Four join the Hollins Board of Trustees

Holly Hendrix ’75 previously served on the Hollins Board of Trustees (2009-12) during her term as president of the Alumnae Association. She is a long-time sponsor of internships for Hollins students and is active with alumnae engagement in New York City.She is a senior vice president-investments with UBS Financial Services Wealth Management USA.

William R. Johnston, a Washington and Lee graduate, is retired after a 41-year career on Wall Street. He was president and chief operating officer of the New York Stock Exchange from 1996 through 2001, a consultant to the exchange (2002-03), and a director (1992-01). He previously served on the Hollins board from 2002 to 2009. His wife, Betsy, is a member of the class of 1962.

Judy Morrill ’84, the current president of the Alumnae Association Board of Directors, majored in political science and French and received an M.B.A. in finance from New York University’s Stern School in Business in 1989. Since 2007, Morrill has been a managing director and senior relationship/portfolio manager at Highmount Capital. She lives on New York’s Upper West Side with her husband and three sons.

Natasha Trethewey M.A. ’91, the 19^th poet laureate of the United States, was reappointed to a second one-year term in June. She is the author of four collections of poetry, >Native Guard (2006)—for which she was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize—and a book of nonfiction, Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast (2010.) At Emory University she is Robert W. Woodruff Professor of English and Creative Writing.

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Taking it to the next level

The following faculty members were approved for tenure and promotion by the president and Board of Trustees.

Anna B. Baynum, education

B.A., Guilford College; M.Ed., Ed.D., University of Virginia
Teaching specialty: K-12 literacy
Research interests: Word study, professional development, and literacy coaching
Community outreach: Local public and independent school divisions/Roanoke’s Community Youth Program
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Jon Bohland, international studies and political science

B.A., James Madison University; M.A., Syracuse University; Ph.D., Virginia Tech
Academic interests: Critical geopolitics, post-structural theory, Marxist theory, cultural studies, critical environmental theory, geographies of conflict, urban space, and critical examinations of heritage and national identity
Research interests: Intersections of memory, politics, and landscape, including extensive work on memory in the American South, issues of memory and immigration along the United States/Mexico border, and an examination of urban policy in relation to the destruction of an iconic stadium in Roanoke
Teaching: World regional geography, global systems, environmental geography, cultural geography, tourism, urban geography, and critical geopolitics
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Amy Gerber-Stroh, film

B.A., Pennsylvania State University; M.F.A., California Institute of the Arts
Industry experience: Worked for Roger Corman on several movies; cast 12 major motion pictures; well-received documentarian (most recent work: My Grandfather Was a Nazi Scientist: Opa, von Braun and Operation Paperclip); currently collaborating with Ross Spears on a three-part series for PBS called The Truth About Trees: A Natural and Human History
Teaching: World cinema, film production, animation, directing for film, and documentary for film and television
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Pablo Hernandez: economics

B.A. Universidad de las Americas; M.A., Ph.D., University of Notre Dame
Academic interests: Environmental and natural resource economics and development economics; financing for development in Latin America; community-based conservation strategies from a developing-country perspective
Doctoral research: An assessment of the recent transfers of hazardous waste between Mexico and the United States
Teaching: Microeconomics, economics and the environment, economics of development and globalization, international political economy, and managerial economics

In addition, two tenured professors were promoted to the rank of full professor: Alison Ridley, Spanish, and Bonnie Bowers, psychology.

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Johnnetta Betsch Cole, former president of Spelman College and of Bennett College and current director of the National African Art Museum

Paying the rent “for your room on Earth”

Inspiring message from this year’s commencement speaker

No matter where you are on life’s journey, and no matter how much success you have or have not yet attained, you must act on the basic principle that doing for others is just the rent you must pay for your room on Earth.

That might mean that you are a successful lawyer but you regularly offer pro bono legal counsel at a community center; or it may be that you volunteer in a rape-crisis center; or you bring support and hope to women who have sought protection in a center for the victims of domestic violence; or you are a big sister or a big brother to a girl or boy who needs your love and support.

Every woman leader, and yes, every man who is a leader, too, has the responsibility to give back, because they would not have gotten to where they are if others had not helped them.

I also believe that doing community service teaches a leader things she cannot easily learn by any other means. For instance, how to make do when “don’t” wants to prevail, and that being poor does not mean one automatically lacks intelligence, dignity, faith, and courage.

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Words to live by

Advice from alumnae to this year’s graduating class shared on the Alumnae Association’s Facebook page.