Mills College art museum. Source

...Aaaaaaaaannnnd We're Back

Just because we've gone dark, doesn't mean there's nothing happening - quite the opposite.

We are here to fight for Mills College and we're growing in numbers, resources and power with each passing day - while the Promoters of the "Death to Mills" Plan are struggling to find supporters without conflicts of interest and watching in dismay as the world wakes up to their deceitful tactics.

There have been some big developments in the battle to #SaveMills in its first month. Two main factions of resistance have emerged:

Save Mills Coalition who want Mills to remain private and independent.
UCMills, who want the UC merger to go through but Mills would grant degrees as UC Mills.

The common ground between the factions is the desire for Mills College to continue to grant degrees, and the desire to stop the plan to close the College of President Hillman, Chair Sanborn, Trustees Schuster, Roberts and Mance, and other Promoters.

Other than Ajuan Mance, who is "designing" the Mills Institute with Marilyn Schuster, there are few people of color on the majority-white Board of Trustees to support this plan. There is only one LatinX amongst the 33 trustees, despite 35% of Mills students being from this group.

The looming lawsuits and burgeoning media interest will result in many details coming to light and into the national discourse. There will be nowhere to hide for those promoting the end of Mills College. They've tried what they're attempting to do at Mills College on many other small liberal arts colleges across the country - see Sue the Board - It Worked For Sweet Briar, Could it Work For Mills College?

Perhaps what we do to expose and stop these Promoters in East Oakland can inspire other Colleges facing similar situations to Fight The Powers That Be. Mills has done this before, many times. Who is stronger, a small white cabal amongst the Board of Trustees? Or the combined powers of students, faculty, alums and the community - mixed with the magic of Mills and the force of 170 years of historic heritage?

#MillsForever

Alexa's Mic Drop

Recently Mills College put on an "AAMC Town Hall" meeting. The stated purpose of this meeting was to have a dialogue between the Promoters and the AAMC. In fact, the first hour of the meeting was the Promoters talking in a monologue; when the time finally came to give the AAMC the chance to speak, the feed was cut and recording stopped. Mills College then released a recording of this meeting with the comments of the AAMC edited out. How dare the AAMC presume to participate in a meeting called AAMC Town Hall! The President will be having none of that, thank you.

Fortunately Mills has skills...the Boomer Promoters might be tech-challenged but many current and former students and faculty are highly educated in this domain.

An abbreviated version of AAMC Vice President Alexa Pagonas' speech has been circulating, only 3 minutes long. Below is the entire clip (minus the start which was chopped off by the meeting host), followed by video of the entire meeting.

Alexa Pagonas asked Chair Sanborn "is there a term sheet and have you seen it". Sanborn was flummoxed, stuttered out a non-answer, then she and President Hillman left the meeting. Don't worry, Promoters, this is ALL going to come out. Everybody will be reading this term sheet soon enough.

Here is the transcript of Alexa's speech:

[Thank you for taking the time to meet with us.
I have a brief statement for the Trustees and a super quick question for Katie.
I want to thank the college for the presentation. Those of us that have been engaged know how difficult the finances have been. Not just for Mills but for all liberal arts schools. Covid compounded the situation. Mills has a cash flow problem. We get that.
The Alumnae has been very supportive of the college – we have been particularly supportive of Beth. We gave a 2M line of credit, we’ve hosted events. We have fulfilled every single request. ]

The AAMC Board of Governors have even been supportive of the idea of Mills being a part of Berkeley when the idea was to it kept Mills as a college. It was certainly better than selling the campus off for parts. That would have been, and remains, unacceptable.
In December, Beth told the Board of Governors that things with Berkley were still being discussed and that decisions would not be made until 2023. Somehow things changed and sped up—they sped up so fast that Beth forgot to inform us to the changes, in violation of the Memorandum of Collaboration.
We were stunned by the announcement on March 17th.
Since then we have been perplexed and confused by the conflicting statements:
Nothing is settled -- except we know for sure we wont be granting degrees.
There will be an institute - but the blueprints for it haven’t been written.
We may or may not be a part of UC Berkeley – but there will be some type of an agreement with them for which there is a term sheet.
No one has told us how we got from a nice residential college scenario -- to a non-degree granting institute.
And when we have asked we have been given vague diffusive answers. Why such a rush?
The Board of Governors are being told we can’t even meet with Trustees. We have no idea what that means. We use to get together and have dinner. Now when the very mission of the College is changing, we are told we can’t have a conversation with each other
Asking for our help with admissions now, when we have literally been begging for years to be involved in a meaningful way, is, quite frankly insulting.
.
This past Sunday, on Easter, Marilyn Schuster invited Governors meet with her to hear about the Institute. We were told the writing of the blueprint was just beginning. We had the chance to ask questions.
I asked if we were keeping the campus, some parts of the campus, any parts of 5000 MacArthur Blvd. She answered
“Presumably, yes. It depends on the assets we have. We can’t do it alone. But we certainly can define the core and continue negotiations with that in mind.”
Then it dawned on me, one could have an institute-- and -- sell of the college for parts.
It would make for a very rich Institute, indeed. A billion dollar institute.
Do you sell the rare books, art collection, the Music department or just land?
Trustees: I urge you to search your heart and conscience:
Have you truly considered the alternatives? Explored other models?
Have all options been contemplated?
Why can’t the Institute grant degrees?
If you have enough money for a very rich institute, why can you not leverage the same assets to keep a smaller college?
Trustees, are you sure your trust has been placed correctly?
These are rhetorical for you to contemplate as you decide whether or not to extinguish the Fires of Wisdom. Please remember who you are and what you represent.
I do have one question. It is just for Katie. Katie Sanborn, as the Chair of the Board of Trustees and an Alumna:
Have you seen the term sheet? And will you share it?"

Board of Governors Chime In

Although in the last post we called out #UCMills promoters Alexa Pagonas and Courtney Long for pushing what seems to be a fairly slight variation of President Hillman's plan, we have to give credit where credit's due: they stepped up and bravely stood against these powerful forces.

After "The Great Town Hall Disaster", AAMC Governor Courtney Long sent a superb salvo across President Hillman's bow with this sternly worded letter:

The Board of Trustees were also sent a joint letter from the Board of Governors, Save Mills Coalition and UCMills Campaign.

"One of My Berkeley Friends"

Our investigation is still being heavily censored across the Internet. Nobody has explained why, but it seems pretty obvious. They don't want well-researched, primary-source OSINT based articles exposing their obvious machinations. And the Promoters are powerful, their reach is wide.

People from UC Berkeley are all over the Facebook and Slack groups - as well as the Mills College Board of Trustees. Ask anyone in a meeting if they have any affiliation with any UC colleges. Did they or their partner go to one? Are they currently being paid by one, or by a PR firm engaged by one? Ask them directly, it's a good test to make sure your coalition is not being overtly infiltrated; for covert infiltration you will have to look into other tests. Rest assured, infiltrators are everywhere. This is a military-grade assassination plot, to take down one of the last bastions of womens' empowerment in the world. The sad reality that this plan is being promoted by women - some of them even alums of Mills College - makes it all the more egregious.

Comments to her post raising awareness of our investigation were deleted within minutes:

Major Media Story

Mills College is making news all over the world. This should be a great opportunity to attract new students, and repair that -15% enrollments deficit. Why isn't the College taking advantage of that? Why doesn't President Hillman ask for donations in her many interviews? Why are there no donation buttons on the College web site in a drive to save it from this so-called "Financial Emergency"?

The Promoters may have thought they could slip this plan through quickly and quietly while students were away for Spring Break and the campus was still closed to alums because COVID. They have seriously under-estimated the value of the Mills College brand, and what it means to alums all over the world - many of whom are in positions of leadership in their respective industries.

There has been an outpouring of support from academic faculty all over the world. It seems that outside of the Board of Trustees, nobody is buying President Hillman's story that the College is bankrupt and has no option but to close and give UC Berkeley all its assets for free - but somehow reported a $2.6 million cash surplus for the last financial year, recently passed financial review for accreditation, sold a folio for $10m, increased by $4 million/year the payout from their endowment (which increased in size from $191 to $200 million).

Do they think we're stupid? More and more people are waking up and realizing that nothing about this passes the sniff test. It is a land grab under a smokescreen of gaslighting.

The Mills Mafia is ready to fight to preserve the College we love!

Respected professors from the world's top Universities - including UC Berkeley - have lent their names on a petition to stop this madness. We re-published this list in a separate multi-part post: see Academics From Around the World Unite to Support Mills College Faculty Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

BandCamp has published a really quite remarkable listening guide to some of the notable people who've benefitted from musical education at Mills College, including Phil Lesh (Grateful Dead), John Cage, Laurie Anderson and Terry Riley:

https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/mills-college-list

Global business publication Forbes created controversy with its scathing analysis of the administration's mismanagement:

Forbes, Richard Vedder: Being Woke Means Going Broke for Mills College

While the Forbes piece has provoked outrage and cries of racism and misogyny from the Mills community, some of the points made are economically sound. To increase revenues (a), raise tuition, add new programs and market towards higher-value customers who seek a return on their education investment. To decrease revenues (b), lower tuition, cut programs, and market to underprivileged local students who can't really afford to go and whose future employment prospects in fields of social justice and womens' studies may be limited and less than lucrative. President Hillman tried Plan (b) for 5 years and the results were predictable.

Why not get woke, get rich? Perhaps the future Mills College can be a pioneer in this area.

It's time for the A team. Winners win and losers lose.

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#MILLSFOREVER

11. Mills College Leadership Caught Speechless by AAMC Resistance