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Mills College still offers an educational oasis
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As a metaphor for its progress, Mills College actually chopped down their well-loved yet overgrown eucalyptus trees last year. While the trigger was one single tree that crashed a board member's sports car, the time was long overdue. The trees were impractical, and so they were cast aside - much like how Mills has transformed to meet the changing needs of currrent students.
Mills is still a lovely place in the Oakland Hills, complete with a 150-year tradition. In your grandmother's time, this was a traditional liberal arts school and the West Coast's answer to the Seven Sister colleges like Mt. Holyoke and Smith.
Today the school vies for students who are considering California's university and state colleges. Fully a third of the students are "resumers" who are at least 23 years old, more than half live on campus, and two thirds come from California. Most students receive around $40k in financial aid.
Mills has stayed true to educating women, but not exclusively so. Currently there are 900 undergrad women, and over 400 grad students including a few good men. It continues to offer an educational oasis.
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Campanil Tower (Mills)
Campus Beginnings:
When the school was founded, it was literally a seminary for high school girls in Benecia. Cyrus and Susan Mills were missionaries who wanted to create a college campus for women. They followed the population boom west, and relocated from the former state capital to some overly-grazed, barren property in the Oakland Hills. At the time, the new campus was far removed from the city below.
Some 50,000 trees and bushes were planted by founder Cyrus Mills, and the school entrance fronted on Seminary Avenue. This focus on the landscape was prescient, as the school grew into an oasis. Along the way, landscape architect Howard Gilkey curated the place as well. Today it's a mature property filled with trees, streams, manicured lawns and more natural hideaways too.
Eventually the campus grew along with the foliage. Mills Hall was the first and only building on the hill, followed by the library, science building, chapel and other structures constructed during the early 1900s. Susan Mills relied on her friend and board member Phoebe Hearst to commission a Beaux Art plan for growth, which was lovely but never saw the light of day.
This inaction turned out to be a good thing, since Mills provided a springboard for a young female architect by the name of Julia Morgan. She won her stripes by building the Campanil tower, which looked lovely and was made with rebar in its concrete construction. The tower came through the 1906 quake with flying colors, cementing her reputation.
Most Oaklanders equate Mills with fine architecture, particularly all the Morgan buildings. The Spanish Colonial period came next, and the main buildings were built by architect Walter Ratcliff, Jr. The campus retains this Spanish feel, interspersed by a few more modern structures.
Campus Architect Karen Fienes (Mills)
Mills College Today:
As Oakland grew around the Campus, the entrance was shifted from Seminary to MacArthur instead. There were some hits and misses, according to current architect Karen Fienes. However, she's trying to make sure that the campus heritage is respected now.
If you visit the place lately, you may be in for a few pleasant surprises. There's a massive business school under construction, to meet the current demand that goes well beyond liberal arts. In addition, a beautiful natural sciences building opened last year, exceeding green construction standards. Plus the music hall is getting refurbished, which polishes the school's steller performing arts reputation.
All these new buildings and renovations are built in the campus vernacular, so they fit in well. Yet Fienes also wants to create new kind of spaces that enable students to work or hang out together. You can see efforts to create social areas in classroom buildings, the cafeteria, and the new buildings.
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New Eucalyptus (Mills)
There's plenty of hope and not an abundance of money to buff up the school - at least not all at once. But the school's administration is focused on current economic realities, which relate to meeting the academic needs of students first and the infrastructure and environmental concerns as a close second.
The school is an oasis but isn't entirely shielded from Oakland and its ills. In late September, part of the campus was evacuated for a few hours due to an arrest of the main connected with a homicide. This arrest took place just outside the campus, and the action was meant to be a safety precaution.
Still, the core mission of teaching women remains intact. And those welcoming eucalyptus will return after all. There's a new type of tree that won't grow nearly as tall and rip the shreds out of the sidewalks - and the Campanil student newspaper proudly announced these trees will be planted by next year.
Special Thanks to Mills: The college graciously hosted a tour for the Oakland Heritage Alliance recently. Our guides were expert insiders, Campus Architect Karen Fienne and History Professor and former Provost Bert Gordon, who shared their joys and challenges over the years. Although the tour was scheduled for two hours, we stayed for at least three and were able to soak in the unique history, architecture and landscape of this educational gem.
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