March 2017 newsletter

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The Sunflower Initiative Quarterly

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March 2017

This e-newsletter brings news of a successful 2016 fundraising year, another statement of why one of our supporters believes in a woman’s college education, and a new feature, “Women We Have Known.”

We are grateful for contributors who made 2016 our best fundraising year since inception. Please see the list of donors to our campaign for the year 2016.

Donor Judy Kelly writes about what a woman’s college meant to her and why she supports The Sunflower Initiative.

The new feature, “Women We Have Known,” is designed to highlight the lives of women’s college graduates, now gone, whose names you may never have heard but whose accomplishments are, nevertheless, noteworthy and inspiring. The feature in this e-newsletter is Mary Olivere’s tribute to Carol Hynning Smith who died in 2016.

This newsletter also introduces our supporters to our newest director, E.B. Watson Flory. Please join us in welcoming E.B. to TSI.

Our work continues with support for three women attending women’s colleges and with current review of applicants for the 2017-18 Harriet Fitzgerald Scholarship

Thank you for your continued interest and support. For the young women receiving TSI’s assistance, your contributions are vital.

Vita abundantior!

E.B. Watson Flory, Peace College 2007, our newest Director

A native of Bedford, Virginia, E. B. Watson Flory grew up on her family’s dairy farm and has continued to be intrigued by life in the natural world. She received a B. A. from Peace College in 2007 and returned to Bedford, where she continues to be passionately interested in agriculture and especially in conservation. She is now the Manager of the Peaks of Otter Soil and Water Conservation District and is the first woman to hold that position. E. B. has helped transform Bedford County into an exemplar of water quality improvement for farmers. Relentlessly productive, E. B. enjoys making alpine cheeses and other dairy products in her spare time; her Number One Taste Tester is her dog, Kentucky.

E. B. strongly believes that her experience at Peace College led her to pursue her interests with energy and compassion and taught her to speak out on issues of importance. Furthermore, she hopes to encourage other young women to experience the life-changing environment of a woman’s college. With a career choice that is surely remarkable and praiseworthy among today’s young women, E. B. says, “The learning community I experienced at Peace College, then a single-sex institution, affected my life in a powerful way; I believe that the encouragement and freedom to grow and learn that I experienced at a woman’s college would benefit all young women.”

Women We Have Known:

Carol Hynning Smith, Art Historian and Curator

by Mary Olivere

My long friendship with Carol Hynning Smith (1944-2016) began at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, where Carol began her study of art history, which, it turns out, became her life’s work. After graduating in 1966, we moved together to New York City with two of our classmates. There we got jobs, explored the city, and fell in love with the men who would become our husbands. Carol married Pierce Smith, with whom she shared forty-eight years of her life. He survives her.

After receiving her M.A. in Art History from the University of Maryland in 1975, Carol worked for a time at the Baltimore Museum, cataloging the Cone Collection and continuing her research. When she and Pierce returned to New York City in 1988, following moves to California, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota, Carol began her work at the Museum of Modern Art and worked there until her retirement in 2003. Perhaps most importantly during her time at MOMA, Carol co-wrote, with Deborah Wye, The Prints of Louise Bourgeois (1994), after which she worked with Bourgeois herself in updating her catalogue. In her lifetime Carol published five books and numerous articles on art history. Her enduring passion for art led to her own fine private collection.

Through the fifty years we remained good friends, we saw each other as often as our schedules permitted. My husband Larry and I even moved to Rhinebeck, New York, because Carol and Pierce lived there. Carol saw me through numerous trials, especially during the last fifteen years. Wisely, she did not presume to advise me; she simply offered support, often in the form of an invitation to lunch, to play bridge, or just to get together. As Gloria Steinem has noted, “Women understand,” and Carol surely did. I miss her every day.

“Think where man’s glory most begins and ends

And say my glory was I had such friends.”

-- William Butler Yeats

Honor Roll of Donors, 2016

Anonymous
Ellen and Lloyd Agnew
Anna Belle Corbin Ambrosen
Martha Browne Anderson
June Ball
Rebecca Baltzer
Carolyn Wilkerson Bell
Nick Bicknell
Geraldine Copley Brann
Cornelia Butler
Gretchen Butler
Ann Cammack
Geri Long Cecil
Perry Carter Craven
Rebecca Crosson
Melinda Nichols Donovan
Karen and James Everett
Susan Meade Fitzgerald
Sharon Forman
Sarah Ellen Gordon
Eliza Rucker Hager
Nahid Hamzei
Linda Harger
Mary-Catherine Haug
Lee Hawthorne
Kristin Callis Hodges
Joan Jennings Howard
Sandra Hudson
Melissa Kaufmann-Buhler
Judith Ann Kelly
Ruth Barnes Kinsolving
Sandra Kuritzky
Megan Lamb
Elizabeth Lasher
Theresa Stone Lazo
Lauren Best Leeker
Susan Lewis
Betty Littleton
Mary Beth Maisel
and Charles A. Valentine
Cynthia Ann Manshack
Melissa Moffett Matthews
JoAnn McConnell
Elizabeth and Brian McCrodden
Laura Stone McCrodden
Margaret A. McKean
Joan McRae
Charlotte Harris Mullins
Brenda Nelms
Mary Claire Dothard Olivere
Barbara Susan Paul
Claire Pratt
Margaret Quinn
Ellen Ramsburgh
Aastha Sharma
Elizabeth Shearer
Alice Peyton Sherwood
Meredith Woodrum Snowden
Birgitta Sujdak-Mackiewicz
Vicki Sussman Grace
Linda Jones Tiffany
Ann Jarvis Vest
Elizabeth Watson
Louise Westling
Louisa White
Susan White

Gifts in memory of:

Nora Kizer Bell, R-MWC 1962,
by Perry Craven

Miss Mary Ellen Burgess,
Wheaton 1950, a Loyal Wheatie
and a supporter of
a woman's college education,
by Ann Cammack

Peggy Spurrier Carr,
R-MWC 1952,
by Joan Howard

Chatham College,
so that others may experience
the challenge and joy
of a women's college,
by Sandra Kuritzky

Madeline Thornton Davidson,
R-MWC 1952,
by Joan Howard

Jan Hullum
by Carolyn Wilkerson Bell

Donna Parker Massey
by Mary-Catherine Haug

Donnie Morgan, R-MWC 1981,
by Susan Meade Fitzgerald

Dr. William F. Quillian, Jr.,
by Cynthia Manshack

Randolph-Macon
Woman's College,
by Megan Lamb

Carol Hynning Smith,
R-MWC 1966,
by Mary Olivere

Miss Lucy Underwood,
by Elizabeth McCrodden

Gifts in honor of:

Elizabeth Bradford,
R-MWC 1973,
by June Ball

Betsy McCrodden, R-MWC 1966,
by Laura Stone McCrodden
and Claire Bledsoe Pratt

Laura McKean-Peraza,
R-MWC 2008,
by Margaret McKean

Victoria Mortensen,
on the occasion of her birthday,
by Louisa White

The R-MWC Class of 1984,
by Vicki Sussman Grace

Nancy M. Stone,
by Theresa Stone Lazo

The Sunflower Initiative, for funding my undergraduate education and making me the woman that I am today,
by Aastha Sharma

Why I Support TSI
by Judy Kelly, R-MWC, Class of 1964

I remember my father saying that he was sending me to college to learn how to live and not just to earn a living. I consider his wish for me to have come true because of my extraordinary experience at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, which, inadvertently, enabled me to find a career as well!

Because of my four years at R-MWC I was able to discover possibilities for myself that I had never dreamed of. I experienced an awakening to the world around me, and through the support of faculty and friends, I accomplished much that I had earlier not imagined. I learned to speak my mind, to dissent, and to solve problems. In short, I became empowered to make those choices that, in that rich and nurturing environment, led to self-knowledge and to a real sense of who I am.

Most importantly, I learned greater concern for others, a quality that led me to a career in social work. I went on to receive a graduate degree in social work and discovered a career that has been rewarding and fulfilling.

A woman’s college is not for every young woman, but, as The Sunflower Initiative recognizes, the woman’s college experience can encourage and empower those who choose it. I continue to be grateful for TSI’s continued support of women who want to attend single-sex institutions.

Donate to TSI today!