August 2009                  Margaret Pumpelly Finnegan '87      
October 2009                Elizabeth Baker '06  
December 2009              Patricia Fisher-Smith Welsh '51
February 2010                Dwan Reece '81
April 2010                      Sally Monsen Wilkinson '51
June 2010                     Jessica Ziegler '04
        

Names From the Wall Questionnaire
Alumnae Spotlight Profiles
Name: Johanna Sands Brickman 
Class Year 1995 

What does your life look like now?
I have been living in Portland, Oregon for 11 years now, and can honestly say that it would be very difficult for me to move away from this place. That’s not to say that my husband, Scott, and I haven’t entertained the idea of living someplace sunnier, or closer to family; but we met here, put down roots here, and now have a rich sense of community that would be very tough to equal.
Scott and I have two kids – Sylvie (age 6), and Ruben (age 4). What an incredible journey that has been. I think parenting stands out to me as one of the most formative roles I’ve ever taken on. Parenting is simply rewarding, and challenging, in ways that I could not have anticipated.
In January of this year, I accepted a position with Oregon Built Environment & Sustainable Technologies Center (Oregon BEST - www.oregonbest.org), where I have been working to develop and manage their Sustainable Built Environment Program. After spending nine years directing the sustainable design team of a 550-person national architectural firm, ZGF Architects, LLP, I was ready to approach sustainable design from a new perspective, and it has been an incredibly exciting change. Oregon BEST is a signature research center of the Oregon Innovation Council. Our mandate is to encourage collaborative research between the Oregon University System and private industry partners, which was a natural progression for me from my previous role where I had been seeking those partnerships from the industry side.
As a volunteer, I serve as the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Cascadia Region Green Building Council (www.cascadiagbc.org), the mission of which is to lead a transformation towards a built environment that is socially just, culturally rich and ecologically restorative. Knowing the vast impact that the built environment has on global systems, and the role that it plays and has played in getting us into the climate crisis we find ourselves in, I feel compelled to put my knowledge to use in offering a different future than the one we’re headed towards. Service on the Cascadia Board of Directors has given me an incredible opportunity to work with and learn from green building leaders from across our entire region of Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska.
Outside of work and my board activities, I try to just spend as much time as I can with my kids, in our neighborhood, in our garden, and with our dear friends. I still play the guitar and sing, but I find that it is more often children’s songs than it is the songs I’ve written over the years. And now that the kids are old enough to, we’re starting to mix the two a bit by making up silly songs together. Aside from all of that, there is very little else we need or want.

When thinking about your Scripps experience, how does it play a role in your life today?
My experience at Scripps influenced me simply through the reinforcement that if I want to, I can. My work ethic was certainly honed at Scripps, knowing that lack of effort and persistence would be more likely to be responsible for failure than any outside influence.
The notion that womanhood is a powerful part of what I am as an individual – not something to be disregarded, or worse yet, held as a liability. I was unaware of any sense of apology I carried with me previously, and yet, this idea has ripened in me in the years since graduating, that being a woman had and would continue to inform my perspective, my style, and my path.

Confidently, Courageously, Hopefully... is this you today?
I believe so. In fact, I consider these to be some of my most closely valued traits. Of the three, I think courage is the one that I hold most dear. Courage has allowed me to take risks that led to a rich and varied life – to have experiences that would not have been available had I stayed to a more common path. If I could add a fourth trait here, though, it would be compassion – for none of these would be of use to me or to the world without it. While it might not be the obligation of a college to nurture compassion, I suspect that living closely with 600 women might achieve that end in any case.

Life At Scripps

What was your major at Scripps?
Environmental Studies

What is your favorite Scripps memory?
Living with my friends, and having the ability to go have a good talk, or a belly laugh at any time of day or night.

What is your favorite spot on the Scripps campus?
There are simply too many to choose from, but probably Margaret Fowler Garden.

Who or what most influenced your experience at Scripps?
My grandmother, Marie McSpadden Sands, who graduated from Scripps in the ‘30s. She encouraged me to attend, gave bits of advice (some more welcome than others) about what to take and how to approach my time there, and was simply an example of a woman making a major investment in herself in a time when it wasn’t all that common. My cousin, Claire Sands Baker, who introduced me to life at Scripps when I was a prospective student, and who came to be one of my closest friends there once I was a student. Academically, though, the thing that had the greatest influence on my college experience was the fact that Scripps was so open to my making my own path through an unusual off-campus major and spending my senior year at the University of Arizona to pursue my unusual thesis topic related to alternative range management practices.

Do you remember it as Graffiti or North Wall? Do you know where your class signed? Is your name on there?
Just ‘the wall’, actually. I don’t know where my class signed, as I spent my senior year doing research in Arizona, and missed being there for the signing. I do know where my grandmother’s name is, though, and always head straight there to see her class mural again when I visit campus.

Meet me at the Motley... what will you have?
A Soy Latte. I wasn’t a huge coffee drinker in college, but living in the Pacific Northwest has converted me. It can be hard to get up on those dark winter mornings without it.

At my next Reunion I want to be able to say...
“What!?!? Scripps pushed the Claremont Colleges to become an EcoDistrict with net zero energy and water use?!?! That’s fantastic!”

Advice to Future Alumnae
If I knew then, what I know now... .
I would have taken more art classes, even if it meant taking a heavier load each semester. I would have spent more time reading and studying outdoors. I would have been less shy, and gotten to know even more Scripps Women.