Full Circle: Celebrating Angela Wardlaw ’84 and Her 31 Years at Hopkins

Angela Wardlaw ’84 stood proudly in front of Hopkins House as the cameras flashed. She put her hands on her hips and looked toward the sky like a superhero preparing for takeoff.

“How’s this?” she asked with a laugh.

The photo and video shoot happening that day celebrated Wardlaw as one of the “Hopkins Legends” for the School’s annual Day of Giving. While Wardlaw shrugged off the title with her usual humility, her fellow alumni, colleagues, and the countless students she’s mentored called it fitting.

According to them, her story is the stuff of legends.

Over 31 years, Wardlaw served as Hopkins’ first Director of Diversity, spent nearly two decades in the Admission Office helping shape generations of graduating classes, became the School’s first Director of Community Engagement, advised students, mentored colleagues, and built lasting relationships that stretched far beyond the Hill.

Perhaps most remarkably, it all happened at a place she once never imagined she would return to.

Wardlaw’s journey with Hopkins began as a student in the late 1970s. One of the few students of color in the Class of 1984, she remembers feeling as though she lived in two different worlds.

“I had my Hopkins friends and then I had my real life outside of school,” she said. “They were two very different worlds.”

Though she valued the education she received, she never felt deeply connected to the School.

“My overall experience, aside from the academic piece, which has always been second to none, was that there was nothing about this space that was drawing me back after I graduated,” she said. “I hadn’t gone to a homecoming, a reunion, or any event. Not because anyone had done anything wrong, it’s just that I did not feel the emotional tie to the School.”

After graduating from Wellesley College, Wardlaw became the Director of Minority Admission at Trinity College. Though she enjoyed the position, an unexpected call from Hopkins administration changed everything. Wardlaw was told that the School had received a grant from the DeWitt Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund to establish a new position: Director of Diversity.

“I had never done diversity work before,” Wardlaw said. “But when this opportunity rolled around, I thought that this could be the opportunity that I have to make a little bit of a difference.”

She said she expected to stay for four years. Thirty-one years later, as she enters retirement, she leaves an unparalleled legacy at the School and in the surrounding community.

Wardlaw arrived on campus in 1995 excited to take on her new role. Her office was on the bottom floor of Hopkins House, so to build relationships, she spent most of her days in the student lounge (then located in Baldwin) so she could build connections with students.

“Kids would just kind of come and hang out,” she recalled. “That was a really, really important way for me to get to know them.”

Since then, those relationships have deepened. Director of College Counseling Erika Chapin described Wardlaw as “the very face of Hopkins School for so many.”

“For many Hopkins students and alumni, especially people of color, Angela is their first and primary connection to Hopkins,” Chapin said. “Oftentimes their lifeline.”

In remarks honoring Wardlaw during Alumni Weekend, Chapin reflected on how much Wardlaw absorbed during her countless interactions with students and families.

“She remembers the students she met during their interviews. She knows their families, their backgrounds, and their stories. She visited them at their elementary and middle schools and showed them that a Hopkins education was possible for them.”

Dean of Academics Kristine Waters praised Wardlaw’s willingness to build a department that had never existed before.

“In that role, Angela served as a trusted mentor, advocate, and confidante to many students, paving the way for what over many years has evolved to the Office of Equity and Community,” Waters said.

After seven years in diversity work, Wardlaw joined the Admission Office. To generations of students and families, she simply became “Miss Wardlaw.” Wardlaw’s work included conducting interviews, planning admission events, and building long-lasting relationships with students in surrounding communities.

Former Director of Admission Pamela McKenna spent 17 years working alongside her and simply called Wardlaw “irreplaceable.”

“Angela has ties to the community that I just don’t think are going to be able to be replicated,” McKenna said.

McKenna said she was always impressed by Wardlaw’s ability to connect with anyone.

“She can make anybody feel comfortable,” McKenna said. “One interview [with a prospective family] you might have a hedge fund manager and the next one might be someone who is on food stamps. You need to be able to switch back and forth between people. And she was absolutely able to do that.”

Many colleagues attributed Wardlaw’s tendency to connect with others to an inability to be anything but herself.

“She is authentic at all times,” said Associate Director of Admission Elliot Faust.

“She’s one hundred percent herself,” added Admission Database and Office Manager Kristin Raucci.

Chapin put it more bluntly: “She calls it like it is.”

Inside the Admission Office, Wardlaw earned another title: office mom. The title encapsulated her ability to be tough when needed but warm and supportive when the moment called for it.

“If a nervous kid was throwing up in the bathroom, we were like, ‘Okay, Angela, you’re on it,’” laughed Associate Director of Admission Carolyn Traester.

Raucci remembers Wardlaw coming to her side when she was feeling overwhelmed during one of her first admission events.

“Angela grabbed my hands and said, ‘Cut it out. This is not life or death. You’re going to be fine.’” Raucci recalled. “It worked.”

Wardlaw was also famous for putting her creative eye on Admission events.

“Her tablescape game is unparalleled,” Chapin joked. “Branded pom-poms for the tables. Towers of balloons outside the registration area. Hopkins-colored M&Ms for the candy bar. She had a vision for all of it.”

Born and raised in New Haven, Wardlaw believed Hopkins had an obligation to reach beyond its gates.

“We always waited for people to come up here,” she said. “I kept thinking, ‘We need to go down to the schools.’”

That’s exactly what she did. For years, she visited schools and programs throughout the city, introducing students and families to opportunities they might never have imagined.

“For so many years, she was a bridge from the city of New Haven and its students to Hopkins, sharing the opportunity and expectations of this School with young people who may not have thought it possible or even considered an independent school education,” said Waters.

At her retirement celebration, her son, Doug Wardlaw ’17 searched for the perfect word to describe his mother.

Eventually, one came to him.

“Warmth.”

“She interacted with this community with a warm, welcoming demeanor,” he said. “My mother took pride in helping diverse students navigate this environment. Now sometimes warmth had to turn into straight heat,” he joked, “but ultimately it was her love for the School and the people she worked with that made her so passionate about making Hopkins the best it could be.”

Head Football Coach and History Teacher Tim Phipps saw that side of Wardlaw too.

“Thank you for reminding me that we teach people and that regardless of their age, people are fallible, but all of them are worth the effort,” Phipps said during a speech honoring Wardlaw’s Hopkins legacy. “Thank you for showing me that experience shapes people and the only way to understand that is by listening and not judging,” he added.

Asked what she will miss most, Wardlaw didn’t hesitate. “The students,” she said. “Top, top.”

As she departs Hopkins, she now feels that sense of emotional connection she didn’t feel in her time as a student.

“Professionally and personally, a lot has happened in 31 years,” she said. “It’s been an amazing ride. Bumpy at times, but overall an amazing ride.”

Wardlaw said she is excited for the future of the School and that she is proud that the work she started three decades back is now in good hands.

“It feels good leaving work to other people that I know can pick up the baton and travel with it.”

Perhaps Wardlaw’s legacy is best measured not in titles, offices, or programs. A few years ago, a former Hopkins student she first met through one of her community outreach programs gave her the answer.

“Mrs. Wardlaw,” he told her, “I’m not sure I would be where I am now if you hadn’t helped me.”

For Wardlaw, that was enough.