Natalie Eastwood

Francoise (Frenchy) Roos Snyder ’40 has been a rebel since the end of World War I, or close to it. Born March 25, 1919, she supported women’s rights, stood up for liberal politics, joined a union, and was president of the Baltimore section for the National Council of Jewish Women. And, she wore a blue dress on her wedding day because that was her favorite color.

It was in the middle of the Appalachian wilderness telling stories of a dog who flew to the moon; it was in a lab listening to humpback whales converse in thundering booms; it was in Hawaii, three stories under a pineapple field deciphering Chinese code.

Hello [student], If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go and what would you hope to find? At Goucher, we believe that immersing yourself in a different country allows you to discover a part of yourself you may never have realized existed.

Hello [name], I want to introduce you to one of our successful alums, Jamison Curcio ’19, whose focus has always been to create a space on stage for dancers of color and minority groups. After graduation, Jamison was a community-engagement intern for Jacob’s Pillow, a prestigious dance center that Time Magazine called the "hub and mecca of dancing."

Rebecca Friedman ’09 and Peter Commander ’09 meandered, maybe even floundered, in their first four years after graduation. They have regrets. But they also have success. And they have proof of the latter in the sacrifices they have made to create and run a performance company and dance school: Charm City Ballet (CCB). Their advice for recent dance graduates comes from their mistakes—they’ll be the first to tell you they didn’t do it all right.

Hello [name], I would like to introduce you to Goucher’s director of exhibitions and curator, Alex Ebstein ’07. Alex works closely with Goucher’s students majoring in visual and material culture (VMC) , a hands-on discipline that explores human-made images and objects.

Dana Jensen ’20 wonders how she must look trekking across campus in knee-high rubber boots with a metal fish trap hooked under one arm and leftover rat food in the other. She may get some strange looks as she disappears into Goucher’s woods, but she doesn’t let that stop her from being a scientist. She has fish to catch, plastic to find, and a hypothesis to test.

Hello [student name], At Goucher, we want students to live the SWEET life. We believe in a holistic approach to our students’ well-being, which is why we focus on SWEET: sleep, water, exercise, eating healthy, and time management.

MERCER — When he walks into a room with his sleeves of tattoos, no one can see the monkey on his back. And that’s where Christian Griffith’s 3,000-mile journey of healing begins. Griffith, 48, survived sexual abuse as a teenager – first, he says, at the hands of his mother, then by several other men. As he peels away his running shirt, he reveals a tattoo that spans his entire back. A monkey on the right corner flashes pointed teeth toward an outline of a man and a woman. These are his abusers. The woman’s arm is raised to hit the monkey. The man holds a chain that is wrapped around the monkey’s arm. The monkey rages. He will not be quieted. His red, raw mouth burns angrily on Griffith’s back.

When Shippensburg University volleyball player Courtney Malott jumped to punch the ball back onto the other court, she did not know it would be about a year before her next game. She did know immediately however, that her leg was broken. “Tell me if there’s a bone sticking out,” Malott said as she lay on the volleyball court with her coach squeezing her fingers purple. Her broken tibia and fibula in her right leg were in fact splintered like snapped twigs, but millimeters of skin kept bone from ripping into the stadium’s view under the harsh gymnasium lights.