The MHC SoCal Digest Issue 4
A Message From The Board
Greetings as we enter the Fall months! Here is a summary of what’s ahead for you in this quarterly issue. Our topic showcases alums working in law and social justice.
Our Leading Lights are Christina Arndt Bull, Supervising Deputy Attorney General at the State of California’s Attorney General’s Office and Lan Cao, author and law professor at Chapman University’s Dale E. Fowler School of Law.
Our Young Alums section presents current law students, Maya Rose Rhode at Gould School of Law at USC and Maggie Behringer attending Loyola Marymount School of Law.
Under MoHo Buzz, the big on campus news is the inauguration of Danielle R. Holley, as the 20th President of the institution planned for September. Also here we provide some guidance on how undergraduates interested in pursuing legal studies can benefit from the Center for Career Development advising process!
Photos for MHC Seen Around SoCal capture July events including book club in Los Angeles and a special tour of The Getty Museum Gardens and Architecture organized by our very own alums, Julie Butash and Leslie Ito!
The Club’s Fall events schedule is jam packed. So RSVP!
Visit the Japanese American Cultural Museum and enjoy lunch afterwards in Little Tokyo September 23.
Join our Outdoor Walking Clinic led by personal trainer to the stars, Malin Svensson, scheduled for Santa Monica on September 30.
Arts and Entertainment will be visiting Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House in early December so get ready to take the “Wright Architecture Quiz” and share answers over lunch!
Millennials and GenX’ers sign up for a very special webinar hosted by Dr. Jaime Grillo, Executive Director of the College’s Center for Career Development and Kate Sawicki, Associate Director of Digital Engagement at the Alumnae Association scheduled for October 5 th. Learn more about mid- career transitions, how artificial intelligence is impacting the professional workplace, and resources available from the College just for your career interests. This is a collaboration with the MHC College Clubs of the Peninsula and San Diego as well as SoCal.
Young Alums are invited to 2 special events – Game Night in September and then on September 17 a hybrid cooking demo with private chef alum, Begonia Martinez Lobbezoo celebrating Hispanic Heritage month.
Participate in Mountain Day events planned for Saturday, October 21 in your local regions/communities.
Book clubs are now meeting in 4 Regions of the Club, having just added an opportunity for those of you In Riverside/San Bernardino counties to get together!
Alums from the Classes of 1970-1981 save the date of October 27 for our Zoom get together and start readying your parade signs!
Happy Reading…..
LEADING LIGHTS
Christina Bull Arndt
We have selected 2 alums as leading lights this issue of our newsletter! Both of them have chosen to pursue a career that aligns with the theme for our issue—law and justice.
Christina Bull Arndt made the long trip from San Diego to South Hadley when, before she arrived on campus to start her freshmen year at Mount Holyoke.She graduated from MHC in 1989, and then spent a couple years working for the Navy. Following that experience, she chose to attend the UCLA School of Law.
What had motivated her decision to enter law school? During her junior year abroad, she had taken a class on the sociology of law, which really interested her. She wasn’t ready to go to law school right away, but the interest persisted through her time working for the Navy, which gave her valuable professional experience.
After law school, Christina remained in California. Currently, she works as a Supervising Deputy Attorney General at the California Department of Justice. There, she leads the Housing Justice Team. That team works to enforce the laws that address housing production, tenant rights, environmental justice, and fair housing.
Christina has said that her time at Mount Holyoke helped to prepare her for tackling her present job responsibilities. It gave her important foundational leadership experiences that she relies on today. For instance, she presently coordinates the DOJ Honors Program, which hires new lawyers dedicated to a career in public service.
Christina has also stated that her strong liberal arts background also helped to prepare her for her duties within the legal field. The writing and reasoning skills that she learned at Mount Holyoke are essential to her work as a lawyer.
During Christina’s free time, she serves on the board of MOSTE (Motivating our Students Through Experiences). That organization provides mentoring assistance to girls in underserved neighborhoods of Los Angeles and helps them get to college. I asked Christina what advice she would give to any young alums that had given thought to working in the field of law and justice. She suggested pursuing a variety of experiences. She felt that exposure to a variety of jobs should help them to find their ideal position. I also asked her what practical legal experiences at law school, or in the post-graduate years had proven useful to the work that she is doing today. She said that her work in civil litigation had benefited from her exposure to service opportunities.
Lan Cao
Unlike Christina, Lan Cao grew up on the east coast, specifically in the area outside of Washington D.C. Her family had joined the numerous other refugee families that chose to maintain a proximity to Washington D.C.
Lan’s choices regarding her educational endeavors reflected the influences that had come from exposure to what she called “the collective sense of the refugee community.” That was a sense that favored both stability and economic independence. Lan had viewed law school as a step towards achieving stability and economic independence, while helping her to pay off her student loans.
I asked Lan what had motivated her to pursue legal studies, following her exposure to law school. She said that she had discovered a love for legal studies. She began to see the rule of law as means for putting restraints on tyrannical power, and also a way for resolving disputes in a non-violent manner.
Furthermore, she came to see law as a means for facilitating economic exchanges. She realized the importance of economic exchanges in a country that wanted to attract foreign capital.
I was curious to learn how Lan’s courses and experiences at Mount Holyoke had prepared her for the demands of a career in the field of justice. She pointed to a course called “Women and Work,” that had been taught by Penny Gill. That caused her to view work as both a way to support oneself, and also as an avenue for nurturing one’s ideals and values.
I asked Lan to share any advice that she would have for other MHC students that had thought about pursuing a career in law and justice. She gave a short answer: I think it’s very important to be open to being mentored. Then she showed how her experiences had encouraged the creation of such an answer.
Lan provided details on the position that she had, right after leaving law school. At that time, she clerked for Judge Constance Baker Motley. Judge Motley was the first African American female federal judge in the United States. Before reaching that position, Judg Motley had served as an attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
While serving in that capacity, Judge Motley had represented Martin Luther King and had argued ten cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. She had won nine of those ten cases.
One other aspect of Judge Motley’s life also had an effect on Lan, both emotionally and intellectually. She had been a child of immigrants from Nevis.
My final question for Lan was this: Which of your legal experiences have proved most useful in the work that you do today?
She reviewed how she had chosen New York City as the location for her first experience, following her stimulating mentorship. In New York City, she had worked in a litigation department. There, she helped with cases concerning commercial, bankruptcy, securities and ERISA litigation. Eventually, she switched to the corporate department, where she worked on transactions in China, Vietnam and post-Soviet Russia.
According to Lan, her experiences in that corporate department ignited her curiosity about the relationship between foreign investment and national economic policies. Lan’s personal experiences had made her especially interested in the economies of countries that were in transition from the central plan. She wanted to learn more about how poverty in poor countries can be addressed and alleviated.
Eventually, Lan did some pro bono work for Human Rights Watch, while still at the law firm. Later, she entered legal academia, and worked for international human rights, including international women’s rights. That work then became a core component of her development scholarship.
According to Lan, her current work reflects the influence of human rights issues. Her scholarship has revolved around the meaning of development, as something that requires both economic growth and a consideration of human rights, in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
SPOTLIGHT ON YOUNG ALUMS
Perspectives on Writing
Maya Rose Rhode graduated from Mount Holyoke in 2020, and is now entering her third & final year as a law student at USC. Majoring in French & Psychology, her sights were set on law school but she waited until 2021 to enroll due to COVID.
Maya has interned in the field of family law for the last two summers. Last year, she interned at the Harriett Buhai Center for Family Law, which is a nonprofit that provides free family law services to low-income individuals in the LA area. This summer, she clerked at a private civil litigation firm with a strong focus in family law matters. She has been able to work in both the private & public interest sides and plans to work in Family Law upon graduation.
Maya found that reading & writing-intensive courses she took at Mount Holyoke to be a great help in managing the significant amount of reading required in law school, as well as the essay based exams. She also credits MHC’s intimate and discussion-oriented classroom environments with giving her the ability to articulate opinions and participate confidently with others.
Maya rates networking as a very important part of the law school experience. The legal community is small, and she has found that experienced attorneys are often more than happy to give law students advice and assistance when seeking internships or post-graduation employment.
One of our young alums, Maggie Behringer, is entering in her second year of law school at Loyola University. Maggie did not follow a direct route from Mount Holyoke to law school. She graduated from MHC in 2007 and then worked as a journalist in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey before returning to her home in Tennessee.
Maggie continued to write for newspapers, medical publications, and an online news site. She followed her passion for writing to an MFA program at West Virginia University, where she wrote about race in the South. When the three-year program wrapped up, she once again returned to Tennessee, hoping to find an easy job that would pay the rent and give her time to write. She’d always worked in restaurants on the side and landed at a 44-seat lunch and dinner spot.
There, Maggie discovered her second passion and second career – managing restaurants and bar programs. In 2019, she and her husband moved to Denver to explore a larger market. They lived in Colorado during the pandemic and Maggie continued to work in restaurants. She did, however, find the work less meaningful as the issue of homelessness grew in Denver, as it did in much of the country. Seeing the inequity triggered her interest in pursuing a law degree.
Although Maggie had not thought about law school while at Mt. Holyoke, her experiences there did help to prepare her for the demands that she now faces at Loyola. She points, specifically, to her MHC sociology course on inequality in America and the strength and joy she found in building community through the MHC rugby team and Jazz band.
Maggie has offered some advice for any current MHC students, or for any alums in graduate school. She encourages them to learn everything that they might have an interest in while they have the opportunity to do so in a classroom environment. Those that follow her suggestion should be better prepared to follow a career in law and justice.
Maggie’s experiences in law school indicate that she should be ready to handle the tasks that she might take on in the future. Starting this fall, she plans to take a course that serves as a civil rights practicum. The fall class prepares students for a placement in a civil rights firm or organization, like the ACLU, during the spring semester. An additional fall practicum on homeless rights will help her in serving as a volunteer at the L.A. Mission’s legal clinic, a homeless shelter on Skid Row.
Maggie will also participate in Loyola’s Meditation Clinic where students have the opportunity to learn how to conduct a meditation between tenants and landlords, family members, and other civil litigants. Eventually, she will serve as a mediator during an actual mediation session.
MOHO BUZZ
Highlights from On-Campus Events
Since this month’s newsletter focused on alums working in various aspects of law and social justice, the editors were interested in knowing how the College’s Center for Career Development works with pre- law undergraduates. Dr. Jaime Grillo, Executive Director of the Center notes: “we have a dedicated team member who supports all Pre-Law students from their initial interest, through the exploration process of the industry, to LSAT prep, admissions personal statements and any other application related questions.” To learn more about Pre-Law Advising at the College visit the pre-law site and the Career Center for other resources.
Celebrate with the MHC community as we inagurate our new president, Danielle R. Holley
MHC SEEN AROUND SOCAL
LA Book Club Meeting
Visit to the Getty!
Gifting to Champion our Moment(tum)
Alums are enthusiastic about the SoCal Club’s future. And with the assistance of fabulous volunteers, we can proudly report accomplishments to date. But there is much more to do to ensure we are self-sustaining in the future.
Did you know: MHC does not provide financial assistance to local Clubs? Therefore, the SoCal Club’s capacity to organize events, secure venues, engage speakers, communicate, build out the regional concept, and provide members with assistance for fee- based events rests with you!
Please make a gift at any of these levels: -$500- $100- $50-$25
The SoCal Club is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization. All gifts may be tax deductible to the extent that the laws provide. If your employer provides opportunities for matching gifts as part of charitable initiatives, please let us know by contacting mhcalumssocal@gmail.com.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!!
VOLUNTEER WITH THE CLUB
The club is looking for volunteers for a Marketing/PR board member and additional Regional Connectors. If you’re interested in helping the club, please email: mhcalumssocal@gmail.com