A lu m n ae Q uart e r ly
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Spring 2009
Dr. Heidi L. Behforouz '90 Her organization PACT serves sick and marginalized AIDS patients
Pathfinders in Public Health Alumnae Break New Ground Preventing Disease and Promoting Health
Also: Presidential Successions • College Finances • Senior Moments
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Pathfinders in Public Health By H a n n ah Wallac e ’ 95
Alumnae Break New Ground Preventing Disease and Promoting Health
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Financial Challenges What MHC Is Up Against Since the Market Downturn
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Tattoos: Stories in Ink
by H a n n ah C lay wa r e ham ’ 0 9 P h oto g r aph y by pau l sch n aittach e r
22 Humble Crusader by Emily H a r r is o n W e i r
Tashi Zangmo FP’99 Promotes Female Education in Bhutan
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2 Viewpoints: Your views on the new dorm, “green” living, and stay-at-home parenthood 4 Campus Currents: Creighton to step down in 2010; meet some seniors; fighting HIV/AIDS; a forgotten humanist 28 Off the Shelf: Mary Lyon’s writings; inside Le Bernardin 32 Alumnae Matters: New Alumnae Association president; award winners 37 Class Notes 78 Bulletin Board: Travel; museum matters On the cover:
Heidi L. Behforouz ’90, MD, founder and executive director of Prevention and Access to Care and Treatment, which serves Boston’s sickest and most marginalized AIDS patients Photo: Ben Barnhart This page:
Senior Hannah Clay Wareham displays the bird tattoo on her left arm Photo: Paul Schnaittacher
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Mount Holyoke Quarterly Spring 2009 • Volume 93 Number 1 Editor Emily Harrison Weir Associate Editor Mieke H. Bomann Class Notes Editor Jill parsons stern ’84 Designers James Baker Design Design Farm (Class Notes) Editorial Assistant Hannah Clay Wareham ’09 Quarterly Committee: Linda Giannasi O’Connell ’69 (chair), Kara C. Baskin ’00, Caitlin Healey ’09 (student rep.), Catherine Manegold (faculty rep.), Charlotte Overby ’87, Hannah Wallace ’95, Mary Graham Davis ’65, ex officio with vote Alumnae Association Board of Directors President* Mary Graham Davis ’65 Vice President* Maureen McHale Hood ’87 Clerk* Julianne Trabucchi Puckett ’91 Treasurer* Linda Ing Phelps ’86 Alumnae Quarterly Linda Giannasi O’Connell ’69 Alumnae Trustee Ellen Cosgrove ’84 Alumnae Relations Mary Ellen Reynolds ’91 Classes and Reunions Susan Swart Rice ’70 Clubs Lily Klebanoff Blake ’64 Director-at-Large Adrienne Wild Skinner ’77 Director-at-Large for Information Technology Elizabeth A. Osder ’86 Nominating Chair Jill M. Brethauer ’70 Young Alumnae Representative Akua S. Soadwa ’03 Executive Director Jane E. Zachary, ex officio without vote
The Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College 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. 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. General comments concerning the Quarterly should be sent to Emily Weir (eweir@mtholyoke. edu or Alumnae Quarterly, Alumnae Association, 50 College Street, South Hadley, MA 01075-1486). For class notes matters, contact Jill Parsons Stern ’84 (413-5383094, jstern@mtholyoke. edu). Contact Alumnae Information Services with contact information updates (same address; 413-538-2303; ais@mtholyoke.edu). Phone 413-538-2300 with general questions regarding the Alumnae Association, or visit www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu. The Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly (USPS 365-280) is published quarterly in the spring, summer, fall, and winter by the Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College, Inc., 50 College St., South Hadley, MA 01075-1486. Spring 2009, volume 93, number 1, was printed in the USA by Lane Press, Burlington VT. Periodicals postage paid at South Hadley, MA, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: (ISSN 00272493) (USPS 365-280) Please send form 3579 to Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly, 50 College Street, South Hadley, MA 01075-1486.
*Executive Committee The Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College, Inc., 50 College St., South Hadley, MA 01075-1486; 413538-2300; www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu.
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viewpoints
Ethanol Options
Regarding “Trouble in Your Tank? Ethanol Fuels More Problems Than It Solves” (fall 2008), in the state of Illinois we have Archer Daniels Midland Co., which pioneered in the production of ethanol from shelled corn. This firm is cooperating with Monsanto, John Deere, Conoco-Phillips, and Purdue University in the development of biofuels from cornstalks and husks. Two universities in Illinois offer degree programs in ethanol. Gas pumps in Illinois contain 10 percent ethanol. E85 (motor fuel containing 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline) corridors are being established. I have not understood why ethanol from sugar cane is not considered in the United States when this has been a success in Brazil. Janet Galbreath MA’52 Ava, Illinois
Dream Living Rather than ‘Green’ Living
Kara Baskin’s article, “Down to Earth” (winter 2009), seemed to extol the virtues of moving west, developing land, [and] building new houses no matter how “green” the
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materials, and buying new appliances, no matter how energy efficient. How about focusing on those alumnae who move closer to town and city centers, walk, use public transportation, buy at farmers markets, sell a car, and hang out the wash. Aren’t those the ones reducing their footprints? Anne Sanborn Lombard ’56 Northampton, Massachusetts
Green on the Cheap
I felt that your recent article on green living, “Down to Earth,” (winter) was one-sided. Although not everyone has the money to build a green oasis, it’s definitely not cost prohibitive to live green. Unfortunately, living green on the cheap isn’t glamorous, and it doesn’t benefit any corporation or government. In fact, it’s detrimental to them. Consequently, it’s not touted nearly as much as measures such as fluorescent light bulbs, which light bulb companies are more than happy to advertise widely. So, ten ideas at zero cost: eat less meat (or quit altogether), drive less (or quit altogether), turn down
your thermostat in winter or up in summer, line dry your clothes, take a shopping holiday (perhaps permanently), grow some of your own food, turn off your appliances when not in use (including that computer!), skip the vacuum and sweep or Swiffer instead, build a rain barrel to catch your outdoor water, and/or build a solar cooker for your summer cooking.
from dawn to dusk or care for our children full-time or settle for volunteer work or part-time options that pay little more than a token amount. And given the persistent wage gap, when one worker opts to stay home, it’s almost always the woman.
Every one of these actions will save you money, some significantly. Add them all up, and you can make a major reduction in your carbon footprint at a cost savings. The savings probably won’t afford you a green oasis but they will almost certainly cover a few fluorescent light bulbs.
Rather than argue with each other over the nobler or more satisfying path, let’s unite to promote systemic change that will allow both genders to participate meaningfully in the workforce and on the home front, so that we need not decide whether or not to continue working after having children or while caring for aging parents, but instead how to balance our desire to do both.
Kate Sandretto ’01 Madison, Wisconsin
Sherri Vanden Akker ’87 Reading, Massachusetts
Still Balancing Work and Family
I was saddened to read “Family Vs. Work” (winter 2009) because it indicated how little has changed for women. For decades, we have faced the dilemma of family versus work because the culture hasn’t fundamentally changed to allow genuine flexibility for women and men. Most of us must choose to work
More Than an Errand Girl
Lisa Wlodarski Romano’s article “Family vs. Work” reminded me once again that all of us women—mothers, nonmothers, “working” and otherwise—need to look beyond the narrow occupational categories that constrain our relationships and diminish
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our appreciation of many wonderful gifts to our collective welfare. I happen to have a fulltime job that I derive great satisfaction from and that pays me a monthly salary. But I am pretty sure that it is not the most important thing I do with my life. Indeed, nothing made me laugh more than Susan Abert Noonan’s comment that her family treats her as an “errand girl.” That is exactly how my two sons treat me. Despite the fact that I have worked every day of their lives, they continue to express genuine surprise when I cannot just drop what I am doing and do something they would like instead. Every now and then, in exasperation, I remind them that I am actually an academic department head [of history at MIT]. They always look at me with puzzlement as if that is entirely irrelevant to whatever scheme they happen to be promoting. Indeed, my older son called home late in November from his first semester at college to talk to me about his various academic struggles and his anxiety over how his professors would grade him. As I proceeded to give him advice, he finally said to me, “Oh, you’re actually a professor too, aren’t you, Mom?” It was a moment of genuine insight for him and a zinger for me, too. Anne Conger McCants ’84 Belmont, Massachusetts
Working Women All
I have been a stay-at-home
mom since 1998. This arrangement works well for me and my husband and, in large part, is necessary because of our son’s special needs. It is not the life I envisioned when I graduated in 1983, but I wasn’t blessed with a vivid imagination! Whether climbing the corporate ladder or climbing the bleachers to watch our child’s soccer game, we are all working women and deserve each other’s praise and support. Thanks to Lisa Wlodarski Romano ’89 (“Family vs. Work,” winter) for celebrating the lives of a few more “Uncommon Women” among our ranks. Anne Babcock O’Dell ’83 North Wales, Pennsylvania
Longing to Lounge
I had the opportunity to tour the new residence hall during reunion last spring, and I’m glad to hear that it opened to rave reviews. When our tour guide took us into one of the floor lounges, I recalled how nice it was to have floor lounges in Prospect when I was a student, and since my class was housed in Prospect, I realized that the floor lounges are no longer there. (They were converted into muchneeded rooms.) I hope that as the new residence hall allows the college to embark on a rotation of upgrades to the older residence halls, consideration will be given to reintroducing floor lounges into Prospect and some of the other dorms. It was nice to be able to wander just a few feet from one’s room, books in arms
to study while a roommate slept, or to chat briefly while a roommate studied. Also, the occasion of my writing prompts me to say how much I appreciate your new series on “What everyone should know about...” and the professorial insights you are providing on current issues. Thank you! Deborah Simpson Hutchings ’78 Walpole, New Hampshire
Where the Heck Is It?
I have now had two publications from the college that featured the new dorm. There has been no mention of where it is on campus, or its name. Don’t you think this is relevant information? It may not have a name yet, but it must be located somewhere! I’d be interested to know more. Judy Clarke Johanson ’55 Brunswick, Maine Editor’s reply: The new residence hall is located where the parking lot south of Pratt Hall (the music building) used to be. Thus the new dorm faces Rooke Theatre, with Stony Brook visible behind the building. Morgan Street borders the far end of the residence hall. The new dorm is known universally by students as “the new dorm” and has not received a more official moniker. (Little-known tidbit: because the building has no official name, pizza companies won’t deliver there. So students living in the new dorm must cross the street to AbbeyBuckland to pick-up their pizzas.)
Lots more letters to the Quarterly—we asked, we received, thanks!—have been posted to the Quarterly online. Read them at www. alumnae.mtholyoke. edu/go/sp09letters.
Got Opinions? Let Us Know! We continue to welcome letters for the printed Quarterly. Indeed, we crave them. What’s the use of singing our hearts out to an empty theater? We need your ideas, your opinions, your letters. Let us know what you think! Please! Of course, we will edit your letters for accuracy, length, and clarity. (There ain’t nothin’ that don’t git better with some good editin’.) [Really, you’ll thank us.—the editors] You can also post your comments on our “blogazine” online (www. alumnae.mtholyoke.edu). We especially like hearing from you by e-mail. Send your thoughts, then, to mbomann@ mtholyoke.edu. You’ll feel better—and so will we.
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plan and its $300 million fundraising campaign (in progress,) as well as responding to the ongoing financial crisis. College Board of Trustees Chair Leslie Anne Miller ’73 notes that the search process for a successor will start immediately and will include participation by all segments of the college community. In July 2010, Creighton plans to take a sabbatical and continue her leadership role in Women’s Education Worldwide. For more information about President’s Creighton’s tenure, go to mtholyoke.edu/offices/ comm/pres/story.html. The Quarterly plans to commemorate Creighton’s years at the college in the spring 2010 issue.
President Joanne V. Creighton will step down at the end of the 2009–2010 academic year after nearly fifteen years of service. The seventeenth president of MHC, Creighton informed the college’s faculty of her decision at a special meeting in February. “An extraordinary and palpable esprit de corps emanates out of the college’s inspiring history and mission; that spirit has been the engine of our
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collective success during the past dozen plus years,” Creighton wrote in a message to the broader community. Creighton’s tenure has been marked by significant achievements. Since she assumed the presidency in 1996, applications for admission have risen by 50 percent; ninety new tenuretrack faculty were hired, and 81 percent of alumnae have participated in two fundraising campaigns.
The last sixteen months of Creighton’s tenure will be busy and will include the completion of the college’s current strategic
Hummingbirds a Hit Christopher Benfey’s A Summer of Hummingbirds was named one of the best nonfiction books of 2008 by the Christian Science Monitor, the Washington Post, and the Boston Globe. Benfey is MHC’s Mellon Professor of English.
Ben Barnhart
President Joanne V. Creighton to Step Down in 2010
“Joanne has a remarkable ability to bring out people’s best selves in service of the greater good,” said Mary Graham Davis ’65, president of the Alumnae Association. “The constructive agenda she has set for the extended Mount Holyoke community has kept alumnae informed and engaged. We have seen we really can make a positive difference in the life of our alma mater. The strong partnership we enjoy between the association and the college is no doubt one of Joanne’s most important legacies.”
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Hometown: Wiscasset, Maine Major: Environmental studies with a concentration in culture and the environment Studied/worked abroad in Cairns, Australia, where she created a guide for Aboriginal Australians to record their oral history and cultural heritage. Also interned in a Mayan village in Mexico.
Caitlin Lupton
Greatest lesson learned in past four years: “Learning is not done just in the classroom; it comes through experience internationally, nationally, annually, and daily.”
Massachusetts, that advocates on behalf of indigenous peoples around the world Guilty pleasure: Vogue magazine and others like it Hobbies: Anything outdoors. She loves hiking, biking, and most important, skiing. What’s next: Possibly Fulbright research in Colombia in conjunction with a national park or working with a nonprofit that promotes the rights and voices of indigenous peoples.
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Caitlin Lupton
Favorite Web site: www. culturalsurvival.org, a nonprofit in Cambridge,
Senior Moments
Pau l S c h n a i t tac h e r
MHC seniors are putting the final touches on their undergraduate years and anticipating with hope and some caution their escape to “the outside world.” They understand the good fortune their degrees represent—no matter the debt they’ve racked up, in some cases—and are wickedly hopeful of their futures. The seniors featured in this issue have all participated in the college’s Learning From Application (LEAP) program, which involves doing significant independent research in the laboratory and around the world. They are interesting people. Take a look. —M.H.B. Molly Buermann
Music Genome Project
Hometown: South Hero, Vermont
Guilty pleasure: Watching reruns of “The West Wing”
Major: Biology
Hobbies: Environmental Action Coalition, dressage team
Greatest lesson learned in past four years: How to effectively balance academics and extracurriculars, and manage her time Favorite Web site: www. pandora.com, home of the
What’s next: Either graduate school for plant molecular biology, or working for an environmental conservation company in Vermont
Molly Buermann
Something else that matters: Her thesis research examines the movement of nutrients from leaves to grains in aging crop plants. The research goal is more nutritious crop cultivars and reduction of world hunger.
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Marcia Catherine Schenck Hometown: Wuppertal, Germany Major: International relations and Five College African studies certificate Studied/worked abroad: Lots. Last summer she took research trips to southern Africa for her history honors thesis, “Land, Water, Truth, and Love; Visions of Identity and Land Access: From Bain’s Bushmen to Khomani San.”
Marcia Catherine Schenck
Greatest lesson learned in past four years: “Believe in yourself, act on your ideas, and live your passion!”
Guilty pleasure: Jewelry from all over the world and books on absolutely everything Hobbies: African drumming, dancing, piano, reading, photography, letter writing, hiking, poetry What’s next: First, returning to South Africa to present her thesis findings to the San people she worked with. In the fall, she will begin a master’s degree program in African studies at Oxford. Anything else that matters to you: “Behind every great woman there are other great women.”
Taylor Nelson
Taylor Nelson Hometown: Newburyport, Massachusetts Major: Studio art Studied/worked abroad: Spent an “amazing” semester in Florence, Italy, and interned for Mercado Global in Panajachel, Guatemala, as a jewelry designer and instructor for its Artisan Capacity Building Program
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Greatest lesson learned in past four years: “Not to limit myself. Keeping an open mind has allowed me to discover endless possibilities for my future.” Favorite Web site: “Due to my current job search frenzy, www.idealist.org” Guilty pleasure: Watching the television show Bones while indulging in Reese’s peanut butter cups
Hobbies: Rowing on the crew team, traveling, and jewelry making What’s next: A job in the nonprofit sector, possibly with a fairtrade organization working to promote artisan handicrafts internationally
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S c h e n c k b y P a u l S c h n a i t t a c h e r • N e l s o n b y H a n n a h Wa r e h a m ’ 0 9 • I l l u s t r a t i o n b y K a t h e r i n e S a n d o z ’ 9 1 • B o o k : M i e k e B o m a n n
Despite the depressed economy and a race to the doors of public universities by many prospective college students, applications to MHC by mid-February were holding almost steady with last year and had surpassed its 3,000-application benchmark. “The numbers look good,” said Jane Brown, vice president for enrollment and college relations. While the class won’t be fully established until June, she notes that with financial hardship mounting for families everywhere, being just two percentage points under last year’s secondhighest applicant pool ever “is a moral victory.” Applications for early admission were a different story—down by about 18 percent. Brown said families simply needed to be able to compare financial aid packages from different schools, which MHC’s binding admittance does not allow. (Students who take early admission must agree to withdraw their applications from all other schools.) The decline in numbers reflects that reality, she added. The college’s greatest challenge will continue to be meeting the financial needs of accepted students, Brown said. The number of students asking for aid, and more of it, has grown 5 percent this year, to 80 percent of all applicants. And while the college remains committed to
meeting every accepted student’s financial need, it has its own budgetary challenges to address. (See related story, page 18.) Getting accepted students in the door come August is a key focus in the spring months, when prospective students weigh their options. Brown says the college likely will admit a few more students this year to ultimately hit its target, for several reasons: fewer may decide on MHC, thanks to the poor economy; fewer college-age students are coming out of the Northeast; and many students are attracted to large, urban institutions that link education to professional development. While the challenges are substantial, Brown notes that the college is still attracting “talented young women who want to make a difference in the world,” and is hopeful that additional federal aid will be available to students.
campuscurrents
Applications to MHC Hold Steady in Unsteady Times
Trays Un-Chic They’re impossible to miss: green plastic trays stacked in every dining hall and the Blanchard Café. However, it’s not often that they’re seen in use by students. The majority of hungry MHC women prefer to balance their plates piled high with food, cutlery, and glasses of soda sans tray. Maybe they’re thinking of the water they’ll save by not dirtying a tray. More likely, they know the truth about trays—they’re just not très chic.
College Dems top Campaigners
“Mary Lyon’s purpose was to create a school to educate women of modest means,” she noted. The school’s commitment to them remains strong.— M.H.B.
Rare books open in common spot Following a threemonth renovation, the college’s rare book collection was moved from the seventh floor of Miles-Smith into an expanded and improved Archives and Special Collections suite on the ground floor of Dwight Hall last November. The renovation includes
This 1601 atlas, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Theater of the World), by Abraham Ortelius, is part of MHC’s rare book collection.
a new rare book room with compact shelving, a refurbished reading room, and a state-of-the-art security system.
MHC Democrats were the winners of a statewide voter registration competition among all Massachusetts college Democrats chapters, and also won the Battleground State Competition in New Hampshire for sending more students there to campaign (and organizing more phone banks on campus) than any other school in Massachusetts. They were presented with a check for $100 and honored at a private dinner with U.S. Sen. John Kerry and campaign leaders at the Massachusetts Democratic Party headquarters in Boston.
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Erinn Hasselgren ’09 in front of her dams display
Faculty Awards This year’s recipients of annual faculty awards were Jane Crosthwaite in religion and Paul Staiti in art, for teaching; and Lilian Hsu in biochemistry, and Fred Moseley in economics, for scholarship.
Tops in Peace
Small-scale hydropower turbines on campus dams was the focus of senior Erinn Hasselgren’s project in the Environmental Studies Senior Seminar on view at Blanchard Campus Center first semester. The college has investigated the idea, which could reduce the campus’s carbon footprint by about 270 tons of carbon annually. But installation costs of dams on Upper and Lower Lakes would be about $1.2 million, and the project would not break even for at least two decades. If public funding for small renewable-energy projects becomes available, or electricity costs spike, the college may reconsider, says John Bryant, director of facilities management. Seminar students also researched local food options in dining halls, a solar photovoltaic energy system on top of the athletic center, and a campus bikeshare program.
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Noble Notions from the “dismal science” Professor of Economics Fred Moseley and a group of progressive economists were invited by the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts to develop policies for economic revival. Read their wonderfully clear statement of principles at http://www.peri.umass. edu/fileadmin/pdf/other_ publication_types/PERI_ SCEPA_statementJan27. pdf.
Zoe Darrow
Student Edge Not Just Fiddlin’ Around With a sweetness that mimics the Celtic musical traditions she embraces, Zoe Darrow ’11 is describing a summer she spent playing her fiddle on the street in Northampton, Massachusetts. She was about eight years old. “The first couple of times were nerve-wracking,” she recalls. “I was nervous [about] performing and also my dad was nervous— he knew that on the streets you are exposed to all sorts of characters. “But it was so wonderful. You’re not performing quite yet. You don’t have a standing crowd. You can play one song as many times as you want. It was a really awesome step and it helped.” Helped Darrow establish her fiddling career, that is, which included the release of a CD at age
twelve, comparison to Celtic fiddling star Natalie MacMaster soon after, sold-out performances around the Northeast, and the desire to study ethnomusicology at MHC. Darrow was homeschooled by her mom in rural western Massachusetts and started taking classical violin lessons when she was four. But after hearing the performance of a Prince Edward Island fiddler, she was drawn to the lively dance music that moved her in a way the classical tradition did not. She began taking lessons in the different Celtic fiddle styles and over the years has taken classes and attended workshops given by masters of the Cape Breton Island and Prince Edward Island musical forms that are most to her liking. Her energetic performance style on stage, with her band—Zoe Darrow and the Fiddleheads, which includes her dad, a substitute teacher, on guitar, and friend Tom Colburn on piano—has been likened to
Hasselgren by Tekla M acInerney • Darrow by Andrea Burns
Powerful Ideas
MHC remains on the Peace Corps’ top twentyfive list of small schools producing volunteers. With fifteen alumnae currently serving as Corps volunteers, the college is twentieth in the rankings. Since the Corps’ inception, 152 alumnae have joined the Peace Corps. They are currently serving in Cameroon, Jamaica, Jordan, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger, Paraguay, Romania, Senegal, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine on projects related to education, the environment, and health and HIV/AIDS.
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a “caffeinated gyroscope.” Darrow says she simply allows herself to enjoy the music—which is, after all, “a social music, a dance music, a party music”— and show it. (She’s a stepdancer, too.)
and certainly not for Angelo Mazzocco, who since retiring from MHC five years ago has kept a scholarly schedule that would leave most of us breathless, if not downright tense.
Looking ahead, Darrow says she’s unsure of a career as a performer but knows she’ll never stop playing her fiddle. “It’s really satisfying to have something that I know I’m good at and understand,” says Darrow.— M.H.B.
Emeritus professor of Spanish and Italian and a scholar of medieval and Renaissance culture, Mazzocco published Interpretations of Renaissance Humanism in 2006, was then a visiting scholar at the American Academy in Rome, has delivered lectures at various universities and international conferences, and was appointed visiting professor in Italian at Yale in fall 2007.
To learn more about Darrow and listen to her band play, go to www.zoedarrow.com.
M azzocco : Andrea Burns • Global Cont est : duong Tr an ’09
Global Images contest Students who studied, interned, or conducted research abroad in the last year were invited to enter the 2008 Global Images Contest. Each chose one photo they had taken abroad that captured a powerful insight they had experienced, and submitted it along with a title and an explanation. Above is a winning photo. Other winners and honorable mentions are displayed at www.mtholyoke.edu/ global/15594.shtml
But his most challenging project is just beginning. For the next two years, Mazzocco will work on a book about one of the leading—but not thoroughly studied— Renaissance humanists, Biondo Flavio (also
Emeriti Professors An O cc a si on a l S e r i es
Remembering a forgotten humanist Many people dream of retirement as a poolside or back-nine vacation, free of any of the tasks or issues that consumed them in their professional lives. That isn’t the case with many academics,
known as Flavio Biondo and generally referred to simply as Biondo), thanks to a Mellon Emeritus Fellowship. The highly competitive $55,000 grant—the first of its kind awarded to an MHC
Where do we fly kites? New Delhi. The Kidwai-Nalla canal meanders through much of Delhi’s waste, among which one can spot the sporadic movements of cows, stray pigs, and occasional curious monkeys. What’s more noticeable is an array of shacks that are home to some of the 85,000 waste pickers who collect and resell recyclables from the capital’s waste. Despite their important role, the sector is often marginalized in Indian society, their living conditions dire, their children rejected by public schools. Lacking a common space, the polluted canal has, unfortunately, become the children’s playground. These three boys were preparing to show me how to fly the kite they had made from discarded newspaper.— Duong Tran ’09
emeritus professor—will enable Mazzocco to travel to European and US research libraries, as well as purchase resources related to his project for the MHC library. “In a way,” says Mazzocco, “Biondo is the forgotten one among the major humanists.” Although understood by scholars to have been enormously influential in his day and arguably the first modern historian of western Europe, Biondo’s books on medieval history, antiquarianism, and historical geography are enormous, “difficult to handle,” and densely typed folios that generally elicit the response, laughs Mazzocco, of “I’m not gonna read that damn thing!” But Mazzocco forged ahead and, since writing his dissertation on Biondo more than forty years ago
as a doctoral candidate at UC–Berkeley, has read most of the humanist’s works. While he has written “on and off ” about Biondo, “people for years have been lamenting the fact that no one has written [the definitive book on him]. …So I decided to do it.” In the book, to be titled Biondo Flavio and Renaissance Thought, Mazzocco examines the humanist’s writings in the context of the cultural trends of the time, and relates how Biondo’s ideas were later appropriated throughout the rest of Europe, most notably by prominent English historian Edward Gibbon. Mazzocco looks ahead. In the midst of his emerging book project, the emeritus professor keeps his hand in yet another, a study of Renaissance humanism throughout Italy and the
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Brainstorms The People’s perspective Up until the tenth grade, everything that Samba Gadjigo read in school was either in French, about France, or related to the European culture of the French colonists who occupied his country, Senegal, in West Africa until independence in 1960. It wasn’t until he came across fellow Senegalese Ousmane Sembène’s Les Bouts de Bois de Dieu (God’s Bits of Wood), a novel set in locations that were familiar to him, and with characters whose names matched his own, that Gadjigo understood the power of narrative to both imprison a country and set a people free. “He made me lose my political innocence,” Gadjigo notes of the late writer and filmmaker, who was deeply committed to African identity and self-esteem. Every spare moment he has, Gadjigo vows, will be spent helping to keep Sembène’s work alive in the public’s memory. “He was one of the first writers [I read] who speaks not from the perspective of the winner but from the perspective of the people.” A professor of French at MHC since 1986, Samba Gadjigo has worked to connect younger
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generations of Africans and African-American youth with Sembène’s work through a biography, Ousmane Sembène: Une Conscience Africaine, to be published in English in late 2009; a documentary of the making of Sembène’s last film, Moolaade, in which African village women bravely rebel against genital mutilation; and now with another documentary that revisits Sembène’s life. To complete it, Gadjigo has received a grant from the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund. “If you go to Africa today, our entire landscape is littered with monuments to people who have dominated us,” notes Gadjigo. “Senegal still celebrates De Gaulle’s call to resistance against German occupation in 1918. But go to the University of Dakar today, take five students and ask them ‘Who is Sembène?’ and maybe one knows.” By distributing his film to as many schools and universities as possible, Gadjigo hopes to do justice to Sembène’s understanding that “in the twenty-first century, any people that is not in control of its own images is bound to disappear.” It won’t be easy. Sembène’s films are largely ignored by African theaters more interested in the latest Holly/Bollywood fare. Young Africans, like their peers abroad, prefer the contemporary offerings on YouTube. But like Sembène, Gadjigo thinks shaping identity and national selfhood through serious words and evocative pictures will ultimately have the greatest impact.
Samba Gadjigo
“[Sembène] realized that the best way to participate in activism was not in the streets but through cultural production. To act politically is to act on the present,” Gadjigo notes. “To act culturally is to act on history.”—M.H.B.
Kendall Dance wing nearly done The dance and performance studios renovation at Kendall Sports and Dance Complex were well under way and expected to open at the end of March. Part of a three-phase upgrade to the facility, the new dance performance wing includes a pair of dance practice studios and a performance studio with
seating, curtains, lighting, and a skylight. Beginning in March, the current dance studios were being converted to a state-of-the-art fitness center with airconditioning and skylights. New cardiovascular and strength equipment will be added. The hallway outside the fitness center will be renovated with glass walls and new lighting. The current weight room in the basement also will be renovated. The project will result in over 8,000 square feet of space for fitness. The entire renovation is slated to be completed by the end of 2009.—Mike Raposo, sports information director
Andrea Burns
rest of Europe. And he insists there is still time to ski and take walks. A round of golf is not, however, on the docket.—M.H.B.
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More than 33 million people worldwide are infected with HIV/AIDS, according to the World Health Organization. In 2006 alone, an estimated 56,000 people were newly infected in the United States. Still, many people have an outdated understanding of the disease, and Aleefia Somji ’09 is part of a student organization working to address the misperceptions. A biology major first drawn to the virus because of its unusual makeup, Somji became more interested in the social aspects of the disease after working in India last summer. Coordinator of a program called Wake Up Pune, named for the city in which she worked, Somji saw how Indian students’ erroneous perceptions about transmission of the virus and living with the disease changed thanks to accurate information and talking about HIV/AIDS with their peers. “Lack of education leads to fear and stigma,” she noted. “It’s more the stigma that is killing people than the infection.” At MHC, she is cochair of the Student Global AIDS Campaign, a national group with chapters on hundreds of campuses. Its first project this year was a roster of events for World AIDS Day in December, including HIV testing (so popular that students had to be turned away); a debate on the issues surrounding HIV; and a
staff in 1991. Under her tutelage, four MHC Lyons have earned All-America accolades.
Aleefia Somji ’09 and “Wake Up Pune” colleague Esther Grimes model Positive T-shirts.
talk about the epidemic in South Africa. This semester she helped launch the HIV Positive Campaign with a series of workshops in the dorms addressing the virus and its stigma, condom awareness, and discrimination. “The point is to normalize discussion around HIV,” explains Somji, whose approach mimics the “HIV boot camps” she helped stage in Pune. “We will do pre- and postworkshop surveys of students’ knowledge. ” The college health center is training students to deliver the education portion of the workshop. T-shirts that say “HIV Positive” will also be distributed. A play on words, the shirts are intended to stimulate conversations and shift attitudes about the disease that has killed more than 25 million people worldwide. “Anyone can get infected,” Somji points out. “The virus doesn’t discriminate.”—M.H.B
2009-10 Fees Set At their winter meeting, the MHC Board of Trustees set tuition, room, and board for the academic year 2009–10 at $50,390, a 3.9 percent increase from last year’s fee while reiterating the college’s commitment to a robust financial aid program. This is the lowest increase in thirty-five years.
Crew coach friedman headed for hall of fame Longtime MHC crew coach Jeanne Friedman has been selected for induction into the Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. One of the most wellrespected coaches in the region, Friedman’s teams have captured five Seven Sisters titles, one NEWMAC championship, and numerous medals at the Eastern College Athletic Conference and New England regional championships since she joined the Mount Holyoke
“She is a true pioneer, who fought for equal rights for female athletes as a college student in the 1970s and has committed her entire professional life to providing opportunities for women to grow and develop through sport,” said MHC Director of Athletics Laurie Priest. As a student-athlete at Boston University, Friedman captured a pair of gold medals at the National Women’s Rowing Association National Championships. She went on to earn seven medals at the United States Rowing Association Masters National Regatta and numerous gold medals in division championships in subsequent years. In addition to her duties at the college, she serves as the executive director of Rowing Strong, Rowing Together, a joint program with the Mount Holyoke crew team and the Care Center of Holyoke that uses rowing to help inner-city parenting teens learn teamwork, gain selfconfidence, and improve self-esteem. She is also a coach at the Row as One camp, run by Holly Metcalf ’81, an Olympic gold medal oarswoman. The camp helps women (average camp age is forty-five) learn to row or get coaching they usually do not have access to.—Mike Raposo
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Student campaign seeks end to hiv stigma
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Pathfinders in Public Health Alumnae Break New Ground Preventing Disease and Promoting Health B y H a n n a h Wa l l a c e ’ 9 5
The public health challenges of the twenty-first century are vast—antibiotic resistance is on the rise, childhood obesity is rampant, and nearly fifty million Americans are still without health care. Add the effects of global warming, cholera outbreaks in Africa, and the continuing HIV/ AIDS pandemic and these combined hurdles seem overwhelming, possibly insurmountable. Fortunately, Mount Holyoke alumnae are making significant strides in public health by founding innovative community-health organizations, launching national wellness initiatives, and collaborating with communities in Zimbabwe to stanch the cholera epidemic, to name just a few. 12
Deborah Klein Walker ’65, EdD Title: Vice president and principal associate at Abt Associates, a public health consulting firm; former president of the American Public Health Association Major at MHC: Psychology Thirty years ago—when she was working at the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare— Deborah Klein Walker didn’t even know what public health was. Today, she’s a nationally respected public health expert known for her leadership on maternal- and child-health issues as well as substanceabuse programs. She discovered public health while teaching community child-health studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and “never looked back.” During her fifteen years at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Walker helped reduce the infant mortality rate. In fact, during her
tenure, Massachusetts became the state with the lowest infant-mortality rate. (It also had one of the lowest teen-pregnancy rates.) Now, at Boston consulting firm Abt Associates, she is the principal investigator in the company’s domestichealth division, where she juggles four to five projects at once. In addition to evaluating federal programs such as Healthy Start, she and her team help government agencies devise strategies to make programs more effective. One of the most exciting tasks before her now is advising the Maternal and Child Health Bureau on how to improve its Healthy Start programs around the country, specifically strengthening “interconception” care for women—covering the period between births. (Currently, Medicaid only covers a poor woman during her pregnancy and for one postpartum visit; then she falls out of the system unless she gets
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Fac i n g pag e : M at t h ew J. L e e / b o st o n g lo b e
Deborah Walker, shown here (back row, center) visiting a clinic in Uganda, says she’s in public health because it is “the practice of social justice.”
pregnant again.) Though Walker has just begun designing her approach, it will include linking women to needed services such as family planning, mental health, and counseling; encouraging insurers to cover health visits; and educating women to take folic acid for the prevention of spina bifida. Walker is also leading a five-year evaluation of a new Department of Health and Human Services program that’s geared
toward improving healthy child development in six states across the country. Among other things, it will provide home visits, parent support, and development screening in primary-care offices—services that are not covered by Medicaid.
there to assure the health of everyone. And only the government entity has that mandate,” she says. “You can do all you want from the private sector, but you’re still not responsible for every single person in that community.”
Though she loves her work at Abt Associates, Walker says there’s nothing like working in the government sector, where people are driven by the same social mission to improve others’ lives. “Public health is
What would you ask President Obama to do for public health?
to my office be healthy.’ I mean it on a bigger level—you have to have support in the community and address all the social determinants of health. You make sure that kids have a safe way to walk to school, which addresses the obesity epidemic. You make sure the price of tobacco is high so kids don’t smoke.”
Address prevention. “A lot of people say ‘prevention,’ but they mean, ‘let’s help this person who came
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PACT-trained community-health workers visit patients daily to make sure they take their medications.
Title: Founder and executive director of Prevention and Access to Care and Treatment, which serves Boston’s sickest and most marginalized AIDS patients Major at MHC: Biochemistry One of the trickiest things about running a public health project is proving that it works. Prevention and Access to Care and Treatment (PACT), which Behforouz founded in 1997, is rare in that it shows measurable results. Using a standardized model
of intervention, PACTtrained community-health workers help inner-city AIDS patients, usually black or Latino, visiting them daily to make sure they take their meds and accompanying them to doctor’s visits. These are disenfranchised patients— many of whom are also burdened with other problems such as abusive relationships, substance abuse, and depression— who, despite having had conventional case managers in the past, are sick and dying. PACT communityhealth workers go a step further, forming a surrogate support network for the patient. “There is power [in] knowing the context
of the person’s life,” says Behforouz. Having a health advocate pays off: 75 percent of PACT patients improve dramatically, according to internal data that Behforouz and her team collected. But what really sets PACT apart—and why it’s being replicated by other US cities (including Baltimore, New York, and Miami) and even in Peru— is a twenty-five-point curriculum (including written modules and a patient workbook) that staff and patient work on together. The curriculum covers topics such as how to take antiretroviral medications, know what
“Direct critical care is great, but it’s like spitting in the ocean. When you do international public health, it’s still an ocean, but you’re throwing a whole bucket in there.”
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both a CD4 count and a viral load are, and how to schedule and prepare for appointments. Behforouz has also been asked to adapt the PACT model for other chronic diseases, such as diabetes, that disproportionately affect the poor. What would you ask President Obama to do for public health? Integrate community health workers into the medical system. “They are a critical piece of the puzzle. They are underutilized and need training, support, living wages, standardized interventions, and people to measure their impact.”
To p l e f t : B e n B a r n h a rt
Heidi L. Behforouz ’90, MD
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Kayla Jackson ’86, MPA (master’s in public administration) Title: Vice president for programs at the National Network for Youth in Washington, DC Major at MHC: English
Left: Scott Suchman; right: AP Images/Charles Dharapak
To p l e f t : B e n B a r n h a rt
Then presidentelect Barack Obama helps with a renovation project at DC’s Sasha Bruce Youthwork shelter for homeless teens. It’s part of the National Network for Youth.
“I always say my goal is to not have a job to come to,” says Kayla Jackson, vice president for programs at the National Network for Youth (NNY), the national membership association for community-based runaway and homeless youth organizations. Primarily an advocacy organization, NNY supports policies and legislation—such as the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act— that give federal funding to homeless youth groups. Jackson’s main role at NNY is running a Centers for Disease Control (CDC)–funded HIV prevention program called Street Smart, which specifically targets runaway and homeless youth. “Oftentimes you’re telling kids, ‘Delay having sex. Only have sex with someone who you are committed to and whose HIV status you know,’” says
Jackson. “Then you look at street kids who trade sex for money, shelter, food, and drugs. When it becomes part of the street economy, your choices narrow. You have to look at HIV
prevention in a completely different context.” In addition to developing the curriculum for Street Smart, to help prevent HIV and substance abuse,
Jackson has also begun training members across the country—so they can, in turn, train youth workers in their organizations to prevent HIV among runaways. During fifteen
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group meetings and one private counseling session, Street Smart teaches kids coping and negotiation skills, HIV/AIDS harm reduction, and how to identify personal triggers. She’s also working to bridge the gap between members (who tend to keep a low profile, since most people don’t like knowing there’s
a homeless shelter on their block) and schools, state homeless coordinators, and state health agencies—all of whom want to learn how to reach homeless youth better. Though homeless and runaway youth total an estimated 2.5 million in the United States, this population is virtually invisible, according to
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What would you ask President Obama to do for public health? Fund prevention initiatives across the board.
important in improving overall health status,” says Chuk. “We decided it was everybody: business has a role to play, education has its role to play, community organizations have a role to play, medical care has its own role to play.”
A Brief History of Public Health In 1854, a British physician named Dr. John Snow identified the source of a London cholera epidemic—a public well located just feet from an old cesspit. Snow is one of the fathers of modern-day public health, the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting healthy behaviors. Proper sanitation is just one of the public health achievements of the twentieth century. Others include immunization programs, familyplanning services, and motor-vehicle-safety laws (mandating the use of seatbelts, child-safety seats, and motorcycle helmets.) Today, leaders such as New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg have picked up where Dr. Snow left off, launching public health campaigns to ban smoking in bars and restaurants, outlawing transfats in restaurants, and requiring chain eateries to post calorie counts for all menu items.
Jackson. “You ask most people where the homeless youth gather in their area, and they’re not able to tell you.”
Michelle Chuk ’95, MPH Title: Senior adviser at the National Association for County and City Health Officials Major at MHC: Biology and anthropology Improving the health of all Americans is a lofty goal, but that’s exactly what Michelle Chuk has taken on by helping to lead her organization’s Alliance to Make US Healthiest (www.healthiestnation. org) initiative. NACCHO, a coalition of nearly 2,800 local US health departments, began this collaborative effort last year after conversations with the CDC and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials about how to improve health outcomes in the United States. “We started talking about what other sectors…are critically
The Alliance to Make US Healthiest (AMH) uses a “bottom up” approach—it hopes to encourage individuals to be more proactive about their health, and about demanding access to infrastructure (such as bike lanes, sidewalks, and healthier food at public schools) that encourages healthy behavior. AMH also serves as a clearinghouse of information—providing educational resources to community groups and activists, and linking members so they can share advice, materials, and know-how. Last year, after a big hepatitis C outbreak in Nevada, Chuk helped connect the Hepatitis Foundation International (a member of AMH) with a small Nevadabased organization that was seeking guidance on educating community members about hepatitis
“Prevention in this country is cut consistently. We spend so much money on treating disease, which is so much more expensive. But if you fund prevention—and you truly allow everyone access to appropriate preventive health care—that would save so much money.”
C. Because the Hepatitis Foundation was having a conference in Las Vegas, it was able to share its resources with the local organization at very little added cost. So far, Chuk and her team have secured as members more than 200 organizations (including Planned Parenthood, Target, and the American Heart Association) and 800 individuals. “We’re trying to build a grassroots momentum,” says Chuk. “Health should be an aspect of all policies, not just ‘health and medicine’ policies.” What would you ask President Obama to do for public health? Improve public health, not just health care. “Many of today’s most pressing domestic challenges can be addressed by improving public health. If you can make communities healthier overall, you will not only have healthier people. You will also have better outcomes in education, a better ability to address issues around public safety and security, a healthier workforce, more robust communities, and a healthier and more productive society.”
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Miriam Aschkenasy with a group of children from Dembi, a pastoralist association in Ethiopia. Dembi participates in Oxfam America’s drought early-warning surveillance system.
Miriam Aschkenasy ’94, MD, MPH Title: Public health specialist at Oxfam; works three emergency room shifts a month at Cambridge Hospital in Boston Learn More: For links to our alumnae’s organizations, and for more information about public health, visit alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/ go/publichealth.
Major at MHC: Biochemistry Trained as an emergencymedicine physician, Aschkenasy had an epiphany while in her second year of residency, in Kathmandu. “It just completely transformed me,” says Aschkenasy, who realized in Nepal that public health was the only way to help those who couldn’t reach the system on their own. She went on to earn her master’s in public health at Harvard, where she simultaneously completed a fellowship in
international emergency medicine and public health. Aschkenasy was assessing the environmental public health effects of Hurricane Katrina as a consultant for Oxfam when the agency advertised for its first public health specialist. She applied for the job, and in 2006, was hired to head the organization’s new public health initiative. Today, she works with Oxfam’s six regional offices, including Zimbabwe, where Oxfam is tackling the cholera epidemic by mapping faulty drinking water sources with GPS and working with local partners to repair them. They’re also conducting public health and hygiene education, launching a communitybased early-warning diarrhea surveillance system, and supplying oral rehydration solution to help treat cholera patients.
“Direct critical care is great, but it’s like spitting in the ocean. When you do international public health, it’s still an ocean, but you’re throwing a whole bucket in there.” What would you ask President Obama to do for public health? Cap malpractice awards. “Doctors do so much excessive testing out of fear of litigation. Capping malpractice would immediately reduce the cost of health care for everybody. There is no way to fix the current health care crisis without this being an aspect of it.” Hannah Wallace ’95 is a Brooklyn-based journalist and the senior editor at JANERA.com, an online magazine for global nomads.
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Financi al Ch allenges
carrie ruzicka by clara just
What MHC Is Up Against
Since a “perfect storm” swept the US economy off its foundations last fall, the waves have eroded finances everywhere, including at Mount Holyoke. As President Joanne V. Creighton wrote to the campus community in January, “In the past six months we have seen the financial markets move from shaky to steeply lower and the economy as a whole move from weakness to serious recession.”
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“The consensus view among financial experts is that the worst may not yet be over and that the recovery will be long and slow. The negative impact on Mount Holyoke and on higher education in general is already being felt, and it will continue well into the future. As a result, like many other institutions, the college needs to make both shortterm and longer-term changes to remain financially stable.” MHC’s endowment—the income from this fund accounts for about one-fifth of each year’s operating budget— dropped by $155 million in the last half of 2008. But Mount Holyoke is hardly alone in being hammered by the recession. A national survey released in late January noted that American college and university endowments lost an average of 23 percent during fall 2008. “This is the most challenging environment that any of us in higher education have seen in our professional lifetimes,” Molly Broad, president of the American Council on Education, told the Washington Post in January. This is true even though higher education’s endowments generally outperformed the market during the fall slide. For example, the S&P 500 index dropped nearly 29 percent during the second half of 2008, while MHC’s endowment value slid 22 percent during this period. And Mount Holyoke’s situation is far better than that of many. Our endowment’s market value ranks among the top 115 nationally, and the current financial trouble comes after years of extraordinarily good returns due to prudent investment of our endowment funds.
carrie ruzicka by clara just
Still, budget gaps are significant across the education spectrum. To fill them, institutions are considering or implementing various combinations of steep spending cuts, hiring freezes, layoffs, tuition hikes, and increasing the amount drawn from the endowment for current spending needs. In the article that follows, President Creighton details how the college is stewarding its finances to preserve core values while weathering the financial storm.—E.H.W.
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Mount Holyoke is fortunate to have entered the economic downturn in a position of strength, with giving and endowment levels at all-time highs last year, important campus projects like the new residence hall and outdoor athletic facilities already completed, and our $300 million campaign well past its midway point. As the recession has worsened, however, the college faces intensified financial challenges. Our revenue comes primarily from three sources: about 63 percent from tuition, room, and board (minus financial aid); 17 percent from Annual Fund gifts and grants; and 20 percent from endowment income. This year, primarily because of increased financial aid costs and decreased gift giving, we are projecting a budget deficit of $2 million, a gap we are working to close through a variety of measures.
Contribute to MHC online Go to mtholyoke.edu/ go/mhcgive
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While at press time for the Quarterly it is too early to know any definitive numbers for 2009–10, we do have some “leading indicators.” In admissions, our application total to date is slightly lower than last year’s, but still well over 3,000, resulting in the third highest number of applications in the history of the college. This is a positive sign in light of the uncertain economy and the sudden declines a number of peer institutions have experienced. Still, we won’t have a sense of what the class of 2013 will look like until April or May. We do know that families are feeling great financial pressure, which
we anticipate will affect requests for financial aid and our ultimate enrollment. In development, this year’s Annual Fund is currently 14 percent behind last year’s record-setting performance, and we may fall considerably short of our $8.8 million goal. The endowment performed very well in FY2008 and reached a level of almost $660 million. It dropped to just over $500 million as of December 31, 2008. While this reduction will have a significant impact on the budget over time, the 2009–10 budget will not be negatively affected since our spending policy uses a three-year average market value. The senior college staff and I, in close consultation with divisions and departments, have been forecasting, reviewing, and adjusting institutional expenses while doing our best to anticipate revenues. With so many variables on both the expense and revenue sides (besides fall 2009 enrollment, health insurance rates, and energy costs, for example), budgeting is an iterative process. Let me articulate what I believe must be our guiding principles as we proceed: • We must maintain the academic strength of Mount Holyoke College, now and for future generations. • We must be sensitive to the needs of all members of our community, but particularly of those who may be the most financially vulnerable in
the current economic climate. • We must look for efficiencies through greater cooperation and restructuring of our work. • We must understand that these are unusual times, and we may employ temporary, unusual actions that might not be sustainable in the long run. • We must, if the financial situation worsens over the course of the next year, take an even harder look at cost-cutting and revenue-enhancing opportunities. The resourceful and tireless work of our dedicated corps of staff and volunteers is making a positive difference in our efforts. The faculty and student planning and budget committees have been meeting regularly with Mary Jo Maydew, the college’s vice president for finance and administration. In addition, open campuswide budget forums have been held, suggestions have been solicited actively and compiled on the Web, and Mary Jo is providing regular online updates to review our progress toward a final budget and to address issues of community interest. Of course, the buck stops with the senior administration, who will finalize the budget in midApril, and with the Board of Trustees, who will be asked to approve the fiscal 2010 budget at their May meeting and who have ultimate responsibility for the fiscal welfare of the institution. While as of this writing,
Pau l S c h n a i t tac h e r
President Creighton Lays Out MHC’s Budget Strategies
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it is still too early to make firm decisions about items in the budget, here is a summary of our thinking on several key areas of special interest to alumnae. • Financial Aid: We will maintain our financial aid commitments to current students, and we will do all we can to provide comparable aid packages to incoming students. • Salaries: It seems likely that salary increases this year will need to be minimal or nonexistent. We have received many compelling ideas from faculty, staff, and trustees alike about how to weight any salary increases toward lower-paid employees. We hope to avoid salary reductions, since we do need to consider the long-term competitiveness of our salary structures. • Positions: Our goal is to minimize layoffs, although we are not confident that they can be avoided entirely. We are working diligently to make the most of every position vacancy, including those that might occur through voluntary retirements or reductions in schedule. • General spending: From the many communications to me and other college leaders, there is clearly a desire on the part of the community to be careful and frugal in our expenditures: fewer entertainment events, fewer paid-for meals, less paper, more electronic communication, etc. • Revenue enhancement: We are looking for opportunities for improving revenues, as we have with the recent expansion of our postbaccalaureate program. These include the active exploration of Five College certificate programs, more outside use of our conference center, and other Five College initiatives. While we will have to make changes and find economies, be assured that we will do our utmost to protect our commitment to meeting the full, demonstrated financial need of students. We will also do all we can to preserve the quality and character of a Mount Holyoke education. As I have said before, I have enormous confidence in our ability to work together through difficult times to sustain this wonderful institution.
Pau l S c h n a i t tac h e r
As we move through this difficult financial period, I will keep you informed about how the college is faring and the strategies we use to ensure its long-term ability to fulfill its vital function in the world.
Alumnae Association President Davis: “MHC Needs Your Help” There is no other way to say it: Mount Holyoke needs your help, and needs it now. The current financial downturn is affecting every college in the nation, and MHC is not immune. Families’ circumstances are changing, and current students need more financial aid—in some cases, a great deal more. It is a rare occasion when the Alumnae Association directly asks alums for help. We wholeheartedly support the college, but our mission is, and always has been, supporting alumnae. In times like these, though, the college’s well-being must be our concern, too. Mount Holyoke is, in large part, its alumnae, and we can make a difference. Recall the green velvet purse Mary Lyon used to collect contributions to fund our college. Please, if you can, help your alma mater in this time of need. If a dollar is all you can spare, send it. Your generosity not only advances the college’s excellence in the liberal arts, but also helps a current student continue to receive it. In the spirit of Mary Lyon, our deepest thanks for your support.
Mary Graham Davis ’65
Sincerely,
Joanne V. Creighton
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Tattoos: Stories inInk I got my first tattoo a month after my twenty-first birthday. I had been imagining it for six months and was ready.
Senior Hannah Clay Wareham’s Tachycineta thalassina, a reminder that “home is always near.”
Or so I thought. b y H a n n a h C l a y Wa r e h a m ’ 0 9 P h o t o g r a p h y b y Pa u l S c h n a i t t a c h e r
Having had surgery earlier in the month, I didn’t anticipate the pain being much of a problem. As soon as my tattooartist-friend’s needle touched down, however, I was writhing in agony. I yelled louder than the TV I was supposed to be distracted by and ended up shaking in a cold sweat. But the meaning of my tattoo wasn’t lost in those moments of concentrated pain. I focused on my tattoo’s story instead of the needle.
I settled on an interpretation of a drawing by John James Audubon himself—Tachycineta thalassina, a violet-green swallow, a tiny songbird native to the West Coast. From my limited nautical knowledge (gleaned mostly from pirate movies), I knew that sailors got tattoos of swallows in hopes of seeing the birds while at sea. (Swallows meant that land was near, and they were that much closer to home.) My swallow perches on the back of my arm, above my left elbow. I catch sight of it sometimes in the mirror—a small, dark figure with wings spread open wide—and am reminded that home, and my family, are always nearer than I think. A lot of MHC women have stories like mine behind their ink. Traditions, reminders, and wishes are permanently recorded on their bodies, turning each inch of tattooed skin into a story and each body into a vehicle for a subversive form of visual storytelling.
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Amika Gair-MacMichael ’09 (left) decided to
get a tattoo of the phrase Plant Justice, Harvest Peace (detail right, bottom), “because I couldn’t stop drawing it. I would cover my notebooks with it,” she says. Gair-MacMichael chose this phrase because of her personal involvement in racialand same-sex-rights campaigns. “I truly believe in its message and I would like there to be more social equality in the world.”
carrie ruzicka by clara just
Before I could even talk, I would look at Audubon bird guides for hours. When I started talking, I could name most of the birds. My grandfather and I used to play a game in which he’d name the species of a bird and I’d find it in the book. That’s how I decided I wanted a bird tattoo.
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“Getting a tattoo is not something I thought I ever would do, but I decided to get one during my second year of law school,” says Carrie Ruzicka ’99. “As any former or current law student can attest, law school is not a fun process. But I was not prepared to be so completely underwhelmed by the lack of vision and community that I experienced in law school. Without having Mount Holyoke behind me, I am not sure I would have had the confidence and the self-awareness necessary to make it through successfully and on my own terms. That is how I came to get my laurel chain tattoo (detail,
above), an extra reminder of who I am, where I came from, and where I am going. I currently only have one patch on my lower back, but I sized the tattoo so it can grow. Maybe one day my tattoo will drape over my shoulder like the actual chain I carried during the laurel parade.”
Carrie Ruzicka ’99 and the laurel chain tattoo (left)
Learn More: To read stories about more students’ body ink, or to share your tattoo and the story behind it, visit alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/go/tattoos.
symbolic substitute ovary and fallopian tube (detail left, top).
carrie ruzicka by clara just
Ryan Dorsey ’10
After losing one of her ovaries last year, Ryan Dorsey ’10 had her roommate Caroline Heinbuch ’10 design a
After the surgery, Dorsey was left with only one functioning ovary and the possibility that she might not be able to have children. “I began to wonder, ‘What does it mean to be a woman?’” Dorsey said. “In the end, I realized that being a woman has little to do with the parts that make up your body, or your ability to conceive and carry children. It is a way of looking at the world, a method of problem solving, and [is] so much a part of who I am that it can never be taken away.” Her tattooed “ovary” is a symbol of the difficult year she endured and the answers she found. “Every time I see it, I am reminded that I am a woman, and by that token, I am beautiful. I find great joy and comfort in that now.”
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Meredith Spencer-Blaetz ’11 knew her first
Twins Lauren (right) and Terry Orr ’10
decided, along with their older sister Caitlin Orr ’08, to get the same tattoo (details, below). “We thought we would design our own,” Lauren said, “but soon we all fell in love with the idea of getting an interpretation of Gustav Klimt’s painting The Tree of Life.”
Caroline Heinbuch ’10 had
a self-designed symbol tattooed (detail, right) on her forearm this past spring. It incorporates her nickname, Caro, with male and female symbols. “I wanted a tattoo mixing the male and female symbols as a representation of the fluidity of sexuality and gender,” she explained.
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tattoo (detail, below) would have something to do with the moon. “As a child, I would search the sky for the moon,” she said. “My mom tells me [that] I used to point at it from my car seat and say ‘Moon!’ Even today, I find that I have a weird [attraction] to it.” Spencer-Blaetz also has a star on her wrist, in honor of her graduation from high school. “Tattoos are addicting … but I wanted to keep it in check. So I decided that every time something major happens in my life, I would get a star somewhere. Who knows what this life will bring me?”
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Humble Crusader Tashi Zangmo FP’99 Promotes Female Education in Bhutan B y E m i l y H a r r i s o n We i r
Ben Barnhart
“Girls never went to school” when Tashi Zangmo FP’99 was growing up in a remote corner of Bhutan. She’s working to change that.
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Tashi Zangmo FP’99 visits with young nuns in Southeastern Bhutan during a 2007 research trip. She hopes to train nuns to teach other girls in this modernizing country.
Many an alumna has been described as “following in Mary Lyon’s footsteps,” but the comparison fits Tashi Zangmo FP’99 better than most. Zangmo, a citizen of Bhutan— where many girls still T a s h i Z a nlack g m o even at MHC: a primaryspecial major in school education— developmental says her life’s studies work is to elevate the standard of female education in her country. And the parallels don’t end there. Both Lyon and Zangmo were raised in small villages, yet became highly educated women when this was rare in their society. Both aimed to create something large and
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lasting to benefit girls and women; and spirituality is central to the visions of both educational reformers. When Zangmo was growing up in one of the most remote corners of mountainous Bhutan, she says, “girls never went to school.” She was the first girl ever sent to school from her community. Her father was a community spiritual teacher, but her mother was illiterate, and Zangmo recalls the decision to send her to school as “a big leap for my mother and me. The only school was a one-day walk from my village,” so the nine-year-old Zangmo left her family and moved there. “I had to room with boys, the teachers weren’t used to working with young
girls … it was a horrible experience, but that’s not important,” Zangmo says. What is key is that those early classroom days inspired the adult Zangmo to help other girls have a better experience than she had. “Even when I was making hardly enough money to feed myself, there was a vision that I could do something down the road to help girls get a better education in communities similar to mine. I want to be a role model,” she says. At first, Zangmo envisioned just helping her seven siblings, but as her own education progressed, she says, “my vision grew from family to community, and now I think of how I can serve my country best.”
Although Zangmo humbly deflects credit for her ideas, her goal is nothing short of changing Bhutanese society by improving girls’ education. After receiving her doctorate from UMass–Amherst this past December, she moved back to her homeland and founded the Bhutan Nuns Foundation, under the patronage of Queen Ashi Tshering Yangdon Wangchuck. To grasp why supporting nuns’ education also means educating girls generally, it helps to understand evolving Bhutanese beliefs about girls and education. A 2002 estimate by UNESCO held that twice as many boys as girls attend school in Bhutan, putting
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the rate of girls in school at just 10 percent. Since then, access to primary education has been a royal priority. According to UNICEF, the number of students has more than doubled since 1990, and girls’ enrollment is expanding steadily. However, significant gender gaps remain in practice. Often, students still must travel considerable distances to find a school, and tradition holds that girls and women should stay near their families. Zangmo’s plan? Since you can’t easily bring all girls to a school, take schools to the girls. With Buddhist nunneries in many rural locations that lack schools, that’s where her efforts are focused. Nunnery-based education also has the advantage of being free. (Government-run schools require families to pay for uniforms and supplies. This makes schooling beyond the reach of many, especially families with numerous children.) And working with nuns seemed natural to Zangmo, a practicing Buddhist who says she comes from “a very spiritual family.” “Nunneries [already] provide women from all walks of life with an educational opportunity that has no age or learning capacity limit, as the formal education sector does,” she explains. “If the nunneries provided good education, nuns and other girls and women coming to the nunneries would be empowered and be in a better position to contribute to their communities,” Zangmo reasons. “Nuns in turn could become teachers and
social workers within their villages and their nunneries, and contribute to the larger national development goal of raising ‘Gross National Happiness.’” The problem is that nunneries, while often one of few alternative educational institutions open to females, typically provide a very poor learning environment, Zangmo says. “In some, there is no electricity, no bathrooms, no curriculum, no qualified teachers—nothing.” Still, it’s often the only game in town, so there are about five times as many girls seeking admission as there are openings, Zangmo estimates. Sadly, those admitted are likely to gain little academic substance from the country’s 800 to 900 nuns. “It breaks my heart to have families send their children there with the hope of learning only to discover that there are no learning facilities,” she says. “But something can be done. My vision is to give the nuns teacher training.” And the first glimmers of this vision took shape at Mount Holyoke, where Mary Lyon’s goal was similar. “I had no clue what Mount Holyoke College was all about when I applied,” Zangmo admits. “But I read Mary Lyon’s book, and it really spoke to my heart. Professor Penny Gill used to say, ‘Mary Lyon calls you,’ and that helped me articulate my vision.” Zangmo started helping the nuns back home more effectively during her time at MHC. Babysitting earnings bought clothing and better drinking water for the nuns in her native village. She used a $10,000
Samuel Huntington Public Service Award to start a small library there, and Zangmo spent about two years teaching adult literacy classes in Bhutan after her graduation. In 2005, the minister of home and cultural affairs in Bhutan heard of Zangmo’s efforts, and asked her to propose a systematic way to improve girls’ lot. She brought him a proposal on notebook paper and, with the minister’s support, came up with the beginnings of the Bhutan Nuns Foundation. Back in the US for her PhD work, Zangmo formed an advisory group and raised seed money for the foundation. She launched it officially this winter by moving back to Bhutan, opening an office, and hiring a coworker. “There is a lot to be done!” she says, reciting a litany of goals that include improving nuns’ living conditions, building a structured curriculum, training nuns to teach both at the nunneries and in the public school system, and creating a higher-learning center open to all women. “Ten years from now, I envision that the foundation will have improved the lives not only of the nuns but also of every girl and woman in Bhutan,” she says. There was no such help when Zangmo wanted to further her own education. After high school-level studies, Zangmo knew that, in Bhutan, “unless I became a nun, there was no opportunity for me to do further Buddhist studies.” She had to break with tradition, earning money in a secretarial job for the government, then leaving
her family and moving to India, where she studied Buddhist philosophy. “My family said, ‘Why would you leave that [job] and go?’ I said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll do even better than this!’” She earned a BA in India, then completed a second bachelor’s degree at MHC. Learn More by visiting www.bhutannuns.org or read a transcript of our interview with Tashi at alumnae. mtholyoke.edu/go/zangmo.
While her own educational track was rare and radical, Zangmo believes that her country is now ready for sweeping advances that will enhance education for all girls and enlarge the nuns’ role in society. “While respecting and preserving our traditional culture, we cannot expect the nuns to stay where they were centuries ago,” Zangmo says. “The whole country is moving toward modernization and globalization, and we want to include nuns as part of the development agenda so they’re not left out in the twenty-first century. This is especially true since preserving culture, spirituality, and tradition is one of the common threads within Bhutanese society and one of the main pillars of ‘Gross National Happiness.’” With help from her royal patron, government officials, donors, and her own true grit, Zangmo seems poised to, as Mary Lyon advocated, “go forward, attempt great things, accomplish great things.”
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offtheshelf
Words Worth a Second Look Nonfiction
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Sex and Power: Defining History, Shaping Societies By Rita Banerji (Penguin Books) In this sociological and historical study, Banerji examines changes in the dynamics of sexual morality and customs in India and argues that the social power hierarchy determines the moral overview of society, not a set of preexisting or enduring ethics. Overpopulation, AIDS, and female genocide are the result of collective sexual malfunctioning, she argues, and must be addressed in the context of the social and economic power hierarchy. Rita Banerji ’90 is a freelance writer and photographer based in Calcutta. She is the founder of the online campaign, The 50 Million Missing, www.50millionmissing.in featured in the summer 2008 Quarterly.
Displaced Allegories: Post-Revolutionary Iranian Cinema By Negar Mottahedeh (Duke University Press) Throughout the 1970s, feminist scholars bemoaned the fact that the desiring or malegaze approach to camera angles dominated almost all movies and objectified women. Mottahedeh argues that after the revolution in Iran, convention was unintentionally turned upside down when modesty laws required women be veiled at all times, transforming the desiring gaze into an averted one, and national cinema into women’s cinema. Negar Mottahedeh ’90 is assistant professor of literature and women’s studies at Duke University. She was born in Iran.
On the Line: Inside the World of Le Bernardin By Eric Ripert and Christine Muhlke (Artisan Books) On the Line is a fascinating look at the inner workings of the world-class restaurant Le Bernardin in New York. Told from the point of view of the principal players— chefs, maître d’, sommelier—the story lets you feel the creativity and accomplishment as 150,000 plates of culinary perfection are sent out from the kitchen every year. Christine Muhlke ’92 is an editor at The New York Times. She has written for Vogue, Vanity Fair, Food & Wine, and other publications.
The Language of Work: Technical Communication at Lukens Steel 1810 to 1925 By Carol Siri Johnson (Baywood) Johnson traces the evolution of communication at an extraordinary American business spanning two centuries. As industry steel and iron standards and processes were formalized and became more complex, writing and literacy, and what came to be known as technical writing, emerged as an essential part of the industrial process and drove changing relationships among workers, managers, and customers. Carol Siri Johnson ’80 is an assistant professor in the humanities department at New Jersey Institute of Technology.
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Fruits of Victory: The Woman’s Land Army in the Great War By Elaine F. Weiss (Potomac Books) Four hundred MHC students took up hoes in 1917 to work on the college farm during the first summer of World War I. Spurred on by MHC President Mary Woolley, students, faculty, and alumnae served in the Woman’s Land Army in 1918 to help feed a nation at war. Weiss rescues this largely untold story of an amazing mobilization of “farmerettes” who harvested everything from cherries in Michigan to cotton in Georgia with determination and patriotism. Elaine F. Weiss is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, and the Christian Science Monitor.
More Books
A Shoemaker’s Story By Anthony Lee (Princeton University) In 1870, seventy-five Chinese immigrants stepped off a train in North Adams, Massachusetts. Imported by the local shoe manufacturer as strikebreakers, they were lined up along the factory wall and photographed. Lee examines the social forces that brought the photo into being and the events and images it spawned. Anthony Lee is associate professor of art at MHC.
Why Did You Come Here? Adventures of an American in Finland By C. Liebenow ’97 (Caroline Liebenow)
Yo u n g R e a d e r s Always in Trouble By Corinne Demas and Noah Z. Jones (Scholastic Press) No matter what day of the week it is, Emma’s dog Toby is up to no good. Monday he gets into the garbage. Wednesday he eats a loaf of bread. Thursday he barks in the middle of the night. But Emma loves her dog and is determined to make him household friendly. Her diligent efforts to train him are almost perfect. Corinne Demas is the author of numerous children’s books, including Saying Goodbye to Lulu. She is an English professor at MHC.
Mount Holyoke alumnae and faculty members are prolific authors. To reduce the lag time between a book’s printing and its mention in the Quarterly, all books are briefly noted either in the printed magazine or our online edition. Guide to Hiking China’s Old Road to Shu By Hope Justman ’64 (iUniverse) The Creative Discipline: Mastering the Art and Science of Innovation By Nancy K. Napier ’74 and Mikael Nilsson (Praeger) Picture of Me: Who I Am in 221 Questions By Kate Lacy Marshall ’81 and David Marshall (Broadway Books) Women. Period. Edited by Julia Watts, Parneshia Jones, Jo Ruby, and Elizabeth Slade (Spinsters Ink)
Writing for Understanding: Using Backward Design to Help All Students Write Effectively By The Vermont Writing Collaborative with Joey Hawkins ’69 (Authentic Education) Have We Lost Our Children or Have They Lost Us? By Catherine A. Hosmer ’49 (iUniverse) Men and Angels: The Art of James Christensen Paintings by James Christensen, with Kate Horowitz ’05 (Greenwich Workshop Press) Green Matters: The Residential Builders, Visionaries, Communities, & Lifestyles Shaping Atlanta’s Landscape By Michael J. Eastman and J.E. Westfall '93 (iUniverse) For descriptions of these books, go to www. alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/go/morebooks_sp09.
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Closer Look
Literary Lyon: MHC’s Founder’s Writings Yield Surprises A new collection of Mary Lyon’s writings holds some revelations—for example, her top priority was not women’s education. Read even one page of
Mary Lyon: Documents and Writings, edited by MHC economist James E. Hartley, and you’ll realize that religious zeal was what motivated Mount Holyoke’s founder. Hartley’s book collects Lyon’s personal letters, records of Mount Holyoke’s founding, her only book manuscript, and a collection of Lyon’s sayings quoted by devotees.
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The object of her school was to “render female education a handmaid to the gospel and an efficient auxiliary in the great work of renovating the world,” Lyon wrote. Hartley says that “religion was central to her own life … everything else was secondary.” Influenced by a nationwide religious revival, Mary Lyon was a woman of her times. Yet she was also ahead of her time. “We don’t give her enough credit for realizing that women could play this huge role [as missionaries and teachers] and that they deserve every bit of education they can get so they can go do it well,” Hartley says. “At the time, no one else was thinking women needed the same education as men.” However, viewing Lyon as a protofeminist does her a
disservice, he argues. “She is a feminist if we use a broad enough definition, but it’s a very different kind of feminism. She was saying that women’s roles of teacher, missionary, and mother are at least as important as men’s work. That was a novel idea. But she had a very distinct sense of the roles she saw women playing.” While Lyon is justly celebrated for offering women an academic curriculum equal to that at men’s schools, her ability to create a permanent college was just as crucial. “There were other schools for women, but every one was tied to a person. And when that person would leave, retire, or die, the school would vanish,” he explains. “That’s why she was so adamant about [Mount Holyoke] not being ‘Miss Lyon’s School.’”
He believes that Lyon “would be appalled” by today’s college. “At whatever point MHC lost its intense religious feeling is the point at which I think she’d have said, ‘This isn’t what I designed.’” She would, he allows, be pleased at the education women receive here. “But if you gave her the choice of maintaining academic standards or the centrality of religion, she’d pick religion.” Her book, A Missionary Offering, has a religious theme and doesn’t even mention women’s education. “Part of the reason Mary Lyon gets downplayed in history is that she just doesn’t fit what we want her to be,” Hartley says. “She was really important, but we have to take her on her own terms.”—E.H.W.
Ben Barnhart
Learn More: To hear an audio interview with Hartley about Lyon, visit alumnae. mtholyoke.edu/go/ marylyonbook.
James E. Hartley
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SAVE THE DATE: 25–27 September 2009 Mount Holyoke European Alumnae Symposium “Brain Power: Build it, Use it, Keep it” St. Anne’s College, Oxford OX2 6HS, England
You are cordially invited to a weekend of intellectually stimulating workshops, panels, lectures, and discussions on the power and potential of the human mind. Joining us are Mount Holyoke President Joanne V. Creighton, faculty speakers, alumnae, and other world-renowned experts, including: Dr. Francis G. Szele, Fellow and tutor in developmental neurobiology, St. Anne’s College, Oxford, opening keynote speaker Barbara A. Cassani ’82, Executive chairman of Jurys Inns, founder of the low-cost airline Go, and chairman/vice-chairman of London’s successful 2012 Olympic bid, distinguished panelist Donal B. O’Shea, Dean of faculty and vice president for academic affairs and Elizabeth T. Kennan Professor of Mathematics and Statistics, distinguished panelist A preliminary program for the symposium is available at the Web site below. Registration information will be available online by June 15. It will also be mailed to alumnae living in Europe who do not have an e-mail address, and e-mailed to alumnae in Europe with an e-mail address on file. Please make sure we have your current e-mail address by e-mailing it to ais@mtholyoke.edu. Carol Hoffman Collins ’63, Chairman Gillian Morton Reynolds, MHGS, Secretary
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alumnaematters New AA President to Stress Good Work, Strong Values of Alums
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Reed, a management and technology consultant for healthcare providers and medical-device companies, has been nominated as president of the Alumnae Association for a threeyear term beginning July 1. Helping to spread the word about an MHC education by engaging and celebrating the good work and strong values of alumnae is tops on her to-do list. “I want the Alumnae Association to be a touchstone to ignite shared values,” says Reed, who lives with John Collins and their
three sons in Lexington, Massachusetts. “The more our programming reflects the incredible ways our alums engage with the world in their own lives, the better we are able to learn from each other and share what we learn.” An Alumnae Association Medal of Honor winner in 2005, Reed is past chair of the Alumnae Relations Committee of the association board, has served as her class president and is currently copresident and reunion chair, and is on the
association’s Strategic Planning Committee. She is also active as a fundraiser for Nashoba Learning Group, a private school for children with autism. Reed has spent her professional career in nonprofit healthcare. After earning a master’s of public health in hospital administration at Yale, she served first as an administrator and later as executive director of the department of pediatrics at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital of University Hospitals of Cleveland.
Pau l S c h n a i t tac h e r
C Cynthia L. Reed ’80 has a very clear understanding of the importance of women’s education. “The single most important factor in improving healthcare for women, children, and communities is to provide education for girls and women. The higher the level of education, the better the health and living standards,” she says.
Cynthia L. Reed ’80 has been nominated to serve a three-year term as the association’s next president.
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As a consultant, she has focused on strategic planning and program evaluation, management and technology. At St. James Ethics Centre in Sydney, Australia, where she and her family lived for four years in the 1990s, she helped companies align their corporate values and ethics. She currently serves as president and founder of Reed Collins LLC. “Cynthia is a strategic thinker with extensive leadership experience,” says Jill Brethauer ’70, chair of the Nominating Committee. “Her enthusiasm for Mount Holyoke, her knowledge of the Alumnae Association, her experience living overseas, and her spirit of innovation will be invaluable.” Just as her predecessor Mary Graham Davis ’65 did, Reed says she will continue the association’s emphasis on global outreach. Things she hopes to brainstorm about with her board colleagues include off-campus programming that brings the association’s work to the rest of the world; travel opportunities that are service oriented and draw on the intellectual and experiential resources of alums; and more programming targeted at current students. Budgetary constraints will require that “we do more with less and make less stretch further,” she points out. Effective measures for evaluating the association’s offerings as well as getting useful feedback are all among her priorities. Collaborating with intellectual centers
on campus, students, faculty, and Seven Sisters organizations are all important in the ongoing effort to offer better programming and reduce expenses, she adds. “I’ve done a lot of volunteer work,” Reed says. “But the Alumnae Association is the most rewarding to me because I’m in a room with smart women who come prepared, listen respectfully, and contribute actively. And we laugh,” she adds.—M.H.B Class and Club News and Images Online Two new wikis will be available for classes and clubs in time for reunion. That means whether or not you can attend, you can see slide shows, photos, and videos of the annual celebration as well as yearround class and club related news and events. And you can add text and photos of your own. Check out the offerings at http://classes. alumnae.mtholyoke.edu and http://clubs.alumnae. mtholyoke.edu. Singers Converge for a Gleeful Reunion What would bring eightythree Mount Holyoke alums back to campus in the dead of winter? Why, music, of course, and the chance to sing with five wonderful current and former MHC choral directors. We descended on South Hadley in late January for the second Mount Holyoke Glee Club Choral Reunion. Organized by a committee led by Debby Hall ’74, the chorus of alums— joined by nineteen undergraduates—came to
Invitation to Ask MHC’s President Whatever’s on your mind, here’s the opportunity to ask the president about it. President Joanne V. Creighton invites alumnae readers to submit questions to her via the Alumnae Quarterly. She will review the questions and respond to some in the summer issue of the magazine. Please send your questions ASAP to Quarterly editor Emily Harrison Weir (eweir@mtholyoke.edu; or Alumnae Association, 50 College St., S. Hadley, MA 01075-1486).
the first rehearsal armed with practice CDs they had received weeks before, and a flexibility in adjusting to the various conducting styles they would encounter. Joining Kimberly Dunn Adams, MHC choral director and visiting lecturer in music, were Catharine Melhorn, past choral director at MHC for thirty-six years; Marguerite L. Brooks ’69, conductor of the Yale Camerata and Yale Pro Musica; Christopher Aspass, conductor of St. Olaf ’s Chapel Choir and Viking Chorus, and Lindsay Pope ’07, choral assistant to Adams. The music ranged in period from the Porpora Magnificat to the premiere of an arrangement of I Can Dream, Can’t I? by MHC’s director of jazz ensembles, Mark Gionfriddo. There were a wide variety of musical styles and origins.
We learned overtone singing, in order to sing the Aboriginal- and Nepalesebased Past Life Melodies, by Sarah Hopkins; Swedish pronunciation for Ahlen’s Sommarpsalm, and Chinese intonation for Picking the Seedpods of the Lotus from Chinese Poems, by Chen Yi. No less central to the event was the chance to see old friends. For many of us, the choral community is the one that connects us best to Mount Holyoke, both in our own four-year span and across generations. Joan Regan ’73 led a symposium about choral life after Mount Holyoke. At Friday’s dinner, we were treated to a video about the history of Christmas Vespers made by Courtney Duhring ’09, as well as a performance by current students of “The Sewer Song,” from the MHC songbook of the ’50s and ’60s. Penny Gill, dean of
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Our four days at the college culminated in a Saturday evening concert in Abbey Chapel that was enthusiastically received. And after a celebratory glass at the Yarde House, we headed to our various homes, fortified by a sense of achievement, a renewal of friendships, and a reminder of MHC’s special choral experience.—Paula Gerden ’74
Nominees for Alumnae Association Directors and Committee Members In accordance with article VI, section 2 of the bylaws of the Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College, the Nominating Committee has prepared the following slate for election at the annual meeting to be held on May 23, 2009. Terms are for the three years ending June 30, 2012. Each candidate has been fully informed of the responsibilities and rights of the position and has indicated consent to serve if elected. Alumnae may submit additional nominations according to the procedure outlined in article VI, section 4 of the bylaws.
For Election to the Board of Directors: President Cynthia L. Reed ’80, Lexington, MA. Consultant, Reed Collins LLC. MPH in hospital administration, Yale University. Alumnae
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Oh Yes, We Can Two MHC alums are part of the sea change in Washington, D.C. Mona Sutphen ’89 has been named deputy chief of staff for President Barack Obama. Jane Famiano Garvey MAT ’69 served as a member of the president’s transition team. And Anthony Lake, a former professor of international relations and current trustee at the college, is a foreign policy adviser to the president.
Association: Executive Director Search Committee member (2008), Alumnae Relations Committee chair (2005–08), Communications Ad Hoc Committee member (2005), Strategic Planning Committee member (2003). Class: current copresident, former reunion gift caller, reunion room chair, reunion Web site coordinator, and reunion lead gift committee. North Shore Club: former president and program chair. Boston Club: former 7-College Conference representative. Alumnae Medal of Honor 2005. Kellogg National Leadership Fellow 1987. Chair, Alumnae Quarterly Committee: Margaret L. Stark ’85, San Diego, CA. Contract writer for RealAge.com and the director of Seva Children, a nonprofit; author of three books, and freelance magazine writer. MS in journalism, Northwestern University. Alumnae Association: Quarterly Committee
Mary Lyon Award Winners Lisa Utzinger ’02, left, and Ingrid Ukstins Peate ’94 received the 2009 Mary Lyon Award. The third winner, Sally McFarlane ’97, was not in attendance. Read about their accomplishments, and their award citations, at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/news/ MaryLyonAwards2009.php member (1998–2001), Marketing/Public Relations Committee member (1994–96). Class: former reunion sign chair and secretary. San Diego Club: former president. Mary Lyon Award 1997, Alumnae Medal of Honor 2005. Chairwoman of fundraising auctions for her children’s schools. Volunteer media relations work. Chair, Clubs Committee: Jenna Lou Tonner ’62, New London, NH. Retired. History major. Alumnae Association: Board of Directors member for career support (1994–96), Career Support Task Force member (1992–94), Nomination of Alumnae Trustees Committee member (1983–86). Class: former class agent, reunion welcome/hospitality chair, reunion nametag chair, and treasurer. New Hampshire Club: former president. Current president, New London Historical Society, and president, League of Women Voters, Kearsarge/ Sunapee.
For Election to the Committees: Alumnae Honors Research Committee: Katherine Turner Alben ’69, Schenectady, NY. Research scientist, New York State Department of Health. MPhil and PhD in physical chemistry, Yale University. Alumnae Association: Alumnae Honors Research Committee member (appointed 2008–09). Class: former head class agent, reunion gift chair and caller, and scribe. Former trustee, American Water Works Association Research Division. Ann Holloway (“Holly”) Hughes ’75, New York, NY. Freelance editor/writer. MA in English, Oxford University. Alumnae Association: Quarterly Committee chair (1982– 85), Quarterly Committee member (1979–82). Class: former VP and reunion cochair. New York Club: former VP and former newsletter/directory editor. Alumnae Quarterly Committee: Jillian K.
Fred LeBlanc
students, articulated her desire to make MHC into a “singing campus” once more.
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Alumnae Relations Committee: Ellen L. Leggett ’75, Pasadena, CA. President, Leggett Jury Research LLC. EdM and EdD in psychology, Harvard University. Alumnae Association: Board of Directors second vice president for admissions (1992–95), Marketing Committee member (1994–97). Class: current class agent, former reunion chair and reunion gift caller. Los Angeles Club: former admission representative. College: current L.A. major gifts committee member. Current vice president of board of directors, Holy Family Adoption and Foster Care Agency. Emily S. McFarlane ’02, Durham, NC. Survey methodologist, RTI International. MS in survey methodology, University of Michigan. Alumnae Association: Alumnae Relations Committee member (appointed, 2008– 09). Piedmont Club: current young alumnae chair; former assistant admission representative. Classes and Reunions Committee: Joanne Griffith Domingue ’65, Tahoma, CA. Writer, retired newspaper reporter and associate editor. MA
Class: former president, vice president, class agent, reunion gift caller, reunion booklet chair, reunion sign chair, reunion Saturday night party chair, and lead gift committee member. Northern California Club: current treasurer; former president, ways and means chair, and admission representative; College: former major gifts volunteer, Legacy of Leadership. Loyalty Award 2006. Treasurer and a former deacon of the board of trustees, Calvary Presbyterian Church Foundation.
in history, University of New Hampshire. Class: current class agent; former Nominating Committee chair, president, and Cornerstone representative. Danielle Germain ’93, Washington, D.C. Director, National Academy of Public Administration. MA in international relations, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Class: former president and former reunion gift caller. Southern New Hampshire: former assistant admission representative. Clubs Committee: Anne Luders Dayton ’80, Norwalk, CT. Land use analyst, Robinson & Cole LLP. Class: former reunion gift caller. Fairfield Villages Club: former president, newsletter/directory editor, and officer; former cochair, Seven Sisters Alumnae Seminar.
Nominating Committee: Nina C. Dowlin ’87, Coatesville, PA. Training Coordinator, Keystone Helicopter, a Sikorsky Company. MS in organizational dynamics; current PhD candidate in training and performance improvement, University of Pennsylvania. Class: former secretary. Philadelphia Club: former secretary, newsletter/directory editor, and program committee member. Corresponding secretary, former Web site coordinator, program chair, and assistant admission representative.
Susan Davis Gerber ’75, New York, NY. Vice president, Carole Hochman Design Group. Class: former reunion gift caller and silent auction reunion cochair. New York Club: former president, first vice president, director-atlarge, assistant admission representative, and CAN chair.
Sarah Ann Haeger ’97, Seattle, WA. Account supervisor, The Fearey Group. MS in nonprofit management, Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy. Class: current reunion gift caller; former reunion chair, head class
Finance Committee:Susan Ham Heldman ’76, San Francisco, CA. Vice president and controller, Schwab Charitable Fund. MBA, Monterey Institute of International Studies.
agent, class agent. New York Club: former vice president and program chair, newsletter/directory editor, and public relations representative. Member, board of directors, Seattle Works. Nomination of Alumnae Trustees/Awards Committee: Melani S. Cheers ’02, St. Louis, MO. Doctor of Medicine anticipated 2009, Washington University. Class: current class agent; former reunion gift caller. Pittsburgh Club: former program chair/secretary. College: young alumnae trustee (2003–06); former member, Residence Hall Oversight Committee; current Annual Fund Committee member. Member of Alpha Omega Alpha 2008; received Spencer T. Olin Scholarship 2005.
alumnaematters
Dunham ’97, New York, NY. Research editor, New York Times Magazine. Amherst College; Cambridge University, UK. Chicago Club: former assistant admission representative.
Sunny Park Suh ’91, Larchmont, NY. MEd and EdD in higher education administration, Teachers College, Columbia University. Class: current class agent; former head class agent and reunion gift chair. New York Club: former president, vice president, secretary, membership chair, and citywide assistant admission representative. Westchester County Club: former assistant admission representative. College: current Annual Fund Committee member. Alumnae Medal of Honor 2006. Alumnae admission recognition 1996.
Proposed Changes to the Alumnae Association’s Bylaws Bylaws amendments concerning the structure of Alumnae Association committees will be considered at the annual meeting of the association on May 23. The proposed changes are available online at www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/go/09bylawproposal. The current bylaws are at www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/about/governance/bylaws.php. Call 413-538-2300 to request a printed copy of the proposed changes. Printed copies will also be available in the New York Room of Mary E. Woolley Hall during the first reunion weekend, May 22–24. Mou n t Ho lyo k e Al u m na e Qua r t e r ly
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Announcing...
the Alumnae Association’s Global Connections Web page
www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/ccg/global Wherever you are in the world, we’re here for you.
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bulletinboard Changing Fashions, Changing Roles
Images of women portrayed as athletes, professionals, and intellectuals are common today but until the late nineteenth century were virtually absent from the visual arts and literature. What Can a Woman Do? Women, Work and Wardrobe 1865–1940 provides an engaging and informative window into the ways that women’s identities and attitudes have been forged. Inspired by the book What Can a Woman Do? written by M.L. Rayne in 1893, this exhibition examines women’s career options, the shifting perception of women between the Civil War and World War II, and how clothing fashions changed in response to women’s changing roles and attitudes. Fine and popular art, along with clothing of the era, is included in the exhibition.
Papa Can Blow (left) by Faith Ringgold (serigraph, 2003 gift of Harold and Janet Tague [Janet Hickey ’66])
The exhibition is curated by Lynne Zacek Bassett ’83, a scholar who specializes in New England’s historic costume and textiles, and runs through May 31 at the MHC Art Museum. Beaded leather dress boots (detail), c. 1900–1910, Lynn (MA) Museum and Historical Society
It’s Coming! Vespers 2009
Save the date for traditional Christmas Vespers in Boston on Friday, December 11, 2009, at the Old South Church. For information, contact CJ at 781-861-7446 or clarkkent128@verizon.net.
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Faith Ringgold: Works on Paper
How do our particular memories, histories, and traditions inform us as individuals and shape the marks we leave on the world? For more than forty years, Faith Ringgold has been formulating answers to this question in paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, and quilts that document her experiences as an AfricanAmerican woman, mother, daughter, and artist. This exhibition focuses on Ringgold’s work on paper and includes more
than twenty-five prints and small paintings, echoing the themes of protest that characterized her early paintings, as well as examples from her recent series on jazz musicians. Several prints were executed at the Experimental Printmaking Institute, which brings undergraduate students and professional artists together and which resonates with MHC’s commitment to promoting similar interactions in the classroom and in the museum. The broadest and most revealing survey of its kind, the show runs through May 31 at the MHC Art Museum.
Ch a n g i n g Fa s h i o n : L au r a We st o n • Fa i t h R i n g g o l d : P et e g o r s k y / G i p e
Mama Can Sing (above) by Faith Ringgold (serigraph, 2003 gift of Harold and Janet Tague [Janet Hickey ’66])
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Save the Date: January 6–10, 2010 Fourth Women’s Education Worldwide Conference:
Empowering Women: The Economic Imperative
The Women’s College, University of Sydney, Australia Announcing an intellectually stimulating four days of workshops and lectures with international experts in the field of women’s education. Women’s Education Worldwide (WEW) is a global network and biennial gathering of presidents, leaders, students, and alumnae from women’s colleges around the world. Started in 2004 by Mount Holyoke College and Smith College presidents Joanne V. Creighton and Carol Christ, WEW has hosted conferences in the United States, Dubai, and Italy. Check the Alumnae Association Web site (alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/events/) for more information about the conference, or find out more at www.thewomenscollege.com.au.
Summer 2009 Alumnae Events: Get Connected! If your summer plans take you to any of the locations below, please join us at an alumnae event. For more information, contact Roger Gove: rgove@mtholyoke.edu or 413-538-2259. July: Bridgehampton, NY, hosted by Anne Greer Garonzik ’64 (date tbd) August: Nantucket, MA, hosted by Peggy Wolff ’76 (8/5)
Martha’s Vineyard, MA, hosted by Anne Wadsworth Pardo ’62 (8/6) Chatham, MA, hosted by Mary Beth Topor Daniel ’82 (8/13) Washington Depot, CT, hosted by Mary Graham Davis ’65 and Ludmila Schwarzenberg Hess ’67 (date tbd) Madison, CT, Mary Jean Ahern Hale ’67 (date tbd)
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 http://www. alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/ shop/alumgifts.php or phone the Alumnae Association at 413-538-2300 to request a printed copy of the information.
Take the Lead
Do you know a promising high school sophomore who is interested in making a positive change in the world? Nominate her for Take the Lead, a prestigious leadership program offered at Mount Holyoke October 1–4, 2009. Now in its tenth year, the program builds on a record of success in helping young women achieve amazing things. You can view the results of some of the former participants’ action projects online at www.mtholyoke. edu/takethelead/18507. shtml.Take the Lead gives students the opportunity to become part of a diverse network of forty girls who are passionate about important issues. Students acquire leadership skills, design action projects, learn to solve problems, and become agents of positive change. They also make new friends and have lots of fun! Nominated students will be invited to apply to the competitive program.
Adults can nominate up to three girls online at www. mtholyoke.edu/takethelead. Students accepted into the program attend in the fall of their junior year and pay only a $75 registration fee. To learn more, call 413-538-3500 or e-mail Rosita Nunez at rnunez@ mtholyoke.edu.
The SEARCH Program
MHC is recruiting high-school girls for the SEARCH program, a fourweek residential program on campus. We seek students who have a sense of curiosity and adventure about mathematics and who want a taste of college life. Students will explore exciting topics outside the usual high school curriculum. Do you have a daughter or friend who would like to find out what is exciting about mathematics? Students should have done well in high school mathematics classes, but a calculus background is not needed. Please visit www.mtholyoke. edu/proj/search to learn more or contact the directors, Drs. Charlene and James Morrow, at 413-538-2608 or search@ mtholyoke.edu. The 2009 program will be held June 28–July 25.
travelopportunities May 26–June 5, 2009 The Great Journey Through Europe: Aboard the MS Amadeus Princess With Amherst College and Middlebury College This eleven-day cruise and rail journey first cruises from Amsterdam to
Basel, Switzerland, tracing the course of the Rhine River to the dazzling German cities of Cologne, Koblenz, and Mannheim (Heidelberg)—marveling at the legendary castles of the Rhine River—and the historic town of
Strasbourg, France. We next venture through the Swiss Alps on three of the world’s most scenic rail journeys: the Gornergrat Bahn, the Glacier Express, and the Pilatus Bahn. Included in this trip is a two-night, Amsterdam
pretrip program. The cost of this trip is approximately $3,595 per person. Please call Gohagan & Company Travel at 1-800-922-3088 for more information.
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Remarkable Women trip
Great Journey
person. Please call Travel Dynamics International at 1-800-257-5767 for more information.
July 25–August 1, 2009 The Great Lakes Join us for a luxurious Great Lakes cruise aboard the 100-guest Clelia II. Sail between American and Canadian ports with stops at Niagara Falls; Manitoulin Island, with its rich Native American culture; Mackinac Island with its Victorian architecture; Thunder Bay; and the unspoiled Keweenaw Peninsula. Additional highlights include the scenic waterways and locks that connect the Great Lakes, and sailing the vast expanse between Lake Ontario and the western shores of Lake Superior. The cost of this trip is approximately $5,595 per
September 24–October 2, 2009 Cultural Capitals of Russia: Moscow and St. Petersburg Join us on an enlightening journey to Russia’s twin cultural capitals, Moscow and St. Petersburg, homes of some of the world’s richest architectural, artistic, and historic treasures. We will spend three days in Moscow, visiting the halls of the Kremlin, the fabled “citadel of the czars”; the Armory, Russia’s oldest museum, site of the diamond throne of Czar Alexis and the bejeweled Fabergé Easter eggs commissioned by the Romanov czars; and the city’s famed Red Square, where the sixteenth-century St. Basil’s Cathedral, built by Ivan the Terrible, still stands in all its imperial grandeur. Our time in
Great Lakes trip
Moscow, which includes the option of attending a ballet performance in the landmark Bolshoi Theatre, is followed by a rail journey to St. Petersburg aboard the Grand Express, Russia’s finest passenger train, which harkens back to the golden age of rail travel. In St. Petersburg, we’ll stroll along the elegant fountain-lined canals and see one of the world’s greatest collections of art during an early-opening visit to the renowned Hermitage Museum, which boasts a magnificent collection of nineteenthand twentieth-century French Impressionist and post-Impressionist works. We’ll tour Peter the Great’s glorious summer estate at Peterhof and visit the imperial compound of Tsarskoe Selo (Pushkin) and its Catherine Palace, an elaborate Baroque and Rococo residence built in 1752 for Czarina Elizabeth, Peter the Great’s daughter. Our stay in St. Petersburg includes the option of attending a music performance of the Russian composer Tchaikovsky’s works in the Great Hall of the Philharmonia. The cost of this trip starts at $3995. For more information, please call Thomas P. Gohagan & Company at 800-9223088.
October 16–27, 2009 Remarkable Women of Antiquity and Their Times A Seven Sisters Trip Sail aboard the all-suite, 114-guest Corinthian II in search of the history of antiquity’s most powerful women. Beginning in Athens with a visit to the Acropolis and an excursion to the Sanctuary of Artemis, we next cruise across the Aegean Sea to Bodrum, Turkey, where Queen Artemisia commanded a naval vessel during the Battle of Salamis. The cruise continues on to Rhodes, home of Kallipateira (the only woman to have attended the ancient Olympics) and then to Fethiye, Turkey; Tartus, Syria; and Alexandria, Egypt, as we visit ancient shrines dedicated to goddesses, magnificent museums and churches, and archaeological sites that shed light on fascinating women of the ancient world. The Mount Holyoke faculty lecturer is Bettina Bergmann, a specialist in Greek and Roman art and architecture. The cost of this trip is approximately $7,395 per person. Please call Travel Dynamics International at 1-800-257-5767 for more information.
Interested? To request a brochure for any of these trips, please call the Alumnae Association at 413-538-2300 or visit our Web site at www. alumnae.mtholyoke.edu. For additional information, please call the travel company sponsoring the trip.
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Our students need you. With your help, we meet 100 percent of each student’s institutionally determined need. Today, less than 20 percent of private colleges and universities offer this kind of support to their students.* Please keep Mount Holyoke a priority in your 2009 charitable giving. Thank you!
TH E AN N UAL F U N D www.mtholyoke.edu/go/mhcgive
*Source: Recent survey by the National Association for College Admission Counseling
Since 1837, Mount Holyoke has welcomed talented young women from all walks of life seeking a transformative liberal arts experience.
Having my parents come for graduation is a dream come true. They’ve always wanted me to do well for myself, and although it was hard for them to see me leave home in Zimbabwe for college, they knew it was the best thing for me. I always tell them how beautiful Mount Holyoke is, and it will be nice for them to finally see it in person.
M
i ch ael
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a ly s z ko
L i n d i w e N d e b e l e ’09
Reception for 2008 graduates and parents at the president’s house
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