Dawn Cuthell

Switching Fields, and Discovering Bliss, in Her 60s
Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly, Spring 2000

Historian-philosopher Joseph Campbell had it right in advising, 'follow your bliss.' I always knew that doing what one liked the most would produce the best results," says Dawn Cuthell FP'90. "Foreign affairs was my passion as a young woman, and my husband and I lived and worked in embassies in the Far East and Near East during our twenty-seven years in the American Foreign Service."

"When David died in 1987, 1 needed to change my focus. My friend Caroline Harrison '35 suggested I consider the Frances Perkins Program. I wanted to switch from education administration to outdoor environmental education. It was a tremendous change for a humanities major who had always sidestepped science courses. But two years and twenty courses later of nonstop science-from "baby bio" to advanced voicanology--4 earned MHC's first environmental studies degree. I've been working outdoors in my jeans ever since.

"Combining education and the environment has been bliss. Shortly after graduation, I hiked across glaciers and into the caldera of Mt. St. Helens's volcano; it was exhilarating. That summer I worked with Massachusetts Audubon scientists researching endangered botanical species. At Manomet Observatory for Conservation Sciences on Cape Cod, I learned how to release migrating birds from nests and to teach ornithology to elementary school children using these beautiful live birds. This was probably more exciting for me than for my students, even though they were awed by being nose-to-beak with wild feathered creatures. More bliss.

"In 1992, 1 worked as an outdoor environmental education teacher for the St. Mary's County public schools in Maryland. Teaching wetlands ecology to sixth graders, all of us in canoes, added new dimensions to my life. Sotterley Plantation on the Patuxent River, listed as a 'national treasure,' was my favorite teaching site for the next five years. I designed and implemented a colonial history and environment program for 4th and 7th grade students.

"Since my recent retirement from teaching, three volunteer jobs provide varied learning experiences each week. At Children's National Medical Center, I work with very ill young HIV patients who have a lot to teach us adults about courage. Every Wednesday I monitor the textbook recordings made by the local branch of Recording for Blind and Dyslexic Students.

"And-par-don the pun-my most exciting and diverse expressions of bliss result from the altru-ism of Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss.Their Georgetown estate, Dumbarton Oaks, given to Harvard in 1940 with theirsuperb collections of Byzantine and Pre-Columbian art and library of rare books and manuscripts on landscape architecture and garden design, became an internationally known research center.

At Dumbarton Oaks, I am in perpetual training as a staff docent in all areas. Working outdoors in the vast gardens is my favorite assignment, and there are ongoing lectures, symposia, chamber concerts and conferences that make it an active center of scholarship.

"It is worth all the hard work needed to achieve bliss. I am grateful to the women who realized that educational encouragement is valid at all ages and stages of life. I treasure the friendships and support of the FP Program, which enriches the whole community. And I hope all alumnae will support this wonderful program."

-- Photographs courtesy of Dawn Cuthell