Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly Summer 2005 by Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College

Summer 2005

Conservatives on a Liberal Campus Do We Have Political Diversity at MHC? Water-Powered Images

Hollywood Heavy Hitter

Women Can Do Science

features How Mount Holyoke Educates Scientists by J.E.Westfall ’93 Some in America still wonder if “women can do science,” but that’s never been a question at MHC. With a proud history of producing scientists and an abundance of mentors and opportunities for handson science, MHC continually refills its prescription for success.

16 Chasing Hollywood One Producer's Search for ’Material with a Message’ by Carol Sliwa ’80 Debra Martin Chase ’77 is a Hollywood heavy hitter. This two-time Emmy-nominated movie and television producer’s latest project, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, opens at a theatre near you this summer.

18 Conservatives on a Liberal Campus Do We Have Political Diversity at MHC? by Maryann Teale Snell ’86 Right-left, red-blue, conservative-liberal, RepublicanDemocrat—what difference does it make in academia? The answer depends on who’s talking.

24 Ripple Effect The Liquid Visions of Janice Lovelace ’74 by Emily Harrison Weir Writer/photographer Janice Lovelace ’74 travels the world, but says beauty can be found everywhere if people will just notice what’s close at hand.

Janice Lovelace

12 Rx for Success

departments Viewpoints

On the Cover In our graphic representation of the political spectrum on campus, Elizabeth R. Geddes ’05, president of College Republicans, argues that “right” is right, while Jill T. Ambrose ’05, president of the College Democrats, believes the opposite. Photo by Paul Schnaittacher

Your comments on past Quarterly articles

Campus Currents

Commencement, student and faculty award winners, this fall’s “common read” book, spring sports wrap-up, and more campus news

Alumnae Matters

28 Volume 89 Number 2 | Summer 2005

Reunion in participants’ own words, alumnae award winners, and alumnae clubs’ news

MANAGING DIRECTOR OF PRINT AND ONLINE MAGAZINES

Emily Harrison Weir WRITER

Mieke Bomann EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Emily Giglierano ’06 CLASS NOTES EDITOR

Deborah Sharp DESIGNER

Bidwell ID

Off the Shelf

Quarterly Committee: Avice A. Meehan ’77, chair; Kara C. Baskin ’00, Susan R. Bushey ’96, Diana Bosse Mathis ’70, Julie L. Sell ’83; Susan Beers Betzer ’65, ex officio with vote; W. Rochelle Calhoun ’83, ex officio without vote

Books by alumnae and professors on “discoveries in poetry and history,” the joys of sloth, surviving parenthood, theoretical physics, Rome’s enchantment, Stalin’s folly, the philosophy of film, and other topics

Class Notes

Quarterly Deadlines: Material is due November 15 for the winter issue, February 1 for the spring issue, May 15 for the summer issue, and August 15 for the fall issue. Ideas expressed in the Quarterly are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of either the Alumnae Association or the College.

Published in the spring, summer, fall, and winter and copyrighted 2005 by the Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College, Inc. Periodicals postage paid at South Hadley, MA 01075 and additional mailing offices. Printed in the USA by Lane Press, Burlington, Vermont.

News of your classmates, and photos from Reunion

Bulletin Board

Announcements, travel opportunities, and classified ads

Last Look

The Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College is an independent organization that serves a worldwide network of diverse individuals, cultivates and celebrates vibrant connections among all alumnae, fosters lifelong learning in the liberal arts tradition, and facilitates opportunities for alumnae to advance the goals and values of the College.

In Session: Reading and Writing in the World

by Faye Wolfe Join students enrolled in Reading and Writing in the World—a team-taught course offered jointly through English and environmental studies—as they reconsider nature studies in the midst of springtime splendor.

Comments concerning the Quarterly should be sent to Alumnae Quarterly, Alumnae Association, 50 College St., South Hadley, MA 01075-1486; tel. 413-538-2301; fax 413-538-2254; e-mail: eweir@mtholyoke.edu. Send address changes to Alumnae Information Services (same address; 413-538-2303; ais@mtholyoke.edu). Call 413-538-2300 for help with general questions regarding the Alumnae Association, or visit www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu. Reach other College departments by calling 413-538-2000. POSTMASTER: (ISSN 0027-2493) (USPS 365-280) Please send form 3579 to Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly, 50 College St., South Hadley, MA 01075-1486.

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

viewpoints Another View of Cuban Trip Thanks for your article [miniprofile, spring] on my unexpected traveling companion in Nicaragua and Cuba, Ginny Loftus Senders ’44, who can inspire us all with her energy and inquiring mind, as well as her willingness to travel “student hostel” style with a group as probing as Witness for Peace (WFP). I have a different view, however, of several statements that appear in the article. The first, that in Cuba “delegates didn’t have a chance ‘to just sit and talk to people’” is not a common experience on any of the ten WFP delegations I’ve participated in. Indeed, to simply walk around, whether in Havana or the countryside, will show

that conversations with ordinary people are not only possible but almost unavoidable. The exceptionally friendly Cubans will discuss nearly anything–including politics– even with a mediocre Spanish speaker such as I am. In fact, once a conversation is launched, it may be hard to extricate yourself! Later in your article, Ginny seems to indicate that “the Cuban tour was controlled by what the government would allow [us] to see ...”. Group visits to schools, hospitals, farming cooperatives, and other work sites are cleared through organizational officials, as would be true nearly anywhere for an international group’s tour or discussion during work time. But, in contrast to many other group

the two countries, Cuba and Nicaragua, as they struggle to improve their people’s lives. While social indicators (infant, child and maternal mortality, health care access, level of education) put Cuba ahead of many “first-world” nations, its long-besieged economy has limited its potential prosperity. Our two nations have much to learn from one another; it is a loss to both that increasingly restrictive U.S. regulations prevent our citizens–including Cuban American families– from traveling to this complex and fascinating island nation. Ginny and I agree fully that we all should have the freedom to participate in an educational journey like the one we shared last spring. Elizabeth Tacy Kubick ’63 Mont Vernon, New Hampshire

Web Extras

Letters Policy

• For extended commencement coverage, including many photos from graduation weekend and the laurel parade, visit www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/comm/news/ commencement_05/index.shtml

We welcome letters reﬂecting the varying viewpoints of the Mount Holyoke community. Letters should be no more than 300 words, and we reserve the right to edit them for accuracy and clarity, and to meet space needs. Letters must be signed. Letters addressing topics discussed in the previous Quarterly are given priority. On any given topic, we will print letters that address it, and then in the next issue, letters that respond to the first letters. After that, we will move on to new topics. Send your thoughts, with your full name and class year, to Alumnae Quarterly, 50 College St., South Hadley, MA 01075-1486. Send e-mails to mbomann@mtholyoke.edu.

• To read original writing by students in the Reading and Writing in the World course proﬁled in “Last Look,” visit www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/go/chapbook • To share your views about our cover article on political expression in academia, join the Web-based chat on September 13. See p. 23 for details.

trips to Cuba, which must rely on guides trained and employed by the state, the experienced young Cuban guides who assist on WFP delegations are in fact independent scholars employed by a church-based Cuban NGO and partner organization, the Martin Luther King Center in Havana; in almost every venue our discussions were unfettered and wide-ranging. Delegations to Cuba–as to other host countries where WFP is present–are designed to maintain neutrality from all involved governments to exclude as much political bias as possible from our exploration of policy and its effects. Ginny contributed significantly to our group in her analysis of the differences so apparent between

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

campus

currents

Nina Totenberg Reminds Graduates of the Power of Female Friendships

From the time-honored traditions of the alumnae parade and laurel chain ceremony to the timely words of a Thai pharmacist working to provide affordable drugs to impoverished AIDS patients, Mount Holyoke’s 168th commencement weekend underscored the strong working relationship between the education of women and the world at large. It was demonstrated in the work of Marjory Heath Wentworth ’80, the poet laureate of South Carolina, whose poem “The Sound of Your Own Voice Singing” reverberated during Baccalaureate on Saturday evening. President 4

Joanne Creighton, in her annual state of the College address, highlighted the strong sense of purpose that unites the College in its quest to help educate all women around the world. Acting Dean Penny Gill spoke to the rethinking taking place in the academic departments of the way that knowledge is organized, and how to better recognize and grow those “places of intersection” amongst the disciplines. In her commencement address on Sunday, Nina Totenberg, a seasoned journalist whose incisive reporting about the U.S. Supreme Court provides a basis for informed citizenship, www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Fred LeBlanc

NPR reporter Nina Totenberg delivered the commencement address.

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Summer 2005

Fred LeBlanc

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Middle left: NASA’s Barbara A. Wilson ’68 was among the honorary degree recipients; middle right: One senior stayed productive even while awaiting her diploma; bottom left: Yeah, I graduated!; bottom right: Beverly Daniel Tatum (left), former MHC professor and current president of Spelman College, receives her honorary degree from President Creighton.

underscored the importance of friendship. In the years ahead, she assured the 547 graduating seniors, forty-five Frances Perkins Scholars, two master’s degree candidates, twenty-one certificate earners, and several thousand well-wishers gathered in Kendall Field House, the strong bonds formed on campus and elsewhere with other women, especially, will help support “... an identity, a connection, even a salvation” when times are tough and decisions hard to make. It was the promise of the journey ahead that student speaker Claudia Y. Calhoun ’05 took as her focus. “I’m not worried about the world—not as long as we’re in it,” she told her peers, who a day earlier strode in the alumnae parade with the confidence and delight that is the reward of hard work and extraordinary opportunity. “We will change the world every day that we walk in it and let people know this is what I think, this is what I know, this is what I have learned, this is what I can do, this is what I will do, this is who I am.” Certainly the women on whom the College conferred honorary degrees would not argue that point. The honorees were Beverly Daniel Tatum, president of Spelman College and former acting president, professor, and dean of Mount Holyoke; Barbara A. Wilson ’68, program manager for the Center for Space Microelectronics Technology at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory; Krisana Kraisintu of the German Medical Aid Organization, who successfully fought for universal access to AIDS drugs in southeast Asia; and Totenberg. Relating individual talents to service in the world at large will figure prominently in the life of Nicole Brun-Cottan ’05, a Frances Perkins scholar who majored in critical social thought and plans to get a law degree. “I want to advocate for people who can’t advocate for themselves,” she said. Summa cum laude senior Mary C. Murphy, a medieval studies major, will take her liberal understanding abroad. She has joined the Peace Corps and will serve in Eastern Europe.

Small School, Big Heart In a recent Peace Corps list of small (5,000 or fewer students) colleges and universities that produced the most volunteers in 2004, Mount Holyoke ranked thirteenth, with thirty volunteers. The University of Chicago took the number-one slot in the same category, with thirty-nine alumni, followed by Bryn Mawr with twenty-four and Barnard with twenty-two volunteers. The school with the greatest number of volunteers was the University of Wisconsin at Madison, with 129. Students Awarded National Science and Math Scholarships Two students especially talented in the sciences and math were awarded prestigious national scholarships this spring. Elizabeth C. Merritt ’07 (right) and Elizabeth C. Sklute FP’05 were among 320 students awarded $7,500 scholarships by the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation. Selected from a field of 1,091 mathematics, science, and engineering students across the country, Merritt plans to study physics and applied math for a career in energy development, while Sklute, whose current focus is spectroscopic techniques relevant to the exploration of Mars, hopes to pursue advanced studies in geochemistry.

Optional SAT a Valid Decision When Mount Holyoke decided to make the SAT optional four years ago, it was one of a small group of colleges choosing to give more weight to student applicants’ grades, essays, interviews, and other indicators of potential and performance. This spring, the results of 6

Seniors enjoy a bit of the bubbly on their last day of classes at the Alumnae Association’s annual strawberries-and-champagne reception on Pageant Green.

an ongoing study confirmed the validity of that decision, and found that the difference in academic performance between college students who submitted scores and those who didn’t was a mere 0.1 percent. Funded by a grant from the Mellon Foundation, the three-year study analyzed admissions and performance data, surveys, and focus groups with high school guidance counselors. As Jane Brown, vice president for enrollment and college relations, told the Daily Hampshire Gazette, “The fact is that the SAT does not add enough value for us to require students and their families to make such a large investment of time, energy, and money in this single, highstakes test.” Current SAT fees include $41.50 for the reasoning test; a $17 basic registration fee for subject tests, and an additional $8 for each subject test. Many students take preparatory courses, which can cost close to $1,000. About 40 percent of the College’s applicants do not submit test scores, Brown said. Trustees Name New Chair, Welcome New Members At its February meeting, the Board of Trustees welcomed its new chair, Leslie A. Miller ’73 (right). Miller is the first woman ever to serve as general counsel for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Joining the board in July were four new trustees: Susan Bateson McKay ’76,

senior vice president, Human Resources, Human Genome Sciences, Inc.; Anthony Lake, former national security adviser and former Five College professor of international relations at the College; Margaret “Peggy” L. Wolff ’76, a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP; and Alumna Trustee Ellen M. Cosgrove ’84, associate dean and dean of students at Harvard Law School. Eight Faculty Members Tenured; Two Professors Retire The Board of Trustees approved the following faculty members for tenure and promotion to associate professor: Sarah Bacon ’87, biological sciences; Janice Hudgings, physics; Becky WaiLing Packard, psychology and education; Nieves Romero-Diaz, Spanish; Joshua Roth, anthropology; Michelle Stephens, English; and Ying Wang, Asian studies. M. Darby Dyar, earth and environmental sciences and astronomy, already holds the rank of associate professor and was granted tenure. Two members of the faculty will retire this year: Tadanori Yamashita, professor of religion, and Sharon Crow, professor of physical education and athletics. The board also noted the recent funding of two new endowed chairs and approved the appointment of Bettina Bergmann to the Helene Phillips Herzig ’49 Professorship of Art, and Sean Decatur to the Marilyn Dawson Sarles, M.D. Professorship of the Life Sciences. The board also appointed Professor of Asian Studies Indira Peterson to the David B. Truman Chair and Professor Joseph J. Ellis to the Ford Foundation Professorship of History. www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Clockwise from top: Paul Schnaittacher, Fred LeBlanc, Donna Cote

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Quick Takes

From top: Donna Cote, Paul Schnaittacher

Carnegie Scholar Sohail Hashmi, Associate Professor of International Relations on the Alumnae Foundation, was named a Carnegie

Scholar by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Hashmi will receive $100,000 during the next two years to research the topic “Islamic International Law and Public International Law: Convergence or Dissonance?” One of sixteen Carnegie fellows funded by the Corporation for their study of Islam and the modern world, Hashmi will remain on campus but travel periodically for his research. Teacher-Scholars Lauded by College Four Mount Holyoke faculty members this spring were honored by the College for outstanding teaching and scholarship. Andrew Lass, professor of anthropology, and Eleanor Townsley, associate professor of sociology, both received the faculty prize for teaching. Jill Bubier, Marjorie Fisher Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, and David Sanford, associate professor of music, received the Meribeth E. Cameron faculty prize for scholarship. Each prize carries with it a citation and a check for $2,500. MHC students describe Andrew Lass as “brilliant” and “wicked funny” and call his classes “awesome” and “innovative.” He teaches courses on contemporary anthropological theory, linguistics, science and technology, and the culture of memory. The son of American journalists, Lass grew up in Prague until his family was expelled in 1973. In 1990, he returned to find the collection of the

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What Do Mount Holyoke Women Want? Apparently, Mount Holyoke women want both the serious and the sublime. A list of the “Top Twenty Suggestions for the Administration” in a spring issue of the Mount Holyoke News student newspaper requested that College overseers “order more Diet Coke for Blanchard” and “knight Dean of the College Lee Bowie,” as well as increase department funding for tenure-track professors. In no apparent order of preference, MHC women would also like to see more electrical and computer outlets in library carrels; outdoor trash cans (“We don’t like litter, either”); cigarette receptacles near every door; smaller classes; twenty-four-hour Onecard access; a Mountain Day in spring, and better communication with administrators through blogs and mandatory meals with students in residence halls. Descending from the proverbial sublime—or at least serious—to the ridiculous, number twenty on the list was “Take Junior Show’s advice and institute Faculty Fear Factor. Use the proceeds for special M&Cs.”

Chalk Talk As winter receded and students ventured outdoors with renewed vigor, campus walkways came alive with colorful, and often eclectic, chalkmarked messages. “Chalking” is a cheap, impermanent form of advertising that students use to announce everything from Student Government Association elections to oblique communications meant for just a few eyes. Following are a few that caught our attention: “Celebrate spring” “All roads lead to the V-8s Jam” “Day of Silence” “Where are the queers of color?” “15 positions. 80 minutes. No protection. Rugby.” “Submit art, make money.” “Assume nothing.” “SGA town meeting: Blanchard” “Arti is on fire—She’s 19, baby!”

Czech National Library, one of Europe’s oldest, in extreme disarray. Since then, Lass has assisted numerous university libraries in the Czech and Slovak republics rethink and retool their technical and public services. Eleanor Townsley, a native of Australia, is a comparative historical

Forging strong connections between alums and current students is the goal of several new on-campus programs sponsored by the Alumnae Association. Senior Fair in March (right) offered 129 soon-to-be-alums firsthand insights about workplace expectations, graduate school exams, and taking a year off after graduation. Jennifer Mele ’93 said she found it “fun and rewarding” to share what she’s learned with current students. In April, seventy-one firsties (left) learned how to make the most of their current and postCollege experiences from each other and twenty-five alums. Other events included a pizza party for 100 juniors on Junior Show dress rehearsal night, and cosponsorship of the Junior Banquet and the Water Symposium.

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Summer 2005

IN RESEARCHING HOW ANIMALS MOVE, Gary Gillis, assistant professor of biological sciences, has studied salamanders, the American eel, and the marine toad. As a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, he also wrangled emus and walked goats. Currently, he’s using high-speed video cameras that capture movement at hundreds of frames a second, along with other up-to-the-minute technologies, to see what happens when mice and other rodents use their limb muscles during a stride. Funded by a National Science Foundation grant, this investigation into how body size influences the way limb muscles work also stretches across time, Gillis says, examining how the growth of limbs during development affects an animal’s performance. “How do physical forces shape an organism—a fish’s fins, a bird’s wing?” When Gillis talks about subjects like biomechanics, what he says not only reveals underlying questions like this one, it also gives a glimpse of the wonder, and the poetry, of the natural world. Gillis is equally intent on conveying with lucidity and grace the substance, processes, and outcomes of his work and the work of others. His concise, engaging synopses of journal articles for The Journal of Experimental Biology—MHC Dean of the Faculty Donal O’Shea has called them “minor masterpieces”—are almost conversational in style. “I like to tell stories,” Gillis says. His piece about experiments on endurance capacity, for example, starts with a confession: “I have never come close to finishing an endurance race anywhere near the time of the winners.” Gillis emphasizes communication in the classroom, too. His seminar Extreme Life focuses on creatures that survive, even thrive, under seemingly inhospitable conditions. Geese that migrate past Mount Everest, frogs that freeze in winter, and deep-sea fish all figure in the professor’s line of inquiry. By simply asking, “How do they do that?” Gillis gets students thinking and learning about organic structures and processes, adaptation, and biomechanics. “We read primary literature,” says Gillis. “There are no textbooks, no exams. The students critique papers, talk, write, and make presentations.” Biology becomes not just an end but also a means. “I want the student to learn how to communicate well and to develop her own ideas,” he adds. His own lifework, Gillis says, “might end up being three sentences in an animal physiology textbook,” but if he has anything to do with it, those sentences at least will tell a good story. To read more about Gillis’s work, visit http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~ggillis/ and http:// www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/biol/g_gillis.html

Brainstorms

sociologist who studies the role of intellectuals in society. She enjoys a reputation among her Mount Holyoke students for being passionate about the subjects she teaches, sparking their interest, and encouraging them to articulate their own arguments and perspectives. “My main teaching goal is to build critical thinking so that students possess the intellectual and moral tools to participate fully in all the social worlds they will encounter at college and beyond,” said Townsley. Jill Bubier spends some of her happiest moments mucking about in northern peat bogs with Mount Holyoke students. A field scientist who specializes in the responses of ecosystems to climate change, Bubier is dedicated to involving students in her research, and several have coauthored papers with her. In her classes, she often presents students with real-world problems, such as the impact of beaver and deer populations on the local ecosystem. David Sanford, who teaches theory, composition, jazz history, music in film, and music of the 1970s, credits a variety of influences with igniting his interest in music. “I started on the trombone when I was about ten and liked Big Band music early,” Sanford said. “[The jazz musician] Charles Mingus inspired me to be a composer later on.” Sanford was also influenced by rhythm and blues/funk groups such as Parliament, the Isley Brothers, and Sly and the Family Stone, and, later, by orchestral and more mainstream popular music. “These awards remind us of the depth and breadth of excellent teaching and cutting-edge creativity and scholarship in the Mount Holyoke faculty,” said Penny Gill, acting dean of the faculty. “It is both a privilege and a pleasure to work with such colleagues.” Tuition Moves Up Students will pay more to attend Mount Holyoke next year when the College’s comprehensive fee jumps to $41,980 from $39,830. Up 5.4 percent from last year, the higher cost of tuition, room, and board in 2005–2006 mimics that of other private schools in the Five Colleges consortium. Still, tuition only covers about 60 percent www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Paul Schnaittacher (top); Eadweard Muybridge

Walk This Way

[ campus currents ]

of the cost of a Mount Holyoke education. The College relies on income from its $454 million endowment for about 20 percent of its annual budget; another 20 percent is derived from gifts and grants.

Fred LeBlanc (right); Penguin Books

A Little Estrogen With That Burger? Ruth L. Ozeki’s novel My Year of Meats has been named next year’s “common read,” assigned to all incoming first-year students and suggested as a good summer read for all others on campus. Ozeki, who in the book exposes unethical practices in the U.S. meat industry, will speak on campus September 15 as part of new-student orientation. Incoming students, faculty members, and orientation leaders each receive a free copy of the book, which also will be available in the library. The More Things Change … If you’ve ever uttered the phrase, “When I was a freshman in college,” the statistical profile presented in “The American Freshman: National Norms for Fall 2004” might give you a sense of how things have changed since then. Or not. Every year since 1966, the American Council on Education freshman survey (conducted since 1973 by the UCLA Higher Education Research Institute), has gathered data on what male and female freshman in four-year colleges believe, think, and think of themselves, as well as on more obviously quantifiable information such as age, racial and ethnic background, religious preference, and how many miles they will travel from their homes to their college. Among this year’s freshmen, about 31 percent expected to “communicate regularly with professors”; 63 percent think chances are very good that they will “socialize with someone of another racial/ethnic group”; almost 60 percent expect to “make at least a B average”; a little over half think it very likely that

Breakfasts Foster Community President Joanne V. Creighton chats with Lindsay Kurahara ‘07 (left) and Meaghan Murphy ‘08 at the first Community Breakfast last winter. The breakfasts—a second occurred in April—were hosted by Creighton and senior staff members at Blanchard and gave students, faculty, and staff an opportunity to ask questions and discuss matters of community interest in a casual forum.

they will “be satisfied with college.” Almost half will be working jobs to help pay for that satisfying experience, up from 41.1 percent in 1996. In 1989, just 34.7 percent worked. The number of students in the 2004 statistical pool who believe that abortion should remain legal was 53.9 percent, almost exactly the same number as in 1979 (53.3 percent,) although that number has gone up and down over the years. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the survey was how differently women and men rated themselves when it comes to academic abilities and character traits. More men than women surveyed thought of themselves as being like those child denizens of Lake Wobegon—above average in leadership ability, intellectual selfconfidence, courage, physical health, computer skills, and mathematical ability. Women gave themselves more points in categories such as kindness, compassion, understanding of others, spirituality, and religiousness. So the

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Summer 2005

more things change, the more they stay the same? Well, maybe. Women also exceeded men in their opinion of their drive to achieve and in time management. With ambition and organization—you go, girls.

By the Numbers: MHC Library, Information, and Technology Services 525-plus computers are available for student use. 70 percent of classrooms are computer and media equipped. 80-plus students are employed by LITS. 700,000 printed volumes 23,000 microforms 2,000 print and electronic periodicals 9,200 items in special collections

Former Norwegian PM to be College’s First “Global Fellow” Gro Harlem Brundtland, former prime minister of Norway and directorgeneral of the World Health Organization, will visit campus October 25–28 as the Global Studies Fellow with the Center for Global Initiatives. Brundtland, a doctor and scientist, served three terms as head of government in Norway before establishing the World Commission on Environment and Development for the United Nations. The commission’s recommendations led to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. With a lifelong interest in health care and sustainable development, Brundtland has served as a Health Policy Fellow at Harvard University since her retirement from the UN and remains a strong voice for equitable health systems worldwide. 10

Sports Shorts Hawkes Wins High Jump at New Englands Senior Jen Hawkes (above) won the high jump at this year’s New England Division III Championships, jumping 5’5” to surpass the MHC record of 5’4” set in 1991. With this win, Hawkes contributed ten points to Mount Holyoke’s team score, helping the Lyons tie for nineteenth place out of twenty-seven teams. Alumnae Association Honors Scholar-Athlete Sara Belding ’05, of Sebastopol, California, is the 2005 recipient of the Alumnae Association’s Scholar-Athlete Award. In addition to the basketball player’s sixth place ranking in the all-time points category (1,005 points), Belding, a biology and sociology double major, will leave her mark in the career-record books for most games played and started (105/104), and being second

in three-point field goals (154) and third in assists (256). Belding received numerous basketball awards throughout her Mount Holyoke career, including being named a four-time Seven Sisters All-Tournament Team selection, a twotime Seven Sisters MVP, and a two-time Mount Holyoke MVP. Captain of the basketball team her junior and senior years, she was instrumental in helping her teammates win three straight Seven Sisters Championships from 2002 to 2004. Belding begins work at a residential treatment center for troubled adolescent girls in the fall, and has future plans to enroll in a master’s program in social work. Caitlin Taylor ‘06 Breaks Records in Lacrosse Junior Caitlin Taylor became the all-time leader in lacrosse assists this season with seventy-six career helpers. Marlene Niefeld ’92 held the previous record of sixty-six assists. Taylor is just three points away from topping the career-points category. She already claimed the most goals, assists, and points in a season this year with sixty-six goals, thirty-seven assists, and 103 points. www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Clockwise: Courtesy of MHC Archives and Special Collections; Ben Barnhart, Jeff Brown, John Risley

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Frances Perkins Program Celebrates 25th Anniversary This spring marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the College’s Frances Perkins Program for students of nontraditional ages. The College celebrated the program’s quarter century of achievement— including 723 graduates and 150 current students—with a multimedia presentation by Penny Colman, author of A Woman Unafraid. Kay Althoff, Frances Perkins program director, has said that Perkins (above) rarely gets the acclaim she deserves for her work as the first woman who served as U.S. secretary of labor. Colman’s thorough presentation of the secretary’s tireless efforts on behalf of underprivileged women and children under Franklin Roosevelt helped fill the gap.

clockwise: Craig Solem, Gilly McPhee, Paul Schnaittacher

Golfers to the Fore Mount Holyoke placed fifth out of ten teams at this year’s NCAA Division III Golf Championships in Southern Pines, North Carolina. Audry Longo ’05 and Kara Solem ’05 also earned AllAmerican status with final placement of sixth and seventh, respectively.

Farewell, Trilogy Trilogy, a College horse from 1985 to 2001, died this April; he was thirtyone. Purchased in 1987 by Mount Holyoke from Susan Varnum ’87, Trilogy, a registered Appaloosa, became a cornerstone of the MHC beginner riding program, giving more than

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Riders Named Reserve Champions at Nationals The MHC riding team earned reserve champion honors at this year’s IHSA National Horse Show with the secondbest finish out of seventeen teams. Kyla Makhloghi ’06 was named reserve champion in the prestigious Cacchione cup class, as well as open flat champion for winning her individual class.

10,000 lessons to novice equestrians during his sixteen-year tenure at the College. Always the gentleman and possessed of a wonderful sense of humor, Trilogy also was an accomplished escape artist. The clever gelding often was found roaming the barn, having unlatched his stall door. In 2001, Trilogy was given to a family in Holyoke, where he happily lived out his retirement.

Spring Break Trip Brings Sea Island Families Goodwill and Skill GROWING UP on a “gentleman’s farm” in Maine, Sheila M. Vennell ’07 was used to working with her hands. She helped her family fix things around the farm and take down small trees on their property. She also volunteered with Habitat for Humanity. But those experiences didn’t prepare her for what she and the other participants of MHC’s spring break rural mission trip found on South Carolina’s Sea Islands. While other students nationwide lounged on beaches, an MHC group drove nineteen hours in a van to the poorest county in America. They had spent the previous eight months planning and fundraising for this workand-worship trip sponsored by the Office of Religious Life. Sheila and MHC plumber Jimmy Moynihan worked at the decaying home of the Singleton family. The duo spent all week gutting and rebuilding the family’s bathroom, while other student-staff teams worked on other island families’ homes. At the Singletons’, “The smell of sewage was apparent, there were ‘saddle-em up’ termites, and we were afraid we’d fall through the rotted plywood floor,” Sheila recalls. After Jimmy taught Sheila the necessary skills, they worked together and ripped out the walls, ceiling, and plumbing fixtures, replaced the floor, fixed the leaking sewage pipes, installed a new cabinet, toilet, and sink, and retiled the floor. By week’s end, the family had a sparkling and functional bathroom. The multinational, intergenerational group of students, MHC Facilities Management staff, Ernie Stowell ’43, and Protestant chaplain Andrea Ayvazian forged strong bonds with one another as well as with the “extremely welcoming” community. The workers, who ranged in age from seventeen to eighty-three, cooked for themselves and slept on the floor of a local church. They brought not only goodwill, but also considerable skill, since the staff participants included professional tradespeople who could install a furnace and redo electrical wiring as needed.

Student Edge

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Summer 2005

It was all quite different from Sheila’s 2004 spring break. “Last year I went home with the best of intentions to do school work, but ended up bumming around feeling stagnant and useless,” she says. “This was a wonderfully productive spring break.” For the families down south, the MHC crew’s visit was a “housechanging” experience. For Sheila, it was a life-changing one. “We were touched by countless people in infinite ways. Though our purpose was to serve, we were served in the most touching and genuine sense,” she reflects. “I have never felt as spiritual as I felt that week. Doing things theoretically isn’t an option for me. We got our hands dirty, and I felt that this—serving other people—is serving God.” [To see Sheila’s photos from the trip, go to www.ofoto.com/ I.jsp?c=bbm9d2mn.a4f4pjlf&x=0&y=ezuxfw] 11

Jennifer McCabe ’99 is shown here collecting coral from Admiral Reef off Key Largo, Florida, to understand which species may be more resistant to high-light conditions in the context of global warming.

Up to one-third of MHC students major in math or science, which is double the proportion of female students at comparable coeducational institutions. According to the National Science Foundation, between 1996 and 2001 Mount Holyoke was among the top ten liberal arts colleges to graduate students who went on to earn doctoral degrees in the physical sciences, geosciences, mathematics, and computer sciences. It led the ﬁeld in female graduates who earn doctorates in the life sciences. “Our mission,” says Frank DeToma, Professor of Biological Sciences on the Alumnae Foundation, “is to produce the leading female scientists of the next generation.”

Clockwise: Dan Thornhill; Carol Lollis, Daily Hampshire Gazette; ©sueclitesphotography.com

MAKING SCIENCE COME ALIVE More than one-quarter of the total faculty at Mount Holyoke teach science. Among them is Jill Bubier, Marjorie Fisher Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, who is particularly well known for the level of fieldwork she does with students. “I think that actually going out there and collecting and analyzing your own data gives you a much better feel for what scientists do; by actually doing science instead of just reading about it, science comes alive.” During any given semester, her students may be found examining a river, a reservoir, or a stream, doing research on modern-day —and sometimes news-making—issues such as how the deer overpopulation at the Quabbin Reservoir may contribute to deforestation and soil erosion, potentially affecting Boston’s water supply. Gareth W. Crosby ’05 majored in environmental studies and worked with Bubier on climate-change research in an Ontario bog during the summer. The tactile experience of doing science outside all day made an impression on Crosby that no textbook ever could. She arrived at the site around seven each morning and left around three. Using a clear, square chamber, she moved around the site measuring carbon dioxide exchange by documenting changes in the chamber’s gas levels. “Most fieldwork is repetitive, but you also have the opportunity to work physically and to be outside. It was exciting to see patterns in the data we collected,” she said. Crosby plans to pursue environmental science either in graduate school or by working for a nonprofit agency. Historically, Mount Holyoke has distinguished itself in the sciences by focusing on lab work that is seen more often at the graduate rather than undergraduate level, according to Miriam Levin, author of Defining Women’s Scientific Enterprise: Mount Holyoke Faculty and the Rise of American Science. “The College always had a heavy emphasis on well-equipped laboratories—space, Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Summer 2005

Doing literally handson science, Kate Sulzer ’08 (left) and Katherine Malone ’08 examine rocks on a outcropping in Huntington as part of a geology Rocks and Minerals class.

buildings—and professors who develop research programs that use those techniques,” she says. DeToma says that practical learning is a priority in all MHC science courses. “I certainly do believe that students learn better with more hands-on instruction. Essentially all the science courses we teach at Mount Holyoke have either a lab or field component. In all, there is great emphasis on hands-on learning. In many, if not most, of the science courses, students carry out research projects as part of their lab or field experiences.” For Jennifer C. McCabe ’99, who majored in biology and minored in environmental studies, fieldwork is the name of the game. She is working toward a doctorate in marine ecology at the University of Georgia and looks at different species of coral and how they are responding to global warming. Her work has taken her to the Florida Keys, the Bahamas, and Fiji. “I scuba dive or snorkel to do my fieldwork,” she says. “We take coral samples back to the lab at whatever research station we’re using and take different measurements that we use as indicators of coral health. Doing experiments in the field allows you to more deeply understand the natural processes you are studying. You’re not just studying something for a test. I teach undergraduate ecology labs at UGA now, and you can really see the lightbulb go on when students go out in the field.” Among physician Kathleen Sheerin’s asthma patients is her son Owen, shown here. “Fortunately, he was born to the right mom,” she says.

Each spring for the last three decades, students have presented the results of their independent research at a professional-style campus symposium. This year’s featured sixty-three participants in eight scientific fields, including biochemistry, biology, chemistry, neuroscience, computer science, mathematics and statistics, earth and environmental science, and physics. There was so much to report that, even with three sessions running simultaneously, the presentations lasted more than five hours. Topics varied widely. For example, Desislava Petkova ’05 described how images could be more effectively found in Internet searches. Suprawee Tepsuporn ’05 presented research on identifying immunity to an AIDS-like disease in some mice. Kristin Paczkowski ’05 presented a report on published research done in Australia on new methods for art conservation using organogels. And Karly David ’05 gave a presentation based on her thesis, “The Effects of Complete Freund’s Adjuvant (CFA) on Mating Behavior in the Norway Rat.” Giving students public speaking and presentation experience is one of the symposium’s goals, said this year’s director, Margaret Robinson, professor of mathematics. Synthesizing months of research into a fifteen-minute presentation “pushes students to understand things in a different way,” she said. By Erica Winter ’92

Ashley Emerson ’05 was among the sixty-three MHC students in eight scientific fields who presented the results of their independent research at the annual spring science symposium.

COMMUNICATING SCIENCE TO THE WORLD The perils of live television aren’t what most people think about when majoring in the sciences. But the media have become an accessible and viable tool for scientists, and Kathleen A. Sheerin ’79 credits her MHC science education for her ability to handle it. Sheerin, an Atlanta-based physician specializing in asthma and allergies, majored in chemistry and German at MHC and says that her science education here enabled her to share her knowledge and understanding of the disease with increasingly broad audiences. “I’d always said I’d never do live TV,” said Sheerin, recalling her first appearance on CNN. “Right before they went live, all the moisture in my mouth went away. My lips were stuck to my teeth. It was the fight-orflight response.” Still, she handled the segment deftly, answering questions from callers for about twenty minutes. Since then, she has furthered her goal of improving asthma care through education by appearing on many national broadcast programs and in periodicals. “If experts are willing to take their message to the media, people get the message right from the source,” she says. “I knew from about the second grade that I wanted to be a doctor. So I planned on being a science major. But the liberal arts degree trained me to deal with patients, to talk to people, and how to communicate.”

BUILDING THE ‘OLD GIRL’ NETWORK McCabe stressed the value of mentors and advisers in shaping her degree and her subsequent scientific career. While at Mount Holyoke, they supported her decision to study marine ecology on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia during her junior year and at the Bahamas’ Caribbean Marine Research Center in January of her senior year. And she has continued to benefit from mentors along her career path. “Mount Holyoke faculty are very committed to their students,” says Craig Woodard, associate professor of biological sciences. “Our science students are very fortunate because they get a great deal of individual attention from their professors. Professors not only spend a lot of time working in the lab or in the field alongside their undergraduate students, they also establish strong and meaningful relationships. This superb mentoring by faculty gives our students a real advantage.” Briana Bean Hirsch ’05 worked closely with her adviser Jeffrey Knight, associate professor of biological sciences, on an independent project this past year. “It was the culmination of my career here,” she says, in that the project required Hirsch to use skills learned throughout her MHC science education. “I did an independent, library-based study on sickle-cell anemia, and my adviser and I met almost weekly. He kept me on track and answered questions that came up. I came out of the experience with a solid expertise on the subject.” She Biologist Craig Woodard believes in the power of mentoring.

clockwise: Alex Reynolds, Jim Gipe, Fred LeBlanc

ASSIGNMENT: SUMMARIZE A YEAR’S WORK IN 15 MINUTES

Jennifer McCabe ’99, who studied biology and environmental sciences as an undergraduate, is now working on a doctorate in marine ecology. Here she measures whether shallow-water species of zooxanthellae (algae that exist in symbiosis with corals) can protect themselves against high light levels.

Environmental scientist Jill Bubier (foreground) is one of many MHC professors who include students in their field work. Lisa Brunie ’06 (center) and Claire Treat ’05 (right) worked with her at this New Hampshire fen.

is now working in the Boston area at Harbor Health and in the vascular anomalies department at Children’s Hospital. Sheila E. Browne, Bertha Phillips Rodger Professor of Chemistry, says that mentors can serve women, to some degree, as the “old boys network” serves men. She founded the “Sistahs in Science” program nine years ago at Mount Holyoke to support women of color who major in the sciences, and her idea has caught on at other schools. Her program offers speakers, workshops, tutors, and peer mentoring. She also helps connect students with alumnae working in the sciences. “When I went to Berkeley, there were two women and 140 men in my entering class. And the men were getting all kinds of careerbuilding information that we weren’t getting. This type of support is something women need to ﬁnd. Mount Holyoke is far ahead in providing this mentoring to women by faculty and the alumnae network,” says Browne.

students receive stipends for their research work with faculty and support from the College for their campus summer housing costs. At the end of the summer, students write up abstracts of their work that are collected into a symposium program booklet. We then have them present their work, as an illustrated talk, in an annual Summer Science Symposium.” This is in addition to an annual spring science symposium (see sidebar). Jill Bubier runs a research program funded by the National Science Foundation to examine effects of climate change on northern wetland ecosystems. Every summer she hires four students as ﬁeld assistants to work at either the Ontario bog or a New Hampshire wetland. “Every summer I have two students at each site. They learn how to measure greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, and other ecosystem parameters that we are keeping track of. Usually they work with me for two summers, and then during their second summer they develop

“Professors not only spend a lot of time working in the lab or in the field alongside their undergraduate students, they also establish strong and meaningful relation-

Ralph Morang

ships. This superb mentoring by faculty gives our students a real advantage.”

Merck and Pﬁzer are two companies where Mount Holyoke alums have traditionally thrived, she notes, stressing that internships and research programs available through the College are essential in preparing science students for the workplace. Hirsch agrees. She spent a semester completing an internship at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston, helping researchers carry out and analyze the results of clinical studies on people who had suffered strokes. “I was constantly surprised about the extent to which I could draw upon my Mount Holyoke studies. And the internship, in turn, helped me choose courses that would further support my career goals.” DeToma says the opportunities to do internships and research programs arranged through Mount Holyoke are abundant. “We have had, for many years, a variety of summer research programs in math and the sciences for undergraduates,” says DeToma. “The Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Summer 2005

an independent project and write an honors thesis their senior year. That is one of the most rewarding things I do, working with students to help them develop their own research.” From the 1840s to the 1980s, Mount Holyoke produced more women who went on to receive doctorates in chemistry than any other university or college in the nation. Today, the College boasts a new $34.5 million uniﬁed science complex that enables greater interaction among departments. But it’s when the subject matter taught between those walls moves off the textbook page and into the ﬁeld that scientists are truly developed. Science, at its best, is a process of asking questions about the world, Bubier says. And what better place to do that than in a bog, a wetland, or a coral reef? J.E. Westfall ’93 is a freelance writer based in Atlanta. 15

Debra Martin Chase ’77

’ e g a s s e M a h t ’80 i a w w i l l S ia r e rol A. t a C a y B M ‘ r o f h c r a e S s ’ r e c u d o One Pr

ed lights flashed “sold out” for only one of the dozen movies screening at a popular suburban Boston cinema complex on the first Friday evening in June. Cinderella Man Not here. The Sisterhood of the on its opening night? Stars Wars: Episode III? Traveling Pants, based on the best-selling novel by Ann Brashares about four lifelong friends experiencing love and loss during their first summer apart, had packed one of the complex’s largest theaters with teenaged and younger girls, some joined by their mothers. They broke into applause as the closing credits rolled.

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Andrew Song

“I just know what it would have meant to me as a young girl to have a black Cinderella,” says Chase. “I cried. Did you cry?” Cheryl Savit asked her eleven-yearold daughter. “Yes,” Hilary nodded, blushing as her mother wrapped her arms around her thin frame. Such sweet moments are not unfamiliar to one of the movie’s producers, Debra Martin Chase. The 1977 graduate of Mount Holyoke has been happily carving out a niche with movies that hold particular appeal for girls and young women. She describes the common theme as “female empowerment” and “wish fulfillment.” “For me, there’s usually some variation of: ‘We all have the power within ourselves to be anything that we want to be,’” Chase says. That theme could easily be applied to Chase’s own life. One of a handful of black producers in Hollywood, Chase has proven the genre can be good for business. The success of The Princess Diaries landed her a “first-look” deal at Disney, under which the studio picks up the office overhead for Martin Chase Productions in exchange for first-refusal rights on any material she’s interested in producing. The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, coproduced with Whitney Houston like its predecessor, grossed close to $100 million at the domestic box office. “There was a time fifteen years ago when you’d go sit in somebody’s office and you could feel that they had never really known any black people,” she says. “It was a different generation.” Now, there are women executives running major studios. There’s a change in attitude. And it’s a tough business, period, whether “you’re black, white, purple, male, female, whatever,” she says. “There’s one pie, and the people who are already partaking of the pie are trying to keep everybody away from the table,” says Chase. “Movies are made or not made for a certain budget based upon projections. Really today it is about dollars and cents. It really is about the bottom line.” But Chase says the true rewards come when she learns that one of her movies has had an impact on people. She says she was moved to tears when one young actress described The Cheetah Girls, which aired on the Disney Channel, as a lifechanging experience that taught her about the importance of friendship. She was equally proud to see the public embrace a made-for-TV production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella with a multicultural cast. “I just know what it would have meant to me as a young girl to have a black Cinderella,” says Chase. “This is the fantasy stuff that I love. When I’m successful, I’m able to take that fantasy, that wish fulfillment, and imbue it with values and messages that I believe are valuable to everybody, but particularly to young people.” For thirty years, there was little hint Chase would one day live out her own dream of making movies. Sure, she had loved

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Summer 2005

watching old movies with her father, a film buff, and going to the theatre every Saturday while growing up in Illinois, California, and Massachusetts. But she majored in political science at Mount Holyoke, and after graduating magna cum laude, went on to Harvard Law School. Her career path led to law offices in New York and Houston and even to the campaign trail of presidential candidate Michael Dukakis. But it went nowhere near the studio back lots of Hollywood—until one day she realized she didn’t enjoy practicing law. She remembers thinking, “This is the time to try. If you don’t try, you can’t get there.” Chase’s marketable skills helped to get her foot in the door. She got a job as a lawyer at Columbia Pictures and learned the “rhythm of the business” and how deals are put together. But her big break came when Frank Price, then chairman and CEO of Columbia, tapped her as his executive assistant. “She was very smart and personable,” says Price. “I had been very impressed by her. She seemed to me someone who would be able to, if in the right place, absorb a lot in a relatively brief period of time.” A year and a half later, Chase would make her next bold move one Monday on her way to the commissary for lunch. She spotted Denzel Washington, and although she typically doesn’t approach stars, she decided to introduce herself. Unbeknownst to her, Washington was looking for a new production partner. Their working relationship would span Devil in a Blue Dress, Courage Under Fire and The Preacher’s Wife. Washington, she says, taught her “how to look at material through an actor’s eyes,” recognizing the importance of character and “how emotions and motivations are at the heart of any good movie.” Chase says she seeks out material with a message and story that will “speak to people,” and at the same time, keep her interested and motivated for the long haul. Sisterhood, for instance, took four years from idea stage to final product. A “hands-on” producer, Chase says she didn’t miss a frame of Sisterhood’s three-month shoot in Greece, Mexico, and Canada. America Ferrera, the University of Southern California student who portrayed one of the four friends, says Chase “was like a codirector” to Ken Kwapis, catering to the needs of the actors and inviting them to share their views, even if it meant altering the schedule to accommodate a suggestion. “It’s not just work to her,” Ferrera say. “It’s what she loves to do. It’s her passion.” But the hectic life of a producer has its price. Her current work and travel schedule make it impossible to have a serious relationship, she admits. “Nobody’s life is perfect. You can’t do it all,” she says, catching herself in midthought. “You can do it all,” she corrects, “but you can’t do it all at the same time.”

Conservatives on Do We Have Political Diversity at MHC? By Maryann Teale Snell â&#x20AC;&#x2122;86

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

“Diverse community is the touchstone of Mount Holyoke’s identity and will continue to be one of its highest aspirations in the twenty-first century.” from the synopsis of The Plan for Mount Holyoke 2010

a Liberal Campus M

ount Holyoke doesn’t speciﬁcally mention political diversity in its stated goals for institutional diversity. But there are voices here (as at other colleges and universities) calling for something to be done about it. That conservatives are a minority in academia is nothing new. What does seem new is the vehemence with which conservatives are commanding— and demanding—more attention on college campuses. They argue that their viewpoint, if not altogether excluded from conversation, is unfairly stiﬂed, dismissed, or trounced in most discussions in or out of the classroom.

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Summer 2005

“…You get too much of a discussion among like-minded people on college campuses. I don’t know that it’s intentional, [but] people just aren’t thinking as widely about issues as one would hope.”

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Fred LeBlanc

The Political Vibe

Accusations abound: Conservative groups can’t get funding from the student government. Syllabi reflect a Mount Holyoke attracts students from all margins of the country liberal bias. Students’ grades suffer when their opinions and the far reaches of the world. Given the resulting cornucopia differ from their professors’. Faculty are denied tenure because of beliefs and outlooks, it’s a testament to the College’s character of their political views. At MHC the charges include an that people generally respect one another’s views. President intolerance for certain viewpoints and brainwashing of Joanne V. Creighton says, unequivocally, that MHC promotes students who are undecided in their beliefs. diversity across the board—even when it comes to political Are these just isolated incidents of bad behavior, or a trend viewpoints. “I think MHC is a remarkably civil, tolerant, and throughout the hallways of academe? A case of liberals respectful community,” she says. But not everyone agrees. maintaining a stranglehold on the academy, or an attempt by the “It does a fantastic job promoting cultural and geographical right to destroy one of the last bastions of progressive thinking? diversity, but not political diversity,” says Sarah E. Peyron Karen M. Rothmyer ’65, managing editor of The Nation, ’06, vice chair of the College Republicans. Student Government believes the right “has begun a serious Association public relations officer Esa campaign, claiming conservative students A. Aigamaua ’06 agrees, adding: “It are ‘victims’ of the liberal atmosphere just encourages a norm; people have … I think it’s a reflection of the fact that to conform to the ‘nonconformist’ way [they] only see things in black and white. in order to be accepted.” Megan F. They think there are ‘two sides’ to issues Connolly ’06 has heard fellow students and their ‘side’ isn’t being heard.” History confess they are conservative “in a professor Dan Czitrom says, “I’m sure there very hushed tone” and says the fear are people who use the classroom to press of being judged is unacceptable. their own political views; but the idea that It’s true that some on campus are this only happens on the left is absurd.” “very antagonistic and aggressive As economics professor Jim Hartley sees toward Republicans,” says Jo Jensen it, the problem is “you get too much of a ’07, who’s been verbally attacked about discussion among like-minded people on her views. While Katie L. Kraschel college campuses. I don’t know that it’s in’06 thinks most undergrads exhibit tentional, [but] people just aren’t thinking respect for each other, she concedes that Christina Hoff Sommers—author of Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have “conservative voices are less welcome.” as widely about issues as one would hope.” Betrayed Women and a resident scholar Even if colleges are weighted to the Those who lean right do “tend to feel at the conservative American Enterprise left, does it prevent students from geta bit stifled,” says Crystal A. Bussiere Institute—drew a politically diverse auditing a good education? Or are professors, ’07. And the “constant” and “vicious” ence to her campus lecture. no matter their personal convictions, able commentary she hears—about “how many mistakes the Republican party has made to ‘ruin’ our and willing to encourage nonexclusive discussion in their classrooms, to open students’ minds to multiple perspectives country”—makes her reluctant to speak her mind. and not just espouse their own? Jensen says it’s primarily individual teachers and students who “fuel the rift on political diversity … by referring to What everyone seems to agree on, at least in theory, is that diversity of thought must be more thoroughly cultivated. Republicans as evil or stupid and disregarding any conserva“The chief purpose of a liberal arts education,” says politics tive argument as credible.” It’s a small but vocal number of professor Chris Pyle, “is to give students bullshit detectors people, and the perceived hostility of their outspokenness that run all the time and rotate 360 degrees. And it’s my job packs a punch, Hartley says—especially if it comes from a professor. From a student’s vantage point, he says, “all it to teach them to be most skeptical of their own views when they feel a flush of righteousness coming on.” takes is hearing a professor make a snide remark about a

‘lunatic right-wing conservative,’ or a joke about President Bush, and what you hear is that he hates conservatives.” Connolly thinks the campus as a whole regards Republicans and conservatives as “plague-carrying individuals to be avoided.” Many students, Peyron argues, “don’t even really know what Republicans think; they just know they don’t agree and they don’t want to listen to what we have to say.”

Classroom Politics

Political tensions were palpable leading up to last fall’s presidential vote, but even more so afterward. “There was widespread resentment,” Jensen says. And it spiked in the classrooms. “One professor claimed it was the end of the world,” recalls Connolly, and in another class, an entire session was spent “griping about the election results.” Students

Speaking of Politics

Roommates Aly R. McKay ‘07 (left) and Crystal A. Bussiere ‘07 used their shared room door to advertise their political views.

THE TOWN MEETING Esa Aigamaua ’06: At the all-campus town meeting, if a student had a problem with the lack of political diversity and tolerance here, she [often prefaced her comment with], “I’m a liberal, but…”—as if that made her more credible. It would be very difﬁcult to be a conservative here. People would take that as “narrow-minded” or “ignorant” or “misinformed.”

Paul Schnaittacher

THE TWO-PARTY DOOR Crystal Bussiere ’07: I found out my roommate was liberal after I went to a George Bush rally and decorated my door. [Roomie Aly R. McKay ’07 posted pro-Kerry paraphernalia.] We never discussed anything about the

election. Nobody else commented on the door, although some of my stickers were removed.

THE GOOD ARGUMENT Megan Connolly ’06: I have successfully argued with students who claim a liberal opinion on a particular issue. I can quite easily call their bluff, and I know it’s because they only get one side of the story from other students and professors. It’s easier to agree with an argument when its faults and fractures are not revealed.

THE “R-WORD” Jo Jensen ’07: I was making friends and getting along with my roommate. Then it hit: I said I was a Republican.

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Summer 2005

Honestly, several people gasped and proclaimed we couldn’t be friends. Even today, some of my close friends will not sit with me in a politics class, and they ask me not to say the word “Republican” too loudly in public.

THE MASKING-TAPE LINE Sarah Peyron ’06: In a psychology of racism class, the teacher put a masking-tape line across the center of the room. Students who thought afﬁrmative action was a good idea were to stand on one side, and those against it on the other. I just think afﬁrmative action needs to be reformed … but that didn’t matter—I was on the ‘against’ side of the room, and all my peers were ‘against’ me.

complained that faculty had crossed the line in “imposing their political views in the classroom,” Kraschel says. As chair of the SGA senate, she addressed the faculty at their November meeting, asking them to take action. “[When] only liberal views are discussed, we lose an invaluable aspect of the learning process and are left inadequately prepared to enter the ‘real world,’” she stated. Jensen, whose parents are conservative college professors, says her classes exhibit “liberal biases” that make her feel “ostracized … and apathetic toward my grade and participation.” Adds Aigamaua, “Politics stir up a lot of emotion and debate. Between students, I think that’s entirely appropriate; but I get annoyed when professors delve into their own personal beliefs. They’re paid to teach, not preach.” Connolly believes a professor can have his opinions, but it’s “irresponsible” to post “anticonservative statements on his ofﬁce door as he pretends to welcome students of diverse backgrounds into his classroom.” But Hartley contends, “There are lots of very liberal professors who would love conservative students to talk in class and would defend them.” Kraschel reports that one of her classes did establish guidelines for having debates. “It was clear that differing opinions were an important part of the discussion, and the idea of criticizing an idea, without criticizing the person, was emphasized.” Dean of the College Lee Bowie, when he taught philosophy, says politics frequently entered the conversation in his classes. “In fact, I saw it as part of my responsibility to tap into political views—partly because

you’re trying to teach people to be thoughtful about the principles that lie underneath what they think their views are.” But talking politics may not appropriate to every class. As Hartley puts it, “One should be able to take a biology course without [being urged to] vote for John Kerry. I just think professors need to hold themselves to some sort of standard of professional conduct.”

College Should Be a Political Place

While Sarah Peyron knows some conservative students are afraid to “come out,” she personally enjoys playing devil’s advocate in class. “It keeps you on your toes. I’ve learned to stand up for what I believe and to argue my point intelligently.” Still, Connolly considers “how many Mount Holyoke women are cheated because they are fed only one side of the story for four crucial years of their lives.” Kraschel’s take is that conservative students may in fact be getting a better education because they are continually “exposed to opposing opinions and forced to defend their views.” Jensen, dismayed by the liberal slant her classes took, once considered transferring elsewhere. But then she realized, “No other college would push me the way Mount Holyoke does.” And she means that in the best sense. “One of the problems at a lot of liberal arts colleges,” Czitrom says, “is we’re so intent on nurturing students and protecting them from the big bad world that we tend to forget it is a big bad world out there. I think we need more

Paul Schnaittacher

Students in the College Republicans (shown here at their last spring meeting) aim to heighten students’ awareness of political diversity on campus by promoting discussion of issues from the Republican point of view.

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

“Mount Holyoke is like most of the academies: largely dominated by liberal professors, and the vocal part of the student body is the liberal part,” says economics professor Jim Hartley (right). “Part of the fun for me, being a conservative person, is I have this enormous range of people who disagree with me to talk to all the time.” political debate and conﬂict on campus. Everybody’s so worried about being nice. We can be civil, but we can disagree— vigorously—about politics. We ought to.” The problems students will face in the world will require them “to think independently, analyze, and evaluate ideas,” says Beth Blumenstock Manley ’76—which is why it’s essential they be exposed to differing viewpoints. “The most creative solutions come when all ideas and perspectives are encouraged.”

Room for Improvement

As founding director of the Speaking, Arguing, and Writing Program, Bowie says his goal from the start was “to foster a culture of discussion and engagement of different ideas in the classroom and elsewhere … without either ducking or falling into a culture of political correctness.” Hartley believes the Weissman Center staff is “well-meaning; [but] on political issues, if you look down the list of speakers they bring … [there is no] range of viewpoints.” Chair of the College Republicans Jensen intends to increase thoughtful political debate on campus by cohosting events

Paul Schnaittacher

Web Extra Share Your Views on Politics in Academia Please join other Quarterly readers in a Web-based discussion about this article and related issues on Tuesday, September 13, from 8 to 9 p.m. (Eastern time). At www. alumnae.mtholyoke.edu, you’ll ﬁnd complete instructions about how to participate. Please note that you must sign up in advance to receive the password for this discussion.

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Summer 2005

with the College Democrats and bringing more conservative voices to campus. (Kraschel says some “provocative” thinkers who spoke recently on campus attracted students “from every part of the political spectrum.”) Some undergrads think the College should also hire more conservative faculty. But The Nation’s Rothmyer says even while Mount Holyoke works to “ensure that no one is made to feel ostracized, it has no obligation to try to recruit ‘conservative’ professors to balance ‘liberal’ ones. If the professors are good—whatever their politics—they’ll help people learn how to think.” The goal, as Hartley sees it, is to get liberals reading work by thoughtful conservatives, and vice versa. “Reasonable people can disagree, and I think that gets lost. There’s too much polarization of thought, too much stereotyping.” Bowie thinks many liberals underestimate the potential for educated debate with conservatives—and that’s something campuses do need to be concerned about, he says, “because what you want to do, even if you’re convinced you’re right, is make sure your position is defensible against the best possible objections. So it’s important to have really smart, interesting, deep-thinking conservatives around to do that.” When it comes to promoting open conversation on campus, Bowie favors “good, old-fashioned critical thinking,” with a focus on arguments rather than conclusions. Real dialogue is what’s “at the heart of the educational mission of the College,” he says. “And it’s critical for us as a society.” Maryann Teale Snell ’86 is a writer and editor in Saratoga Springs, New York.

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu1

The Liquid Visions of Janice Lovelace ’74 Even as a child growing up in Ohio, Janice C. Lovelace ’74 loved both the outdoors and photography. “I’m drawn to nature, and I was always the one in the family with a little Brownie or an Instamatic capturing pictures,” she recalls. Yet it wasn’t until about ﬁve years ago, after her children were grown, that Lovelace started taking photography seriously. “I took a few workshops to brush up on technical skills, and now I have drawers and shelves full of slides; I’m totally hooked.” Almost all of Lovelace’s images are shot outdoors—national parks, beaches, gardens—because being outside invigorates her and helps buffer the stresses of her profession. “As a child and family psychologist, you hear so many sad stories that pull on your heart,” she explains. “Outdoor photography calms me, and I hope that comes through in the images.” Through them, she hopes viewers will be drawn to a place they can ﬁnd tranquility and peace.

Mount Mount Holyoke Holyoke Alumnae Alumnae Quarterly Quarterly || Summer Summer 2005 2005

1) Arch at Cabo San Lucas. Baja, Mexico 2) Waterfall with Mount Rainier in the background, Washington 3) Bloodstar and sea urchins, Washington coast 4) Japanese bridge. Japanese garden, Washington

25 25

hat’s right here that

I can see if I’d just stop for a moment and en joy the beauty that’s around me?”

You won’t see many people in her photos; that’s because Lovelace prefers nature to show through. “Instead of the viewer focusing on what the people in a photo are wearing or what they look like, I want them to consider, ‘What is the world presenting to us?’” Living in a suburb of Seattle, minutes from the watery splendors of Puget Sound, makes it easy for Lovelace to keep these nature-centered questions front and center in her life and work.

Although she’s traveled throughout North and Central America and the Caribbean as a freelance travel writer and photographer, Lovelace stresses that “to enjoy nature, you don’t have to go far away.” She hopes her photos will prompt viewers to ask themselves, “What’s right here that I can see if I’d just stop for a moment and enjoy the beauty that’s around me?” You can see more of Lovelace’s photos at www. jlophotography.com.

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

All photos by Janice Lovelace

5) Bullfrogs in pond in early morning, California

10) Small waterfall near Sol Duc. Olympic National Park, Washington

6) Child on beach at sunset, Oregon coast

11) Frog sitting on lily pad. Japanese garden, Washington

7) Surfer waiting in Hawaii

12) Goose Island at sunrise. Glacier National Park, Montana

8) StarďŹ sh and shells, Washington coast

13) Horses with reďŹ&#x201A;ection at sunrise, California

9) Koi swimming (abstract), Japanese garden

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Summer 2005

alumnae

matters

UPDATES FROM THE ALUMNAE ASSOCIATION

Reunion 2005: In Your Own Words MHC bond does not weaken despite time and distance. Following is a compilation of Reunion reminiscences thoughtfully recorded by members of returning classes. We hope they’ll inspire you, too, to come back.

“If volunteers go to heaven, we’re in,” proclaimed one banner from the class of ’55. “We had fishnets, not the Internet,” retorted members of the class of ’80. The Laurel Parade, which for many marks the high point of the first Reunion weekend in May, is a pointed reminder of life’s impermanence, of the importance of celebrating those fleeting moments that we share with others in common endeavor, and of the extraordinary potential of a well-educated human being. Reunion 2005 welcomed more than 1,100 alumnae and their families back to campus 28

to witness its splendor in spring, reconnect with classmates, brag about accomplishments, get a fresh perspective on personal histories, and simply hang out with old friends. Amid receptions, voluminous back-toclass offerings, dinners, department open houses, tours of the arboretum, archival exhibits, career-counseling sessions, a Japanese tea ceremony, plant sales, a juggler, lots of food and drink—did we mention lots of food and drink?—and weather that cooperated most of the time, returning alumnae reveled in old and new friendships and the discovery that the

Class of 1950: A History of Support It was our fifty-fifth reunion! We were all so happy to be there. There were fifty-four of us, one for the first time, plus nearly twenty husbands, daughters, and granddaughters—small enough that we could all be one group, comfortable with each other. Our Friday night wine and ample buffet in the dorm set the tone for what we hoped would be a true reunion of classmates—an opportunity for talk, both serious and humorous, catching up with those we hadn’t seen for a while, talking for the first time with someone we hadn’t known well in college, enjoying the stories, and sympathizing with the losses inevitable at www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Paul Schnaittacher

Class of 1945: Feeling Celebrated A poll taken before the Reunion revealed that all we wanted was an opportunity to simply visit. Nearly one-third of our classmates returned. There was great openheartedness in our interactions. As the first class to march behind the antique cars in the alumnae parade, our bright green umbrellas unfurled, the cheers thrilled us from bystanders who lined both sides of the parade route. We felt celebrated! At the alumnae meeting, we sang with gusto, “We find ourselves surprised and amused to be octogenarians … and we are very young at heart!” All in all, the sixtieth was a very special reunion! —Margaret Dealy Griffel

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Senior class officers displayed the full range of emotions as the class of 2005 left college years behind and joined the ranks of MHC alumnae during the annual Laurel Parade.

Ben Barnhart

our time of life. The parade, the Alumnae Association meeting, the collection of our usual prizes—three this time, the sphinx, lion, and legacy—were familiar highlights. We have clearly kept up our outstanding history of support, which is a reflection of our closeness as a class. With all the joy and all the sadness of our lives, we look forward to the next time we can be together. 2010— we’ll be there! —Laura Elton Cranshaw Class of 1955: Much To Do Our fiftieth reunion! We rediscovered the wealth of our commonality and how cherished the connection to Mount Holyoke really is. How young we felt and how quickly the physical changes of aging faded in our shared discovery and enjoyment of the people we have become. A landmark, yearlong, multisession seminar project with the Sociology 224 class produced a treasury of information—videotape, written materials, and memorabilia—and was

followed by a wonderfully interactive class at Reunion. We welcomed the return to classes, explored new buildings, laughed at encounters in unisex bathrooms, and reveled in the intensity of much to do in little time. —Nancy Leech Mohr The Class of 1960: Reconnections What a feeling it was to stand on the steps of Chapin and look back over our 107 attendees—the highest number of any class! We also had great participation on the committees that planned reunion activities—including garnishing Ham Hall most delectably, nearly beyond recognition. At a reception in Kendade, which included contemporaneous faculty, we thanked classmate Evelyn Backlund Fuss and her husband, Peter, for their major gift to the Kendade project. At our class dinner we welcomed new honoraries Penny Gill and Craig Woodard into the company of Marjorie Kaufman, Gerhard Loewenberg, and Curtis Smith. Reverend Hydie Rial

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Summer 2005

Houston spoke at the interfaith service in Abbey Chapel. Connections and reconnections were not uncommon! —Dana Feldshuh Whyte Class of 1965: The Values We Recognize Honor: the oldest classes were truly honored and remembered at the Alumnae Association meeting. Loyalty: regardless of age, MHC alumnae are devoted to the College. Friendships: easily and joyfully renewed, despite the passage of time between Reunions. Admiration: for the beauty and architectural integrity of the campus. Appreciation: for the opportunity and privilege of being part of the MHC community; in our case, for forty years with sustained value anticipated for at least the next thirty-five! Respect: for the accomplishments of alumnae in all their personal and professional endeavors. Optimism: that the future holds ongoing opportunities to make positive contributions to the world. —Sara Prozeller Hartman, Diane Diederich Metz, Betty Hamblen Repa 29

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From top: Friends enjoy all the fixings of a picnic lunch. Attendees at the women of color reception included Beverly Daniel Tatum (left), former MHC professor and administrator, and W. Rochelle Calhoun â&#x20AC;&#x2122;83 (right), executive director of the Alumnae Association.

Ben Barnhart

Seniors gleefully wrap the laurel chain around Mary Lyonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gravesite. (Really, no one was injured.)

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Class of 1975: Moving Forward Memorial Day weekend saw almost seventy members of the class of 1975 and their guests gather for the thirtieth Reunion. Looking back but always moving forward,

these MHC alums found that friendships begun in the 1970s had grown stronger over the years. Wrote a fellow classmate, “This Reunion makes me more determined than ever to stay in better touch with my classmates, since I think I feel more connected with them than with any friends I’ve made since!” Tours of Kendade, the Art Museum, Pratt Hall, and Blanchard Campus Center highlighted the sensitivity of those architects who had created or recreated these buildings. Saturday evening featured a reception on the balcony of Willits-Hallowell, followed by dinner. Reunion Chair Judy Karlen Stein presented a video composed of photos of our College years set to music of the 1970s (of course) and reminded us that the passage of time had not dimmed our spirit, despite a few minor physical changes. Fireworks over Lower Lake served as a prelude to milk and cookies back at the dorm. Walks, talks, and laughter led to a farewell brunch at Woodbridge’s. Could a reunion of bright, talented, and compassionate women on the campus of one of the most beautiful colleges in the U.S. be better? The class of 1975 left South Hadley with the anticipation that the thirty-fifth reunion might just be a contender. —Eileen Leahy Epstein

Class of 1980: Top Ten Reunion High Points 1 MHC in springtime…without exams on the horizon. 2 Being applauded by the class of 2005, and applauding them in return, as we passed along the parade route. 3 Meetings between old friends who hadn’t seen each other for a while but found they could pick up where they left off. 4 Meetings between classmates who didn’t know each other in College but plan to get together post-reunion. 5 Comedienne Jane Congdon, who had all of us rolling off the sofas on Saturday night. (Who knew menopause, teenagers, and Connecticut could be so funny?) 6 Reunion Chair Jean Osachuk’s fantastic gift bags, which some classmates relinquished so they could be given to the students who served and cleaned up after us at Prospect on Saturday night. 7 Wonderful music: “Bread and Roses,” Beth Balmuth Raffeld’s jazz trio at Prospect, the Alumnae Choir at Abbey, and the senior canoe sing right outside our dorm on Saturday night. 8 The Griffin Award, presented to the class for the largest percent increase in dollars given from a nonreunion year to a reunion year. 9 Connecting with our collective past. 10 Looking forward to returning for our thirtieth. See you then! —Diane Kiffin Nardin

Medal of Honor Bestowed on Nine Alumnae

Ben Barnhart (left), Paul Schnaittacher

Nine women received Alumnae Medals of Honor this year in recognition of their outstanding service to the Alumnae Association. To read the medalists’ citations, please visit www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/go/moh

Reunion I medal recipients were (left to right) Elizabeth Dippel Archambeault ’65, Katherine Murphy Maloney ’45, and Cynthia L. Reed ’80.

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Summer 2005

Reunion II medal recipients were (left to right) Nancy Kirshner Rodriguez ’85, Gail Moffat Hudson ’60, Virginia Beal Grissom ’40, Ann Kingman Williams ’60, Marg Stark ’85, and Jill M. Brethauer ’70.

[ alumnae matters ]

Class of 1970: Save Those Letters There’s something about a red feather boa, our parade accessory, that not only brings out the Gypsy Rose Lee in all of us, but also fuels our creative juices. A handful of ’70s created the new fractured Alma Mater [read it at www.alumnae.mtholy oke.edu/go/alsma] and presented it at the Alumnae Association meeting. Beware the boa, however: it’s lethal when combined with luggage zippers. First-ever Reunion attendees Lynn Wallisch, Diana Dearth, Jenni Dieter Buhr, and Ann Thurber mixed with veterans who reached a consensus that, while all Reunion I’s are marvelous, Reunion II’s are our favorites, given their quieter pace and greater coffee klatsch-ability. Even as we mourned our departed Donna Claytor, Stephanie Williston stepped up to inform the fifty-plus of us present that we are now archival! The College wants our college correspondence. So all you women of letters, scrounge your attics and cough them up. —Boots Whitmer

“Slap me five,” said tall Trevor the Games Man to the little girl. And she did!

Class of 1985: The Sisterhood Ninety-two classmates returned to our vibrant campus for our twentieth reunion. As cochair, I had the privilege of holding our class banner in the parade. Of the eight classes returning for Reunion II, we were the only “green” class, receiving many

Class of 1990: Breathe Deeply More than sixty members of the class of 1990 returned to campus to reconnect and relive some of their fondest MHC memories. We came with dates, fiancés, companions, husbands (old and one brand-new), and more than forty (!) children. Classmates came from as far away as London, Germany, Spain, and Jamaica; and from as close as down the road. For some of our classmates, it was their first time back to campus and the first opportunity to reunite with friends they dearly missed. Most of us returned to campus without the security of our closest friends from college days. We found, however, that there were new friends to meet

and friendships to begin. Our North Rocky living room was the “hub” of our activity, reviewing the Llamaradas of 1987–1990 and marveling at how many were mothers and advanced-degree holders (77 percent of us). We were welcomed by red MHC tumblers full of candy in our North Rocky dorm rooms, challenged by a scavenger hunt, treated to a Saturday night barbecue feast and spectacular fireworks, and rejuvenated by Sunday morning yoga in our living room. For all this, we take off our red baseball caps (our laurel parade “accessory”) to salute and thank our reunion chair, Misti Dean O’Connell, and her dedicated team, for putting together the best reunion we have ever had, and making us feel at home at MHC once again! —Kathleen L. Turland Class of 1995: The Common Bond Aloha! The class of 1995 celebrated its tenyear reunion in a most relaxed yet festive fashion—sipping wine at the tiki bar overlooking Upper Lake. More than 100 of us gathered in MacGregor and spent a weekend catching up, reminiscing, looking at pictures of babies, husbands, partners, houses, pets, and even cars! Despite the changes in our own lives, we still felt the common bond of having attended a most unique women’s college. If there had been an award for best laurel parade costume,

The little red fire engine is always a hit in the Laurel Parade.

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Paul Schnaittacher (top); Ben Barnhart

[ alumnae matters ]

compliments on our green hula skirt costumes! Walking in the gorgeous sunshine during the parade, I was overwhelmed with the realization that I am just a small part of something so much bigger. Watching the class of 1940 come through the sea of younger classes was so moving. Our Saturday night social was a smashing success, providing the venue for the renewal of friendships and the forming of new ones. As we watched the fireworks light up the night sky, I thought of how blessed I am to be a part of this wonderful sisterhood of uncommon women. —Carol Van Belle Allard

Fred LeBlanc

Class of 2003: Welcome to the Family I spent the last year or so working with our reunion committee to plan this weekend, and I must say, even in my dreams I couldn’t have imagined a better reunion. Our class’s competitive edge came out during the “$2,003 Pyramid Game” where Team Paper & Bones won the grand prize of A Vision Realized, the picture book of Mount Holyoke, and the bookstore’s new class mascot T-shirt, among other appropriately yellow items. In the alumnae parade, we wore yellow construction hats and bandanas with our class logo, driving the image home with a sign that read, “We survived construction/renovation of the Art Museum, Pratt, Cleveland, Shattuck, Carr, Clapp, Kendade, and Blanchard!” The tea near our class tree in the atrium of Kendade was a success and may become a reunion tradition. Fiancés, partners, and spouses were all welcomed into our 2003 family as we reminisced about our time here, sharing wellknown stories along with less notorious moments. Reckless fun ensued and Public Safety [staff] stepped in a few times, but it was reassuring to know that some things will never change. —Sarah Paquet

Seeking Awardees So that the Alumnae Association may honor deserving alumnae, please share names to be considered for the recognitions listed below. Please include documentation on the strength of your candidate(s) (a résumé would be appreciated), and names, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of references. Send nominations to the Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College, 50 College St., South Hadley, MA 01075-1486; 413-538-2300; fax 413-538-2254; or alumnae association@mtholyoke.edu. You can also use our online form found at www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/item.cfm?id=389 to submit nominations. Alumnae Medal of Honor: Awarded for eminent service in promoting the effectiveness of the Alumnae Association, for signal service in completing definite projects undertaken by the College, or for other noteworthy services that strengthen the position of Mount Holyoke College. Given in the recipient’s reunion year. Deadline is August 15. Alumnae Trustee: Selected for willingness and ability to involve herself actively in the workings of the College, participate in the policymaking discussions of the Board of Trustees, and use her expertise in special areas to enrich those discussions. Deadline is January 15. Mary Lyon Award: For young alumnae who have been out of the College fifteen years or fewer, who demonstrate promise or sustained achievement in their lives, professions, or communities consistent with the humane values that Mary Lyon exemplified in her life and inspired in others. Achievement Award: For alumnae whose achievements and service to society exemplify the ideals of excellence of a liberal arts education; who use their talents with professional distinction, sustained commitment, and creativity; and who reflect the vision and pioneering spirit of Mary Lyon. Elizabeth Topham Kennan Award: Given periodically to outstanding alumnae educators, in honor of former MHC president Elizabeth Topham Kennan ‘60.

[ alumnae matters ]

our class could have won! We looked fabulous draped in lovely yellow leis and carrying our yellow Hawaiian beach bags and yellow balloons. Our Saturday night dinner, organized by Whitney Finch Weinberg and Heather Nolan, was a delicious surf and turf. Afterwards, we were thoroughly entertained by Gina Barreca, a feminist writer and very funny speaker. It was a wonderful reunion, and we missed those who could not come. I look forward to attending the fifteen-year reunion and experiencing the exciting and creative ideas of new reunion chairs Zosia Wadoski and Andrea Sheehan. Thank you and see you all in 2010. —Andrea Fitzgerald

Alumnae Association Board of Directors *President Susan Beers Betzer ’65 *Vice President Kayla R. Jackson ’86 *Clerk Sandra A. Mallalieu ’91 *Treasurer Patricia Steeves O’Neil ’85 Alumnae Quarterly Avice A. Meehan ’77 Alumnae Trustee Nancy Drake ’73 Directors-at-Large Pamela R. Broadley ’74 Maureen McHale Hood ’87 Antoria D. Howard-Marrow ’81 Joanna MacWilliams Jones ’67 Nominating Chair Catherine C. Burke ’78 Young Alumnae Representative Lisa M. Utzinger ’02 Executive Director *W. Rochelle Calhoun ’83 ex officio without vote *Executive Committee The Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College, Inc., 50 College St., South Hadley, MA 01075-1486; 413-538-2300; www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu.

Spelman President Tatum to Speak at Black Alumnae Conference Beverly Daniel Tatum, president of Spelman College and former acting president of Mount Holyoke, will deliver the keynote address at the twelfth triennial Black Alumnae Conference, “Circles of Sisterhood,” November 4–5. Tatum, a clinical psychologist who worked at the College between 1989 and 2002, is an expert on race relations and author of Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? and Assimilation Blues: Black Families in a White Community. The conference helps to strengthen the growing network of black alumnae and affords current black students the opportunity to make connections within the community. For conference information, visit the Alumnae Association’s Web site at www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu this fall or contact Maya D’Costa at mdcosta@mtholyoke.edu or 413-538-2066.

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Summer 2005

Two alumnae talked about their efforts to understand and protect water in this year’s Women in Public Life Forum titled “Women and Water.” It was part of the Weissman Center for Leadership and the Liberal Arts symposium on water this past spring. Margaret Van Deusen ’76, a lawyer with the Charles River Watershed Association, explained her group’s efforts to change water management practices in Massachusetts and incorporate feasible solutions into state law. In her talk, oceanographer Mary Scranton ’72 noted that the ocean, because of its vast size, is just beginning to feel the impact of human activity. As the field of oceanography is relatively new, scientists are still putting together the pieces of the ocean’s history and developing a picture of present and future conditions. “More is known about Mars’ surface than the bottom of the ocean,” she said. For more information, go to the Water Matters Web site at www.mtholyoke.edu/go/water

A Fellowship of Lifelong Learners The Alumnae Association is proud to announce the recipients of the Alumnae Fellowships for 2005. This year, twenty fellowships were awarded to alumnae from the classes of 1990 to 2005. The awards, which range from $1,700 to $7,500 each, will support graduate study in evolutionary biology, religious studies in Asia, and graduate study in public health, among other projects. “The Alumnae Association is delighted to recognize these MHC scholars and artists,” said Executive Director W. Rochelle Calhoun ’83. “Mount Holyoke women are lifelong learners, and we are happy to encourage them on that journey.” For a list of the 2005 fellowship recipients and their projects, as well as additional information about the fellowship program, visit http://www.alumnae.mtholy oke.edu/go/fellowships

Do the Math: Alums Now and Then and Related Fun Facts Number of students at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary when it first opened on November 8, 1837:

Number of active alumnae who graduated during the presidency of Elizabeth Topham Kennan ’60 (1978–1995):

10,392 Number of students today:

2,100

Total number of living Mount Holyoke alumnae:

Number of active alumnae who were Frances Perkins Scholars:

571

32,598

Number of active alumnae who graduated in the class of 2008’s lifetime:

10,515

Number of active alumnae who used the OneCard (the campus ID card) as undergrads:

3,297

We’re Everywhere! Susan Edwards ’68 (right), who founded the Friends of Public Radio Arizona in Phoenix four years ago, was all ears when she learned that Rene Gutel ’00 (left) would join station KJZZ as a reporter/host. Some 2,500 miles from campus, these two alumnae and radio contributors agreed to a photo with one of National Public Radio’s best-known personalities, Linda Wertheimer (center),“even though she went to Wellesley,” Edwards joked. Note: If you’ve met another alumna unexpectedly under unusual circumstances and have a photo to prove it, please send picture and description to the Alumnae Quarterly, 50 College St., S. Hadley, MA 01075-1486.

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Red Sea by Louisa Chase, courtesy MHC Art Museum

[ alumnae matters ]

Women and Water Forum

off the

shelf A social history and a history of science as well as an intimate biography, The End of the Certain World reveals the story of a great physicist and humanitarian and his struggle with the forces of religion, politics, and war during the upheavals of the twentieth century. Nancy Greenspan’s challenges in writing The Certain World included learning German, physics, and how to write a narrative. She has coauthored three books on child development with her husband, child psychiatrist Stanley Greenspan. For more, including a film, visit www.maxborn.net.

The End of the Certain World: The Life and Science of Max Born, the Nobel Physicist Who Ignited the Quantum Revolution By Nancy Thorndike Greenspan ’70 Basic. 2005. $26.95 In 1920, Albert Einstein wrote to Max Born, “Theoretical physics will flourish wherever you happen to be; there is no other Born to be found in Germany today.” The End of the Certain World

presents for the first time Born’s full story: Nobel physicist, a discoverer of quantum theory, exile from Hitler’s Germany, teacher of nine Nobel physicists. Born’s role in the “golden age of physics” helped to shape the science of the twentieth century and open the door to the modern era. In a cruel twist of fate, Born, a pacifist who loved science for its beauty, educated the renowned scientists who developed the atom bomb.

Skilled Hands, Strong Spirits: A Century of Building Trades History By Grace Palladino ’75 Cornell University Press. 2005. $36 Grace Palladino makes the history of the building trades come alive in Strong Hands, Strong Spirits, a chronicle of twentieth-century growth and change in the Building and Construction Trades Department, a division of the AFL-CIO. By investigating the sources of

conflict and unity within the department over time and demonstrating how building trades unions dealt with problems and opportunities in the past, Palladino provides a historical context for the current generation of workers and leaders as they devise new strategies. Grace Palladino is codirector of the Samuel Gompers Papers at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is the author of three other books, including Teenagers: An American History. Strict Wildness: Discoveries in Poetry and History By Peter Viereck Transaction. 2005. $34.95 “Strict wildness” is Peter Viereck’s own phrase, coined to describe what is vital in good poetry: spontaneity of feeling within a rigorous organic form. In exploring “strict wildness,” Viereck addresses questions of modernism and poetic craft with respect to American poetry. He discusses the relationship between politics and poetics, using the examples of controversial poets Ezra Pound and Vachel Lindsay. Viereck offers more general views on poetics, examining the impact of modern

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Talking Back: A Collection of Contrarian Verse By Debby Page Cooper ’65 Shadows Ink. 2005. $5 This chapbook of thirty-five poems puts the spotlight on talking back and contrary attitudes, highlighting the humorous aspects of conflicting opinions. Debby Cooper majored in history at MHC but unsurprisingly earned more hours in the English department. To order Talking Back, or her other three poetry collections, e-mail debby@edcooper.com. The Mommy Fund By Madeleine K. Jacob Plume. 2005. $13 Best friends Kate Thompson and Dani Strauss are

two modern mothers trying to keep it all together. Kate is a happily married stayat-home mom; Dani, a successful attorney, has just gone through a divorce. Both desperately need a getaway. When fate drops one million dollars into Kate’s hands, they head for New York City. During an adventuresome weekend involving clothes-shopping, expensive makeovers, sexy men, and some plot twists, they recognize that they are not the only moms who could use a break. Thus is born the “Mommy Fund,” which offers other mothers the joy of escaping everyday life, if only for a few days. Madeline K. Jacob is the pen name of Jill Parsons Stern ‘84, a freelance writer living in Northampton, and coauthor Jennifer Gates. This is Stern’s third novel. Stay With Me By Maniza Naqvi ’83 Sama Books. 2004. $12 A haunting addition to contemporary fiction, this novel explores memory, reconstructed and recalled, as a burden of choices. Stay With Me is the story of a woman’s struggle to survive the aftermath of torture. By reconstructing her life as she moves in and out of consciousness, the main character finds the strength to overcome the brutality of her past. Disjointed memories of betrayal, torment, love, and suffering can deceive and destroy, but they are also found to save and anesthetize. Through broken sentences and scattered words, Naqvi brings alive the realities of state

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Summer 2005

[ off the shelf ]

technology on poetic expression and the tensions between form and content on which poets can thrive. He also discusses history and politics, from the Cold War and McCarthyism to the modern political conformity of both sides. In treating representative trends and figures in conservative thought, Viereck insists on clear awareness of what exists to conserve, what ought to be conserved, and why. These essays, written between 1938 and 2004, constitute an ideal introduction to Viereck’s literary and political thought. Peter Viereck is professor emeritus of history at MHC. His poetry has been called “the best in America today.” Viereck contributes all earnings from his books to the Clio-Melpomene Prize, an annual award for Mount Holyoke seniors studying history or poetry.

violence and shows how the human spirit can triumph over tyranny, occupation, and repression. Maniza Naqvi was born in Lahore, Pakistan. Her other novels include Mass Transit and On Air. Stay With Me is available in the U.S. from Candida’s World of Books (info@candidasworld ofbooks.com). Sloth: The Seven Deadly Sins By Wendy Wasserstein ’71 The New York Public Library/Oxford University Press. 2005. $17.95 Part of a multi-author series on the seven deadly sins, Sloth is a rollicking parody of the self-help genre, guiding readers step by step toward a life of noncommittal inertia. To help you attain the perfect state of indolent bliss, the book offers a wealth of self-help aids, including the sloth songbook; sloth breakfast bars (packed with sugar, additives, and a delicious touch of Ambien); sloth documentaries (such as the author’s twelve-hour

epic on Thomas Aquinas); and the sloth network (programming guaranteed not to stimulate or challenge in any way). Discover how to become a sloth in your diet, exercise, work, and even love life—but beware true love, which leads to passion, the biggest enemy of sloth. Prize-winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein lives in New York City. Her new play Third opens there this fall. What No One Tells the Mom: Surviving the Early Years of Parenthood with Your Sanity, Your Sex Life, and Your Sense of Humor Intact By Marg Stark ’85 Perigee Trade. 2005. $13.95 For women who are convinced that “postpartum” is Latin for ‘the good times are over,” What No One Tells the Mom is a lifeline to hope and happiness. Marg Stark uses her own hardearned wisdom, along with advice from real parents and a range of experts, to detail coping strategies for the turbulent first five

[ off the shelf ]

years of motherhood. Stark offers advice on bringing the “zing” back to the bedroom, controlling household chaos, resisting the “Super Mom” myth, and getting maximum enjoyment out of the new family experience. Marg Stark’s first book, What No One Tells the Bride, was published in 1998. She has contributed to magazines, including Ladies’ Home Journal and Parenting. The Artist, Society, and Sexuality in Virginia Woolf’s Novels By Ann Ronchetti ’71 Routledge. 2004. $75 This book explores the relationship between aesthetic productivity and artists’ degrees of involvement in social and sexual life, as depicted in Virginia Woolf ’s novels. Ann Ronchetti locates the sources of Woolf ’s lifelong preoccupation with the artist’s relationship to society in her family heritage, her exposure to Walter Pater

and the aesthetic movement, and the philosophical and aesthetic interests of the Bloomsbury group. Engaging and readable, Ronchetti’s book should be of interest to anyone who reads Woolf or is interested in women’s issues and matters of creativity. Ann Ronchetti received her Ph.D. in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a bibliographer for English, French, and Italian languages and literatures and the performing arts at the University of Pittsburgh’s Hillman Library. Have Glass Slippers, Will Travel By Lisa Cach ’89 Pocket Books. 2005. $6.99 Inspired by a talk-show host to “live her best life,” out-ofwork tech writer Katy Orville jets off to London to find the man of her dreams. But if she’s going to catch a prince, she first must pull off the transformation from all-American gal to hip, fashionable heiress. At a society wedding, it seems

like a dream come true when a handsome, kilt-clad man begins a hot pursuit—unfortunately, he turns out to be more handyman than nobleman. However, as Katy herself knows, appearances can be deceiving: sometimes a prince is disguised as a pauper and sometimes an ordinary bloke is really a duke. Katy just hopes that playing makebelieve hasn’t ruined her chance at a fairytale ending. This is Lisa Cach’s eleventh romance novel. Visit her on the web at www.lisacach.com. Spellbound by Rome: The Anglo-American Community in Rome, 1890–1914, and the founding of the KeatsShelley House Edited by Christina Huemer ’69 Palombi. 2005. €18 The Keats-Shelley House opened its doors as a museum on April 3, 1909. This spring, almost one hundred years after the start of the campaign to save the building where the poet Keats spent his last days, an extensive exhibition was launched in celebration of the turn-of-the-century British-ItalianAmerican intellectual community in Rome. The presence of British and American expatriates and visitors in Rome had a long history, but by the early twentieth century, the heyday of the artistic and intellectual community had passed. Those who remained were “spellbound by Rome,” loyal to an

older, Romantic vision of the city but buffeted by the political and social changes that accompanied the new century. The exhibition, jointly presented by the American Academy in Rome, the Keats-Shelley House, St. Paul’s Within-the-Walls, and the Museo Hendrik Christian Andersen, aimed to evoke the worlds of Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, George Breck, and Elihu Vedder through objects, art, and locations. In addition to editing the 150-page illustrated catalog, with English and Italian texts, Huemer was one of eight writers who contributed essays. Christina Huemer is the Drue Heinz Librarian of the American Academy in Rome. Black Wings By Sehba Sarwar ’86 Alhamra Publishing. 2004. $10 Yasmeen, a recent divorcée, is living with her two children in Houston, Texas, when her mother, Laila, visits from Pakistan to meet her grandchildren for the first time. Yasmeen secretly blames Laila for the death of her twin brother, Yasir, and mother and daughter have been estranged for years. Laila’s stories about the twins’ childhood force Yasmeen to face the painful losses of her past. She decides to take her children on a longoverdue visit to Pakistan, where she and her mother share more stories about the family’s complex history and come to terms with long-suppressed secrets of the past. Raised in Karachi, Pakistan, Sehba Sarwar has been based for the past ten years in Houston, where she is the founding director of Voices Breaking Boundaries. Black Wings is

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

House Transformed: Getting the Home You Want … With the House You Have By Matthew Schoenherr with Linda Hunter and Wendy Adler Jordan ’68 Taunton Press. 2005. $32 Remodeling can enliven every part of a home, fixing flaws, enhancing livability and curb appeal, and making the best use of the site. In some cases, an addition is needed, while in others merely changing the floor plan permits a rediscovery of space. The twenty projects in House Transformed offer clever, workable ideas and approaches, such as how to connect new and old parts of a house or gain needed space through ingenious storage arrangements. Wendy Jordan is the author of numerous books, most of them about remodeling. Stalin’s Folly: The Tragic First Ten Days of World War Two on the Eastern Front By Constantine Pleshakov Houghton Mifflin. 2005. $26 During the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers were slaughtered, while their leader stood by. Pleshakov draws on newly available documents to paint a startling portrait of Josef Stalin, one of history’s most feared despots, as a vulnerable and paralyzed leader. For more than a week, Stalin remained hidden away while Hitler rolled over Soviet territory, leaving the country rudderless and nearly losing power. The Red Army’s effort to regain the territory lost in those first ten days

would cost more than ten million Soviet lives. Stalin’s Folly is a dramatic hour-byhour account that sheds light on an enigmatic and ruthless figure while providing a new and far deeper understanding of Russian history. Constantine Pleshakov, a visiting professor at Mount Holyoke in Russian and Eurasian studies and the critical social thought program, is the author of The Tsar’s Last Armada, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War, and The Flight of the Romanovs. The New Kidspace Idea Book By Wendy Adler Jordan ’68 Taunton Press. 2005. $19.95 The sequel to Jordan’s The Kidspace Idea Book presents fresh ideas for designing children’s territories at home—bedrooms, playrooms, homework zones, bathrooms, and outdoor spaces. The richly illustrated book features a wide variety of fun, safe, wellorganized spaces that kids of different ages will enjoy; parents will appreciate the practical solutions to storage issues and the suggestions for adapting spaces to children’s changing needs. The Philosophy of Film: Introductory Text and Readings Edited by Thomas E. Wartenberg and Angela Curran Blackwell. 2005. $34.95 The Philosophy of Film draws readings from philosophy, film studies, and

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Summer 2005

[ off the shelf ]

available in the U.S. through www.desistore.com.

film criticism. Organized around a series of philosophic questions about film, it offers an accessible and engaging overview of the discipline. Readings from contrasting angles and points of view discuss the value of film theory, the nature of film narration, the debate on whether films can be socially critical, and the question of what we can learn from film. Thomas E. Wartenberg is the author of Unlikely Couples: Movie Romance as Social Criticism and the editor of The Nature of Art, among other books. He is the chair of the philosophy department and teaches in the film studies program at Mount Holyoke. The Multinational Enterprise and Legal Control: Host State Sovereignty in an Era of Economic Globalization By Cynthia Day Wallace ’64 Kluwer Law International. 2002. $348 The Multinational Enterprise is a one-volume resource for practitioners, policymakers, and corporate managers

outlining the legal and administrative measures practiced by states to regulate foreign multinational enterprise activity within their territories. Wallace focuses on the six most investment-intensive industrialized states (Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom), while noting the implications for developing countries and emerging markets. The book ultimately examines the full range of issues associated with the globalization phenomenon. Cynthia Day Wallace has a Ph.D. in international law from Cambridge University and is currently a consultant in international economic law, specializing in foreign direct investment. She lives in Geneva, Switzerland.

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announcements

This column carries announcements of services and events sponsored by the Alumnae Association, alumnae clubs, and College-related organizations for the benefit of MHC or members of its community. Announcements (except for classifieds) are free, but space is limited. Club and class products, most of which benefit the Alumnae Association’s Alumnae Scholar Fund, are included once a year in the fall issue. Products are always viewable at www.alumnae. mtholyoke .edu, or a listing may be requested by calling 413-538-2300.

Seven Sisters Seminar The annual Seven Sisters College Alumnae Seminar will be held on Wednesday, October 19, at 9 a.m. at the Italian Center in Stamford, CT. The seminar topic is “Ethics in a Troubled World: Issues in Politics, Journalism, Education, and Business.” Denise Davidoff will moderate panel presentations by speakers Richard Blumenthal, attorney general of Connecticut; Stephen Fuzesi, chief legal counsel, Newsweek; Janet Cooper-Nelson, chaplain, Brown University; and Jane Wexton, senior vice president and chief compliance officer, General Electric Corporation. Please contact Barbara Leffler, registrar, at 203-3298350 for further information.

For details about placing classified ads, contact Mieke Bomann (413-538-3159; mbomann@mtholyoke.edu).

deadlines WINTER ISSUE (received in early February) November 15 SPRING ISSUE (received in early May) February 15 SUMMER ISSUE (received in early August) May 15 FALL ISSUE (received in early November) August 15

Tuition Prepayment Plan Available to Alumnae Mount Holyoke College has joined the Independent 529 Plan, which will allow alumnae and their families to prepay tuition at less than today’s price for use in the future. More than 240 private colleges have joined the consortium administered by TIAACREF that enables families to plan for the rising costs of private higher education. MHC alumnae family members are automatically eligible. The Independent 529 Plan operates on a simple principle: in return for prepaying college costs, member colleges carry the investment risk and protect you from future tuition increases. The percentage of tuition you purchase today pays for that same percentage of tuition in the future and is guaranteed to satisfy costs at the time your child or other family member enrolls. For example, if the college your child will eventually attend has a current tuition of $20,000 a year, and you prepay $20,000 to cover one year of tuition at today’s rate, that amount also will cover one year of tuition ten years from now—even though the projected cost is $35,817 (assuming a 6 percent annual tuition rate increase). By prepaying, you save $15,817, and that savings—the increase in value—is tax free. In addition, each participating institution offers a discount on

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Summer 2005

today’s tuition prices, so the savings is even greater. The savings benefit you gain is proportional to the amount you prepay. However, even regular, small contributions will yield savings and help take the sting out of rising college costs. Independent 529 Plan certificates may be redeemed at any participating college as long as a student is accepted for admission and enrolls. For more information, go to www. independent529plan.org. Art Exhibits: Classical Beauty and the Avant Garde A persistent theme in Western art is the ancient Greek ideal of beauty. The human body was central to the classical ideal and the female head particularly emblematic. Four marble heads selected from the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum’s permanent collection will be on view to illustrate the enduring power of artistic beauty in Classical Conversation, which runs September 3 through December 18. At the same time, the museum will display thirty photographs by Beat artist Jay DeFeo. Out of My Own Head: Photographs by Jay DeFeo will introduce viewers to the extraordinary work of this West Coast artist who was a leader in San Francisco’s avant-garde art and poetry world in the 1950s. Mills College organized the exhibit, which runs September 6 through December 11. Valley Museums Join Forces Ten museums in the Five College area—including Mount Holyoke’s— are banding together to improve their drawing power for cultural tourists. The Mount Holyoke College Museum of Art is part of the “Museums10” initiative, whose first major project, Go Dutch! will celebrate Dutch art and culture beginning March 2006. A self-guided tour of Dutch objects in the museum’s collection will be part of the regionwide effort to entice Valley residents and visitors alike. Save the Date: Christmas Vespers Concert Mark your calendars now and plan to attend the traditional Christmas vespers concert on

Friday, December 9, at Old South Church in Boston. This year’s vespers will be the final official performance by conductor Catharine Melhorn, Hammond-Douglass Professor of Music and choral director. For more information, contact Cerise Jalelian-Keim ’81 at 781-861-7446.

classifieds

Classifieds are $2 a word and may be placed by members of the Mount Holyoke community. Send ad copy to mbomann@mtholyoke.edu or Mieke Bomann at the Alumnae Quarterly, MHC, 50 College St., South Hadley, MA 01075-1486. Please mail checks, made payable to the Alumnae Quarterly, to the same address. Sorry, no credit cards. For deadlines, see box at left.

New Christmas Vespers Through the Years CD Volume 3 (1 and 2 sold out). Glee Club, Concert Choir, Orchestra, Handbells, V-8s, Voices of Faith, more! $15 (MA residents $16) plus $3 mailing. Benefits MHC Choral Music Fund. Send checks [Mount Holyoke College] to Cindy White Morrell ’68, (cmorrell@mtholyoke. edu) 135 Woodbridge St., South Hadley, MA 01075 MHC Class and Club Products Lots of MHC-related class and club products are for sale. For details and photos of many items, please visit www.alumnae.mtholyoke. edu/item.cfm?id=56 or phone the Alumnae Association at 413-5382300 and request a printed copy of the information. Kitty B&B The best care in New England for your cat companion while you travel. Judy Belden ’78, www. bluecatfarm.com FIMO Necklaces and Hand-Knitted Winter Socks http://www.angelfire.com/mt/ holyoke/products.html 77

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Berkshire Vacation House Otis, MA. Mountain views, 50 acres private woodlands, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, contemporary furnishings. Weekly and monthly rentals available. Contact: Aimee, 617-335-8693. adebarb@hotmail.com

Preserve Memoirs and Memories Stamp & Stencil Studio, journaling, and artistic scrapbook services. Let your thoughts count for the ages! Kendall Tarr Inglese ’80. i2art@comcast. net, 781-334-5699. Over 200 pages completed for Gallery of Tributes, Mass Cultural Council.

Santa Fe Condo Rental Cozy 2 BR, 2 bath adobe condo with kiva fireplaces, short walking distance to historic plaza. Rent by week or month. Mary Kimmel Helne ’62, www. casa-sonrisa.com

Book: From Amherst to Cashmere Fifteen copies still available of Margaret Jean Taylor’s From Amherst to Cashmere, a handmade, boxed, bound-in-silk edition of fifty books, with ten color etchings for selected poems of Emily Dickinson. Cost $1,600. Between now and March 2007, 25 percent will go to the class of 1957’s fiftieth reunion

travel opportunities Village Life in the Alps SEPTEMBER 16–25, 2005 Enjoy a memorable, seven-night stay in the former Olympic village of Igls. The village’s working farms and charming shops are adjacent to historic Innsbruck, surrounded by the Alps. In southern Tyrol, visit Bolzano and Merano, Italy. View the amazing archaeological and geological find, the Iceman, a 5,300-yearold man found on the Italian-Austrian border in 1991. Visit a working Tyrolean farm; explore King Ludwig II’s fairytale Neuschwanstein Castle; and visit Mozart’s birthplace in Salzburg. This is an exclusive opportunity to experience the distinctive cultures and traditions of village life in the Alps of Austria, Italy, and Germany and to see how these multiple cultures have influenced the unique state of Tyrol. Ancient Treasures of Egypt FEBRUARY 10–20, 2006 Join veteran historian and photojournalist Payne Johnson and his wife, Linda Murray Johnson ’74, in retracing the epic 1836 expedition of John Lloyd Stephens, who traveled up the Nile, across the Red Sea, through the Sinai and Jordan. We begin in ancient Alexandria and move to the pyramids of Dahshour, Saqqara, and Giza before entering the twisted alleys of Cairo. A short flight takes us to visit Luxor’s monuments and tombs before embarking on a Nile cruise to explore scattered shoreline temples. A sevenday, post-tour extension (February 20–26) travels across the Red Sea to St. Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai. In Jordan, view Lawrence of Arabia’s hidden valley, then study the stunning Red Rose city of Petra. Finally, we’ll visit the oldest mosaic map of the Holy Land and Mount Nebo, before ending at a beautiful resort on the Dead Sea.

gift. Send $5 for prospectus to Taylor, 46 Hillcrest Place, Amherst, MA 01002-2528, or visit www.mjtgallery.com Personal and Professional Coaching I can help you reach your goals. Coaching can be applied to many issues, including quality of life, completion of projects, career development and fulfillment of a lifelong aspiration. Sessions are conducted by phone. Would you like to explore it? Contact me for a complimentary coaching session. Laura Schreiber Washburn ’71, master’s from Stanford, licensed clinical social worker and trained coach. Coach@LauraWashburn.com

Sponsored by the Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College

Cruising the Mighty Mississippi A PRIL 20–29, 2006 (Tentative) This outstanding program combines a cruise on America’s greatest waterway—the Mississippi River—with an exploration of the events of the Civil War’s western campaign. After spending the night in New Orleans, we will embark on the steamboat Delta Queen and visit Oak Alley, and visit, among other sites, Huey P. Long’s old governor’s mansion in Baton Rouge; Natchez, one of the few towns to escape the ravages of the Civil War; and Vicksburg, site of one of the Civil War’s most tragic battles. We will spend one night in Memphis, and tour the battlefields of Shiloh National Military Museum Park. Exploring Spain’s History and Architecture MAY 20–31, 2006 (Tentative) Spain’s ancient civilization has left a wealth of architecture to explore, from prehistoric caves and Celtic settlements to Roman and Moorish monuments; Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance structures; Art Nouveau palaces; and more recently, Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim. Join Michael Davis, professor of art, as we explore these wonders, beginning in Madrid, where we will visit the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, the Prado Museum, and the eighteenth-century Royal Botanical Gardens, among others. In Toledo we will visit the Gothic-style cathedral; the Church of Santo Tomé, which houses El Greco’s masterpiece, The Burial of Count Orgaz; the synagogue of El Tránsito; and the cloister of the Church of San Juan de los Reyes. In northern Spain, we will see the Cathedral of Burgos and the Monastery of Las Huelgas Reales. In Bilbao, we’ll visit the Guggenheim Museum, then stop in Pamplona to visit the Gothic-style cathedral and the Museum of Navarra before arriv-

ing in Olite for a two-night stay. Our final stop will be Barcelona, where we will take a walking tour exploring the Gothic Quarter and Las Ramblas and visit the Cathedral, Santa Maria del Mar Church, and Antoni Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia. Outside of Barcelona, we visit the impressive Roman ruins of Empurie; Gerona, and finally, Montserrat. Waterways of Russia JULY 26–AUGUST 7, 2006 (Tentative) This distinctive tour follows the network of rivers, lakes, and canals that link Moscow with St. Petersburg. Golden-domed churches and quaint wooden villages dot the verdant landscape, and the gentle light of summer evenings gives an otherworldly dimension to Russia’s great “blue road” of waterways. This travel program will include three full days in Moscow; six days of cruising the Volga, Svir, and Neva rivers and Lakes Rybinskoye and Beloye; and three full days in St. Petersburg. Accommodations throughout the program will be aboard the comfortable ninety-fourpassenger M.S. Yesenin. By virtue of its low passenger capacity, this Austrian-managed vessel offers a personal level of service not found on larger ships. Highlights include a visit to the Kremlin and a tour of Red Square. Among your ports of call along the great “blue road” are Uglich, Yaroslavl, Goritsy and Kizhi Island. Conclude in St. Petersburg, Russia’s “window to the West,” with its exquisite architecture, canals, and bridges. Other 2006 Tours: Village Life in the Italian Lake District SEPTEMBER 13–20, 2006 (Tentative) Australia and New Zealand: From the Outback to the Glaciers O CTOBER 21–N OVEMBER 9, 2006 (Tentative)

INTERESTED? For more information, visit http://www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu, and look under Association Services. Or contact Nancy Lech, Lech Educational Travel, c/o Alumnae Association, MHC, 50 College St., South Hadley, MA 01075-1486; 413733-1921, nlech@msn.com.

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

last

look In Session Reading and Writing in the World By Faye Wolfe

MeiCheng Song ’07, Courtney E. Moore ’07

Our series of visits to MHC courses continues with a close-up look at English 267s/Environmental Studies 267s. The course description reads: “‘Most people are on the world, not in it.’—John Muir. An introduction to reading and writing about nature. This seminar will attempt an exchange across what are considered distinct approaches to observing and describing the world around us. Do lenses of culture, discipline, and gender determine how we see and experience nature, environment, and place? Course work will include reading such authors as Momaday, Thoreau, bell hooks, Austin, Lopez, Stegner, and Dillard; frequent field trips; and writing projects—weekly field notes and journals, analytical papers, and personal essays.” Course descriptions don’t usually begin with a quote, but this isn’t just any course. For a start, it brings together the different backgrounds and teaching styles of English professor John Lemly and geology professor Lauret Savoy. The syllabus includes work, spanning two centuries, by novelists, naturalists, and journalists. There’s Thoreau, of course, but also bell hooks, writing movingly of her “coming from country black folks,” whose works aren’t what Lemly calls “canonical texts”—not yet. The course also crosses literal thresholds. The class walks in the woods and stays overnight in a Berkshires farmhouse (recommended gear: sleeping bags, cameras, and journals; already on site: waterfall, fireplace, bird books, and a big pot for cooking pasta). John Muir’s challenging words express Lemly and Savoy’s aim to have students question as well as observe,

Field trips gave students time to reflect on and experience the natural setting that figured prominently in class discussions. Courtney E. Moore ’07 says the trips “connected us to a local landscape and was a great chance to expand our nature writings and enjoy the beautiful weather.”

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Summer 2005

engage as well as record. The course grew from their mutual desire “to humanize earth studies and question the tradition of nature writing, which seems mostly the enclave of Euro-Americans,” as Lemly describes it. He calls Savoy’s recent anthology of essays, The Colors of Nature: Culture, Identity, and the Natural World, coedited with Alison Deming, “a very important intervention that introduces and brings together writers of many cultural backgrounds.” In a class on Terry Tempest Williams’s Refuge, Savoy asks how “passion for a place becomes a politics of place.” She teases two students who start talking at once only to defer immediately to each other: “You guys are so polite!” Mostly, Savoy just listens carefully and with a few words affirms the value of each student’s contribution, as the class explores the naturalist’s account of her mother dying of cancer as the Great Salt Lake rises and submerges a major western bird sanctuary. Lemly listens too, shaggy head bowed slightly, shirttail escaping an inch or two in the back, then gently prods the conversation. He asks how Williams’s religion (she’s a Mormon) and her feminism are connected or at odds. As he and Savoy guide the discussion, big ideas seem to emerge as inevitably as the red florets appearing on the sugar maples beyond the Shattuck Hall windows. The students work to grasp the book’s paradoxes; several return to a passage they find especially significant. “My refuge exists in my capacity to love. If I can learn to love death, then I can begin to find refuge in change.” The blackboards fill with a vision of Refuge, woven of students’ threads of thought about Williams’s treatment of the nature of pain, loss, and nature itself. The book Lemly calls “the culminating text” of the course seems to bring students and faculty to a profound understanding of all that nature writing can be and do. And as Deb Simpson FP’06 notes, “In following winter into spring, the course becomes a discovery of your own growth and your own self.” Web Extra: To read more work written by students in this class, please visit www. alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/go/chapbook 80

Sunshine State of Mind I want spongy earth as my pillow. I want musty soil as my perfume. I want to feel the earth flowing within my veins. I want the freedom of childhood laughter. I want sunshine dancing on my eyelids. I want the shade of a lazy summer’s day. I want the coolness of a swimming hole. Can one lose oneself in the landscape, in a dream? Can one find oneself through the letting go? Can one run free through a field in their mind? Can one run free? Can one stop looking and see? Can one stop searching and be? I want to embrace infinite possibilities and unknowns. I want to feel the good, the bad and everything in between. I want the sunshine’s warmth to radiate within me. I want to live to be alive and not just to survive. I want to truly live in this present moment. I want to love this breath. Kim Guilbault '05 Middleburg Headlights shine on the single white line that divides the windy back road to my farm house in Middleburg, Virginia. The white soft clouds of ground fog gently comfort the car as its engine hums continuing down the road. Each farm we pass seems to have its own sound and story being whispered into the bright-stared sky. The ever present deep songs of katydids overtake the hushed classical music, and I open my window to take in the sensation. Nathalie Cooper '07 In Search of the Dam Brook In the first few moments I just feel. I try not to think—I need a clean mind. The world produces so many useless distractions that at times I feel like a dumpster who has needed emptying for years. My ears turn to running water and I take the wet Laurel Lane trail. Boots sinking in the mud. Left. Right. Left. It’s like walking on a cloud since the earth is so—soft. Maybe this is where I should be? I’m trying to find the Dam Brook. The sound of the water is coming from over the top of the hill. I want to sit in the middle of the dam but the stones are broken. I think now at this moment so much is changing in my life. I’m approaching an edge and even though I am frightened I want my new beginning. So, I test the stones carefully with my cane and take the first step. I’m okay and I continue. In just a brief moment I have learned to cross the edge to the new beginning and the only risk is that I might fall—Right here in this moment I stand. Karen Kakley '05 Excerpted from Breaking into Blossom, work by the spring 2005 Reading and Writing in the World class.

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Canoe Sing, a Mount Holyoke tradition since 1911.

Photograph courtesy of MHC Archives and Special Collections.

Canoe Sing and other cherished traditions are at the heart of Mount Holyoke. So is the tradition of giving. In the past year, more than 10,000 alumnae contributed $7.3 million to the Alumnae Annual Fund.

Thank you for your record-breaking level of support!

THE ALUMNAE ANNUAL FUND www.mtholyoke.edu/giving

a place of

our own

In my time at Mount Holyoke, my most valuable lessons were learned outside of the classroomâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;through my work with the Student Government Association, in my jobs at the Office of Student Programs and the Alumnae Association, and during my time studying abroad. I am graduating a confident and skilled young woman, feeling a sense of readiness to take steps into the next piece of my journey. Seeing all of the alumnae back on campus for Reunion, being welcomed into the Association during laurel parade, and our commencement ceremonies have brought on a deeper sense of pride in my school.

Fred LeBlanc

Lindsay L. Dunaj â&#x20AC;&#x2122;05 Student Government Association president