Reunion

A Message from the President of Mills College

To build upon an old slogan, let me say that Mills wants you to come back to campus this October and rediscover your alma mater.

No matter when you graduated or what degree you earned here, I think you'll discover that the Mills community—including our alumnae and alumni as well as students, faculty, and staff—is as vibrant as it's ever been in our 157-year history.

We invite you to come back to campus this fall to experience that vibrancy firsthand. I especially encourage you to spend some time visiting classes, to be among our current students who are eager to meet you and to learn from you. Reunion is a wonderful opportunity to forge new connections between alumnae/i and current students who, before long, will become part of the Alumnae Association of Mills College.

I know that when you return you will be reminded of the beauty and power of the Mills campus. We have been working hard to preserve our most treasured landmarks and to establish new ones. I hope that you will be able to visit our 80-year-old Music Building that reopened in January after an 18-month renovation. At Reunion, you'll have the opportunity to enjoy a powerful concert of works by Darius Milhaud and Igor Stravinsky in the building's brilliantly restored Jeannik Méquet Littlefield Concert Hall. Across Richards Road, you'll be able to tour the brand-new building for the Lorry I. Lokey Graduate School of Business, designed to meet the stringent requirements for certification as a green building. All around campus, you'll see evidence of a growing culture of environmental sustainability, from creek and lake restoration initiatives to recycling programs in dorms and dining halls.

Amidst the ongoing global financial depression, we are fortunate that Mills remains a strong and healthy community that is proud of its mission and of the accomplishments of its students and alumnae/i, who are working for changes, big and small, all over the world. I know that as alumnae/i you carry Mills with you wherever you go. There is a collective power in our community that you help to renew whenever you return to campus.

We hope you'll join Mills graduates like Convocation speaker Stephanie Mills '69, who shaped an enduring national environmental movement; our Golden Girls and the 50th Reunion Class of 1959, who pioneered changes in the roles of women in our society; and alumnae of the Summer Academic Workshop, who forged new pathways to academic and career success for first-generation college students.

I invite you to come back for Reunion and rediscover the people and places that mean most to you when you remember Mills.

Sincerely,
Janet L. Holmgren