Dear Friends,

This issue of the magazine is, in many ways, about coming home. After two years of collectively responding to the pandemic on campus, and continuing to thrive through that challenge, this spring we had the opportunity to share and celebrate our success with our broader Hollins community, including many of you. And celebrate we did!

We hope these magazine pages will remind you of your Hollins home. As the community gathered for my inauguration, two commencements, and a multiyear reunion, it was clearly a homecoming: moments when we embraced, reflected, imagined, and looked forward together. Even as we reminisced, laughed, and cried, we also envisioned a bright future for our beloved Hollins and began to draft big plans!

While this spring was filled with homecoming for our alumnae/i, in many ways, coming to Hollins is like coming back home for me, too. I grew up less than 200 miles from here in North Carolina, so I know the histories, stories, and context of our Hollins quite well. I think I know the hearts of the students who choose Hollins and why. While I will never take that for granted, it is great to be in a place where you truly feel like you belong; where you share a history and language and beliefs. A place you can call home. I realized on April 22, 2022, that I was free to exhale and embrace Hollins as my forever home. I have never had that before, and it is amazing to feel so accepted, so cared for, so engaged, that you can actually feel a sense of permanence. Thank you, friends near and far, for helping me to find home.

Home is so much more than a place; it’s a state of mind. May you carry your Hollins home with you always.

Levavi Oculos,

Mary Dana Hinton, President