September 25, 2024
Keeping in time with the Mills Community since 1917
Opinion pieces, columns, and staff editorials
As it goes at every credible news organization, it is our job to think of what is important to cover for our community.
But as the newspaper of a small, private liberal arts college, it is especially difficult to know how wide we should enlarge our scope.
I love being a college professor for a lot of reasons, one of which is that we get three months off in the summer, six weeks in the winter, and ten days in the spring. Off from teaching and committee work, that is, but not from our jobs. We are "expected" to devote about half of our time to research and writing (or creative equivalents in artistic fields), and most of that gets done when we are not fully occupied with teaching.
Prepare yourself for a shock: I don't call myself a feminist.
I defended this position a couple of years ago when Gloria Steinem visited Mills and chided any women who didn't pronounce themselves as such. I felt that for Steinem to cry shame at any woman who refused the feminist moniker was political blackmail.
As an all women's school, it's no secret that Mills is a very accepting place when it comes to the issues of the Queer community. In fact, that was a factor in my decision to come here. For that reason, I find it incredibly disturbing that I have yet to experience any officially organized events, speeches, meetings, or even words of encouragement or support.
Despite our encouragement of diverse ideas and speech at Mills College, we have experienced a minimal-if nonexistent-exchange of ideas with people of conservative, or in other ways different or unpopular, viewpoints.
Case in point: we received and published numerous letters last semester from Obama and Clinton supporters, but McCain supporters have yet to write a single letter to our newspaper.
Hollie Q. Hill August 14, 1963 - July 14, 2008 taken from us by breast cancer, Mountain View, CA. Born and lived in the greater Santa Cruz and San Francisco Bay Areas. Graduated Harbor High School 1981, recently attending Mills College pursuing Library Arts.
I remember the day I arrived here. I drove through Mills' pearly gates, white bookends that seemed to separate the lovely quiet green of the sleepy campus from the rest of reality. The wind rustled through the trees that lined the lane leading towards the main part of campus and I parked in a little lot covered by eucalyptus trees.