Editor’s note: A common thread stretching between generations of Goucher graduates is a feeling of gratitude and pride for their education and the professors who have impacted their lives. When Goucher Magazine asked alumnae/i to share stories of how a Goucher professor changed their lives, we were excited and touched to read the heartfelt and meaningful ways that scores of Goucher professors have made a difference for alums over the past six decades. Their lifelong influence speaks to the enduring value of a Goucher education. Please join us in celebrating their stories.

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CATHIE AXELROD SCHAFFER ’76

It would be hard to overstate the enduring impact that Wolfgang Thormann had on my education and my career. I was a French major, and Professor Thormann taught the majority of my French classes. And yet, the unexpected legacy he gave me was my career.

He understood that my goal was fluency, and he demanded the best from me. For the summer after my sophomore year, I found a job as a camp counselor in France. When I informed my father of my plans, he flatly said that I could be a camp counselor in the U.S., and that if I wanted to go to France, I should get a “real job.” The unreasonableness of this verdict sent me running to Professor Thormann for advice. I knew that there were insurmountable obstacles to an American student finding work in France, starting with, how do I find a “real job,” and how would I even get a French social security number? This was 1975, and there was no internet that might have aided my search.

Professor Thormann thought about my situation, and soon advised me to contact a fellow professor at Princeton, who ran a program called (something like) Princeton Program for Work Abroad. He mentioned that the program was mainly intended to give Princeton students meaningful work experience in France (I interpreted this to mean male students), but that he thought I should apply nonetheless.

The rest is history. I applied, was granted an interview, and received a placement against all odds. I had the choice of working in the French Sénat or at a French bank. Both were slightly terrifying. Prior to this, I had no inclination to work in politics or in a bank, domestic or foreign! I opted to work in a French bank, which was the initial step on the ladder of my banking career. It was an outstanding first internship, and it was unique enough that it burnished my application to grad school and to subsequent banking jobs. I am now retired, following a 35+ year career in commercial banking, more than half of those years in leadership roles.

Several years ago, when I had the sad task of eulogizing my father, I gave him credit for my accidental career choice. But in all candor, Professor Thormann deserved the credit most.

 

ASHLEY AYLWARD ’18

I was a political science major who never in a million years planned to do polling, of all things, but Dr. Mileah Kromer quite literally changed the trajectory of my life. I currently work in politics as a pollster at HIT Strategies. My work has somehow made me a public political commentator on all things young voters. I’ve published two op-eds in TIME magazine on my work in the past year, and I’ve been quoted in NBC, The Washington Post, The Hill, The Guardian, and Teen Vogue, to name a few. There are so many stories I could share on the investments Dr. Kromer took in my future. I still reach out to her to this day for advice and level setting.

She not only built my hard skills in polling through her research methods class and by pushing me to work for the Goucher Poll, but she also encouraged me to work outside of the class to add to the research I started with her to get it published. We ended up presenting the work together at the American Political Science Association conference while I was a junior (which is unheard of, I came to learn). She did all of that on her own time and helped me secure travel funds for it from Goucher. I have so many more stories beyond that one, from when I (re)started the Goucher Dems Club and started bringing politicos and alumni to campus to work with students to connecting me to a job well after I graduated.

On a recent work trip to NYC, I worked with the campaign for the NY Equal Rights Amendment. The icebreaker exercise was to share who you are bringing into the room with you who encouraged your fight. I, of course, mentioned Dr. Kromer, as I wouldn’t have a seat at an executive committee table at the age of 27 if it wasn’t for her.

 

LAWANA HOLLAND-MOORE, M.A.H.P. ’16

I was new to historic preservation. It was my first week in the master’s program, and the late William “Bill” Bushong was one of my documentation professors. He asked if any of us were local and wanted an internship. I raised my hand and said, “I’m local! I’ll do it!” I had no idea where in the Baltimore-Washington area it would be or what I would be doing—just that it was an internship in my field.

As it turned out, Bill was also the chief historian of the White House Historical Association. I worked a block away from the White House as an intern, then as a researcher, for two years in the historic Decatur House. This directly led to my career with the National Trust for Historic Preservation and being named the 2023 M.A.H.P. Distinguished Alumna for my work with its African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. I am now the director of fellowships & interpretive strategies for the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund at the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

 

KIMBERLY KUSSMAUL REDDING ’91

I signed up for Dr. Jane Bennett’s political theory class (my first upper-level class, outside of German, I believe), thinking it would be about how campaigns strategize, how to win political arguments, and such. Needless to say, it wasn’t. We read Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, among others. A very chipper Dr. Bennett perched on a stool (or maybe a table), probing our insights. Insights? I had no idea what I thought, because I hardly understood what I was reading! Yet somehow, she persuaded me that it was OK to be clueless, that asking questions “counted,” and that yes, I belonged in that class.

Looking back, her confidence in my questions was a critical turning point. In grad school, I (as a mom of newborn twins) once asked a roomful of budding radical feminists how it was possible, if personality was all “nurture,” that my 4 lb. sons responded so differently to the exact same surroundings and stimuli. Once again, I didn’t have the vocabulary, but I did bring my own unique experience to the conversation, pushing for greater clarity. As an associate professor of history at Carroll University, recently I urged four new groups of students to lean into the freedom of being beginners, of not having to prove their expertise or “win” the debate.

As beginners in a new field, job, class, or community, it’s our job to be somewhat uncomfortable, more than a little perplexed, and honest enough to say, “Hang on, I don’t understand. Say more.” And given the state of civil society, it’s a much-needed intellectual skill and spiritual practice.

I would also mention my French professor, Sylvie Borrely. Early in my first semester (Fall ’87), she explained her bemused smile with the words, “I’ve never heard an American trying to speak French with a German accent.”

Senior year, she urged me to apply for a Fulbright teaching assistantship and provided critical feedback on my draft application essay. I never would’ve applied on my own, yet that year teaching in (former) East Berlin still informs my teaching—and living—on a daily basis.

 

JACQUELYN OLIVIA OLDHAM ’74

As a graduate of Baltimore’s all-female (and Goucher pipeline) public high school, Western, I attended Goucher College from September 1970 (a month before my 17th birthday) to December 1974 (two months after my 21st birthday). Though I needed an extra semester to complete my credits and didn’t receive my degree until June 1, 1975, I am still a proud member of the Class of 1974, which celebrated our 50th reunion this spring.

The professor who changed my life was Dr. Brooke Peirce, the then-chair of the English Department.

My original declared major was psychology, with a minor in English. However, at the end of my junior year, the head of the Psychology Department advised me against continuing my psychology major and suggested I switch to English.

This was a devastating blow to my academic and professional aspirations. Not only did I have to change majors, but I also would need to complete an extra semester to complete the requirements for a B.A. in English. My only consolation was that I would maintain my place in the Class of 1974.

I met with Dr. Peirce, who had taught some literature classes I’d already taken, to map out the remainder of my coursework. Dr. Peirce was such a warm and encouraging advisor and teacher.

His notes and comments on my term papers analyzing the books I studied (including Shakespeare’s complete works and Black poets such as Countee Cullen) were supportive and helpful. At the end of December 1974, he even invited me to complete a senior thesis!

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time or resources to spend yet another extra semester completing my undergraduate degree. Instead, I spent the following spring term ensconced in Goucher’s Career Counseling Office with Dorothy Ruyak, who by July 1975 had helped me land a copyediting job at Waverly Press. My entire career was spent as editor, trainer, and supervisor at that company and its successive owners, until I retired in 2013.

Fifty years after graduation, I still have my notebooks and term papers from Dr. Peirce’s classes. I still credit him with helping me find my niche in this world!

Now, in my retirement years, I am a published poet, essayist, memoir writer, and format editor.

 

ELIZABETH SARVELLO JAMETT ’87
Director of college guidance at University Liggett School

There are so many professors I could write about. John Rose, Barbara Roswell, Jim Stoner, and Eli Velder were amazing. I could also easily write about Marianne Githens, who directed my senior thesis and was an extraordinary scholar, classroom instructor, and human being. But I am going to highlight Dr. Lawrence Munns.

I took my first political science class with him in the fall of 1983. The following year he took a group of us to a Model Senate program at Stetson University, and he did that each year. For a political science major, it was truly instructive.

He also encouraged us to run our own Model Senate program for high school students on Goucher’s campus. In addition to being a great instructor, he had an amazing sense of humor, and he genuinely cared about empowering the young women with whom he worked.

I received financial support from Goucher (I believe it was tied to a gift from Sarah Hughes) to intern at the House of Representatives in the summer before my senior year. I don’t know for sure, but I am guessing that Dr. Munns was influential in that opportunity.

 

ELEANOR GREEN WINTERS ’58
Author and dog breeder

Professor Mary Carmen Rose changed my life.

In an Introduction to Philosophy class, a freshman asked a question about the well-known fable of the tortoise and the hare, crudely mispronouncing the turtle word as “tor-toyce.”

While all of us from a more “cultured” background cringed and felt snobbily superior, Mrs. Rose calmly answered the question. When she had to repeat the word tortoise in her reply, she said “tor-toyce” exactly like her student.

With one word, Professor Mary Carmen Rose revealed her deep, spiritual kindness to all of us fledglings in her example of love, which I have never forgotten and strive to emulate.