Regis College - Mount Regis Yearbook (Weston, MA)

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September of 1983 saw the young woman return to many warm greetings; the crowd once so foreign and cold was now a welcoming alliance. The helpful hands and smiling faces re- mained, but they were now turned toward a new crowd of bright eyes and unsure smiles. The young woman looked over the sea of faces, and then at the mirrored reflection of her own. A year ago she could have been any one of them, but some- thing had changed. At home they said she had grown indepen- dent; she wondered at the word. She certainly didn’t feel that she could stand completely alone, yet the violent need to be surrounded by familiar faces no longer surged within her. She laughed absentmindedly and turned from the mirror. Shout- ing, she enlisted some friends to help with her refrigerator. The scheduling procedure, which a year earlier had seemed infinitely complicated, now seemed fairly simple, except that this year her choices had to be patterned around a major. The familiar surge of fear resurfaced at the thought of selecting a major, and again her future and very life seemed to rest on this one choice. The possibilities were endless, and her abilities vanished at the thought of them. After reading all the class information, checking the requirements, and seeking the ad- vice of the all-knowing upperclasswomen, she valiantly select- ed a major. Almost immediately she feared that she had made a grievous mistake; but again the strength that was growing within her surfaced and verified her choice. Decisions that she previously would have handed to others she now took upon herself, and she found that she could bear their weight as well as their consequences. Joining the procession which leads the graduating seniors to the tower, the young woman realized that her Summer was ending. She shivered at the thought of her fast approaching Autumn but stood firm, fortified by the ever increasing strength within her. The brisk air of September, 1 984 welcomed the young wom- an into her Autumn, and while the crisp air often hurt her lungs, it was also fresh and exhilarating. Having made the decision of a major, she found correlations among subjects between which previously she had seen no connection. She also began an internship which soon became a testing ground for the theories that she had learned in the classroom. Other friends had gone for a semester to study abroad where the foreign cities, rich with culture, added a new dimension to their classroom learning. And, as the class, once a crowd of strang- ers, began to develop diverse interests, they also grew closer to one another by sharing those varied experiences. The young woman laughed at the irony and understood; people are not bound only by similarities, but by the sharing of differences and the integration of those differences into themselves. 8 lntegration

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Unification “Women’s work is always towards wholeness.” — May Sarton, Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing. September of 1985 witnessed the final return of the woman and the knowledge of that finality hung in the air with the chill of approaching winter. The reality that she was finishing something that she had started four years ago was disconcerting; however, her expectation of the challenge that lay ahead counteracted her fear. Her concentration constantly fluctuated between thoughts about her future and daily academic concerns. It was evident that she shared this instability with the other women in her class. The strain was visible in their faces. The late night discussions which had often seemed illusory were becoming more serious as dreams were driven to reality. The thrilling surge of expectation at first seemed powerful enough to carry her to graduation, but it was not. The perseverance and determination which had seen her through the first three years would have to resurge once again. She realized that the paralyzing fear of her youth was gradually subsiding; in its place grew an inspired optimism. As she sat before the tower in the bright October sunshine she remembered her first impressions of that symbol on the letterhead of her acceptance notice. That impression had changed continuously over the past four years, but the tower remained unchanged reflecting the continuity of the education for which it stood. Glancing at her fellow classwomen walking stiffly in their newly donned robes, she recalled the huddled mass of frightened faces four years before. This group no longer merely completed All photos, Jay Mastalerz one another out of fear and insecurity, but instead complemented one another as unique individuals. The independence that had developed in each of them served not to separate them but rather to unify them as a group of aware and well-educated women. The completeness they had achieved seemed ironic as they faced their last spring together. The woman reflected that again the recurrent cycle was at an end, but while the beginning of its next revolution held some fear, she faced it with courage for she knew that in a very real way, she was whole.