Fall 2025 / Alumni News

“It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.” —Lewis Carroll

Picture, if you will, a lull in the 2025 Commencement Weekend ceremonies. The John Stewart Memorial Library is deserted except for four Wilson trustees—classmates, rather, bound by friendship more than graduation years—who are pouring over a blue scrapbook, maybe 12 x 18 inches, with the Wilson seal affixed to its cover.

Perhaps it’s a good thing that the gasps, the “Oh, look’s,” and the “Who knew’s?” are uttered softly, because, well, it’s the library and the four of us are still tradition-bound by “propriety and good taste.” (Look it up, dear new students.)

Before us, obtained by one of our number affectionately known as the “eBay troll,” is a four-year compendium of the college life of Lydia M. Noah, nee Morris, Wilson Class of 1926.

Suffice to say, what Lydia didn’t paste in the pages of her memory book is unknown in the annals of human history: Dance cards; “May Queen” programs (she arriving atop a white horse); hand-written bridge party invitations (“RSVP, 14 Main”); cryptic directions to secret society meetings; and hilarious, heart-rending scrap-paper notes, (“Dear Lydia, You have made me what I am today—after seven bottles. Continue your help of the human race but concentrate on the Evens tomorrow.”)

Lydia’s Wilson scrapbook—as well as her 1926 Con, also rescued from the bottomless maw of eBay—is now safely in the hands of Maxine Wagenhoffer, director of the Hankey Center. I would suggest you visit her—Lydia, Maxine, or both—on your next campus sojourn.

Scrapbooks hold memories, of course, but scrapbooks end.

Memory invoking only the past is retrogression; it empowers us only to dwell in the ‘what was,’ foregoing awareness of the present and the promise of the future. As one anonymous scholar noted, “What if memory did not rely on chronological order, but was instead an intricate web connecting past, present, and future?”

During Fall Weekend, past, present, and future converged. Returning grads met new students over BBQ and Brew; the harvest moon and drones looked down on scarecrows, old-fashioned barn activities, and games at a college—our Phoenix—replete with new and lively studies and a future bright with possibilities.

Even in these challenging times.

Be present to Wilson: in person, on Zoom, and through her publications. Alums are Wilson’s past. We are also her present and her future.

Autumn cheer to you,
Patricia W. Bennett ’68
President, AAWC

The AAWC honored the following alumnae and faculty for their accomplishments during an annual awards ceremony held May 17.

Faculty Award:
David True, Ph.D.

Established in 1998, the Faculty Award is presented to a faculty member who has given a minimum of 10 years of dedicated service to Wilson College.

David True, Ph.D., former associate professor of religion at Wilson College, taught from 2003 to 2022 and received the Donald F. Bletz Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2016. He also served as director of the Orr Forum, an endowed lecture series dedicated to further reflection on the role of religion in the world.

Though absent from the award ceremony because he was attending his daughter’s graduation, True expressed gratitude in a letter, reflecting on the transformative power of shared learning at Wilson. He wrote, “The shared practice of thinking changed my life, and I am so grateful to have been there alongside you to witness it change your lives as well.”

Currently, True lives in North Carolina, where he is a visiting scholar of philosophy and theology at Pfeiffer University and interim pastor at Poplar Tent Presbyterian Church. He also serves as co-editor of Political Theology, a peer-reviewed international journal committed to furthering the study of the theological and the political.

Outstanding Young Alumni Award:
Taylor Huntley ’17

This award honors an alumna/us who has attended Wilson within the last 20 years and who has brought honor to her/himself and the College through her/his intellectual and professional growth and contributions to her/his communities through professional and/or volunteer activities.

Taylor Huntley ’17 earned dual degrees from Wilson, with a Bachelor of Science in Equine Facilitated Therapeutics and a Bachelor of Arts in Business Management.

She is now the Executive Director of Albany Therapeutic Riding Center in Guilderland, NY, where she has led a remarkable transformation over six years—from a struggling program with one horse and six riders to a thriving, mortgage-free center with seven horses, 60 participants, and 80 volunteers. The Center offers customized adaptive horseback riding to children and adults living with disabilities, chronic illnesses, or going through social, emotional, or learning struggles.

Huntley, also a Special Olympics certified coach, splits her time between teaching and managing the facility. In a note of thanks for her award, she credited Wilson’s dual-degree program and supportive community for empowering her to rebuild the center from the ground up.

Tift Award:
Jennifer Nickle Banzhof ’94

The Tift Award is presented to an alumna/us who has demonstrated exemplary efforts to promote the continuing
growth of Wilson College.

Jennifer Nickle Banzhof ’94, a business and economics major, is co-founder and principal of BHA Consulting LLC, where she has provided benefits consulting for multi-employer health and welfare and pension plans since 1994.

Banzhof currently serves as Chair of the Wilson College Board of Trustees, which she joined in 2013, and previously served as a director and treasurer of the AAWC. She also contributes to the College as a member of the Pines and Maple Society, and proudly supports her daughter Delaney, a 2022 Wilson graduate, continuing the Wilson legacy.

She is a dedicated equestrian, volunteering at Midway Saddle Club and caring for her horse, Dante. She also served as a volunteer with the Georgia Army National Guard Family Readiness Group, earning the Georgia Commendation Medal.

In her thank you speech, Banzhof reflected on the transformative experience she had at Wilson, saying, “I didn’t know I needed Wilson when I came in 1990. I knew that I could ride my horse and get a good education, and that it felt like home. What I got was amazing.”

Distinguished Alumna/us Award:
Carole L. Stoehr Ashbridge ’70

Presented to an alumna/us who has had a distinguished professional/volunteer career and who has shown continuing service, interest, and support in the growth and quality of Wilson College for a minimum of five years.

Carole Stoehr Ashbridge ’70 graduated from Wilson with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Classics with a minor in German. She earned a master’s degree in library and information sciences from the University of Pittsburgh in 1971. She spent 38 years as a library media specialist in elementary and secondary schools, retiring in 2009. During this time, she organized five European student trips and served for 15 years as president of the Teachers’ Association.

Ashbridge’s passion for genealogy led her to establish her own business, Connections Abound, to help families trace their roots. Her work earned her recognition from the Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity for research on the fraternity’s founder Charles I. Brown, and an Excellence in Publishing award from the North Carolina Genealogical Society for her contributions to a family history project relevant to the state.

She has served Wilson College in many capacities, including as an Aunt Sarah, class secretary and correspondent since 1990, and as an alumni association board secretary from 2017 to 2024. As she reflected on time at Wilson, she gave credit to her education, lifelong friendships, and the enduring impact of her professors. She added, “I came to Wilson as a very young 17-year-old and went out a changed and transformed person who felt that they could take on the world. I will never be able to repay that to Wilson.”

The Wilson College Author’s Hall of Fame celebrates members of the Wilson community who have made significant contributions to a life of letters and who have enhanced the literary culture of the College and society as a whole. Their names are added to the honorary plaque in the John Stewart Memorial Library and their books become part of the library’s special Author’s Wall collection.

This year, Wilson honored two members of the Wilson family with induction into the Author’s Hall of Fame, the late Jeffrey Bardwell, Ph.D., former assistant professor of biology, and Teresa Cader ’69.

Jeffrey H. Bardwell, Ph.D. (1982-2024)

The Wilson community suffered a profound loss with the sudden passing of Jeffrey Bardwell in the summer of 2024, at just 42 years old. Beyond his role as a beloved biology professor, Bardwell was a prolific writer of epic fantasy, weaving together elements of darkness, steampunk, and romance, set in the Metal vs. Magic Universe he created and in which he constructed new cultures and languages.

In his brief life, he began three different book series–The Artifice Mage Saga, The Mage Conspiracy, and The Laws of Fire and Steel. He published nine books, several in each series, and an anthology, along with numerous short stories and other works. His character-driven novels featured gritty realism, political intrigue, lurid entanglements, dragons, and a dry wit that mirrored Bardwell’s personality.  In an interview, he once described one of his novels as “a fantasy steampunk brawl … where sorcery is bloody, science is greasy, and nobody’s hands are clean.”

Michael Cornelius, Ph.D., dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, fondly recalled his many conversations with his friend and colleague over a cup of coffee at Sarah’s Coffeehouse, where they often discussed the writing process.

“We still miss Jeff very much,” Cornelius said, “but it gladdens my heart to know that his name and his writing will live on, enshrined in our library and in the Author’s Hall. That is a very nice memorial to a man who was both a man of science and a man of art.”

Teresa Cader ’69, M.A., M.P.A.

Teresa Cader ’69 earned a Bachelor of Arts in English and left Wilson with numerous accolades, including induction in Phi Beta Kappa, departmental honors, the President’s Prize for Academic Achievement, and the Mary Beard Shepherd Prize in Literature. She continued her education at the University of Wisconsin, where she earned a master’s degree in English, and at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where she completed a
Master of Public Administration degree.

Her professional career spanned both higher education and public service. She taught in the Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) in Creative Writing Program at Lesley University for 11 years, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Emerson College, and the University of Massachusetts-Boston. She also served as Associate Director of the Innovations in Government Program at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government after extensive work in the public sector.

Cader has published four poetry collections: “Guests” (1991), which won the Norma Farber First Book Award and The Journal/Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize; “The Paper Wasp” (1999); “History of Hurricanes” (2009), a Massachusetts Book Awards ‘Must-Read’ selection; and “At Risk,” which received the 2023 Richard Schneider Memorial Book Prize. Her work has appeared in major publications such as The Atlantic, Poetry, Slate, Harvard Review, and Ploughshares, and she has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the MacDowell Colony. Her poems and interviews also have been translated into Polish and Icelandic.

During the award ceremony, Cader read selections from her poetry, including a recent piece titled “From the Forest,” written for her new granddaughter. Her readings offered the audience a glimpse into the voice that has defined her literary career which, Cornelius noted, was shaped in part by her time at Wilson.