Around the Campus . . .
The t-shirts say it all! This is how CLAs (Community Living Advisors) greeted first-year students in the Western Program. Those of us who came to campus during Phyllis Hoyt’s years as Dean remember that from day one she knew your name -- it took a few weeks before everyone did.


Recruiting for the Institute for Civic Leadership at Mills College, the programming director, Kristen Schutjer-Mance, chose the Western College Program as one of several prime campuses to visit. She was looking for "activist-oriented students who might be interested in a study-away semester in California." Perhaps fate prompted her to contact this particular campus: Mills is a sister of Western College, by virtue of their both being "daughters of Mt. Holyoke."

WCP professors Joseph Dorsey and Muriel Blaisdell (far left and far right, in picture at left) team-teach this course, "Colonialism and Neocolonialism -- Cases from Africa and South America," with Muriel taking the lead for the South America unit, Joseph developing materials on Africa. They usually alternate periods in their shared Peabody classroom, but here they joined forces to set up a textile exhibit. Muriel is wearing a dress from Senegal; Joseph acquired most of the articles on the table during his time as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Ivory Coast.



Old window in a new home, these two stained-glass panels that graced the Alumnae Hall gallery in bygone days are now admired by visitors to Miami’s brand-new Child Development Center. The Rococo Revival window was originally given to the college by the Rev. Mark Williams in 1899, in memory of his wife, Isabella Riggs Williams, Class of 1861, and eldest daughter, Henrietta Williams, Class of 1886. The state-of-the-art facility, serving children of Miami faculty and staff, is located along Western Drive -- on the old hockey field and tennis court site just north of Thomson Hall.


After "tryouts" at Ernst, the Miami Children's Theatre Troupe took theatre professor Howard Blanning's original play, The Vocabulary Thief, on the road. Here they are in Seoul, Korea, inviting the audience onto the stage to help "strike the set." Next date? Possibly, St. Petersburg, Russia! Then it will be back to Oxford and the Troupe's official home, Ernst Nature Theatre -- where Shakespeare is equally at home. Just days into the fall semester, "Western Night at Ernst" brought together several alumnae and friends of Western to have dinner at Clawson before a lively performance of As You Like It. The MU Department of Theatre's four-day run of Shakespeare in the Nature Theatre has become a much-anticipated annual event for university and town.

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