Good afternoon everyone. Well students…all those yellow cards from the archives, have, through the miracle of modern chemistry, turned into living, breathing alumnae. Here we are….the girls with the grandmother faces. Victims, if you will, of the largest academic hoax in history….posture pictures.

One of my classmates asked me, "Are we going to be young again when we get back on campus?" And I answered, "ABSOLUTELY". Why it was just a short time ago that Gay and I were canoeing on upper lake, and Jane and I were slaving away in the chem. Lab, using slide rules and logarithms for Pete's sake! What we wouldn't have given for even a simple handheld calculator. And wasn't it just the other day that Gatesy and Joan and Nan and Bop, (if you think Wink is bad, how about Bop} were housemates in Safford and beginning our college career?

Perhaps it's not such a good idea for us to think we're as young as we feel at this stage of life, but I'm going to let you in on a little secret. In our heads we're not in our 70's. And it's always a shock when we happen to see a reflection of ourselves and we stop to shout, "Hey wait a minute; that can't be me, I'm much younger than that!" And in our heads we are…we're much younger than that.

Although this project, part 1 of our new Seminar Day for our 50th reunion was conceived before the movie, Mona Lisa Smile, the movie was a wonderful example of how history can be skewed. Some of the movie was on the right track, but most of it was far from picturing the way things really were. We'd like to tell our story, while we still have the ability to do so, of what it was like at Mount Holyoke in the 1950's. And in return, we'd like to know first hand, what it is like at Mount Holyoke now.

I once read that one of the reasons history keeps repeating itself is that by the time the same thing starts happening again the people who have already lived through it are considered to be too old to really know, to really understand. Our society is one that promotes youth and youthful ideas. The "mature adults" are generally not thought of as being particularly wise nor knowledgeable and this has been intensified by large technological advances. If you can't understand how to burn a cd or even use excel…well what can you really know.

You students do have the technological skills and you are up on the latest discoveries and trends. You're amazing, but we have one thing going for us that you can't study for nor purchase at any price….and that is experience. We have lots of experience and we've learned from it. We've traveled many of the paths that you have yet to walk, and in many instances we know what's just around the bend or over the hill. Therefore we think it is important to share our real history with you. Letters are a lost art, the privacy of information act has made many records inaccessible, and let's face it…there is nothing like talking to someone who has actually been there or lived through it. Our hope is that you students and future students at Mount Holyoke will understand what it was really like at our college in the mid-fifties, and that you will continue to tell your stories so that future generations will understand the way it really was.

We are really excited to have been adopted by Soc224 as a part of your curriculum. Professor Townsley is an absolute pistol! She is a wealth of ideas and has been immensely helpful to us. I can hardly keep up with her as her mind goes a mile a minute.

Now this is the student's day. Our role '55 is to listen and respond to the questions and the student's role of course is to ask the questions. Later on in the one to one interviews you will have the opportunity to talk about your own personal expectations.

Soc students, RELAX! Be yourselves because we're all students today.

One of the things that made us feel very grown up when we arrived here back in 1951 was that our teachers called us Miss. No first names were used. In return, we called our teachers not Dr. nor Professor, but Mr. or Mrs. Or Miss…but never, never Ms. Soc students…do you know why?

Yes, the term had not yet been invented. Gloria Steinham was over there at Smith, (I think in the class of '55) making up lines such as, "Why should we care what detergent gets out ring around the collar, tell your husband to wash his neck."

Now 55ers, I know this is going to be tough, but Professor Townsley is to be called Eleanor. It will be difficult in the beginning, but you'll get used to it. The rest of us too will be on a first name basis. After all, we're all Mount Holyoke Sisters. So let us go forth, Mount Holyoke Sisters, Daughter's of Mary Lyon, and do what she taught us to do…educate and be educated…discover and learn together.