Starring Stephens

Attention faculty, staff and current students (sorry, Mom). Our campus planning guru, Richard Perkins, needs your help.

Stephens is in the midst of a planning process to determine how campus spaces can be used more efficiently in the future. Some of you might recall that consultants from Mackey Mitchell Architects were on campus, and planning meetings were open to give you a chance to share your ideas.

But if you missed them (don’t feel badly, I did, too), you’re in luck. Employees and students have another chance to be part of the process.

This survey essentially just wants to know what you’d change about the physical campus if you could. “Is there anything missing on campus?” is one of the questions. (With a store, dining hall, post office and Kaldi’s coffeehouse on campus, I’d personally say “no,” but you might think of something.)

Anyway, if you have a few seconds, click here, take the survey and help our project management team out. You’ve got 10 days from today to weigh in…Go.

Stephens College students have spent the past week learning how to fight.

Ouch!

OK, they’re not really fighting (although it looks real!).

The students in the photo (courtesy of the Summer Theatre Institute’s Facebook page) are learning and practicing the fine art of stage combat, which is, I’m told, a necessary skill in the theatre industry. There are even professional fight choreographers, including husband-and-wife team Martin English and Cynthia Hyer who are spending two weeks working with our Summer Theatre Institute students.

So basically our theatre students are learning how to slap, kick, punch, etc. in dramatic performances without actually slapping, kicking, punching or hurting their fellow cast members.

The public can catch “Slaphappy,” a compilation of the fight scenes they’ve learned, for free at 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 24, at the Warehouse Theatre. You can read more about that here.
In the meantime, enjoy this teaser video from STI.

Well here’s a fun fact to start your work week. Stephens has a connection to “Star Trek Into Darkness,” released in theatres this weekend.

Chris Pine (below) who plays the attractive young James Kirk, is the grandson of Anne Gwynne (pictured below him).

And Gwynne, a model and film icon in the 1940s, as you’ve probably figured out, attended Stephens College.

According to the LA Times, Gwynne became interested in acting while she was here. Other online sources say she studied drama under Maude Adams, the famous theatre actress-turned-Stephens professor . It appears as though Gwynne left Stephens to pursue a modeling and theatre career before graduating.

Gwynne made more than 40 films and was consider Universal Studio’s leading “scream queen,” having several lead roles in horror and sci-fi films.

Read more about her in Sunday’s LA Times story.

Stephens alumna Jennie Runk has been making news for being normal.

Well, actually, she’s not that normal. She’s absolutely beautiful. But she is a normal size.

And then a big-named swimsuit company had the audacity to put her in a bikini and use her photos in its campaign without even labeling it as anything other than “beachwear.”

Here are the headlines:

“H&M break new ground by using size 12 model”

“H&M quietly debuts ‘Beachwear’ collection using plus-size model”

“H&M’s new Beachwear collection has groundbreaking approach to swimwear for curvy girls” (warning: click on that one and a “Weight Watchers” ad pops up.)

Amidst all the media attention, Jennie—who was a model before she attended Stephens, where she earned a creative writing degree in 2011—decided to share her own thoughts. She wrote this commentary for BBC News Magazine. Jennie writes:

“I had no idea that my H&M beachwear campaign would receive so much publicity. I’m the quiet type who reads books, plays video games, and might be a little too obsessed with her cat.

So, suddenly having a large amount of publicity was an awkward surprise at first. I found it strange that people made such a fuss about how my body looks in a bikini, since I don’t usually give it much thought.

When my Facebook fan page gained about 2,000 new likes in 24 hours, I decided to use the attention as an opportunity to make the world a little nicer by promoting confidence. I’ve since been receiving lots of messages from fans, expressing gratitude.

Some even told me that my confidence has inspired them to try on a bikini for the first time in years. This is exactly the kind of thing I’ve always wanted to accomplish, showing women that it’s OK to be confident even if you’re not the popular notion of ‘perfect.’

This message is especially important for teenage girls. Being a teenage girl is incredibly difficult. They need all the help and support they can get.

When our bodies change and we all start to look totally different, we simultaneously begin feeling pressured to look exactly the same. This is an impossible goal to achieve and I wish I had known that when I was 13. …

Seriously.

Read more about her experiences here, but she goes on to write:

Having finally survived it, I feel compelled to show girls who are going through the same thing that it’s acceptable to be different. You will grow out of this awkwardness fabulously. Just focus on being the best possible version of yourself and quit worrying about your thighs, there’s nothing wrong with them.

What an inspiring message. I hope her young fans take it to heart.

Like Jennie, I can’t wait for a society that stops obsessing over size. But I’m kinda a hypocrite because sometimes I obsess, too. I hate running into people who knew me in high school or college—I know the first thing they’re going to notice is I’ve grown out! But I’ve also grown up, and unfortunately what they can’t see is that my confidence has grown just as much as my waistline.

In the meantime, models such as Jennie will be the pioneers leading us toward that nirvana.

You can learn more about her by becoming one of the 3,477 (as of Wednesday morning) people who “Like” her page on Facebook.

Actually, make that 3,478. Because I’m definitely a fan.

It’s funny how you can work alongside someone and know nothing about their lives–what they’ve been through, why they do what they do and how much they’ve overcome.

I knew from my first month at Stephens that Sandie Heckman is a special woman. I told you about her–she’s the staff member who’s made spreading random acts of kindness her life’s work. She was also one of a handful of employees honored at our employee recognition ceremony. This past Saturday, she was a proud Mom, too, watching her daughter, Sarah, walk across the stage and receive her Stephens College degree.

Yesterday, I found out that a personal story Sandie’s wrote is now a finalist in the Victorious Women Project’s annual short story competition.

While I read through some of the entries, and all of the women should be very proud, Sandie’s stands out. In “Strength and Awakening During Tough Times,” we read about tragedy that Sandie, armed with faith, turned into triumph.

Good news. You can not only read the story here, but you can also vote during the public phase of the contest. You have to sign in using Facebook (Sorry, Mom–see, this is why you need a Facebook account!) but after that it simply takes a click and you can send Sandie’s story on to the judges.

Congrats once again Sandie. I’m so proud to call you a colleague.