Sylvia Martinez '96, presi-
dent of the senior class (top left),
Charles Blitzer, director of The
Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars and president of
the United Chapters of Phi Beta
Kappa (middle left), and Lowrie
Alexander Fraser '56, immediate past
president of the Agnes Scott College
Alumnae Association (lower left).
ASC Board of Trustees Chair
Joseph R. Gladden Jr. (below)
presided during the ceremonies that
including a formal "vesting" of the
president with the Presidential
Medallion. Designed and executed in
1989 by Richard Mafong, Georgia
State University art professor, the
silver and gold medallion, was pre-
sented to President Bullock by
trustees Clair McLeod Muller '67 and
J. Wallace Daniel (photo on page 7).
AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE SUMMER/FALL 1996
> \ ni;\\ ->>< rREfir>t:xT
OUR TIME
IS NOW!
By President Mary Brown Bullock
Inauguration Address, April 19, 1996
Today we lay claim to our heritage
and prepare for a new century. I
feel privileged to have known all
but one of my predecessors. We
salute them, and take inspiration
from their legacy:
from our founding president, Frank Gaines, the
boldest of visions, the highest of academic stan-
dards, and a community of Christian character;
from James Ross McCain, institutional strength
and educational leadership in Atlanta, and
beyond;
from Wallace McPherson Alston, the vigorous
pursuit of individual and institutional excellence,
a student-oriented campus;
from Marvin Perry, faculty governance, perse-
verance, and human warmth;
from Ruth Schmidt, a multicultural, technolog-
ically up-to-date women's college;
from Sally Mahoney, celebration, civility, and
congeniality.
Agnes Scott students and alumnae here today
also salute generations of teacher-scholars: Dean
Kline, Jane Pepperdene, Kwai Chang, Mike
Brown, Penny Campbell and everyone else. We
are better women tor having studied with you.
12
ACNES SCOTT COLLEGE SUMMER/FALL 1996
w***j0&
^^
THE
AGNES
SCOTT
COLLEGE
TIMELINE
1889
Decatur Female Seminary
\"%.
founded
1890
School renamed Agnes
Scott Institute
1891
Agnes Scott Hall
("Main") built
1897
Agnes Scott Institute accredit-
ed as a secondary school
Aurora literary magazine first
published
1898
Howard Arbuckle joins faculty
as first Ph.D.
''"It
1902
Silhouette first published
1903
Col. George Washington
Scott dies
A gymnasium and classroom
building are added
1905
Rebekah Scott Hall built
^m tiSm
HI . ,
1
.
-^ r.
THE ASC CAMPUS IN THE EARLY 1900s
1906
Agnes Scott Institute renamed
Agnes Scott College
First bachelor of arts degree
awarded
Student Government
Association organizes
13
A NEW ASC PRESIDENT
1907
Athletic Association founded
ASC accredited by Southern
Association of Colleges and
Schools, the first in Georgia to
gain accreditation
1908
Glee Club founded
Investiture observed for first time
1909
First successful financial
campaign launched
Typhoid epidemic erupts; the well
in original gazebo is capped
1910
Carnegie Library built
1911
Inman Hall and Lowry
Science Hall built
1913
First public Investiture
1915
James Ross McCain appointed
registrar
Black Cat activities arranged as a
competition between first- and sec-
ond-year students
Blackfriars theatrical group
founded
Student
newspaper, The Agonistic, first
published
1917
Agnes Scott students join YWCA
Patriotic League
Drama troupe entertains soldiers at
Camp Gordon
First debate tournament with
Sophie Newcomb College
Your quality of teaching is
captured well by a famous
alumna, Catherine Marshall:
There were those shining
moments in classes , when mind
I
returned to
Agnes Scott
because I
the cutting edge. When Main
opened its doors in 1891, it
was an architectural master-
piece. The talk of Atlanta, it
was technologically advanced
sparked mind, as if a spark from believe that AgneS for its time with electricity,
a teacher' s mind fell on the dry Srnt~t~ has p Hestinv running hot and cold water,
grass of mine , and caught fire . , .... , and even steam heat.
How well 1 remember the HOI yet TUlIlllcCl. And so, remember this,
thrill of that and the intuitive
knowledge that at that moment I had broken
through to reality .
In reading the College history, it is per-
haps not surprising that it is President
Gaines, whom I never knew, who intrigues
me most. The Civil War was not long over.
Decatur was a struggling community of only
1 700. But Frank Gaines, a Presbyterian min-
ister from Virginia, had his eye on the
future. In a town that did not even have a
public school system, he conceived a college
for women that was equal to the best in the
land. President Gaines and the first faculty
set in motion a multiyear plan that led from
the 19th to the 20th century, from a
preparatory school to an accredited four-
year college of the highest standards.
Remember this: In 1907 Agnes Scott
became the first college or university to be
accredited in the state of Georgia before
Tech, before Emory, and before the
University of Georgia.
Remember this, as well: Agnes Scott was
the second college in Georgia to have a Phi
Beta Kappa chapter.
Agnes Scott's first buildings, as well as its
rigorous and progressive curricula, were at
too: Main's bell tower, our
logo, looks forward, not backward, challeng-
ing us daily.
We must prepare, as our founders did, for
a new century. Will we build as well for the
21st century as they did for the 20th? Is our
vision bold enough? I returned to Agnes
Scott because I believe that Agnes Scott has
a destiny not yet fulfilled. First, we reaffirm
our founding legacy a liberal arts college
for women with the highest standards. And
then we move on to tackle the educational
issues of our era. We must be both more
global and more local, more interdiscipli-
nary, and more faithful to our founding
values.
Si
More Global
I everal summers ago I helped lead a
. week-long workshop for Japanese and
American corporate executives at the
Aspen Institute in Colorado. The course was
on Asian and Western social and philosophi-
cal traditions. For almost the cost of a semester
at Agnes Scott, 20 executives explored the
original texts of Confucius and Plato; Genesis
and Lao T:u; John Locke and the Meiji consti-
tution. Together, we discussed different cultur-
Left to tight: Rate McK'emie, professor emerita of physical education led the parade of faculty emeri-
ti and emeritae and past presidents, including Ruth Schmidt and interim Sally Mdhone\.
J4
AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE SUMMER/FALL 1996
al understandings of evil, justice, individuality,
the family, and society. Their employers who
paid the hill AT&T, Mitsubishi, the United
Nations recognized two things that Ameri-
can higher education is still slow to grasp:
First: To be global is not an option, it is a
requirement. Knowing something of the
humanistic traditions of both western and
non-western traditions is as important as
economics in today's business world.
Second: To be more global is to integrate
the world into the curriculum, not to assign
it a separate place.
Agnes Scott is ready to do this right.
Linguistically, we have become a national
model with our NEH-funded "Language
Across the Curriculum." Ann Roberts, a
senior who works in my office, is a German/
philosophy double major. She wrote her
honors thesis on Kant in German and has
just received Agnes Scott's fourth consecu-
tive Fulbnght scholarship. Ann will study-
philosophy in Mainz. We are proud of Ann,
her professors, and this program which will
lead us in globalizing our curriculum.
Last fall we renewed our exchange agree-
ment with Kinjo Gakuin in Nagoya, Japan.
Last week I approved a new recruiting plan
for international students. Next year I am
committed to working with the faculty in
designing and funding a more comprehen-
sive international study program.
We are fortunate: The Olympics will
jump-start these initiatives. The Cultural
Olympiad begins here in Gaines Audito-
rium. Agnes Scott, appropriately, will host
An International Celebration of Southern
Literature. Her Majesty, Queen Noor of
Jordan [planned to] join us when our Dalton
Gallery features an exhibit of Contemporary
Islamic Calligraphy from Jordan's National
Gallery of Fine Arts.
Can you see what I see? A vision of our
George and Irene Woodruff Quadrangle as a
lively and cosmopolitan learning center, a
true Global Commons?
More Local
To be more global, we must also be more
local. We begin here at home with our
identity as women, but not just Ameri-
can women we are women of the world. For
the Beijing UN Conference on Women
reminded us that the issues are not the "glass
ceiling," but health, literacy, economic oppor-
tunity, and all of our children.
Agnes Scott's new Atlanta semester pro-
gram may be the only leadership program
Alumna Ila Burdette '81 , the first woman
Rhodes Scholar from Georgia, led the procession
of delegates as a representative oj The
University of Oxford, founded in 1249.
that espouses servant-leadership. The focus
is not just on providing internships or
understanding why Atlanta is ranked fourth
among American cities in international
trade. Students also study changing concepts
of citizenship for women, minorities and
immigrants. This program challenges all
educators, for leadership alone is not
enough. How can we train leaders who will
empower those with whom they live, with
whom they work to reach their full econom-
ic potential? We will answer this question
more honestly only when we (administra-
tors, faculty, staff and students) ride
MARTA more and cross the tracks to
Decatur.
Several weeks ago my husband, George,
my daughter, Ashley, and I spent a Sunday
afternoon following the Decatur Tourist
Bureau's driving tour. As we wound through
Glendale, Chelsea Heights, Lenox Place,
and Oakhurst, well-preserved historic resi-
dence communities, I began to understand
why people feel Decatur is such a wonderful
place to live. And I became even more con-
vinced that Agnes Scott and Decatur must
work together to improve the urban core
which serves these communities.
Agnes Scott occupies a strategic geo-
graphical position. We anchor the south
side of Decatur, the county seat for
DeKalb, a diverse area with more than
600,000 people.
Here we can truly make a difference.
We are excited by Decatur's revitaliza-
tion and by its potential as a people's town.
We look forward to doing our part. USA
Today recently ran a front page article on
the quality of life in college towns.
Can you see what I see Decatur, a col-
1918
Founder's Day celebrated
for first time
J.R. McCain appointed vice
president
1919
Students give up their
yearbook and contribute
funds to the war effort
1921
Alumnae House is built, the second
such building in the nation
1922
Pi Alpha Phi, a debate society,
organizes with merger of Mnemo-
synean and Propylean Societies
1923
Frank Gaines dies
J.R. McCain elected president
1925
George Bucher Scott
Gymnasium built Jv^
1926 &
Beta of Georgia Chapter
of Phi Beta Kappa organized
League of Women Voter's
chapter founded
Founder's Day radio
broadcast initiated
,;
1928
Participation in a Junior Year
Abroad program approved
Rogers steam plant and laundry
constructed
1929
Practice teaching available
1930
Buttrick Hall completed
1931
Honorary Order Agnes Scott
College (HOASC) becomes chapter
of Mortar Board recognizing
achievement in leadership,
scholarship, and service
First Alumnae Weekend
held in the fall
15
INAUGURATION OF A NEW ASC PRESIDENT
1932
Footstool first used as part of
ceremony for Investiture and
Commencement
First McKinney Book Award offered
1934
New Agnes Scott onyx ring design
adopted
1936
New Carnegie Library opened;
in 1951 renamed to honor
President McCain
Quarter system adopted
Old library building designated
Murphey Candler Building
later known as the Hub
1937
Louise McKinney retires after 46
years in the English department
Class cut system adopted on a trial
basis
1938
Dean Nannette Hopkins dies
J.K. Orr dies
George Winship chairs the Board
of Trustees
Carrie Scandrett appointed dean
of students
University Center established
Christian Association organized
as College breaks ties with the
national YWCA
Students
protest
Saturday
ALUMNAE GARDEN
1940
Presser Hall built; $10,000
Dogwood preserved
16
lege town, Atlanta's home-
town, blessed with a MARTA
station; a college town with
bookstores, theaters, restau-
rants, movies, retail stores,
county governance, interna-
tional trade offices, and, of
course, mosques, synagogues
and churches?
o
ur work is
cut out for
us as
women, as a
Let us remember the
Judeo-Christian concept of
vocation. We care about the
economic transition from col-
lege to career, about preparing
our students for graduate
More Inter-
disciplinary
More global and more
local, and yes, more
interdisciplinary.
What will college presidents say to this fall's
entering class, the class of the year 2000? I
would be surprised if most do not centrally
affirm the importance of interdisciplinary
learning. We know that our students' minds,
our minds, are being challenged to think
across the traditional categories of knowledge.
Interdisciplinary learning keeps us from
becoming too narrow or pedantic, alerts us to
questions of significance, and trains us for crit-
ical thinking in the years ahead. Interdiscipli-
nary learning is what a liberal arts college is all
about, more needed than ever.
Agnes Scott has strong humanistic and
science programs. I challenge us to bring
them together in our curriculum. Let us go
forward with our plan to create an "Atlanta
Science Center for Women." And let us do
so with the commitment that it will become
nationally recognized as a place where
humanistic inquiry, social reality and scien-
tific discovery go hand in hand.
More Faithful
That's not easy. Agnes Scott's founders
were staunch Presbyterian Calvinists
who believed that faith and learning
were inseparable. Today, the Agnes Scott
community, like the society in which we live
and the world that we embrace, is far more
diverse religiously, ethnically and economi-
cally than the world of late 19th century
Decatur. How then can we be faithful to our
founding mission? Let me begin a new conver-
sation about our values.
Let us learn about Christianity, not
just as a first century religion or as a 19th
century American religion, but as a living
world religion. Today, China, Africa and
South America are the regions where
Christianity is most dynamic. How are those
cultures re-interpreting and re-vitalizing tra-
ditional western concepts of Christianity?
Community, and aS school, challenging jobs, and
a college. We will family '
grow, we will build
and we will
change. We can be
second to none.
al leadership. But from the
lives of alumnae I have met, I
have been reminded of a
deeper definition of vocation,
a calling, "discovering life's
work where our heart's deep-
est desires meet the world's
greatest needs."
Let us evoke the need for balance and
reflective contemplation from all the reli-
gious traditions of the world. I was startled
recently when Gary Thompson, president of
Wachovia Bank of Georgia, asked me:
"How are you preparing your students to live
more balanced lives?" He spoke of watching
the toll that stress takes when his employees
try to do too much. A recent Sally Forth car-
toon featured Hillary, about 12, consulting
her Day-Timer, unable to find time to play a
game with her father. He later muses to his
wife: "We owe an apology to an entire gen-
eration of children."
In a world stressed out by busy schedules
and on a college campus with high expecta-
tions, teaching balance is a daunting task. It
we can't address this issue during the college
years, who will? Let us take a fresh look at
our schedules and campus life. We will cre-
ate time for intellectual synthesis, reflective
contemplation, meditation and the power of
silence.
And let us not forget joy. Remem-
bering last night's concert, can you hear
what I hear? A joyful noise! It is, after all,
the Westminster Catechism that says, "The
glory of God is the chief end of all." Let us
make a joyful noise, and let us love one
another!
Friends, we are not yet ready for the 21st
century. We must prepare, and there is not
much time.
Our work is cut out for us as women, as
a community, and as a college. We will
grow, we will build and we will change. We
can be, as Frank Gaines envisioned, second
to none. He believed in destiny, and so do
we. Our foundations are tirm. We know
where we are going.
Our time is now.
We are going tor the sold!
AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE SUMMER/FALL 1996
F
r
1941
Faculty pension plan introduced
War Council organized
1943
Agnes Scott students paricipate in
USO, organization providing
hospitality for men and women in
the U.S. Armed Services
College sponsors day-long
conference on the war,
increasing student awareness
1946
Art and music departments
offer majors
1948
Wallace McPherson Alston
appointed vice president and
president-elect
1948-1951
Evans Dining Hall, Bradley
Observatory, Campbell Science
Hall, Walters Infirmary and
President's home are constructed
and dedicated
1950
Honors Day established
Smoking on campus permitted
1951
James Ross McCain retires
Wallace M. Alston assumes the
presidency of ASC
Library renamed McCain Library in
honor of retiring president
Black Cat becomes
campus-wide celebration
1953
Hopkins Hall built
1954
A Man Called Peter filmed on
campus
1956
Walters Hall built
1958
Fine Arts Festival held
1962
Students seek shelter in Alston
17
home during Cuban Missile Crisis
1965
Dana Fine Arts Building dedicated
First African-American student
enrolls
1966
Agnes Scott team wins College
Bowl competition with Princeton
Alex P.Gaines chairs the Board of
Trustees
1974
Return to College program begins
1979
Lawrence L. Gellerstedt Jr., chairs
the Board of Trustees
1980
Buttrick Hall renovated
1981
lla Burdette, Georgia's first female
Rhodes Scholar, graduates
1982
Marvin B. Perry retires
Ruth A. Schmidt first woman elect-
ed president
Campbell Science Hall renovated
1987
Quadrangle renovated and named
the George and Irene Woodruff
Quadrangle; Gazebo restored and
relocated on the Quad
THE HAZARDS
OF GOING ON
By The Rev. Wallace M. Alston, Jr.
Alumnae Weekend Service
. . . for you have not passed this
way before.
Joshua 3:4
We owe our text and our subject this
morning to two courageous spirits
out of the past, separated in time
by some 3,300 years.
Joshua, a man who
lived in the 15th centu-
ry before the birth of
Christ, gives us our
text. The people of
Israel were still wander-
ing around in the
wilderness. And their
great leader, Moses,
who had been denied the privilege of har-
vesting the fruits of his labors, had died. The
mantle of leadership had now fallen about
the shoulders of the successor, this Joshua,
who was as able and prepared for his leader-
ship role as anyone could be.
By the way, there is a fascinating phrase
at the end of the 1 1 th chapter of Hebrews
that has some relevance both to our text
and to the inauguration of a new president
of Agnes Scott. After naming the great
leaders of the past, the writer says: "And
these all . . . received not the promise, God
having provided something better for us,
that they without us should not be made
perfect," meaning complete, whole, fulfilled.
No past president of this institution, in
other words, no teacher or administrator,
though accomplishing much during their
time of service, ever finished his or her task
or fulfilled his or her dream. They left that
to us, "that they without us should not be
made perfect." That is how God deals with
us. We are inextricably related to the men
and women of the past, who invested their
lives in this enterprise we call Agnes Scott
College, and only by our faithfulness will
their lives find fulfillment.
So Joshua, upon whom the mantle of
leadership had fallen, sent out his spies to
bring him news of what the people might
expect to face in the future. He charged the
people to go forward and positioned them for
the crossing of the Jordan. Then he gave
them their final instructions, in the context
of which we find eight little words that
belong also to us on this inauguration
Sunday:
. . . for you have not passed this way before.
So Joshua gives us our text, but it is
Amelia Earhart, one of the pioneers of
intercontinental air travel, who gives us
our subject. Returning from her first flight
across the Atlantic, Amelia Earhart made a
public address in which she described her
adventure over the water. And in that address,
she dropped a phrase which I want to borrow.
Out over the ocean, some 500 miles from the
coast of Ireland, her engine began to sputter
and cough as if it were about to quit. "I had to
make a quick decision," she said. "I figured the
distance I had already come and that which I
had to go before I reached Ireland. I decided to
go on as long as I could keep the ship in the
air, for the hazards of going on were no greater
than the hazards of going back." What she real-
ly meant was that she had no choice. There
was no going back, the hazards ot trying were
too great. It was the hazards of going on that
she had to identify and address.
So on this impottant weekend in the his-
tory of Agnes Scott College, when we gather
here on the verge of another Jordan to thank
God for Mary Brown Bullock, for her family,
and for that tradition of faith and learning
that has so bountifully provided for her and
this institution, I want to speak with some
realism about the future and particularly
about the hazards of going on, "tor you have
not passed this way before."
So, where to begin? We begin, I think, by
admitting that sometimes the past, and the
prospect ot going back, are more attractive
to us than going on. We look back to the
T8
i\GNES SCOTT COLLEGE SUMMER/FALL 1996
W!
hat we
need if
we are
to cope with the
hazards of going
on is a perspective
on life that
somehow tran-
scends and informs
our own dailiness.
"good old days" with great
nostalgia, longing for another
chance at our history, believ-
ing that we would again
achieve all the successes we
enjoyed back then and avoid
all the mistakes we made.
The desire to go back is alto-
gether human, and altogether
impossible. The hazards of
going back are much greater
than the hazards of going on.
With us, as with Joshua's lit-
tle band, going back is not
the way to freedom, but slav-
ery. Vision is displaced by memory, the mira-
cle of surprise by the manacle of predictabili-
ty, what is to be by what already has been. It
is the practical denial of the providence and
the promises of a living God, who comes to
us from out of the future, picks up the pieces
of the past, and gives us a present in which
we are free to be who we are!
There is a sense in which we stand today
in the same relative relation to our tomor-
rows as the people of Israel when Joshua
gathered them on the banks of the Jordan
long ago.
So before crossing over, let's take a look
at some of the hazards of going on.
One is confusion. There will be questions
and issues to face in any new era and in
every new presidency, and some will be so
ambiguous and so complex that the way
through will not be evident in advance.
Some of us will graduate, others will retire.
What will we do? Or, the prior question:
Why will we do anything at all? When we
were young, we asked: "What will 1 do with
my life?" Someone should have told us that
the real question is not "what" but "why."
Why will I do anything at all?
Some of us may have to make a move;
others may have to decide how best to relate
to aging parents; others may have to face a
dreaded diagnosis or a marital crisis. Who
knows what any of us will come up against
in the days, months, and years that lie
ahead? One thing is for sure: we will need
some sense of direction if we are to find our
way and avoid debilitating, dissembling con-
fusion, for we have not passed this way
before.
Another hazard of going on is discourage-
ment. Anyone who holds to high ideals and
humane values; anyone who has ever caught
a glimpse of a better world, in which people
are healthy and whole; anyone who has ever
invested him- or herself in a
great social movement that
sought to lift life onto a higher
plane; anyone who's ever tried
to build and to lead an institu-
tion with one eye on the ideal
and the other eye on the actu-
al, is bound to become dis-
couraged when progress turns
out to be only temporary,
when the possibilities of jus-
tice and love and human his-
tory seem to be limited at best,
when the prophet's dream all
too often dies at opening day.
Another hazard of going on is failure, the
inability to measure up to expectations, the
experience of being thought of as more or
different than one really is. There is no guar-
antee that we shall succeed, or that things
will turn out as we want them to. To fail is
to lose strength, to fall short, to be inade-
quate, to become bankrupt, to neglect or
leave undone. And it is always one of the
hazards of going on.
As is loss, losing, losing out, the experi-
ence of "being taken from," . . . the loss of a
person, the loss of a promotion or of a vote
or even of the job itself; life taken away,
love gone away, health stolen away as if by a
thief in the night.
And then there is routine, a word that lit-
erally means "the traveled way." The excite-
ment of the unknown, once experienced,
soon becomes "the traveled way" and has
the power to bore one to death; life without
sensation, excitement, or challenge. I
remember something a former president of
Agnes Scott used to say, someone whose
identity you might guess. He used to say:
"Ninety percent of my job is routine. It's the
same for everyone. You do the ninety per-
cent routine for the sake of the ten percent
creative." Routine is always one of the haz-
ards of going on.
Then there is the dark night of the soul,
which at some point besets us all, but partic-
ularly those in positions of leadership . . .
spiritual emptiness or God-dryness, the pres-
ence of the absence of God, the absence of
the presence of God, a feeling of futility in
prayer, the suspicion that one might really
be on one's own.
And there are many, many more.
W
hat we need if we are to confront
and cope with the hazards of going
on is a perspective on life that
1988
Wallace Alston Campus Center
opened; Robert W. Woodruff
Physical Activities Building complet-
ed; Presser and Dana Fine Arts
Buildings renovated
1989
Agnes Scott College Centennial
celebrated
Elizabeth Henderson Cameron '43
first alumna elected chair of the
Board of Trustees
1989
Four full-time minority faculty hired
Thomas Maier hired as first full-
time director of academic computing
1990
A special gift enables
hiring first full-time
chaplain, the Rev. ^Jf
Patricia Snyder
Fund-raising suc-
cess allows
extensive renova-
tion and refurbish-
ing of facilities
and grounds, as
well as opening of
new swimming pool,
playing field and track
Beck telescope upgraded and
moved from Bradley Observatory
to Hard Labor Creek State Park
Multiyear Centennial Campaign
raises more than $36 million
1991
Linkages established:
SHARPIWomen with Atlanta
area high schools; arts program
with Atlanta Ballet; externships
with community businesses and
institutions
Dean of College Sarah R. Blanshei
travels to Japan to sign agreement
for scholarly exchange between
Agnes Scott College and Kinjo
Gakuin University in Nagoya
1992
Seven Kinjo Gakuin students enroll
atASC
Japanese language taught on
campus for first time
19
INAUGURATION OF A NEW ASC PRESIDENT
Twenty '92 graduates first in Scott-
Free Year-5 program providing
courses free to students with at
least two years of credits, as aid to
transition from college to work
Knight Foundation grant enables
program for increasing Hispanic
presence on campus
1993
Trustees approve multimillion
dollar Information Technology
Enhancement Program (ITEP)
The College awards its first
master's degrees, Master of Arts in
Teaching Secondary English
ASC chapter of Habitat for
Humanity helps in construction of a
house built solely by women
1994
Ruth Schmidt retires
Sally Mahoney named interim
president
Agnes Scott and a portion of South
Candler Street named to National
Register of Historical Places
1995
Agnes Scott enters information
highway, launches its home page
at http://www.scottlan.edu
Mary Brown Bullock '66, first
alumna named president, seventh
president of College
College awards degrees to the first
three men to complete the
College's Master of Arts in
Teaching program
Presser Dogwood, due to age and
disease, is replaced on Arbor Day
1996
Bullock inaugurated
Alumnae give two $1
million gifts to ASC
T
ASC hosts kickoff
event for Cultural
Olympiad's
Summer Festival in
June, houses
Olympic delegations, July-August
somehow transcends and
informs our dailiness. The
word "perspective" comes
from the Latin, which means
"to look through, to see clear-
ly," and that is precisely what
we need . . . the ability to
look through the mundane
and the obvious, to see clearly
that our lives are in God's
hands.
Suppose someone should
ask us what that means.
What would we say? What
difference does it make to
believe that our lives are in
God's hands?
For one thing, it means that the future is
finally not my responsibility to secure. If
the future is in God's hands, then surely
it is out of mine. If I had to face the future
with the conviction that the universe is
devoid of God, aimless, purposeless, an acci-
dental dance of protons and electrons, and
ultimately meaningless, I could not sleep at
night. Whereas one who believes that tomor-
row and tomorrow's tomorrow are in God's
hands can concentrate on present tasks and
responsibilities, without always being haunted
by the apprehensions of failure and doom.
Deeper still, to believe that our lives are
in God's hands is to trust that God's
purposes are being worked out, sometimes
ever so gradually, sometimes in the twin-
kling of an eye, in human history, in my life,
in the lives of those I love. "God is working
his purpose out as year succeeds to year,"
according to the great hymn. That convic-
tion gives a person wide horizons, long out-
looks, steady hopes, and great expectations,
so that, instead of losing heart and giving up
over some immediate disappointment, one
still has a place to stand where she or he can
get a toehold for going on.
Deeper yet, to believe that our lives are
in God's hands is to avail oneself of the
presence of unfailing resources of inner
power. Fact is, we do not so much produce
power as we appropriate it, witness the har-
nessing of Niagara, eating a good meal, or
taking a walk in the fresh air. We appropri-
ate and benefit from what's already there.
To believe that our lives are in God's hands
is to live in the presence of an unseen love
and care that is as real as the physical world
of which we are a part. And from that
divine companionship, if we are to trust past
*o believe that
our lives are
in God's
hands is to know
that God can take
the old things and
make them brand
new.
testimony, women and men
are able to draw replenished
strength with which to cope
with the hazards of going on.
Yet again, to believe that
our lives are in God's hands
is to know that God can
take the old things and
make them brand new. God
can take dry bones and make
them live again. God can
take the glories of the past
and use them for an even
greater future. But even
more important, God can
pick up the pieces of past
mistakes, hurts and disappointments, and
use them to heal and to reconcile, that we
may not be burdened but equipped by the
past for the journey that lies ahead.
Then finally, there is Easter. Did we not
sing only two Sundays ago: "Jesus Christ is
risen today?" And is that not merely a fact
of history past, but a factor . . . the control-
ling factor . . . of history present and yet to
come? Is the power of his resurrection not
that which is at work even today as we mark
the inauguration of a new president of
Agnes Scott College and look forward to all
that God has in store for this institution? Is
it not God's power at work within us to do
far more abundantly than all that we ask or
think? If Easter means anything at all, it
means that this power . . . his resurrection
power ... is that with which we have to do
this morning, that to which we bear witness,
even as we represent to Mary Brown Bullock
our faith that her life and that of this
College are firmly grasped and held in the
hands of a good and gracious God.
s
I o, let us give thanks tor the perspective
of our Christian faith, and let us claim it
for ourselves today as we did on the day
we first believed, for the hazards ot going on
may be great, and we "have not passed this wav
before". But our lives are in God's hands; the
lite of Agnes Scott College is in God's hands.
And there is a power at work within us to do
exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or
think. I have nothing more to say to you this
morning. What more can I say? Except . . .
Now to the God who by the power at work
within us, is able to do far more abundantly
than all tluit we ask or think, to (God) be glory
in the church and in Christ Jesus to all genera-
tions, forever and ever.
Amen .
_20
AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE SUMMER/FALL 1996
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Decatur is known as the city of homes, schools, and places of worship
a small town that celebrates diversity as we live, work and play
together. We are Atlanta's hometown, a small city with small-town
values in the heart of a major metropolitan area. Agnes Scott College and
all that it represents is an important partner contributing to the sense of
community we all enjoy. Together we can meet the challenges and opportu-
nities of our future creating a community that welcomes all with open arms.
Elizabeth Wilson, mayor of Decatur
The already congenial
group forged fast
friendships in the
rain. Many shared a light-
hearted moment beneath an
umbrella with an old
acquaintance, others made
new friends out of necessity.
PREVIOUS PAGE: Return to
College student Beverly
McCannon (left) leads a
private moment of prayer
amid the excitement and
noise of the day. Many no
doubt asked Divine
benevolence on not only
this joyful occasion, but also
on the decades to come.
The inaugural luncheon
in the George W. and
Irene Woodruff
Quadrangle got off to a great
start and almost survived with-
out so much as a rain droplet
until the dessert came 'round.
About the time the group had
its first fork in the pie, the
heavens opened and rain
poured down.
The crowd, including Ayse
Carden '66, professor of psy-
chology (above) took cover
beneath umbrellas, empty
chairs Kate McKemie
made a bonnet of the
spare one next to her
the gazebo, the colon-
nade or under the
great revival-style tent
at the center of the
quad.
As the first ASC graduate to lead this institution, you usher in a new era. One
that will bring continued growth and unprecedented achievement. We know
you will remain committed to raising the level of excellence of the College
and all those associated with it. We, too, are committed: committed to the ideals that
the College was founded upon and committed to sustaining you as the head of this
institution. We shall stand proudly beside you as you lead us boldly into a New Era.
Maurice Byrd, Information Technology Services
A few hearty souls, like Mary Duckworth Gellerstedt '46, honorary chair of the inaugural com-
mittee (above left) and Giselle Fernandez '98, committee member (second from left), rode out
the rain in their seats. Others, such as the members of the class of 1966, huddled with the Lady
of the Day, classmate Mary Brown Bullock, and relived a college-moment under shelter of the tent.
After the luncheon,
readings were held
by alumna authors:
Helen Fnedman Blackshear '31,
poet laureate of Alabama;
Shirley Christian Ledgenvood '36,
poet and editor; Elizabeth
Stevenson '41, biographer and
winner of the 1956 Bancroft
Award; Shirley Graves
Cochrane '46, creative writ-
ing instructor at Georgetown
University School of
Continuing Education and
the Writer's Center; Jeanne
Addison Roberts '46, former
president of the Shakespeare
Association of America; and
Constance Curry '55, human
rights activist and author of
Silver Rights.
Along with the sympo-
sium, "Our World in Our
Time," the events concluding
the inauguration emphasized
the College's academic past
and its intention effacing
toward the future a theme
that resounded throughout
the weekend and promises to
carry Agnes Scott into the
next century.
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We welcome Dr. Bullock
back home as our sev-
enth and first alumna
president. Our campus has been
energized by your presence. It is
my hope that this new vision
will be combined with meaning-
ful traditions to help create the
next era in the future of Agnes
Scott College. We admire your
commitment to academic
excellence and to each member
of this community: faculty and
staff as well as students.
Sylvia Martinez, president of the class of 1 996
-~i
To the music of Spellbound (right) and the
Peach Trio jazz ensemble, the Agnes Scott
community took the inaugural celebration
into the wee hours of April 20 in the Sky Room of
Decatur's First Union Bank. President Bullock and
her husband, George (below) were the honored
guests. The dance was well attended by the student
body, which participated in the inauguration in
many ways, including naming the special drinks for
the evening in a campus-wide competition. The
winners: "Downtown Mary Brown," so titled by
Betsy Bilbro '97 of Warner Robins, and "Sweet
Agnes," named by Rolanda Daniel '98 of East
Point. Students were also the recipients of two
computers given away as door prizes that evening.
w*r- J
^
"Agnes Scott College is committed to academic excellence and is serious about edu-
cating women for the 21st Century." Mary Brown Bullock, seventh and first alumna president of ASC
The inauguration of
Agnes Scott's seventh
president could not
have been possible without
the hard work and dedication
of the entire Committee on
the Inauguration, headed by
Honorary Chair Mary
Duckworth Gellerstedt '46.
A significant gift by
Mary and Larry
Gellerstedt helped
make the inaugu-
ration the true
celebration that it
was. Serving with
Gellerstedt were
Mary G. Ackerly,
director of public-
relations and
Mildred Love
Petty '61, as co-directors;
Andrea Johnson Swilley '90,
director of major gifts, as
deputy director; as well as
committee members, Mary
Alverta Bond '53, secretary
emerita of the Board of
Trustees; LaDonna Brown '99,
Michael J. Brown, Charles A.
Dana Professor History;
Ronald L. Burnside, Charles
A. Dana Professor of Music;
June Elizabeth Derrick '68,
Giselle Fernande: '98,
Rhiannon Gerald '97, Kelly
Jennings '96, Janice B.
Johnson, administrative assis-
tant to the dean of the
College; Jeanne A. Maxfield,
executive assistant to the
president; Virginia F.
Moreland, College librarian;
Elsa Pena, director of the
physical plant; Anne M.
Schatz, director of donor rela-
tions; Lucia Howard Sizemore
'65, director ot alumnae affairs;
Peggy Thompson, associate
professor of English; Isa D.
Williams, director of the
Atlanta Semester program;
Olga Yiparaki, assistant profes-
sor of mathematics; and Lisa
Frankum, inaugural co-
ordinator.
The College also recognizes
the contribution of the
Randolph Partnership, a public
relations agency headed by C.
Randolph Jones 70.
"PRESIDENT"
KIDNAPPED-BRIEFLY
A dastardly deed foiled by two quick-thinking, intrepid alumnae
By Mary Alma Durrett
It was nearly 2 a.m. when IT registered with
Andrea Swilley '90, director of major gifts.
The "president" had been conspicuously
absent from the inaugural dance for the last
half hour. Call it a combination of maternal
instincts and gumshoe leanings, but Swilley
couldn't just let it lie. She did a 180 in her
Windstar and motored back to the First Union
Bank to investigate.
The answers to a few well-placed ques-
tions confirmed her suspicion.
The "president" was missing.
Disappeared.
Probably kidnapped.
The night guard at the Sky Room
remembered several students carrying her
(bodily) out of the elevator and through the
backdoor but this failed to arouse suspicion
in the guard. That was 1:34 a.m.
He thought, "Well, maybe she'd had too
many Downtown Mary Brown's." Even a
"president deserves to kick up her heels
occasionally."
That was all Swilley needed to hear. She
alerted her trusty sidekick, Kim Drew '90,
and the two made a bee-line to file a miss-
ing "persona" report. The police chief react-
ed promptly by falling asleep. After all, it
was only Gatorfoam. Since there would only
be a few more hours until daylight, Swilley
and sidekick caught some shut-eye and
restarted their search at dawn.
Inquiries to key College personnel the
next day revealed a couple of important
sightings of the "president" on campus. She
was believed to be in Winship Residence
Hall. The criminals' hideaway was close at
hand. Then Swilley and Drew took a bold
step. They surrounded the building.
Yes, both of them.
The two clever alums invoked the Honor
Code and pressed a student in the hall for
the "president's" whereabouts. She cracked.
The "president" was on the third floor.
With this news, Swilley and Drew moved in
for the rescue.
They knocked at the door.
No one answered.
They tested it.
It was unlocked.
They opened the door quietly and there
stood the "president" in the corner
looking a bit bedraggled and (gasp)
missing a finger. Swilley and
Drew freed the captive, and the
"president," ever poised and
fully regaled, said with her eyes,
"Thank heaven for the Honor
Code."
FOOTNOTE: Although
numerous requests for
appearances by the life-
size cutout of the "presi-
dent" have been made
since the inauguration,
the "president 1 ' is
being kept under
lock and key in a
top secret corner
of the catnpus .
"Thank heaven for
the Honor Code."
None could deny the hero-
ism of the two alumnae who
rescued the "president."
Indeed, their work became
legendary among students
who were heard to mumble ,
"Man.' They just came right
in and stole her back."
Andrea Swilley '90, direc-
tor of major gifts and deputy
director of the inaugural
committee , mugs with a
happy "president" after the
ordeal (and a finger repair) .
A GREAT WEEKEND
FOR ALUMNAE
Alumnae Weekend
was indeed, "A Time
to Celebrate," as it
was so inextricably tied to
the president's inauguration.
A Fifty Year Club Dinner,
honoring the class of 1946,
was attended by the newly
invested President Mary
Brown Bullock '66 (above) on
Friday evening. A forum with
recipients of the Outstanding
Alumnae Awards Carla
Eidson Pierce '84, June Hall
McCash '60, Mary Aichel
Samford '49 and Margaret
Ward "Wardie" Abernethy
Martin '59 was held on
Saturday.
The gavel of the Agnes
Scott College Alumnae
Association was formally
passed from President Lowrie
30
Alexander Fraser '56 to
Letitia "Tish" Young
McCutcheon'73 (middle right)
at the annual meeting held in
Gaines Chapel of Presser
Hall. ASC President Bullock
offered a greeting to the more
than 750 alumnae who gath-
ered that morning, including
Kate Durr Elmore '49 of
Montgomery (lower right)
whose $1 million gift to the
College was announced dur-
ing Bullock's inauguration. A
second $1 million gift from
Patricia Butler 78 of Lajolla,
Calif, was also announced.
The gifts will be used for
library and student center
expansion and renovation.
An alumnae luncheon with
faculty followed the annual
meeting, as did a guided tree
tour of the campus
and an introduc-
tion to Agnes
Scott's World Wide Website
On Sunday, The Rev.
Wallace Alston Jr., pastor of
Nassau Presbyterian Church
in Princeton, N.J., led
a worship service in
Gaines Chapel
(Alston's sermon
begins on
page 20.)
AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE SUMMER/FALL l l o
LIFESTYLES
Giving foreign visitors a sense of America; the art of story -telling;
ancient romance; boa baby; floor covers and uncovering the past.
From the Smithsonian to the Senate, visitors of many countries find guide Nancy Francisco Barbour s tours "very interesting
CAPITOL
ESCORT
Tour Guide Nancy
Barbour '49
Rome. Paris. London.
Madrid. Since her
Scottie days in Decatur,
Nancy Francisco Barbour
'49 has called these world
capitals home.
America's capital is her
current home and using the
languages she acquired
abroad, she escorts foreign
visitors to historic sites in
Washington, D.C.
As a freelance tour
guide for the Guide Service
of Washington, Barbour
leads groups of up to 35
Italian, French, English,
Spanish or Dutch visitors
to the Capitol, the White
House, the Lincoln, Viet-
nam and Korean memori-
als, and to Arlington
National Cemetery.
In outings longer than
the standard four hours of
most tours, Barbour, whose
husband is a retired diplo-
mat, ventures to the
Kennedy Center, Embassy
Row, Mount Vernon,
Annapolis, Gettysburg,
Williamsburg, Georgetown
and Harper's Ferry.
Her guests are from all
walks of life, from diplo-
mats to homemakers.
The National Gallery,
the Museum of Natural
History and the Air and
Space Museum are among
their favorite stops. The
National Cathedral also
ranks high on their lists as
well as on Barbour's.
But the piece de resis-
tance, she adds, is a trip to
the Capitol. "I let them sit
in the Senate and House
chambers and I explain
how our government
works. They find that very
interesting."
A TALE OF
TWO TALL
TALKERS
Storytellers Betty Ann
Gatewood Wyhe '63
and Kathleen Stout
Mainland '54
Betty Ann Gatewood
Wylie '63 spins more yarn
than Scottdale Mill in its
heydey.
As a professional story-
teller, Wylie tells tales
three or four times a day to
audiences ranging from
children attending Macy's
annual "Breakfasts with
Santa," to residents of
31
LIFESTYLE
Betty Ann Gatewood Wylie's storytelling skills have inspired the young and the "young at heart."
homes for the aged, to
Habitat for Humanity
fundraisers, anniversaries
and wedding rehearsal din-
ner parties in which she
creates a fairy tale about
the honorees.
The storyteller's career
was launched at chil-
dren's birthday parties
before her first child was
born more than 30 years
ago. Today she also shares
her talents in classroom
settings, including an
annual 50-hour workshop
for teachers, and also with
her peer storytellers.
Everyone can tell a
story, Wylie emphasizes.
She urges her pupils to read
a lot. "Choose stories you
love and suit them to your
audience," says Wylie. "Use
your built-in tools: body
language hands, eyes and
other facial expressions
your entire body. Use your
voice as an instrument to
convey variety in your pre-
sentation. Speed it up.
Turn up or down the vol-
ume. Use inflection. Do
LETTERS FROM THE PAST
Editor Georgia Powell Lemmon '51
Like piecing together patches of a
priceless heirloom quilt, Georgia
Powell Lemmon '49 is gathering written
treasures from 131 letters written by her
father to her mother during World War I
When Margaret Boyd McKay Powell died 12
years ago, her daughters Lemmon, Margaret
"Bobbie" Powell Flowers '44 and Celetta "Leila"
Powell Jones '46 inherited the boxed letters from their
mother's beau-turned-husband. Two years ago the three
siblings divided up the batch and, in longhand, tran-
scribed a phrase, paragraph or sentence from each letter.
Next, Lemmon purchased and mastered a computer
and began compiling "a calendar of letters" to include
one letter portion per day.
Throughout the lengthy project Lemmon has deeply
sensed her father's "constant, unwavering love" for her
mother. William John Powell composed his
almost daily letters to his belle in Thomasville,
Ga., from his U.S. Army training posts in San
Antonio, Charleston and Leavenworth, Kan.
"I wish I could meet you at the corner
of Love and Jackson," wrote Powell of two streets
in their Southern hometown. In 1918, the second
lieutenant's heart's desire was granted at last. The war
ended the night before his France-bound ship was sched-
uled to sail. Three months later, McKay collected and
stored her letters and began her 5 1 -year
marriage to Powell.
Lemmon plans to self-publish
the emerging book, complete with
vintage photographs from her
parents' lite.
7<
32
AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE SI MMER/FALL 1996
LIFESTYLE
characterizations. Use your
imagination and your emo-
tions. Be courageous!"
Wylie's storytelling
prowess has inspired many,
including Kathleen Stout
Mainland '54- With her
Scottish brogue, a twist of
imagination and a generous
dose of native folklore,
Mainland took a tale,
"painted it purple" and
won the 1995 Southern
Annual Liars Contest. The
native of Scotland reached
the pinnacle of her story-
telling career when she
became the first woman in
six years to win the con-
test, hosted by the
Southern Order of
Storytellers in Atlanta.
Her award-winning tale,
which as the rules dictated,
ended with "and I painted
it purple," fetched the yam
spinner a new Brumby
rocker. Mainland was
skeptical of her ability to
weave a tale, but upon
hearing the requisite con-
cluding phrase she quick-
ly associated purple with
the heather of her
homeland and blended
some native tales to
capture the prize.
Mainland admits
to having stumbled
into the craft when a
friend invited her to
"a concert" 13 years ago.
The Scottie at first was ter
ribly disappointed to learn
that the event was story-
telling and not music as
she had anticipated. But
the evening of tales
sparked a flame of interest
in Mainland after hearing
the featured storyteller,
Betty Ann Gatewood
Wylie.
WORK
BENEATH
YOUR FEET
Designer Martie
Lowom Moore '78
Scottie accomplish-
ments include scaling
Mount Everest, descending
into the bellies of volca-
noes and delving deep into
the psyches of wounded
children. But Martie
Lowom Moore's signature
accomplishments may be
beneath your feet. The
1978 graduate is a free-
lance floor covering
designer.
The Marietta, Ga.,
artist's designs grace wall-
to-wall carpets in hotels,
restaurants, chain stores
and office buildings,
including some Hallmark
shops and the Green Bay
Packer's locker room, as
well as welcome mats sold
at K-Mart and linoleum
floor covering available at
Wal-Mart.
Clients approach
Moore, a work-at-home
mother of two, with specif-
ic ideas or ask her to pro-
duce thumbnail sketches of
potential designs. She must
take into account the
material, the manufactur-
ing process, the number of
colors, the final size and
the number of times the
design is repeated on the
product.
LIFESTYLE
According to Moore's
clients, when they want
the design to be "pretty,"
they choose her as their
designer. For inspiration,
Moore keeps track of men's
and women's fashion and
other societal trends in col-
ors, and furnishings.
"Everything trickles down,"
explains Moore. "Carpet is
last, following home fur-
nishings and clothing. It's
conservative. What was a
popular color a year-and-a-
halt ago is often what is
selected for a floor
covering."
MOVE A
LITTLE DIRT
TO THE LEFT,
PLEASE
Archeological artist
Sarah White '50
On her knees and
covered in dust,
Sarah Hancock White '50,
has touched the past. "You
touch this pot and you
trace where the potters
hands have been. You see a
thumbprint, an impression
of a hand, you feel a little
indentation, and you know
you are in touch with
someone who lived in
2400 B.C."
The dust, the pot and
the connection with the
potter are forces that have
lured White and her hus-
34
band, Marlin, as volunteers
on archeological digs to
Jordan. Three times since
1984, Marlin has accompa-
nied Drew University
Archeology Professor
Suzanne Richard to the
Middle Eastern city. White
joined the crew on the last
two trips for which she
served as the site artist and
Marlin as camp manager.
The 25 to 30 volunteers
hail from around the
world. Some are students
or professors or people such
as Marlin whose interest in
ancient pottery was
heightened by a class
Richard taught.
The workers' dig site is
a pre-biblical, early
Canaanite village, the
length of one-and-a-half
football fields. It is named
Khirbet Iskander for its
conqueror Alexander the
Great. The ruins are 15
miles east of the Dead Sea
and near Mount Nebo,
where Moses later stood
and saw the Promised
Land, was denied entry and
eventually died. "It is
thrilling to be in such his-
torical surroundings," says
White.
For four-to-eight weeks,
the work crew camps in a
primitive section of Jordan
where residents live strik-
ingly similar to the way
ancient village people
lived. The area is some-
what impoverished; the
volunteers must draw their
water from a stream and
boil it. "It is another
world," White reflects,
adding, "It is enlightening
to see how other people
live. It makes us realize
how fortunate we are."
The mud-brick village
with its stone foundation is
buried underground, on a
hill. Strong desert winds
Sarah Hancock White and her husband, Marlin, enjoy digging into other people's, pasts
AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE SUMMER/FALL 1996
LIFESTYLE
assist the volunteers who
must dig only three to four
feet to unearth early
Bronze Age knives and
primitive grinding tools.
Beautiful, functional,
intact, three-foot tall ves-
sels, which stored grain,
water, wine or olive oil, are
discovered, as are numer-
ous shards of pottery, shat-
tered by earthquakes.
White, a former high
school art and math
teacher who received her
art degree from Agnes
Scott, produces detailed
drawings of all the artifacts,
including the shards, as
they are discovered. The
findings are also recorded
by a site photographer.
Before artifacts can leave
the country, Jordan's
Department of Antiquities
sees them and chooses
which will remain and
which can be taken out.
Stateside, White com-
pletes her drawings with
pen. She and Marlin also
enjoy lecturing to civic
groups about their work
and assisting in restoring
the artifacts. This involves
washing, gluing, labeling,
logging the shards and not-
ing where they were found.
The Whites store numer-
ous boxes of yet-to-be
processed artifacts in their
basement.
"You have a feeling that
you are rewriting history,"
White says of the digs.
"You learn about the peo-
ple who lived there, why
they lived there. The time
period [in which] they
existed, their living pat-
terns, the battles they
fought, why the village was
deserted, and the causes of
their abandonment."
Earthquakes were fre-
quently the cause for mov-
ing, she explains. "The vil-
lage findings refute beliefs
about the time period. It
was thought to be the dark
ages, and that life had
ceased to exist in that loca-
tion. But it was a much
longer occupation than pre-
viously believed."
The New Jersey-based
couple plans a final expedi-
tion to Jordan next year,
after which their leader,
Richard, is scheduled to
begin a book on the digs.
Leisa Hammett-Goad is a
freelancer in Nashville, Tenn.
HER "FAVORITE SQUEEZE"
Chiropractor Christy Cechman '90
The hypothetical "average family"
includes two dogs and a cat. When
Christy Cechman '90 and husband Lewis
Cone entered Texas Chiropractic
College, they sold their two dogs and
adopted Siddhartha, a pet boa constric-
tor.
Although it has been joked about, the
couple does not plan to use the Columbia
Red-tailed Boa in their future profession.
Instead, they realized their lifestyles
didn't allow adequate time for
feeding, walking and nurtur-
ing canines. Their
"sedentary" snake,
named for the first
Buddha, only
requires a live
mouse every two
weeks for suste-
nance. At 12
months old and
three feet long,
he subsists
peacefully in
his aquarium
and enjoys
"snuggling" with
his owners when taken from his habitat.
"He likes being held," says Cechman,
who explains that only certain aggressive
breeds of boas live up to the species' rep-
utation of squeezing people and animals
to death. The Atlanta native adds that
boas wrap around bodies for warmth.
Wise owners, such as Cechman and
Cone, also know to loosely drape and
not wrap the boa around their necks. If
the person carrying the snake were to
trip or make a sudden motion to give the
snake the sensation of falling,
then it would constrict
and be deadly. As
Siddhartha grows
toward his pre-
dicted eight feet,
his owners
plan to pur-
chase larger
aquariums
and eventual-
ly dedicate a
five-by-five-
foot room
with trees for
him to climb.
35
LETTERS
Breast cancer: we are not martyrs, heroines or icons we are women.
Last summer Agnes SCOTT
Alumnae Magazine pre-
sented me with the oppor-
tunity to prepare an article
on the vast and complicat-
ed subject of breast cancer.
Eight years after my own
treatment for the disease, I
met the challenge with a
combination of gratitude
and trepidation. After
extensive research and a
good deal of soul-searching,
I produced an essay and a
companion article that
presented the situation of
the breast cancer patient
and described women's
important advocacy efforts
in the field. The two pieces
were structured to run
together, a balance of harsh
reality and hope.
It was never my inten-
tion to write about myself,
although I knew that the
article would come from a
very personal perspective.
When the essay was pub-
lished, I was shocked that
the editors presented it as a
"self-portrait," paralleling
the piece with a banal fea-
ture article about a New
York artist named Matusch-
ka who won notoriety in
1993 when The New York
Times Magazine published a
defiant "self-portrait" that
prominently displays her
mastectomy scar.
The editor's use of the
obsequious feature and the
photo fought with the most
important argument of my
essay. Physically, psychical-
ly and socially, breast can-
cer is not just a disease of
the breast it is a disease of
the whole woman.
Historically, medical
progress in treatment has
been slow due to the failure
to envision breast cancer as
36
a disease related to the rest
of the body. Personally, loss
of a breast is hard, but the
trauma does not compare to
the impact of having one's
life threatened. For most
women, emotional and
practical adjustments are
arduous and extensive. The
cosmetic problems pale in
comparison.
Yet, the editors present-
ed Matuschka's mastectomy
portrait as an "icon" for
"breast cancer awareness."
Awareness of what? Many
of the so-called "breast can-
cer awareness" campaigns
are promulgated by the
financial interests of the
commercialized medical
industry. Women are
taught that, if they only do
all the right things, breast
cancer won't be a problem.
The truth is, we only have
some screening techniques
that, when properly ad-
ministered, can find tumors
earlier in some women.
Breast cancer is an
unsolved mystery. Each
woman's case is different
and the simplistic cam-
paigns of fear are rarely
helpful. They foster denial
of the real issues and place
an unreasonable burden on
all women.
Of course, many cam-
paigns for "awareness,"
sponsored by non-profit
groups such as the Susan G.
Komen Foundation, are
honestly motivated and
useful in raising funds for
research. But there is a
growing resistance among
women to what has become
an annual pink-ribboned
marketing frenzy for mam-
mography, a screening
technique that is not uni-
versally efficacious and cer-
tainly not a means of pre-
vention.
Unfortunately, the
American breast cancer
mythos of "awareness" is
more geared toward denial
of feeling than toward heal-
ing. Women who experi-
ence breast cancer are not
martyrs, heroines or icons,
we are women that is our
greatest strength. The
alumnae magazine editors'
decision to distort my work
to support current cliches
insulted all of us who strug-
gle with illness. Pink rib-
bons represent girlhood,
not mature femininity and
certainly not the womanly
depth of feeling that recov-
ery calls us to experience.
As a woman and a pro-
fessional, the editor's
sideshow vision of my work
hurts. I worked hard to
avoid sensationalism and to
respect my own privacy as
best I could in presenting
many devastating aspects of
my experience. The med-
ical reporting 1 produced
was excellent and original.
To have such careful work
compared in the headline,
"baring the breast cancer
myths," to another wom-
an's decision to expose her
mastectomy scar is unac-
ceptable.
Preparing the piece was
a good experience. It was a
privilege to interview alum-
nae breast cancer survivors.
I will not forget their wis-
dom and bravery or the
support of so many others
who helped in my research.
Sadly, after what the
editors produced, I am
relieved that most alumnae
interviews did not appear. I
wish that I also could have
been spared the indignity
of being included in the
package. It is deplorable. If
I could withdraw my work
now, I certainly would.
Much of what I pre-
pared survived, but the edi-
tors particularly crippled
the lead essay. From the
first paragraph, my voice is
manipulated and shackled.
Most tellingly, the piece's
wit was vacuumed out.
Substantive and grammati-
cal mistakes were also
gtafted into the essay.
Finally, the irresponsi-
ble comment about alleged
"health risks" of breast
reconstruction is tremen-
dously disturbing in light of
current medical under-
standing. Ignorance like
this is a pathetic but real
threat to the healing
option ot reconstruction.
I am a woman.
Presuming to present my
experience as a "portrait"
ot breast cancer was wrong.
Something positive was
replaced by a vision of fear.
This is a great loss to me
and to the Agnes Scott
community.
Carol Wilky '80
Editor's Note: Carol
Willey's article on breast
cancer was indeed "excellent
and original." The College is
proud to have had her work
included in its publication.
The College regtets any
misinterpretation which
may have been attributed to
its presentation of the
information.
If you would like a copy
of the original version of
Carol Willey's article, write
to: Office oj Publications.
.\gnes Scott College.
141 E. College Are..
Decatur. GA 30030.
AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE SI 'MMER/FALL 1 W6
GIVING ALUMNA
After an investment of 18 years, an investment in Agnes Scott's future.
len and Mary Christine Kline: "The people are the greatest thing. I want them to see someone from the old days [still] cares
C. BENTON KLINE
Home: Atlanta, Georgia
Age: 71
Occupation: Officially retired but teaches part-time at
Columbia Theological Seminary
Wife: Mary Christine "Chris"
Children: Two children, tive grandchildren
Despite his affiliation
with institutions such
as Yale and Columbia
Theological Seminary, C.
Benton Kline Jr., former
dean of faculty at Agnes
Scott College, remains a
strong supporter of the
College.
This is evidenced by the
charitable annuity trust that
he and his wife, Mary
Christine, recently set up to
augment two existing schol-
arship funds named for their
mothers and to create the
Mary Christine Kline Fund,
a special gift that will help
ASC faculty to defray the
costs of entertaining stu-
dents.
Kline first came to ASC
in 1951 as an assistant pro-
fessor of philosophy and
Bible. In 1957, he became
dean of the faculty, a post
he held until 1968, when
he resigned to become dean
of the faculty and professor
of theology at Columbia
Theological Seminary.
Over the years, Kline
continued his contact with
ASC as a visiting professor.
Kline and his wife estab-
lished the Jessie Lawrie
Johnston Hicks Fund and
the Wilma St. Claire Hout
Kline Fund during the
College's 75th anniversary
campaign.
The Klines established
the Mary Christine Kline
Fund because they wanted
to encourage the kind of
faculty-student contact they
enjoyed they entertained
students every Sunday
night throughout the fall
and winter. "I thought that
it was worth having a little
bit of a fund as a stimulus
for this kind of exchange,"
Kline says.
Now officially retired,
Kline recalls his "invest-
ment of 1 8 years" at ASC
as being an investment in
people. "As dean, I hired
many young faculty, some
of whom are still active. My
wife and I also developed
close relationships with stu-
dents who are now alum-
nae. The people are the
greatest thing about Agnes
Scott. I want them to see
that someone from the old
days continues to care."
Teresa Marie Kelly '94,
MAT '96, is a school
teacher in Atlanta.
ott College
141 E. College Ave.
Decatur, GA 30030
'"""-" H.I...III....H |,|7m
The class of 1966 showed up lr
force (55 members) to applaud the
accomplishment of their classmate
Mary Brown Bullock '66, who was
inaugurated in April as the first
alumna president of Agnes Scott
College. The remarks of President
Bullock on the occasion of her
inauguration are just part of our
extensive report on the historic
event, beginning on page 5.
Q Printed on recycled paper