Four years ago, Mills College in Oakland California announced its financial crisis was so severe it would be closing. The news hit hard among students, staff, faculty, and alums. I had worked at the college twice, for a total of 17 years, and I shared a long post on Facebook. Many of my friends among students, staff, and faculty, or those who had left, shared a bit of their experiences. Many of their comments, from those who had been cast aside in earlier years, treated shabbily and tossed out like garbage, were heartbreaking. I am reminded today of these experiences as an entire federal government callously cuts jobs, tosses out long-time workers like garbage. Such treatment seems to be part of the DNA of overlords in our society, egged on by handmaidens who offer their services as consultants.
Eventually Mills found a way out to keep the campus used for higher education. It got acquired by a larger institution with money, and it is today Mills College at Northeastern University. That was a controversial turn, but that’s another story. Here I wanted to put down, beyond Facebook, on my blog, my post from four years ago, so it will be be available wider and longer (thanks to the internet archive). I have slightly modified to add some more detail.
How do you process the news of the impending death of an institution where you worked for 17 years, where you were also a student for 5 years, all of which shaped you into who you are today? Even if you felt compelled to leave it just over a year ago? Mills College was such a large part of my life.
In 1997 I decided to leave Providence and drive west and relocate to Oakland. Online I had found two jobs to apply for, one at Mills. I didn’t know much about the college other than that a friend had done a graduate education program there. I knew it was a women’s college and searched the website to make sure that men could work there. That’s how much I knew about women’s colleges back then. On my road trip during a stop in Detroit, I learned that Mills was interested in me. At my next stop in Madison, I had a phone interview. Arriving in Wichita next I learned they wanted an in person interview to confirm their tentative choice. Cutting short a road trip through the west, I arrived in the Bay Area, visited Mills, found an apartment near Lake Merritt – one of the most beautiful neighborhoods I have lived in – and started my new job in the newly-created M Center (student administrative services, or the Money Center as students knew it).