Letter to Chair of the Board of Trustees

I understand that you are looking to Wheaton College as a model for the co-ed Wilson. Rather than look to the women's colleges that have gone co-ed, please look at the women's colleges that are succeeding.

 

Hollins is exemplary [www.hollins.edu]. Their motto is "Women who are going places start at Hollins." Look at their Web page entitled, "Why Hollins?"

Why does Wilson College have to fade into the oblivion of a ho-hum coed school nestled between Gettysburg, Dickinson, and Shippensburg and under the shadow of Penn State? Pennsylvania has lots of small co-ed schools.

 

Wilson is and always has been unique. Use the moneys aimed at going co-ed to make her even better for the 21st century.

 

Put the money necessary to provide male dorms and athletic facilities into our facilities for the Women with Children program, for our athletes including the gymnasts, and for the new programs needed to make her even more attractive to the women of the 21st century.

 

Please note that I have donated $1100 to Wilson in the past two months, and I am working with two high schools students to get them to Wilson. And I am just one alumna who is willing to put my money and my time into the women's college that gave me so much.

Sincerely your,

Beth Ashby Mitchell '69

December 3, 2012

48 years ago today, I received my acceptance letter from Wilson College. I had applied for "Early Decision" [I agreed to apply to Wilson alone, and I would hear back in early December] because Wilson was the only place I wanted to go.

Set the Scene:
I lived in Bellevue, PA, the first suburb outside of Pittsburgh along the Ohio River, population ~5000. Bellevue High comprised grades 7 through 12. There was no cafeteria--and no school buses or parking lots--so all of the students walked to and from school all of the time, including lunch time.

However, senior year I had a part in a play, which rehearsed at lunch time, so I couldn't go home at lunch time to check our mail. Our landlady agreed to check the mail for me each day, and I would call her from school. On December 3, 1964, the letter from Wilson came; she opened it and read it to me. I think the entire high school heard my whoops of joy and excitement. And my teachers, office staff, and fellows students shared my enthusiasm. I think my mom and I went out to dinner to celebrate that evening.

I did not graduate from Wilson, and I have always been sorry about that. To cover the awkward questions, I just say that I finished at GW after I was married.

Wilson was my school; and one of my closest friends is my roommate from Wilson.

I was not part of the Save Wilson movement; I had just moved to Maryland with a 3-yr old and a newborn. One of my classmates was chair of the Board of Trustees, and I trusted her judgment.

However, in the fall of 1979, I reconnected with Sue Brooks who had been active in Save Wilson. She introduced me to the Baltimore Wilson Club and saw to it that I got back on campus. I met some amazing women and got involved in numerous projects on campus. Barb Tenney noticed me and nominated me for the Alumnae Board.

My three years on the board were life-changing. I was a stay-at-home mom with no intellectual outlet. On the board, I was a leader among many leaders. Wilson College gave me what it gives every graduate--an opportunity to grow and lead.

To be continued.

Today the Wilson College Board of Trustees begin a two-day deliberation on how to turn around the desperate financial state of the college. Among several options being put forth by the president is the option of going co-ed. The alumnae have been kept in the dark about the financial situation [running on a deficit budget for the past three years, plus millions of dollars of debt].

These are alumnae who in 1979 went to court and kept the college from closing. We have been known as Wild Wilson Women for decades. We know how to think outside the box [what box?], and we are very generous to our alma mater.

Alumnae are gathering on campus today and tomorrow in a vigil of support for the college. I am going up tomorrow. And in the meantime, I am keeping the entire Wilson community in my thoughts and prayers.

Wilson was established as a women's college in 1869, and has been dedicated to women's education ever since. It is one of very colleges who offer a Women and Children program for single moms that allows them to live on campus with their children.

Adding a few men to the enrollment will not save the college, especially in an area full of excellent co-ed institutions.

Four Corners Photographs

Having returned from our Four Corners Trip, I have created a Shutterfly page with my photographs. For now you will find a random selection of photos from the Four Corners.

starrmark.shutterfly.com

Today has been a very difficult day for me spiritually. Several years ago, I decided that I could no longer say that every story has two sides; I now say "Every die has six sides." Not unlike the six blind men and the elephant..

I just listened to Bishop Michael Curry's sermon from this past Sunday at General Convention about Crazy Christians. I have been reading comments on various blogs and FB today about the Blessing for Same-Sex Unions that was just passed at GC. I have spent time reading about Sister Jose Hobday and reading Rachel Held Evans' blog today [http://rachelheldevans.com/taking-thumb-off-scale-tverberg], which has to do with judging others. And once again, I have been judged and found majorly wanting by my daughter.

So many of my FB friends are positively jubilant about the approved Blessing; some are wailing that it is not sufficient. Some of the posts from GC want to take Bishop Curry's sermon as his blessing on the gay question, and are flashing their Crazy Christian badges. Other esteemed, faithful Christians are essentially calling this the final blow for the Episcopal Church. In my own ponderings today, I have wondered seriously whether it is now time for us to leave.

This same GC has announced a $1 million budget for Mission and $20 million for litigation against the "rogue" dioceses and parishes. Nine bishops are being sanctioned for standing behind parishes and dioceses who have left the TEC. Is this the face of Crazy Christians? The Crazy Christians Bishop Curry was talking about?

My gut is in knots; my eyes want expel buckets of tears; and my heart is aching.

In the past few weeks, as I have faced the same-sex question, I have had these same reactions. The only thing that has kept me sane has been Rick LaRocca's musical setting for the Prayer for the Gift of the Holy Spirit:
Come Holy Spirit, Fill the Hearts of the Faithful
Kindle in Us the Fire of your Love
Send forth your Spirit and We shall be Created
And You shall renew the Face of the Earth....

Only the Holy Spirit can lead us now. Lord, I believe, Help my unbelief.

Things Come to Pass

In the summer of 1975, I was working in the young adult department at the Hyattsville Branch of the Prince George’s County Library. I was pregnant with my daughter Dawn. It was hot. I could barely get my feet in my Dr. Scholl’s sandal.

Things weren’t going as smoothly as I would have liked. My father-in-law was really pissed off about our choice of name for a daughter—Dawn Elizabeth. My mother felt that I had betrayed her by on ur asking my mother-in-law to come for the baby’s birth. And my father was angry that we hadn’t asked Mom to come. I was trying to complete a district-wide photo contest for teens and finish up other projects that I was responsible for. And it looked like the baby might come early [NOT].

I was sitting in the YA area at the branch with my feet propped up on a chair to see if I could get some relief, when a friend tiptoed into the area, put a small piece of paper on the desk, and slipped away.

I picked up the paper and discovered one of the most soothing sayings that I had ever read—“Things Come to Pass, They do not Come to Stay.”

If you know me, you know that is my life’s mantra [along with “Fear Not Tomorrow, God is Already There”].

My friend Sally Thurston had heard the saying at an AA meeting the night before and knew I needed it.

I felt instantly transported to a cool glade in the woods next to a high waterfall, and I could put my feet into the stream.

Dawn was two weeks late. My mother came the week after she was born. And the two sets of parents continued as good grandparents.

Sally Thurston died this week, alone in her apartment. I heard this afternoon, and wonderful memories are seeping in as I try to deal with her passing.

There is a huge hole in the universe this week where the one-and-only Sally once was.

I'm Back

I have not written since last July at the time of Dick's mother's death. When I recently looked at my journal, I realized that I had written almost nothing in 2011.

I finally made the connection that the grief of the past several years had taken a much larger toll that even I admitted. There have been nigglings at the back of my brain that it is time to start writing again.

A young woman by the name of Rachel Held Evans has gotten my attention. She is an Evangelical lay person who writes a blog about various Christian topics. Most recently, she has done a couple of postings about women's issues in the Christian church.

In her latest, she took on Jon Piper, a Baptist minister who is revered in many fundamentalist circles. He wrote this week about the Masculine nature of the Church, or as he put it "the Masculine Feel of the Church".

I have been in the Episcopal Church for 32 years. I am a Methodist PK, and when I came to TEC, I felt as if I had come home to Wesley's church. Women had been ordained legally three years earlier, and I found the "new" prayer book a beautiful blending of the old and new liturgies. I hadn't been in the trenches for all of the preceding warfare; in fact, I only heard stories about the zebra trial liturgies and the knock-down drag outs of the female clergy battles.

I did face my own battles for women in those days, and I will always be grateful that I did. [And I will write about it in another post.]

Rachel's posts this week, and the responses to it, have been a real wake up call for me. At almost 65, I haven't taken on too many battles for feminism lately. I have been surprised to hear younger women vehement about not being feminist. Two of my friends who are former military nurses are also vehement about not being feminists, and yet, their attitudes and actions belie that. I think it is the label they resist.

So folks, heads up--Beth, the pushy Yankee female, is back.

I am going to post several items over the next few weeks from my own experience. I can at least add some of the stories from the earlier generations.