Graduation Year: 2002
House: Cutter House and Chase House
Major: History, with a Minor in Secondary Education
Fondest memories of Smith: I have a lot of fond memories, but some of my favorites were just gathering with my friends to watch TV. I never had cable growing up, so sitting around in my friend Erica's room in Gillette and watching MTV was new and different for me. A bunch of us would get together on Thursday nights in Cutter House and watch Friends and ER. It was just a great excuse to hang out with my friends! Lots of my friends were pre-med, and we would spend hours studying together in Bass Hall (thankfully -- if not for them, I probably wouldn't have studied so much). Also, weekend brunches were always a highlight. Cutter/Z had the best kitchen staff and the most amazing food, and we would linger for hours talking about everything.
Getting to Smith: I grew up in Huntington Beach, California -- I'm a fifth-generation Californian. I was sure that my destiny was to go to UCLA. I had never heard of Smith until my junior year in high school when I was at the hair salon and read an article about President Ruth Simmons in Essence. Just a few days later my family and I were watching 60 Minutes and there was a story about an extraordinary homeless teenager from Seattle who had gotten into Smith. Soon after that my high school counselor suggested that I look at Smith for its Government department. Just another few days after that I found the aunt of my best friend since 2nd grade had gone to Smith, and her dad pronounced that he thought it would be a great fit for me. All these things happened one after another, really close together, and it occurred to me that maybe my destiny wasn't UCLA after all! During that Spring Break, my aunt flew me out to New England, so I could visit some colleges, but I ended up hanging out at Smith for the entire week!
Studying at Smith: When I got to Smith it was one of the most wonderfully diverse and gorgeous places I had ever lived. I took part in the Bridge Pre-orientation Program, and met some of my best friends in that first week on campus. I came to Smith thinking that I would study Government, but then I took some cross-referenced classes, including European Women's History and African History. There was so much to learn! This broad spectrum of classes helped me determine just how lacking and myopic the history I had been taught in my public schooling was, so instead of Government, I self-designed a major: African History, leveraging classes throughout the five-college consortium. I spent my junior year abroad in Tanzania through a Brown University affiliate program.
I had the pleasure of studying with Professor Sam Intrator in the Education Department. Sam talked about urban education, disparities in education, contradictory policies. He was amazing. I knew I wanted to be a history teacher, but Sam really got me interested in education policy.
Playing (and Working) at Smith: I was a founding member of Multi-ethnic Interracial Smith College (MISC), a group founded to create safe spaces for mixed race and multi-ethnic students. I was also active in the Black Students' Alliance (BSA), Smith African Students' Alliance (SASA) including serving as Vice President my senior year, the SASA choir, and a South African gumboot performance group. My senior year I was on a small team that ran the 6th Annual Mixed Race Conference at Smith, attracting attendees from all over New England. I had my "van license" at Smith, so we would check-out one of the Smith vans and travel all over the place, including Williams College for conferences on white privilege, I drove for and audited a local Deerfield history class, house trips to Boston to visit the MFA (and go on a Trader Joe's runs). I always had on- and off-campus jobs too: working in the mail room or the CDO, washing dishes, answering phones at the admissions office, and working at Home Depot as a bookkeeper during my senior year. Beyond campus life my friends and I went to lots of shows at JMG and at the Iron Horse, including my favorite LA band, Ozomatli!
After Smith: When I graduated in 2002, I packed up my VW Golf and my mom and I drove across the country using a AAA TripTik, back to California. We started in Newbury, Massachusetts which was founded by our ancestor John Hoag, and we found his tombstone in the founders' cemetery and got access to his furniture in the archives of the Boston MFA. Then we wended our way around the country to the homes of some of the greatest American authors: Louisa May Alcott in Concord, Massachusetts, Mark Twain in Hannibal, Missouri, Willa Cather in Red Cloud, Nebraska, and so many more, plus a few of the Frank Lloyd Wright homes.
Once I got home to California, I got a position as a history teacher. I taught for 5 years when I decided to go back to school to get my Masters degree at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). Kathleen McCartney was my dean at HGSE, so I was extra excited when she became President at Smith.
After getting my M.Ed. I drove to Jacksonville, Florida and worked on the Obama Campaign for America. Then I came back up the coast to New Hampshire to work for Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter's reelection campaign. Then I headed to Washington, DC to work on federal education policy. Eventually I landed my first union job at American Federation of Teachers (AFT) with the Baltimore Teachers Union, and spent 6 years there. I always intended on getting back to California, and in 2016 I was able to leverage all my teaching, policy, and union experience and secure my dream job with the California Teachers Association (CTA).
Hobbies and other good stuff: When the world is not in the middle of a pandemic, I love to travel. I've explored Indonesia, Cuba, Mexico, Scotland, Iceland, Kenya and more. I'm always looking for new experiences. I'm planning to go to Wales to find John Hoag's birthplace as soon as we're able with my mom, and I'll return to Tanzania and Zanzibar soon as well.
In my spare time at home, I love to cook and bake. This year I made an entire gluten-free Thanksgiving dinner including pies and put together plates of food to deliver to my friends, neighbors, and colleagues who would have been elsewhere in any other year. Also, I love to collect art and maps. I have an extensive collection of African art including masks, sculptures, tingatinga paintings, Egyptian paintings, and lots of beautiful old maps.
