News

May 18, 2009

Charlie Wood's third article in La Semana

May 11, 2009

After 21 years of service to Sweet Briar College, Helen Grose, office manager of Junior Year in Spain, retired on April 30, 2009. Few Sweet Briar alumnae know who Helen is and what she did because her contributions to the College lay mostly outside the confines of the campus: in those 21 years (the longest anyone has worked for Junior Year in Spain), Helen helped (mostly at a distance, via the telephone, fax, snail- and e-mail) more than 1,600 students from more than 110 different US colleges and universities (including Sweet Briar). And their families. And their Study Abroad advisers. In her work, Helen was meticulous, diligent, discreet, and reliable, but what made her really special and unforgettable to all those students, parents, and advisers, whom she rarely got to meet in person, were her affability, her helpfulness, and the genuine interest she took in their concerns. On the very day she retired, Helen and two friends from the Junior Year in France office went for a last walk around the campus and were approached by two visitors who were there for a board meeting. After a few minutes names were exchanged and, upon hearing that they were "Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so," parents of a Sweet Briar and Junior Year in Spain alumna, Helen said to the woman, "Oh, so you must be Judy! It's so nice to meet you!" You can all imagine the surprise of the couple when they realized that their daughter, who attended Junior Year in Spain in 2003, had not been just one more student to go through the program, just one more number. To Helen, all students were individuals and she cared about them as such. Very few people are capable of such generosity. We will miss Helen dearly.

April 1, 2009

Charlie Wood's second article in La Semana

March 25, 2009

Charlie Wood (JYS Spring '09, from Brown University) authors a column in La Semana, a digital newspaper in Dos Hermanas, Sevilla

To submit news, please email jys@sbc.edu.