The Women's Wiki

Tea party in Boston

After a long (20 hours total) flight to Dallas, we arrived to Boston in the grip of a heatwave. We caught up with a former RA alumnae Louise Green (same fResher vintage as Lou and Sandie!) who has been living in Boston and working for Ernst and Young.

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Lou Green showed us around the main sights of Boston which included the Freedom Trail (think Boston Tea Party and Paul Revere), amazing Bostonian architecture of the hip Beacon Hill district and the glorious Boston Common.

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Lou also took us to the top of the Jon Hancock building where she works for a 360 degree view of Boston. It’s the tallest building in Boston and the view from the top is amazing. We did what we could to support the flagging American economy by hitting the Newbury shops which were all having major sales for the United States Memorial Day.

The following the day we took the train, known as the ‘T’ to Harvard and took a tour of the campus. Harvard was founded in 1636 and the student ho showed us around certainly gave us the unofficial history of Harvard.

We saw the fresher rooms of John Adams and Matt Damon, two important ‘actors’ in United States history. One important tradition, a student shared with us, was the ‘Primal Scream’ which occurs at the end of Harvard’s stuvac equivalent in the dead of winter at midnight.

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We won‘t give you all the details but it involves study-frustrated students gathered in Harvard yard, screaming at the top of their lungs, wearing snow and nothing else. It is an impressive campus, but we still think our sandstone university has the look over redbrick Harvard. We hit the Harvard merch store to check out what they have to offer and then said goodbye to Lou and headed to dinner to meet Jane and Cynthia, Chair of the Alumnae Board at Mount Holyolke (the oldest women’s college in the States). We had a great dinner in the Italian quarter of Boston on Salem St and talked about mentoring programs.

Boston to Northampton

Tuesday morning we made a flying visit to the Boston Fine Art Museum to see the Impressionists and the antiquities, and the gorgeous Dale Chihuli glass exhibition, before picking up the shuttle to Mt Holyoke for the start of the conference.

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We caught up with Iyla from the Women’s College at University of Queensland, who was on our shuttle, and met a number of delegates from the University of Delhi and from Pakistan and Sudan.

Our accommodation at Mt Holyoke was very familiar: the “dorm” at Safford Hall, one of 22 dorm houses on the gorgeous green park-like Mt Holyoke campus.

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Incredibly, the campus includes an equestrian centre, golf course, open air amphitheatre, a greenhouse, and a few lakes.

After settling into our spacious dorm rooms (which all the students share 2 to a room), we caught the bus to Smith College, about 20 minutes away, for a reception at the Smith College President’s House.

Of interest to us Wizzies, a former President of Smith is Australian Jill Kerr Conway, who was a tutor at Women’s in the 60s while studying at Sydney Uni. Jill went on to get a PhD in history from Harvard and spent an illustrious term as President of Smith, saving it from becoming co-ed and really putting it on the map as a prestigious women’s liberal arts college. Tiffany had her photo taken with Jill at the opening dinner, at which Jill was the guest speaker.

The WEW (Women’s Education Worldwide) conference

Wow, what an awesome collection of women from around the world: Saudi, Pakistan, South Africa, Dubai, the States, Canada, and Australia! Even a few expat Aussies doing amazing things at Women’s Colleges internationally.

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One of them is Candy McLeod, a Perth girl on the faculty of Women’s College Dubai, who we bailed up when we heard her Aussie accent, and spent a bit of time with in the cellar of the conference centre when the tornado warming hit. (See youtube link below of the tornado over the Connecticut River in Springfield, a nearby town).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5plBdPBNj8

Tornado warning? Yep, uncharacteristically for Massachusetts a tornado developed while we were at the conference, and hit the nearby town of Springfield. Luckily for us it bypassed Smith! The best thing about the conference was talking to faculty and staff from all around the world, and hearing about the similar and very different challenges we face in women’s institutions internationally. This really hit home when we heard delegates from African nations and the Middle East committed to educating women in a sometimes hostile cultural and patriarchal environment. Their passionate and innovative approach was humbling.

That’s why we chose Yale…

After an inspiring breakfast speaking with some delegates from Sudan and Pakistan about the ideas that had come out of the conference, we said our goodbyes and hopped aboard an Amtrak train to New Haven. Interestingly, New Haven is the home of the first hamburger served in the world! Our reason for going to New Haven however, was not for the hamburgers, but to check out the Yale University campus and the residential colleges.

Attach:nutella.jpg Δ As it turned out we were in for a Glee-inspired experience. If you watch the You Tube clip below you will know what we mean!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGn3-RW8Ajk

Yale is a truly amazing campus and in particular, the rare book collection in Beinecke is the largest collection of rare books in the world! The Yale residential college system in very similar to ours but the colleges each have a Dean, a Master and a Freshman Counsellor who lives with all the Freshman. Yale is also the place where the Frisbee was invented (a few bored undergrads decided to throw around a Frisbee pie tin…an early form of procrastination).

After our tour of Yale by a second year pre-Med student, we went to the Yale Centre for British Art which had in particular an extensive collection of 18th an 19th century art (think Turner and Constable).

Empire State of Mind

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We arrived in New York on Saturday ready for a weekend of cultural outings to museums and we certainly did our best to revive the United States economy with our shopping (which included visits to Bloomingdales, Macy’s, The Gap, Zara, Victoria’s Secret, H&M and Old Navy). We were absolutely blown away by the artworks and design at The Modern Museum of Art (MoMA); we also visited the Metropolitan of Art and the Natural Museum of History.

After a busy weekend, we donned heels and our LBDs’ and headed to NYC hotspot Cesca on Amsterdam Ave 76th West for drinks and dinner to catch up with a fabulous group of alumnae who are currently living and working in New York. All 5 were working in finance and law and were at college in the 1990s and 2000s. Some of the alumnae knew each other, but most had just missed each other’s college vintage. But as you can imagine, this had no bearing on a fellow Wizzies' ability to chat - we had a fantastic dinner and had so many stories to swap about college and their lives after. As we were leaving, they were making plans to meet again and swapping business cards (the professional equivalent of “friending” someone on FB). We’re expecting them to combine forces for world (or at least NYC) domination in the near future!

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On Monday, we went to Columbia University to meet with the staff at the Athena Leadership Centre. This centre was a part of Barnard College, a female curriculum and residential college set up originally as a sister college to the all-male Columbia University. We also had a tour, also met with some academic staff who we met at the conference in Mount Holyoke and had the opportunity to speak to one of the Athena Leadership interns who was a member of Barnard College. She had lots of funny stories to share about Barnard traditions which included the week of “elf-ing”. It is similar to the game “Assassins” but it involves a wider variety of friendly pranks over a week! That evening we caught up with Mary Davis, Chair of the Mount Holyoke Board, and her two interns, Isabelle and Stephanie, students from Mount Holyoke for and New York Italian dinner. Mary was interested to hear about our fantastic mentoring program and many plans were made to keep in contact about future mentoring possibilities!

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On Tuesday we arose at 5am to catch the train to Philadelphia where we were meeting a number of staff from Bryn Mawr College, another women’s university and one of the original Seven Sisters (along with Mount Holyoke, Smith, Barnard, Vassar, Wellesley and Radcliffe. They were the female equivalent of the Ivy League Universities when they were male-only). We had a fantastic day and discussed programs such as exchange, study abroad, residential life, mentoring, internships, leadership and teaching college history. We also had a tour of the beautiful campus by a student leader and we were so impressed with the buildings, facilities and Honor Code ethos. We hopped aboard a train home after a long day to catch up with Bob and Liz, lovely friends of Tiffany’s for our last dinner in the city that doesn’t sleep. Tiffany met Bob while he was running student development courses at Women’s College a number of years ago. We have a fantastic dinner in Soho, enjoying live music, amazing food and great company!

New York List

(Potentially a more significant list than Forbes…) Best Lunch = Bruschetta and Panini plate at MoMA café Best Coffee in NYC = Café @ Columbia University Best Brekky = Nice Matin on Amsterdam 79th West Best Dinner = Tie! Citrus and Cesca Best Wine-time = Park Avenue apartment Best park = Central Park Best Museum = MoMA

The long way round list…

As we flying home over the Midwest of United States, we thought an overall list of “best ofs/trip stats” for our trip is a good way to round off our trip. So get ready for the mother of all lists:

Places we bought merch: Smith College Harvard Yale Barnard Bryn Mawr Best merch = tie between Yale for university merch and Barnard for women’s col merch.

Best Campus library = Beinecke, Rare Book Library, Yale

Perkiest Service = Carriage conductors on Amtrak, US Countrylink equivalent.

Best College traditions = “Elving” @ Mount Holyoke; the Maypole at May Day when it became the ‘May Hole’ during the feminist wave in the 1970s @ Bryn Mawr and the Greek Games and Midnight Breakfast before exams @ Barnard.

No. of NYC apartments we ate cheese in: 2 No. of times we were asked for ID: 1 (and this was at bar/diner following a 24 hour plan ride…man did he get a tip!) No. of bagels eaten: 26 at least No. of coffees that tasted like dishwater: 17 No. of ex-wizzies we met with: 7

No. of time we said, “Hi! We’re Tifffany and Louise from The Women’s College within the University of Sydney.” : Countless!

And as the New Yorkers say, are you ‘all set’ or ‘still working? We’re “All Set”!

Bye!