The story below is from our March/April 2023 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
Photo above: ©Stephanie Klein-Davis
Mary Dana Hinton discovered Hollins, then horses and now she’s in love with both.
No, the horses weren’t the clincher for Mary Dana Hinton. Sure, they helped, but there was more to it than that. The horses have given a look inside the woman who is the new-ish president of Hollins University.
She was selected in 2020 to follow the beloved Nancy Gray, who had retired and returned briefly to an interim presidency when her first successor didn’t work out. It was a difficult and confusing time that was only made more-so by the emerging COVID crisis. There was so much going on, in fact, that inauguration was delayed to April 2022.
The horses provided both a frightening challenge and insight into who this accomplished woman truly is. “I became enamored of the horses, the barn, the students” who rode, she says. “I wanted to learn something new, something that I was afraid of, something that made me nervous. Last summer, I started taking lessons, learning so many things … When I ride, I have to look ahead. I give direction to the horse and let it unfold. It is like our community; you have to be one with the horse. I’ve had to learn to live and breathe with everyone at Hollins.”
The university got into her blood immediately, she says: “The Hollins deal was sealed the moment I walked on campus, met the students and saw our mission in action. The horses have been an incredible added bonus. Now, I can’t imagine my life without the horses, nor can I fathom any other home outside of Hollins.”
At 52, her mothering years are behind her, and she and husband Robert Williams, a new immigrant consultant, live in the stately Hollins president’s mansion without the distractions of young energy swirling around. Her 23-year-old daughter, Hallela Hinton-Williams, is helping develop Black teachers in Philadelphia; son Hillel Hinton-Williams is a senior psych major at Oberlin College; and daughter Hosanna Hinton-Williams is at Syracuse University studying sociology.
Hinton was most recently president emerita of the College of St. Benedict in Minnesota and VP for academic affairs at Mount St. Mary College in New York. Her education and experience are deep and thorough and when a recent boss told her she was ready for her own college presidency, she jumped at the possibility. She and Hollins found each other, and she and what she considers her “calling” were underway.
Just this past fall, she announced the Hollins Opportunity for Promise through Education (HOPE) program providing full, four-year scholarships to Roanoke-area women who otherwise couldn’t afford college of any description, let alone an expensive liberal arts university. HOPE pairs with the decades-old Horizon program, which brings in older women (24 and up) who want to complete their education with tuition reduced and schedules made to accommodate. It is quite a pairing for those lacking resources.
HOPE’s goal for its first class was seven freshmen. It attracted 31.
Hinton is the author of The Commercial Church: Black Churches and the New Religious Marketplace in America, and her TEDx talk, “Leading from the Margins,” reflects that theme. She was the winner of Credo’s Courageous Leadership Award in 2020 recognizing gifted leadership. She is also a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, founded 240 years ago by America’s founders. It includes the exceptionally accomplished.
The delay between her hiring and inauguration presented an opportunity: “A new president can’t talk about community if the community doesn’t know you … I would recommend waiting a couple of years [before inauguration], because I didn’t feel like a new person sorting it out.” Indeed, she had a history by then.
She had learned that there’s no special need for new buildings, but that “leveraging” the physical plant should be a priority. “Everything Hollins needs to be successful is there.” The goal, she insists, is to be a resource and partner with the community. “I want people to say, ‘We know Hollins cares about us.’”
Hinton has instituted periodic meetings with the superintendents of the area’s K-12 systems, is working with Virginia’s two senators on federal support of dual enrollment programs (enrolled in high school and college simultaneously and teaming up with Virginia Western Community College to educate students, especially in English, math and the arts.
“Education is the single most important factor in a community,” Hinton says forcefully. “It is priority one and requires servant leadership,” her job.
She spent a number of years in the 1990s developing new public schools (22 middle and high schools) and “learned to replicate highly-supported models.” In the early 2000s, she became a nonprofit leader and found time to return to school, studying religion and education. From that, she took what she thought would be a year’s sabbatical working on multi-cultural engagement, and she was hooked.
She “learned how to think through problems. It is exciting to bring people together, to plan something. I loved being near students in a shared mission and discovered that as long as we are together, we can find a way.”
Hollins’ diversity has been especially attractive to Hinton. The university, often referred to as a “rich girls’ school,” is eight to 10% international; 40% Pell Grant eligible; 38% first-generation college students; and a third American students of color.
“I want Hollins to be a place that exemplifies what it means to be an undergraduate and a graduate institution, focusing on mission alignment and impactful programs. … We want to be counter-cultural, using diversity as our greatest source of strength. I want to see us make a difference.
“While higher education may be shrinking, I want Hollins to be a beacon, not only what we do, but who we are, a place where people turn to each other.”
The story above is from our March/April 2023 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
