Goucher explorers

Celebrating 140 years of inspiring global changemakers
By Marilyn Southard Warshawsky ’68 and Melinda Burdette ’72
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“Some persons enter college with the spirit of tourists; others with that of explorers. It is the latter which prevails at Goucher College.”
– President David Allan Robertson, Students’ Handbook, 1939
As Goucher College celebrates its 140th anniversary this year, President Robertson’s words are as relevant today as they were then. The idea of exploration, especially with an international scope, has been ingrained in Goucher’s students, faculty, and alumnae/i in many ways since its founding in 1885.
It began with John Franklin Goucher, the college’s second president and major benefactor. As he was helping establish the Woman’s College of Baltimore (WCB), he was involved in opening and supporting schools in India and Asia, for which he was awarded honors by the emperors of China and Japan. A world traveler, he brought back interesting and exotic artifacts from his trips abroad to share in the college museum in Goucher Hall. Many of the early faculty members also brought an international perspective with their degrees from European institutions, such as one of the first professors whose name is still familiar on campus today: Hans Froelicher, born and educated in Switzerland.
Beginning in 1896, the WCB, later Goucher College, extended its outreach by welcoming students from a range of locations around the world. Many missionaries, teachers, and others working abroad were familiar with the college due to Dr. Goucher’s international connections and sent their daughters there. Students from countries he touched also attended the college before returning to benefit their communities. Constance Maya Das Dass 1911, for example, became the first Indian principal of Isabella Thoburn College in Lucknow, India. During the 1918-19 academic year, the Association of American Colleges offered scholarships to French students to study in the U.S., and several women were accepted at Goucher. One of the participants, Louise Cleret Seibert 1920, joined the college faculty after graduation and became an associate professor of French.
After World War II and Goucher’s move to its Towson campus, the number of international students as well as the number of countries represented began to increase. Goucher students themselves recognized the value of having international peers on campus. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the administration offered tuition for two international students a year to attend Goucher, and the student body raised funds to cover room and board expenses for them ($825 in 1952, or about $10,000 today). Enrollment of international students continued to grow over the following decades. Students from 47 countries are attending Goucher for the 2024-25 academic year. As President Kent Devereaux notes about the first-year class, there are students from A to Z: Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.
While international students have been coming to Goucher for many decades, Goucher students also have expanded their knowledge through international experiences. President Robertson, who had organized the national junior year abroad program in the mid 1920s as assistant director of the American Council of Education, encouraged this outreach. On campus in the 1930s, the college offered a major in international relations in the Political Science Department, perhaps the first such undergraduate major in the country. By the end of the decade, Goucher students were able to study in Geneva through the University of Delaware, and following World War II, junior year abroad programs included Paris as well.
When mini-courses abroad in January became available in the 1970s, academic seminars traveled to Mexico, London, Paris, and Florence. Over the next two decades, the college expanded its international connections through a yearlong program for Goucher students at the University of Exeter in England and through a dance department exchange with Roehampton Institute in London. Another exchange program with Odessa State University in the U.S.S.R. enabled both students and faculty to participate. Joanne E. McFadden ’89 took part in the first Goucher-Odessa program, and on her return, she wrote a letter to Goucher Quarterly (published in the Summer/Fall 1989 issue) that stated, “regardless of cultural differences, young people everywhere share the same basic hopes and feelings.” She added that “exchanges such as these are the best means to promote international understanding.”
Considering these many programs, perhaps one of the more memorable trips abroad was a six-week summer course in 1953 at the University of Havana for 15 student “explorers” in Cuba. Arranged by Enrique Noble, professor of Spanish, students combined daily academic studies with firsthand cultural experiences. They were welcomed by Havana’s citizens, but they soon realized that freedom of speech and other civil rights they took for granted did not exist there. There was an unsuccessful uprising against dictator Fulgencio Batista in the middle of their stay in Cuba, and while they weren’t in danger, the university closed and movement was restricted. When they returned to Goucher, the group shared a new awareness of their host country and its people and an appreciation for other cultures, a perspective that has been nurtured at the college over the following decades. Fifty years later, 11 students, across various majors, went to Cuba through a January intensive course sponsored by the Office of International Studies. They, too, returned with new perspectives but experienced less political upheaval.

Goucher students in Cuba, 1953
This global awareness was increased in the 21st century by another Goucher president. Sanford J. Ungar, an international journalist and former director of Voice of America, brought new emphasis to the college’s and students’ engagement with the world beyond campus. Beginning in 2006, studying abroad became a graduation requirement through semester- or yearlong study or through three-week intensive courses led by Goucher faculty. Alumnae/i who have taken part in these programs abroad note how these travel experiences have impacted their lives and work. And national news and education reports credit Goucher as a leader in study abroad.
The theme of Goucher’s strategic plan from 2021 to 2024 was “cultivating global changemakers.” While focused on 21st century students, these words also relate to the college’s legacy of graduates who made their mark on the world. Some early examples: Clarissa Hale Spencer 1895 rose from her position as the Y.W.C.A.’s Ohio State secretary to become the international secretary at its headquarters in London. Anna D. Wolf 1911 received a nursing degree from Johns Hopkins University following graduation and was chosen to go with the Rockefeller Foundation in 1919 to help open the Peking Union Medical College. She became the first dean of its School of Nursing, training Chinese women to be pioneers in this new field, and later she served as director of the school of nursing and nursing services at Hopkins.
Elizabeth Mason 1914 became director at Santiago College in Chile in 1933, serving in this position for more than three decades. Girls from Chile as well as from more than two dozen countries attended the school, and Mason recruited a number of Goucher alumnae to teach there. The Chilean government awarded her an Order of Merit for helping develop education for Chilean girls, and the U.S. government lauded her for her work fostering better understanding between the U.S. and Chile. Myrtle King Kaapu 1920 was a true adventurer and explorer, spending six years hiking around the world, taking teaching jobs along the way to pay expenses. In a Goucher Quarterly article, she shared what her travels meant to her: “One must become part of the country in thought and feeling to gain anything.” Kaapu returned to Hawaii to teach multilingual children and married a Hawaiian prince who was trying to revive native culture.
These women were followed by numerous graduates who had similar influences on the international scene. A century after Kaapu, Goucher senior Esther Everson ’25 is preparing to follow suit. The recipient of a prestigious Critical Language Scholarship sponsored by the U.S. State Department, Everson will be studying in Morocco after Commencement. They have already done an internship in Strasbourg, France, and plan to become a foreign language teacher working with immigrant communities. They said they want to share with others the opportunities they received at Goucher to increase their “critical global perspective.”
While Goucher has provided international travel options, students have also been able to combine learning about different cultures with the college’s legacy of community service by working with local immigrant populations. In 1894, students started a chapter of the College Settlement Association, and for over two decades they helped address social needs in the Baltimore area, such as teaching classes for underserved children and young women. Goucher students today work with adults and their children from various Latin American countries through the Futuro Latino Learning Center, marking its 15th year in 2025. Student leaders teach ESL and computer literacy classes on campus on Saturdays while the children attend a cultural heritage program in Spanish and enjoy supervised play time.
Many of these international interactions and programs throughout the college’s history would not have been possible without philanthropic support, starting with John and Mary Goucher and continuing today with the [UNDAUNTED] campaign. As noted, their interest in Isabella Thoburn College was strong, and Dr. Goucher encouraged students at the WCB to raise funds for programs and equipment at Thoburn, a connection that helped foster the Sister College Movement at other women’s colleges at the time. Edith E. Ware 1905, who received the Van Meter Fellowship and graduate degrees from Columbia University, had an international career and served as secretary general of a UNESCO conference on copyright issues in Paris before her retirement. In honor of her 50th reunion in 1955, she established a Class of 1905 Fellowship for graduate study, preferably in international relations. This fellowship remains a special honor for recipients.
One notable opportunity at Goucher has been the Leslie Nelson Savage Mahoney 1912 Scholarship, given to a student to study abroad at Oxford University during their junior year. The award was established in 1987 by Mahoney’s daughter and former Goucher trustee, Margaret Mahoney, and nearly four decades of alumnae and alumni have benefited from this adventure. Miles Dinsmoor ’93, the second Mahoney scholar, remarked in the Summer 2000 issue of Goucher Quarterly that years later he was still learning from his time at Oxford and noted that it was an “eye-opening and life changing experience in ways that aren’t immediately apparent.”
A more recent fundraising effort—the Imani Fund—is another example of the commitment of Goucher alumnae/i and friends to support study abroad experiences. This project began a dozen years ago to offer travel resources for selected students in the Maryland Scholars Program, which is for first-generation students from underserved and financially disadvantaged backgrounds. The fund grew in conjunction with the annual Jewell Robinson Dinner, an event that honors the eponymous actor, writer, and producer who was the first African American student admitted to Goucher, and also celebrates the achievements of Goucher’s Black alumnae/i. The Imani Fund is now endowed and continues to grow each year.
Support for global outreach has also been an integral part of the college’s two major capital campaigns in the 21st century. In 2003, Goucher launched a strategic vision for the college: “Transcending Boundaries of the Map & the Mind.” Building on Goucher’s legacy of international engagement, among the plan’s goals was for all academic inquiries to have a global context. To support the strategic initiatives, a multiyear Transcending Boundaries campaign raised more than $117 million for programs, scholarships, professorships, and infrastructure. Goucher’s current [UNDAUNTED] comprehensive campaign has included support for global education as well, including the new John A. Luetkemeyer Sr. Endowed Chair Fund, an endowed professorship in Mandarin Chinese and Asian studies established by family and friends of a longtime trustee and former board chair. In addition, a new Asian studies minor offers students a deeper perspective of this important region where Dr. Goucher dedicated much of his time and resources in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
An anniversary offers an occasion to reflect on the past but also to look to the future. For this 140th milestone, the college has updated its strategic plan, now named “Goucher Forward,” as it continues to increase and enhance global learning for a diverse student body. Alumnae and alumni across generations would likely agree with a 2007 graduate’s comment about the opportunities offered at Goucher: “The classroom has its purpose and its rewards, but it’s really the jumping off point for real exploration.”
President Robertson would be proud of the generations of Goucher explorers.
(Pictured at top: President Robertson and Dean Stimson meet with students; John Franklin Goucher; and Goucher students outside Odessa State University, in Ukrainian SSR, during an international relations trip)
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