Faculty Approves Changes to Latin Honors

Yee-Lynn Lee ’23 Editor-in-Chief, Emeritus

The faculty voted to approve new eligibility criteria for summa and magna cum laude honors — the highest of the Latin degree honors, which are only awarded to students who complete a senior thesis — in a faculty meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 7. The new policy, which was developed over two years by the Committee on Educational Policy (CEP), passed 68-48 after a contentious discussion that began at the previous faculty meeting held on Dec. 6.

The new policy bases the college-level determination of Latin honors on (1) a student’s median grade across all full-credit cour-

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ses taken for a letter grade in the Five College Consortium, and (2) the fulfillment of a breadth requirement, which stipulates that a student have taken and passed at least one course or two half courses at Amherst in each of four disciplinary categories: arts, humanities, sciences and mathematics, and social and behavioral sciences.

The new requirements replace the previous criterion which determined eligibility for summa and magna honors based on a student’s class rank, as measured by their overall GPA.

“The goal of this proposal is threefold: to make Latin honors determinations more transparent and equitable, to eliminate uncertainty surrounding

Mammoths in Love: Mina Enayati-Uzeta '25, in honor of Valentine's Day, spoke with five couples who met at Amherst over the past few decades.

Panels, Exhibitions, Dinners

Highlight Black History Month

Dylan Vrins ’26 Senior Staff Writer

With the arrival of February, the campus — students, faculty, and staff alike — has come together to celebrate Black History Month. The events range from keynote speakers to art festivals, but all share the common goal of celebrating Black history and experience, at Amherst and beyond.

class rank, and to encourage exploration of the curriculum,” the CEP wrote in its proposal to the faculty.

Many faculty members took issue with the newly introduced breadth requirement, expressing particular concern about its implications for the open curriculum. Nonetheless, the proposal managed to pass after being discussed across two faculty meetings.

The new policy is effective immediately starting with the graduates in the class of 2023, although all current students are also grandfathered into the old policy and will thus be evaluated under whichever policy would award them higher honors.

Under the new policy, eligi -

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bility for both summa and magna honors requires a student to first have satisfied the breadth requirement. The breadth requirement category that a given course counts toward is determined by the four-letter subject code in the course number, with every subject code except COLQ (Colloquium), FYSE (First-year Seminar), and INTE (Interdisciplinary) belonging to one category. If a course is cross-listed, its category designation is determined by the four-letter subject code that appears on the student’s transcript.

Courses taken pass/fail and passed can be counted toward the breadth requirement. Five College, study away, and transfer

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Latin Honors: The Editorial Board takes issue with the faculty's decision to impose a breadth requirement on students seeking Latin honors.

Following a community dinner hosted by the Multicultural Resource Center (MRC) on Tuesday, Feb. 7, the MRC will host two more major events this February. These events were facilitated by the MRC’s Black History Month Planning Committee and members of the MRC staff — both of which include students.

The first event hosted by the MRC will be an alumni panel on the 2015 Amherst Uprising. The panel will be held on Feb. 16 at 6:30 p.m. in the Powerhouse and will feature alumni from the classes of ’15 to ’18 to discuss the significance of the Uprising on and beyond campus. Both the Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (ODEI) and the Cultural Heritage Committee collaborated with the MRC to organize

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ARTS&LIVING 22

DC Universe: Vaughn Armour '25 writes about the recently-announced expansion of the DC Studios cinematic universe, hoping for more relatable characters.