Curating the Hillsdale Women’s Community
Written by Katrin Surkan
Dean of Women Rebekah Dell, ’06, and Director of Student Programs Ashlyn Landherr Neveau, ’16, started Curate in a comfortable corner of a local coffee shop. After being approached by Hillsdale’s young women who were seeking advice about life from the female perspective, the two connected students with women within the Hillsdale community who would share wisdom, lessons learned (and still learning!) and insights on life.
Through Curate, mothers, wives, daughters, and students share their wisdom in a weekly blog post and podcast episode through their website. Curate introduces its mission with, “We’ve all got a bit of a storyteller in us.” Every week, the women who write posts share a bit of their story to help guide Hillsdale College women with their questions. Posts have covered gratitude, self-confidence through awareness of the tendency to compare ourselves to others, the joys of being a student, traveling on a budget, and, recently, womanhood.
Earlier this year, Lily Erickson, ’21, wrote an article titled “Embracing Your Feminine Vocation.” Erickson encouraged women to embrace their calling in “the cultivation of order, beauty, and life in places where it did not exist before.” She added a note in her bio with her personal email, which opened the door to a mentoring conversation. Surrounded by varying views of womanhood, she explained to me that the “feminine vocation” looks different for every woman. The way Erickson helped me represented a singular example of the many ways these stories touch the lives of students here.
The women who post on Curate’s blog have created an environment for conversation and self-discovery to flourish, which led Dell and Neveau to organize a day-long summit where these women could come together and experience vulnerability and honesty, as well as tea and scrunchies for memorabilia, and spend a Saturday engrossed in profound conversations. Every year since its founding in 2019, the Curate summit has brought in local women to speak about everything from balancing family and careers to friendship to self-care and dating.
This year, the Searle Center was transformed into a place bubbling with energy and enthusiasm, filled with the conversations of women about the profound things in life. Dr. Katherine Rick, wife of the Hillsdale College Chaplain, spoke about the importance and techniques of drawing boundaries. Academic counselor Christy Maier presented a talk on balancing a career and a family. And Mrs. Jenny Pridgeon, Hillsdale alumna, spoke about the facets and values of friendship through different stages in life. These three talks represent a sampling of the 16 available this year.
Finding a community in college can seem intimidating, especially when taking the first steps to fully independent lives. One of my friends told me that the talks that day sparked a conversation with a classmate that has since blossomed into a close friendship. Hillsdale’s Curate uniquely builds a warm, welcoming community through their work and mission, helping everyone feel more at home in the new place.
A classic Swedish proverb sums up why I love Curate: “A shared joy is doubled, a shared sorrow halved.” By hearing the stories of other women, we don’t feel alone. At Hillsdale, I have met women who embody the spectrum of womanhood. There are some who work on the fiber arts, impressively spinning their own yarn to knit a handmade scarf, and others who take pride in their studies and philosophy, but everyone prioritizes building their relationships with one another. We have all dealt with struggles and survived, and Curate offers us a beautiful, welcoming space to share our respective stories. Through Curate, answers are given to unasked questions. But more than anything, these women help one another aspire to grow into who they want to become.
*Photo courtesy of Curate.
Katrin Surkan, ’25, has roots on the east coast but can almost always be found traveling. When not writing, reading, or chatting with someone new, she’s likely looking for a dog to pet or singing at the top of her lungs between classes with a cappuccino in hand.
Published in April 2022