Maybe you’ve heard about the ill-concieved merger, um AGGRESSIVE CORPORATE ACQUISITION of Mills College? I’ve been working with various groups in the Mills Rebel Alliance to fight this insult and injury to women’s rights, LBGTQIA protection, cultural arts and women’s history, since the first lie came out in March, 2021: “We’re broke.” On July 1, 2022, Mills ceased to exist, becoming a campus for an education conglomerate.
Watch my 6-minute arts backstory, which is intertwined with Mills’ backstory, and why this matters to me:
Here’s the St. John’s version…
My first published work was the story of Mills.
Inside the Mills Revolution. (It wasn’t really a revolution, just a successful strike to keep things the same.) I had 100 copies printed and sold them out of the back of my art car. Get it free here!
A strong wind blew me onto a career path I never intended…I became a dancing girl and a history buff, visiting Mills often to work with the Fires of Wisdom oral history project—who I encouraged to dress up and act out! (They’re still wearing hats to tea.)
20 years later, I published my first memoir,
Perfectly Revolting: My Glamorous Cartooning Career. The launch party was an epic tea party (which unfortunately took place the same week as the formation of the billionaire-funded “grassroots” political movement of the same name) at Reinhardt Alumnae House. A series of campus events that year celebrated and reflected on that crucial moment for women. Get your copy here.
A year after that, I published my second memoir.
At Mills, I had been able to write a 30-page comic book, The Reason She Left, for my senior project.
Also this year, one of my published stories,
Bernice Bobs Her Head, ends with a girl going to Mills to study Dance in the 1920s.
It’s time to Save Mills again.
When the president, Beth Hillman, announced Mills’ impending closure in 2 years, she asked for input from the community. I came up with 24 ideas. They were ignored, and then Beth announce Mills’ “merger” with some random education conglomerate within one year. Everyone went WTF Beth?!?!?! We thought you were on Mills’ side! As the steamroller began to crush the life out of Mills, alumnae got active & learned: this didn’t’ have to happen. In January, 2022, I had to say something.
Mills’ motto is, “Remember Who You Are and What You Represent.”
I am a feminist who represents equality.
I am a liberal artist who represents freedom of thought and the expansion of knowledge
I am an educator and a leader who represents positivity, integrity, and healthy communities.
