Madeleine Coleman ’16 (right) inputs settings on the GigaPan, a robotic device that takes multiple exposures with a mounted camera in order to stitch together high-resolution panoramic photos. Janet Stevens’ biology class used the device to observe changing fall foliage. The course is “Economic Botany,” a Y:1 Program seminar that examines biological properties that make plants valuable to humans. Students also use iPads and photographic technology to study plant communities on campus.

— Photo by Meridith De Avila Khan

Johnson wrote the book to inspire women to “disrupt” themselves by recognizing that it’s OK to nurture their own dreams and pursue them with purpose. The recognition is the dare part, says Johnson, who parlayed a secretarial position on Wall Street into a successful career as an investment banker. After leaving Wall Street and co-founding her own investment firm, Johnson told the Daily Muse in a May 12 interview, she began interacting more with other mothers in her community.

“I naively thought that everyone had a dream and went for it, but many of these women didn’t know what their dream was,” she says. “There was this unspoken sense that it wasn’t their privilege to dream. Dreaming was for their spouse or their children, but not for them.”

Johnson encourages women to figure out what their dream is and she draws on her business experience to lay out a plan to do it.

For more information about Johnson, visit her website, whitneyjohnson.com.

Johnson also will be speaking with students in Sweet Briar’s y:1 program. Y:1 students are selected to engage in a series of coordinated activities throughout their first year, including seminars, presentations, reading assignments and lectures — all tied to the College’s campus-wide common reading selection for the academic year.

This year’s common reading book is Jack Weatherford’s “The History of Money.” Each year the book must relate to a theme, which is selected by Sweet Briar’s Honors Program. The entire community is encouraged to examine the theme — this year it is the concept of “value” — through the various lenses of the humanities, arts and sciences. The concept is woven into everything from the choice of campus speakers to honors courses to conversations over lunch in the dining hall.

Likewise, the common reading is meant to be an experience in which faculty from all disciplines, students and staff participate. The book is chosen for its potential to spark discussions over age-old questions and important contemporary issues.

A reception and book signing will follow Johnson’s lecture. For more information, please contact Bessie Kirkwood, y:1 director, at bkirk@sbc.edu or (434) 381-6167.

Contact: Jennifer McManamay