Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly Fall 2010 by Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College

18 Magical Theatre 22 Hands-On Jobs 26 Battling Bullying

A lu m n a e Q ua rt e r ly

Lynn Is In !

Lynn Pasquerella ’80 Inaugurated as MHC’s 18th President Read her personal message to alumnae on p.34.

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Dream BIG! By Ste fanie Ellis

The “theatrical wonders” of Lucia Neare ’88 bring a sense of magic back into the lives of audiences in Seattle.

John Small

Pau l S c h n a i t tac h e r

In a Class of Its Own By Leanna Ja mes Bl ackwell

Thirty years after its founding, the Frances Perkins Program is a fixture on campus. But don’t take it for granted; it’s still changing lives.

Battling Bullying By Hannah M. Wall ac e ’ 95

Spurred by recent suicides of bullied teens in South Hadley and elsewhere, the country redoubles efforts to stop it. Here’s what to do when push comes to shove.

The Life of the Hands At colleges, we talk endlessly about the “life of the mind.” But alums who work with their hands say that they haven’t left the life of the mind behind.

Ben Barnhart

By S u sa n Bu s hey Manning ’96

On the cover:

Mount Holyoke alumnae Quarterly

Lynn Pasquerella ’80 becomes Mount Holyoke’s eighteenth president.

Fall 2010 Volume 94 Number 3 Editor

photo credit: Ben Barnhart

Emily Harrison Weir

Associate Editor Mieke H. Bomann

Class Notes Editor Kris halpin

1 Viewpoints: From

Designers

Desert to Eden

ALDRICH DESIGN Design Farm (class notes)

2 Campus Currents: Lynn Pasquerella ‘80 inaugurated; new director at enviro. center; another record admission year 31 Off the Shelf: Wine’s lovely history; courageous French citizens; paranoid parents

Quarterly Committee: Marg Stark ’85 (chair), Cindy L. Carpenter ’83, Olivia Chin ’13 (student rep.), Emily A. Dietrich ’85, Jillian K. Dunham ’97, Catherine Manegold (faculty rep.), Missy Schwartz ’97

34 Alumnae Matters: New president’s first thoughts; Haiti volunteers; the art of packaging

39 Class Notes: News of your classmates, and miniprofiles

79 Bulletin Board:

R aul Allen

Buy, sleep, join, go!

Alumnae Association Board of Directors President* Cynthia L. Reed ’80 Vice President (Engagement)* Jennifer A. Durst ’95 Treasurer* Linda Ing Phelps ’86 Clerk* Julianne Trabucchi Puckett ’91 Classes and Reunion Director Erin Ennis ’92 Alumnae Trustee Director Lila M. Gierasch ’70 Nominating Director Antoria D. Howard-Marrow ’81 Director-at-Large, Human Resources* Joanna MacWilliams Jones ’67 Director-at-Large (Global Initiatives) Sharyanne J. McSwain ’84 Director-at-Large (Communications) Elizabeth A. Osder ’86 Young Alumnae Representative Akua S. Soadwa ’03 Quarterly Director Marg Stark ’85 Clubs Director Jenna L. Tonner ’62 Executive Director* Jane E. Zachary, ex officio without vote *Executive Committee The Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College, Inc., 50 College St., South Hadley, MA 01075-1486; 413-538-2300; fax: 413-538-2254 www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu.

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 010751486). For class notes matters, contact Kris Halpin (413-538-2300, classnotes@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. Fall 2010, volume 94, number 3, was printed in the USA by Lane Press, Burlington VT. Periodicals postage paid at South Hadley, MA, and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: (ISSN 0027-2493, USPS 365-280) Please send form 3579 to Alumnae Information Services, Mount Holyoke Alumnae Association, 50 College Street, South Hadley, MA 01075-1486.

viewpoints An Urban “Food Desert” Blooms As an Episcopal priest ministering to an inner-city congregation in the metro Detroit area, your article “Cultivating a Better World” (summer) really resonated with me. The city of Pontiac is a food desert with a high degree of food insecurity, and earlier this year a group of parishioners decided to open a weekly produce market right in the church, where we sell fresh fruit and vegetables at wholesale prices to our neighbors in the surrounding community. Since there aren’t any local markets except for liquor stores, and the nearest supermarket is nearly three miles away, we are the sole provider of fresh food to many people who have no access to reliable transportation. Although we are currently buying our food from a wholesale supplier, I am hopeful that next year we will be able to buy produce from local urban farms as the city begins turning over vacant lots to groups who want to plant community gardens. A former restaurant and retail food manager, I never thought I’d find myself ordering cases of tomatoes again, but ministry takes many forms! The Rev. Karen Johanns FP’03 Pontiac, Michigan Granny Keeps ’Em Laughing Latest MHC Alumnae Quarterly! Anyone else in stitches reading about stand-up comedian granny? (summer) I want to be her when I’m eighty. Meg Massey ’08 (Via Twitter)

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. Of course, we will edit your letters for accuracy, length, and clarity. You can also post your comments at www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/Q.We especially like hearing from you by e-mail. Send your thoughts, then, to mbomann@mtholyoke.edu.

campuscurrents Unraveling the Paradox, Fulfilling the Promise MHC Inaugurates Lynn Pasquerella ’80 She vows to fight for women’s rights across the globe. Claire Wheeler ’12, a member of the MHC Glee Club, was lively at lunch. Just a few hours away from performing at the inauguration of Lynn Pasquerella ’80, she noted that the chosen anthem, “Variation on a Theme by Rilke,” featured poet Denise Levertov’s moving words about the power of an individual to create change. “I’m excited to see what policies she enacts,” said Wheeler of the college’s eighteenth president, who in her first few months on the job had already given hints of her vision of MHC as a kind of seed bank for international social justice. Then Wheeler shared a sentiment held by so many cur-

Pasquerella was greeted with a standing ovation.

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rent students and alumnae and that was demonstrated by sustained cheering and clapping for almost every move Pasquerella made at the installation ceremony in late September. “It’s so nice,” Wheeler said, hurrying off to rehearsal, “to have the president be one of us.” Lynn Pasquerella is not the first alumna to be president of MHC, but she is perhaps the first alumna to open her heart and intellect and office doors so widely to so many in such a short period of time. It’s hard to find anyone who speaks of her with less than messianic fervor. As Cynthia Reed ’80, president of the MHC Alumnae Association, noted in her inaugural greeting, it is with “joy and with unabashed pride” that Pasquerella has been welcomed back home. Spirited applause and cheering greeted Pasquerella the moment she entered Gettell Amphitheatre. The festive ceremony was introduced with a procession of MHC faculty and more than 120 delegates from colleges across the country whose colorful robes mimicked the Pasquerella was presented with the official symbols of her office: the MHC seal, a key to the original Seminary building, and a copy of the college’s charter.

campus trees that were just beginning to show their fall colors. Favorite professors received whoops and cheers, but it was Pasquerella who drew the greatest applause, for several minutes, as she made her way down the amphitheatre steps, hugging every other person, it seemed. On stage, she stood in humble acceptance of the audience’s welcome, including former presidents Joanne V. Creighton and Elizabeth Topham Kennan ’60. Following an invocation of the “sacred force of faith, reason, and justice,” by John Grayson, Professor of Religion on the Alumnae Foundation, Walter Harrison, president of the University of Hartford, spoke with fond-

ness and humor of his friend and former colleague.

worries that she would serve her alma mater well.

He pointed to Pasquerella’s deep commitment to social justice for women and to philosophical inquiry, her academic specialty. He noted her accessibility and her high level of energy. He also couldn’t help but relate her cheeky declaration to him during her interview for the position of provost at Hartford that, despite Harrison’s considerable expertise on the subject of baseball, she would make a far better major league baseball commissioner than he.

“After all, “ said Harrison, now thoroughly enjoying himself and eliciting hoots

“Who was this woman to say something so challenging?” he inquired, tongue firmly in cheek. She is competitive, he underscored, and assured the audience they should have no

and hollers from the audience, “she is the only college president who really, truly believes that rooting for the Red Sox is an expression of the Common Good!”

campuscurrents

Fac i n g pag e , t h i s pag e , b e l ow : B e n B a r n h a rt ; a b o v e , M i c h a e l M a ly s z ko

The inauguration crowd cheered the new president as they would a rock star.

Left to right: State Rep. John Scibak and Presidents Emeriti Joanne V. Creighton and Elizabeth Topham Kennan ’60 at the inauguration ceremony

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Ben Barnhart

Fireworks closed the inaugural festivities with a bang.

Kavita Ramdas ’85 (far left), a visiting fellow at Stanford’s Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, moderated a lively discussion on the inaugural theme, “Women’s Leadership and Social Justice.” She was joined by (left to right) Kwame Anthony Appiah, a Princeton philosophy professor; Catharine MacKinnon, a University of Michigan School of Law professor; and Joia Mukherjee, medical director of Partners in Health.

Global Commitment There were hints of Pasquerella’s broad interest in global issues throughout the three-day celebration. At a panel discussion the evening before her installation, noted thinkers discussed women’s leadership and social justice.

tion to her by MHC Board Chair Mary Graham Davis ’65 of a key to the original Seminary building as well as the college seal and a copy of MHC’s charter, she delivered a stirring argument for the work left to be done for women’s education across the globe.

excellence and the achievement of women in American colleges, we will endeavor to ensure that this is not done in ignorance of, or worse, at the expense of, women around the world. Only then will we have fulfilled Mary Lyon’s historic mission.”

“Leadership shouldn’t be about a person, but about a movement, working together with others toward justice,” said Joia Mukherjee, medical director of Partners in Health and assistant professor in the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

“I want to argue that, for all of our achievements and despite the greatness of Mount Holyoke, Mary Lyon’s historic mission has not been fulfilled,” she said.

“President Pasquerella, in my eyes, is a remarkable example of someone who is actively engaged with everything she does every day,” said Marija Tesla ’11, president of the Student Government Association, who offered a greeting on behalf of the student body. Turning to Pasquerella, she added, “I can’t wait to see where you take us next.” —M.H.B.

In the months leading up to the event, an inauguration committee spent countless hours fashioning a ceremony that would represent both the fresh outlook of its new leader and the timeless qualities of an MHC education. “I wanted to create something where everyone could be brought together,” said Tanya Williams, coordinator of multicultural affairs and a member of the committee. Looking around at housekeeping staff mingling with faculty, alumnae, and students following the ceremony, she sensed her wish had come true. “I am so excited about where MHC is headed,” she said. “And I am glad to be on the train.” When Pasquerella finally took the podium, following the presenta-

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She outlined the strides alumnae from all women’s colleges have made in leadership positions across the professional spectrum—more than one-third of female board members at Fortune 1000 companies are women’s college graduates, for example— despite the fact that women’s colleges enroll less than one percent of female college students nationwide and that just two percent of female high school seniors even consider applying to one. “As your president, I promise to lead the way in untangling the paradoxical gap between the promise of a Mount Holyoke education and the awareness of female applicants as to its power.” Pasquerella also noted the dire circumstances of women in places far away. “Let me be clear. While we intend to affirm an enduring commitment to promoting academic

Inauguration Hoopla Continues Online All things inaugural are ready and waiting for you online. There’s video of the ceremony, photo galleries, speech transcripts, background on the music performed, reactions from attendees, alumnae well-wishes from around the world, a peek at how this major campus event was planned, a “meet Lynn” video, and upcoming inaugural year events. Link to it all from alumnae. mtholyoke.edu/LPinaug.

President Lynn Pasquerella ’80 took to the airwaves this summer in collaboration with WAMC/ Northeast Public Radio. In a continuing weekday feature called the Academic Minute, she promotes the intellectual work being done on college campuses across the nation. The show examines serious and lighthearted topics to keep listeners abreast of what’s new and thought-provoking in academia, from groundbreaking scientific research to how the board game Monopoly can help explain the economic recession. “For Mount Holyoke, the Academic Minute represents a superb way to highlight the power of higher education by focusing on the excitement of ideas,” Pasquerella said. Mount Holyoke worked with WAMC to solicit the brief commentaries from schools including Amherst, Williams, Columbia, Notre Dame, Vassar, Duke and— of course—MHC. Sign up for the podcast, and listen to past Academic Minute commentaries, at www.wamc.org/academicminute.html.

Senior Staff Changes

Jim Gipe

As Lynn Pasquerella took the presidential reins this summer, staffing changes were also in the works. Diane Anci, dean of admission, agreed to serve as interim vice president for enrollment. “Diane’s twenty years of experience in Mount Holyoke’s Office of Admission, coupled with the wide respect she has earned among admission peers at other institutions, will serve us very well as we move through the transitional year ahead,” Pasquerella wrote in a note to the campus community.

ern University. “Jane’s legacy to Mount Holyoke is enormous and impressive,” Pasquerella noted. “She built a rigorous and highly effective division out of some of Mount Holyoke’s most critical operations: admission, the Frances Perkins Program, career development, student financial services, communications, institutional research, and the Office of the Registrar.”

campuscurrents

Brilliance in an Academic Minute

Patricia VandenBerg, formerly executive director of communications and strategic initiatives in the college’s communications office, became executive director of communications and marketing. Kevin McCaffrey, formerly associate director in the communications office, was appointed director of government and community relations. Both he and VandenBerg report directly to the president. Wendy Watson is serving as interim director of the MHC Art Museum, following the resignation of Marianne Doezema. Doezema, who served as director since 1994, will pursue her scholarly interests in the representation of women and early twentieth-century American art. Watson has been curator of the museum since 1974, and will continue in her curatorial duties as well. Finally, Steve Herman, a longtime friend and colleague of Lynn Pasquerella, will serve as her senior adviser focused on generating new sources of revenue for the college. A former president of Garrett College in western Maryland, Herman will work closely with Jesse Lytle, who served as executive assistant to former President Creighton and as secretary of the college. Lytle has been named director of complementary program development and entrepreneurship.

Anci succeeded Jane Brown, who left in August to become vice president for enrollment at Northeast-

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Really Fresh Air: The Miller Worley Center for the Environment Sprouts New Name, Location, Programs Tim Farnham sits back in his chair in a light-filled office on the second floor of Dwight Hall and considers the state of the environment. Or at least the state of MHC’s Miller Worley Center for the Environment, which he directs and that—unlike the world’s ecosystem—is doing very well, thank you. Shuttled from its old digs in Talcott Greenhouse to Dwight this summer, the center joins two other academic resource centers, the Weissman Center for Leadership and the Liberal

former Chair of the Board of Trustees Leslie Anne Miller ’73 and her husband, Richard Worley, the center last year lured Farnham, whose scholarly research focuses on how humans perceive their place in the natural world, to MHC from the University of Nevada and charged him with strengthening its public programs and curricular efforts. “The mission of the Miller Worley Center is to enable students to make connections across disciplines, across points of view, and across

The mission of the Miller Worley Center is to enable students to understand the concept of “environment” more broadly. Arts and the McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives. All are now situated in the renovated hall adjacent to the library. The plan is for the centers to share not only bricks and mortar but also programmatic themes, outside speakers, and the energy and new ideas that arise from smart people, interested in finding commonality among diverse perspectives, working in close proximity. The Center for the Environment in the past has suffered from something of an identity crisis. Many people were confused about whether it was part of the Environmental Studies Department, or one and the same, or somehow connected to the Botanic Garden, where the center used to hang its sign. Not anymore. Bolstered by a $5 million gift from

structures to help them understand the concept of ‘environment’ more broadly,” Farnham points out. First on his agenda was promoting summer internships. The Miller Worley gift included an endowed fund to support these research

Barbara Block, a marine biologist at Stanford University, and MacArthur “genius award” winner, delivered the keynote address on environmental education at the center’s dedication in October.

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and work experiences, which often determine the focus of a student’s coursework and later, her professional interests. “If you get a great internship experience, it becomes a highlight of your educational career,” said Farnham, who also teaches two classes, The Value of Nature and Environmental Issues. Students “come into Mount Holyoke idealistic and energized, gain the knowledge they need to meet the obstacles,” and then go and see for themselves how professionals are grappling head-on with issues in the field. This year, he placed twentytwo MHC students in competitive internships at organizations ranging from Tim Farnham, director of the Miller Worley Center for the Environment

Worldwatch Institute to Harvard Forest (see “Student Edge” article on p. 9) to Heifer International to the student garden at MHC. Next year, he hopes to double that number. To help defray living expenses, each intern is given a $2,500 stipend. Like everything else, environmental organizing and research are now focused on the Web. So the center is growing its online resource center and offers access to the leading environmental news sources Greenwire, the Energy and Environment Daily, and Climatewire. “There is so much information now that instead of going to get it at a meeting, you go to the Internet,” said Farnham. The resulting scat-

tered nature of environmental loyalties, however, makes it harder to bring speakers to campus who will appeal to such varied interests. Farnham’s approach is to build on students’ and the college’s united interest in interdisciplinary study.

L e f t : Pau l S c h n a i t tac h e r , Fa r L e f t : Sta n f o r d Un i v e r s i t y,

Also slated for a talk in fall was activist Anna Lappé, author of Diet for a Hot Planet and, together with her mother, Diet for a Small Planet author Frances Moore Lappé, cofounder of the Small Planet Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Looking ahead, Farnham says the center will continue to offer environmental career conferences, including one directed toward students of color; bring back to campus as mentors alumnae who are active in environmental fields; and offer workshops focused on law and public policy. “MHC environmental studies students want to combine science and social justice, and bring all of the different disciplines to bear on solving a problem,” said Farnham. —M.H.B. Check out all the Miller Worley Center for the Environment programs, including the student garden, campus trail maps, and weather stations, at www.mtholyoke.edu/mwce.

The class of 2014 brought energy, creative dress, and live blogging to its first convocation.

First-Year Class Proves Lots of Students Want MHC! The college welcomed its largest applicant pool in history this year, and admitted about half of all interested students, in line with its traditional rate of acceptance, according to the Office of Admission. The number of early-decision applicants also rebounded, indicating renewed hope in the economy. “Families are feeling a little more secure,” said Diane Anci, interim vice president for enrollment and dean of admission. “We’re not out of the woods yet on the economic front by any means,” she added, “but the early-decision numbers particularly suggest that people are feeling more optimistic.” The class of 2014 consists of 542 students, from an applicant pool of 3,359. It will be the college’s most diverse class ever, with 26 percent* international students and 26 percent US students of color. The college also received the highest number of applications ever from transfer students—269. Anci attributes the number to trends she and admission colleagues across the country are following. “There is growth in the collegegoing population in states with a strong tradition of community colleges, such

as California, Florida, and Texas,” she explained. Financial aid to the class of 2014 was down slightly from last year and more in the historic range, Anci said. Sixty-nine percent of students will receive needbased aid. The average institutional grant was $30,910. Regionally, population trends point to fewer students coming from the Northeast; 26 percent of the class comes from the area this year. Sixteen percent of the class hails from the Middle Atlantic, 11 percent from the South, 7 percent from the Central States, 13 percent from the West.

campuscurrents

Right: Fred LeBlanc

This year he is cosponsoring, with the English and history departments, eco-critic Ashton Nichols, who brings an environmental perspective to literary criticism, and Joachim Radkau, a German environmental historian and the author of Nature and Power.

In the class of 2014, thirty-nine states and forty-four foreign countries are represented, comprising 446 high schools across the globe. Additionally, the college has seen a surge in applications from China. This year, 410 Chinese students applied to MHC, compared to about 300 last year. Twenty-four of these are matriculating. Anci noted that demand, wealth, and the continued liberalization of China all contributed to the trend.—M.H.B. *Percentages are approximate.

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The Class of 2014 By the Numbers

The 542 members of class of 2014 have arrived and in a word, they are awesome.

Highlights

26 percent are US students of color 26 percent are international students 10 percent are legacies of MHC forebears 37 are Frances Perkins Scholars Top five states where students come from

MA: 84 students NY: 67 students CA: 40 students FL: 25 students CT: 23 students Academic background

316 come from public schools 175 come from private schools 51 attended parochial schools Top five foreign countries where students come from

China: 24 students Pakistan: 14 students Vietnam: 7 students Bangladesh: 6 students Malaysia: 6 students Who Applied; Who Arrived

3,359 applied 1,732 were admitted 542 are in the class *Percentages are approximate.

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Sofiya Taskova â&#x20AC;&#x2122;12 (left) and Lianna Lee â&#x20AC;&#x2122;12

Student Edge

In 1938, a hurricane of ferocious proportions struck New England, killing hundreds of people, destroying and damaging thousands of homes, and toppling untold numbers of trees. At the Harvard Forest research station in Petersham, Massachusetts, which is owned by Harvard University and about an hour’s drive from MHC, that kind of weather event is central to the long-term research being done on the forest’s response to natural and human disturbances. This past summer, Lianna Lee ’12 and Sofiya Taskova ’12 were part of a thirtyfour-student cohort who participated in the station’s annual Research Experience for Undergraduates. They were supported, in part, by MHC’s Miller Worley Center for the Environment. The competitive, twelve-week program has accepted numerous MHC student researchers in its twenty-year history. Its current outreach manager, Clarisse Hart, is a 2003 alumna; Corietta TesheraSterne ’10 just spent her second summer there.

Mieke H. Bomann

Lee and Taskova each worked on an independent research project with an academic mentor and presented her work at the station’s annual research symposium in August. Lee, who is majoring in environmental studies, surveyed and measured tree growth and tree succession in the forest. Working with both an experimental plot—in which trees were intentionally pulled down to simulate the 1938 storm—

and a control plot, the New Hampshire native examined how the forest reinvigorates itself, as well as the needs of its ecosystem, after a storm. “Over time,” she discovered in her surveys, “it recovers with the same herbs and shrubs” as before the weather event, following a predictable pattern of regrowth. Taskova is a computer science major and also will earn a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Dartmouth College as part of MHC’s dual-degree program. Her project involved creating software to collect data while a scientist performs experiments—in this case measuring the flow of water through an ecosystem—so that they can later examine the data collection process along with the data itself. Working with Barbara Lerner, MHC associate professor of computer science, Taskova spent lots of time at her computer but was also sent into the forest to help collect data from the water sensors used in the hydrology project. “It’s rare to find a computer science research project in this environment,” said Taskova. “I was excited. It’s interdisciplinary.” —M.H.B. More harvard forestry

You can find more information about Professor Lerner’s ongoing project at www. mtholyoke.edu/~blerner/ DataProvenance/. See fascinating dioramas at Harvard Forest’s Fisher Museum, portraying the history of New England forests, at http:// harvardforest.fas.harvard. edu/museum.html.

campuscurrents

At Work in Harvard Forest

“Unhappy Meals” and Other Uncommon “Common Reading” Since 2000, the first-year class has participated in the Common Reading as part of the orientation program for new students. Previous Common Readings have included Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains (2006), Ruth L. Ozeki’s My Year of Meats (2005), and Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books (2004). This fall, the reading is a series of articles and chapters from books related to food. Food and its related issues will be the focus of a campus-wide series of speakers and discussions this year. To join in, here’s your reading list.

Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior

The Ethics of What We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter

by Temple Grandin, chapters 1 and 2

by Peter Singer and Jim Mason, “Food and Ethics” (Introduction)

“There’s a homegrown way to address climate change” by Anna Lappé, Seattle Post Intelligencer, March 12, 2008

“GMO Giant (Monsantopoly)” by Anna Lappé, The Nation, September 11, 2006

“Doing Lunch”

“Unhappy Meals” by Michael Pollan, New York Times Magazine, January 28, 2007

“The Argument” by Peter Singer, The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty, (Section I, pages 3–44)

by Anna Lappé, The Nation, September 11, 2006

“What Should a Billionaire Give—And What Should You?” by Peter Singer, The New York Times Magazine, December 17, 2006

Review Says MHC Has Best Classroom Experience MHC’s classroom experience outshines all the competitors. That’s the word from the Princeton Review, which every year publishes the results of its survey of 122,000 students at 373 colleges across the country. It rates schools on dozens of topics and compiles a rankings list based on all of its institutional research. MHC’s classroom experience topped the competition. Here’s the quick list; all the research is in the book, The Best 373 Colleges: 2011 Edition.

Best Classroom Experience

Most Liberal Students

Students Study the Most

School Runs Like Butter

LGBT-Friendly

Most Beautiful Campus

Stone-Cold Sober Schools

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Most Politically Active Students

Tidbits

Peter Rosset, a food activist and scholar, ser ved as the Carol Hof fmann Collins Global-Scholar-inResidence in October at the McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives. Head of the Land Research Action Network in Oaxaca, Mexico, and former director of Food First/The Institute for Food and Development Policy in California, Rosset focused on food security during his campus residency. The global food crisis, food sovereignty, agrarian reform and peasant movements, genetically modified foods, and rural development were all considered during his one-week stay. His public lecture was titled, “ The World Food Crisis: Causes and Solutions.” Learn more at w w w.mtholyoke.edu/ global/index.html.

To p : S a d i e S h i l l i et o ’ 0 9

SAVE ENERGY, CREATE JOBS Energía, a sustainableenergy company in neighboring Holyoke that trains low-income youth for “green” jobs, made Wilder Hall more energy ef ficient this summer. The attic in the 1899 building received new insulation, and air leaks in the walls and ceiling were sealed, making the building warmer in winter and cooler in summer. Todd Holland, Five College energy manager, said the project will “close the sustainability loop,” by using money that would have gone toward heating fuel to hire local workers to reduce energy use and increase comfor t. “ They do really good work, and the crew chiefs were excellent,” Holland said.

art goes DIGITAL

campuscurrents

HOW TO SOLVE A FOOD CRISIS

A two-year digitization project will increase access to MHC’s 16,000-object Ar t Museum collection, thanks to a $150,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Librar y Ser vices. About 5,000 works of ar t on paper and antiquities will be photographed and researched, and the information then made available through the online Five College Museums/Historic Deer field Collections Database at museums.fivecolleges.edu. “Access to these images will significantly enhance awareness of the mar velous resources we have that can’t always be on view in our galleries,” said Interim Director Wendy Watson. so long, llamarada The MHC yearbook, Llamarada, has ceased publication. Despite valiant ef for ts by its small student staf f and the Of fice of Student Programs, it was tough to get enough students interested in working on the 201 0 book—or to get seniors to contribute photos. Only half of the 2010 seniors sat for or contributed pictures. The 2009 Llamarada sold fewer than 100 copies to underclasswomen. Because today’s students

Digitization specialist Laura Weston FP’06 digitizing the 1856 Japanese woodblock print Kaneiji Temple, by Ando Hiroshige have access to thousands of digital images, a hardbound compilation of a few photographs doesn’t stir interest, said John J. Laprade, director of the student programs of fice. What will replace the yearbook is still up in the air. But it will be “both sensitive to tradition and relevant to today’s students,” he said. ENGINEERING DUALDEGREE FIRST Safina Singh ’07 (right) became the first alumna to complete the MHC/ UMass. dual-degree program in engineering. Singh, called by MHC professor Thomas Millette “one of the hardest-working students I’ve ever had,” finished her master ’s degree in May. Her environmental studies major at MHC, plus her civil and environmental

engineering specialty at UMass, landed Singh a job at CH2M Hill, a leading firm in environmental engineering ser vices. She focuses on the design of water- and wastewater-treatment systems.

Lucia Neare ’88 just dropped a magical acorn in my hand. We have never met before, so I am struck by the unique greeting. No pleasantries about the weather. No “It’s nice to meet you.” Just a golden acorn. Correction: not just a golden acorn, an acorn made entirely of wishes. >>

Michael Doucett

Photography

These images are from Neareâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 2008â&#x20AC;&#x201C;09 Lullaby Moon performances, a yearlong celebration of the night sky and the world of dreams. Public performances, held on each new moon, brought bedtime whimsy and wonder to parks and other public spaces throughout Seattle, enlivening and enlightening the dark time of each month.

This spread : Mich ael D oucett Photogr aphy

Receiving such a gift from Neare, a Seattle artist famous for the large-scale, mythically inspired theatrical productions she creates, for free, is perfectly fitting. She isn’t the type to hand out business cards. Nothing suits her better than acorn-shaped wood covered in gold leaf and possibility. As I stare down at my hand, Neare begins to laugh. The sound gets bigger, tumbling out of her throat into the air around us until I am laughing, too. We are standing on one of the busiest streets in Seattle, laughing as if we were alone. It took just a minute to transform my otherwise lackluster day into one made entirely of wishes and humor. Dramatic transformation is Neare’s specialty. Those fortunate to stumble into the dream worlds she and her troupe, Lucia Neare’s Theatrical Wonders, create already know this. One need only scan the crowd of thousands to find clear evidence of what’s missing in a city that seems to have everything: magic. Take, for example, Ooo La La, an interactive flurry of color and imagination commissioned by GGLO, King County agency 4Culture, and Safeco. There were 150 Lindy-hopping bakers carrying giant golden eggs, dancers in poodle heads and pink dresses, children throwing rose petals from balconies, women dressed as pink cakes, and a parade of twenty champion poodles in pink bows, marching across the crowded city streets. It’s not every day a woman dressed as a giant cake strolls through downtown, and when one does, confusion may result. “People asked what we were selling,” Neare recalls, “and we’d say, ‘Nothing! It’s May, are you in love? Ooo la

la!’ People are used to seeing wonderful things, but usually as consumers. We need magic that’s not about buying a ticket.” That Neare’s elaborate performances are free is certainly magic—a magic that relies almost exclusively on grants and individual donations. Neare’s projects are rewarding in many ways, but not the ways that allow for storing giant horse, swan, and clock heads. That explains why, when I suggested we meet at her house, she just laughed. “I’d love to have you over,” she said, “but my roommates are multiplying like rabbits!” She was referring to the rabbit heads from Lullaby Moon. I imagine they’re nestled

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Dreamlike images from Lullaby Moon, plus (facing page, top) Lucia Neare in costumeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;look closely at the mustacheâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;for her performance Ooo La La, which featured 150 Lindy-hopping bakers carrying giant golden eggs, dancers in poodle heads, and women dressed as pink cakes.

bed on Lake Union, pulled by a tugboat, with dancers dressed as horses. How am I going to make that happen?” she says, recalling Lullaby Moon, a yearlong celebration of the night sky, performed at beaches and parks across Seattle. “So many people have big dreams but sometimes get talked out of them. We get a lot of fear driven into us about security. If you knew that anything was possible, would you live in a cubicle, or would you live your big dream? I want to encourage people to live their biggest dreams.” Some might say her connections to city officials help her accomplish those dreams, but anyone who has seen her work knows the truth. Lucia Neare’s dreams have come true because she refuses to keep them to herself. She has always believed in sharing. Magic works best that way. Most of us used to believe in magic. But then we grew up, and life carried our magic away. Neare knows where it’s been hiding, and has invited it out to play. Why not join her? It’s as easy as looking up at the night sky and following the stars. Should you get lost, a dancing clock or horsedrawn bed will always help you find your way back. dream on Revel in the magic at lucianeare.org.

This spread : John Small

snugly against the golden eggs from Ooo La La, so I ask how she chooses her characters. Why 150 Lindy-hopping bakers? Why golden eggs? “Why?” Neare gasps, perplexed by the question. “What do you mean, why? That’s just how it’s supposed to be!” When you consider the largescale Busby Berkeley-style The Wizard of Oz she put together in high school, her reaction is only natural. It would be difficult for Neare to go smaller after that, considering her influences are P.T. Barnum and Dr. Seuss. Add to that the fact that her operatic training in Western classical music and the south Indian Carnatic vocal tradition have led her to sing both on top of a pyramid and in front of a pod of Orca whales, and you get a better understanding of the lens through which she sees the world. Neare’s productions are large, she says, not for spectacle, but to awaken wonder in an audience accustomed to staring at tiny screens and inanimate boxes. The grandeur of her performances reflects the import of her message— she wants to teach people that dreams have no size limitations. “The question, when you get a big idea, is, how do you go about manifesting it? I want to put a floating canopy

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In a Class of Its Own Thirty Years On, Frances Perkins Program Still Changing Lives By Leanna James Blackwell Picture a warm May day in South Hadley. Standing on the lawn in front of Blanchard Campus Center is a group of women wearing crisp white dresses and deep purple scarves. They are waving hand-lettered signs in the air—“It is there to be done, so I do it”; “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” The bagpipes’ brassy drone drowns out all conversation. Stragglers scurry into line. The reunion parade begins, a cheer goes up, and they’re off. The “purple class” is smaller than the others in the parade but it’s marching right in front, its members proud to be back at the place that changed their lives beyond

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recognition. This is Mount Holyoke’s Frances Perkins (FP) class—both a recognized class of its own and in a class of its own. Today, thirty years after its founding, many take the FP program for granted. That would be a mistake, for the program is still attracting promising women aged twentyfour and older who go on to transform their own lives and the lives of those around them. The FP reunion is celebrated every four years, and attendees cross the generations. Many meet for the first time during reunion. If you happen to drop by their headquarters dorm on Friday night, you might hear fewer

(left) FP graduates march proudly in purple during the 2010 alumnae parade at reunion.

roommate stories (“Remember the night we were locked out of our dorm and slept on the roof ?”) and more about the surprising circumstances that brought the women here. And if you joined your new friends for a drink, you might hear stories such as these: “I Googled the phrase, ‘Full-time mother goes to school’ and the FP program popped up!” “I was in England, working as a nanny and learning English. Then my mother back in Croatia heard about a scholarship offered to a Croatian woman.” “I was an older actress … I initially contacted MHC because I had played Emily Dickinson in The Belle of Amherst.”

Gathered from Far and Wide FPs arrive at the college with a wide range of worldly experience. They have run businesses, raised families, and worked in local communities, schools, and political organizations. More than 90 percent transfer to Mount Holyoke from community colleges. Holyoke Community College (HCC), for instance, is where the city of Holyoke’s dynamic new mayor Elaine Pluta FP’96 began her academic career. It was a long way from taking night classes at HCC—

Elaine Pluta FP’96, who took classes at Holyoke Community College before coming to MHC, greets officials at her inauguration as mayor of Holyoke.

“Mount Holyoke seemed so remote”— to becoming mayor of a city. Pluta, a mother who had always been involved with local politics, remembers attending a college fair and “meeting the FP ladies” (Kay Althoff FP’84, currently the associate director, and Carolyn Dietel, director). “At first I said, ‘You’re kidding, right?’ and they said, ‘No. You’re working in the field; you can bring the field to the classroom and the classroom to the field. Mount Holyoke is the place for you.’ What do you know? It turned out that my age and experience counted for something.” FPs who don’t transfer from “The Frances Perkins program is community colleges often have everything [Mary Lyon] believed college credits from other four-year in: recognizing women with great institutions, but took time off— potential,” says Kate Rindy FP’08. sometimes a few years, sometimes decades. Barbara Abney Bolger attended Mount Holyoke from 1952 to 1954, then left to get married. “The Mary Lyon wanted to support,” college wouldn’t allow me to continue she says. “The Frances Perkins as a married woman,” she remembers. program is everything she believed “And to be honest, my husband at the in: recognizing women with great time didn’t want me to, either—times potential.” were different then.” Times changed, and so did Bolger, who returned after Working Hard to Make the thirty years to get her degree from the Dream Real college she had always loved. She now All Mount Holyoke women have great has two class affiliations, one with the potential, or they wouldn’t get in. All class of 1956 (which she’s served as many FPs have lacked is recognition class president) and one with the FP of that potential and opportunities class. “We are true Mount Holyoke to fulfill it. Someone has to say, “You women,” she says firmly, “as much can do this,” and “Knock on this door. a part of this college as any other Ask that person for help.” That’s what graduate.” the Frances Perkins Program does, What is a true Mount Holyoke brilliantly. woman? Kate Rindy FP’08 is happy FPs have a startling tendency to to tell you. According to Rindy, she dive into college life like Olympic “has a deep desire to learn. She cares competitors while at the same time about the world and the people in gracefully hiding the fact that they are it. She’s a risk-taker, an adventurer in sometimes terrified. They consistently life who seeks both intellectual and garner the highest academic awards, moral knowledge. She wants to use her education to lift others around her. complete honors theses at a higher proportion than any other class, and Every FP I know is the embodiment graduate magna cum laude and Phi of that woman!” Beta Kappa. A graduate in history who Pretty impressive, especially when now works in Mount Holyoke’s you look at their extracurricular development office, Rindy is activities. Glee Club, crew, student passionate about her work, and about government? Sure. Peer counseling? building on the original vision of the Definitely. (Younger classmates often college’s founder. “We are the women Mou n t Ho lyo k e Al u m na e Qua r t e r ly

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Corinne Espinoza FP’07 says the FP program taught her “to dream big, be brave, and trust in myself.”

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She graduated with a degree in economics and landed her “dream job” as a researcher with Harvard economist Roland Fryer, with whom she built American Inequality Labs (now EdLabs). She currently works in Harvard’s Office of the President. “I learned to dream big, be brave, and trust in myself.” Ana Drazic FP’02, who in a past life was a nanny in England, took that lesson to heart. When news reached Drazic’s mother in Croatia that MHC was offering a scholarship to a Croatian woman, Drazic took a deep breath and applied to the college. She was chosen out of many, and that was the end of her life as a nanny. The day she arrived on campus was her first day in the United States—no time even to visit New York City first. Still learning English and with no source of income, Drazic was lonely at first. Soon, though, she found a job with the dance department, made friends with another math major, and started attending dance concerts. She graduated with a mathematics major and Italian minor. Drazic now teaches high-school honors mathematics in England and is raising two “wonderful daughters.” Catherine Allgor FP’92, whose main connection to Mount Holyoke was having acted in all of the late Wendy Wasserstein’s plays, says she enrolled because “I was an actress hiding the fact that I was an intellectual. I felt the need for a real

R ight : Kat e R in d y

turn to them for advice, and FPs both have it and give it.) Then add raising children, holding down full-time jobs, caring for aging parents, managing family businesses, and going through divorces, remarriages, and other major life changes. FPs do these extra extracurricular activities regularly, exhaustingly, and well. Write an economics paper, pick up the child from daycare, study for a chemistry exam, grab some groceries, and show up for your evening-shift job? All in a day’s work. And make sure you get an “A” on that paper. Now repeat, for as many years as it takes. If that sounds like a long slog in the coal mines, sometimes it is. But for FPs, making scholarly discoveries, learning to soar intellectually, and finding their genuine passions and

Ana Drazic FP’02 traveled from her native Croatia to become an FP, arriving at MHC on her very first day in the United States.

Bottom Left: Leise Jones ’01,

Barbara Abney Bolger started with the class of 1956, left to marry, and returned to get her degree as an FP some thirty years later.

true talents is like finding a cache of diamonds at the end of the day. You forget what it took to locate those riches. Take Corinne Espinoza FP’07. A self-described “poor, single mother” raising a three-year-old son, she had dreamed of going to Mount Holyoke since her junior year in high school, when she aced her SATs. Life took her in a very different direction, but her dream remained stubbornly alive. When the college accepted her, she gave notice to her employer and her landlord, packed everything she owned (clothes, books, and a few toys for her boy) into suitcases, and moved across the country to South Hadley. Life as a student and mother was hard. Espinoza remembers “coasting down the hill on the way home in order to save a bit of gas” and “washing clothes in the bathtub” when, after paying for daycare, she didn’t have enough money left for the laundromat. She developed a unique, onlyat-Mount-Holyoke way to cope. “I talked to Mary Lyon at her gravesite every time I was afraid,” she confesses. That helped, as did going to the library, “smelling the wood and writing poems about glass and sunlight.” Studying with Nancy Folbre, Espinoza developed a passion for feminist economics.

The 2010 FP graduating class poses in May with program directors Kay Althoff FP’84 (far left front) and Carolyn Dietel (far right front). education.” Allgor went on to earn a PhD in history at Yale, write two books, and is now a full professor and presidential chair at the University of California, Riverside. As these women’s stories illustrate, something about MHC and the Frances Perkins Program inspires dedication and hard work that would awe anyone from a workaholic CEO to an Everest mountaineer. And all that effort pays off in extraordinary accomplishments. But FPs’ achievements are personal as well as professional: knowing what you believe and how to apply it; knowing that your mind is powerful and that your voice counts; knowing that you are capable of doing whatever you set your mind to. In this way, FPs are just like every other Mount Holyoke class: made up of women who know how to live usefully, consciously, passionately, and well.

Fast Facts about FPs Who was Frances Perkins? This 1902 MHC alumna became the nation’s first female cabinet member (secretary of labor under FDR). How many FP alumnae are there? Nearly 1,000. Snapshot of FPs in 2010–11 Enrollment: 148 Age Range: 22–59 years old (median age: 32) Racial Background of US FPs: African American, Asian American, Latina American, Native American, Pacific Islander, White Countries of Origin for International FPs: Afghanistan, China, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Moldova, Poland, Tanzania, Venezuela Marital Status: 87 single, 30 married, 24 divorced or separated, 6 partnered, 1 widowed Women with Children: 55 Living in Residence Halls: 43

Join the LinkedIn Group for FPs If you are an FP, join the others at the LinkedIn group at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/fp_linkedin.

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The

Life of the

Hands Does Hands-On Work Mean Leaving Brainwork Behind?

By Susan Bushey Manning â&#x20AC;&#x2122;96

So you think grad schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s difficult? Try lifting fifty-pound bags of flour; or climbing a ladder in the snow to work on electrical lines; or repeatedly cutting and gluing pieces of wood and leather to make a musical instrument. Sometimes the life of the hands is just as challenging as the life of the mind.

Cruz Ricker ’95 With a hardhat, drills, wires, and other apparatus, Claire “Cruz” Ricker ’95 gets downright dirty every day. She’s definitely not your average Mount Holyoke alumna. Ricker is a licensed journeyman electrician. When other alumnae hear this, they usually say, “How cool!” and ask for her card. The route to her goal was not an easy one, though, and included far more years of training than for those in other, more white-collar, fields. Five years total, to be exact. Five years of working three jobs just to earn journeyman status—only to be laid off. “Most people who go to school for five years get called doctor when they finish,” she joked. Working in a traditionally male-dominated field and taking in stride the culture that comes with it, Ricker is no joke. “There is an incredible amount of judgment and prejudgment of women on the job site. It’s a tough road for a woman,” said the Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, resident. This tough road was not always a dream for Ricker, who majored in American history at MHC. She studied hard, but never found in college what she wanted to pursue in life. To pay the bills after graduation, she worked in retail, at a nonprofit, and as an emergency medical technician. Then, in 2000, she answered an ad for a carpenter’s apprentice. Being an apprentice wasn’t easy, and the pay was pitiful. “My first year, I worked as an apprentice, an EMT, and for a friend in construction, just to make ends meet,” she said. After being told she was good at electrical work, she switched from carpentry to seek an electrician’s license. But that wasn’t all glory, either. Although she has always been “out” about her sexual orientation with her crew, Ricker was victimized on a larger job when her hardhat was vandalized; someone wrote “fag bitch” on one side and “dyke” on the other. “My father told me I should wear it that way,” she said, noting she never felt unsafe and that probably someone was upset that a woman was

on the job. “You must advocate for yourself, but it’s a fine line. You have to be one of the boys, while never being one of the boys. I have managed to find a balance.” But nothing beats being in the union, she added, where she has been since 2002. The benefits are amazing, including full health coverage while she’s unemployed. She also gets professional development opportunities such as classes at Wentworth Institute of Technology, where she earned a certificate in construction management. “The union is a brotherhood … we have all the same skills,” said Ricker, adding, however, that sometimes “brotherhood” comes before “we all have the same skills.” When she was laid off, Ricker was told a few times, “If we have a job where we need a woman, we’ll call you.” She said that is just one of the ways sexism is blatantly obvious. “Why ‘need a woman’? Why not just ‘need a job done’”? she asked. Right now, she is on the union’s out-ofwork list, along with 1,800 fellow electricians, and her priority is to get a job, any job. That’s not stopping her from considering her future, though. “I was approached by another member to take on the state senator in my district, and I’m considering it. I’m also very interested in grad school,” she said, adding that she’d like to go into urban planning. “I’ve seen how [structures] get built and by whom, but now I want to know why and I want to be a part of it.” When asked whether she feels her career is a cheat to her Mount Holyoke education, Ricker replied no. “I ask myself that sometimes, when I’m on a ladder in the snow … knowing I went to the best liberal arts college in the country … I don’t think I would have been able to stick with it, if I didn’t have the Mount Holyoke ‘cando’ attitude. Then I wonder, ‘Why can’t I translate that to my field?’”

When Cruz Ricker ’95 tells another alumna she’s a licensed journeyman electrician, “there’s a respectful moment of understanding of what my job must entail. What goes unspoken is the certainty that Mount Holyoke produces confident, strong women who can do anything successfully.”

Precise handwork is key for concertina builder Marga Hutcheson ’08.

Marga Hutcheson ’08 The hand-held instrument is small for the size of the melodies it produces, but it takes days of work to craft a single one. For Marga Hutcheson ’08, it is her life and her job. She makes concertinas, cousins to the accordion. “My current job is pretty out of the ordinary,” said the Amherst, Massachusetts, resident. Hutcheson is the secondmost-junior employee at The Button Box in Sunderland, Massachusetts. Although the business makes, sells, and repairs concertinas and accordions, she works “almost exclusively in constructing new instruments.” Hutcheson’s days often look the same, and her hands definitely get a workout. “The work is quite repetitive and involves lots of cutting and gluing leather [to make the bellows], hammering, putting in springs, and sanding wood,” she said. “I use chisels, tweezers, hammers, electric sanders, and sometimes the drill press or band saw.” Unorthodox as her job may be, she still manages to balance intellectually her MHC education with her blue-collar work, and feels her current job “is actually quite an appropriate next step after MHC. There certainly are times when I have to use my intellect quite a bit. I am always thinking about how I can make things more efficient, and occasionally I get to be inventive and figure out how to do something new.” The young alum likens the repetitive nature of her work to meditation. “Having work where I often do not have to think

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allows me to reflect on the various mental states that arise, and to cultivate my ability to keep on returning my awareness to the handwork I am doing and to my breath … At Mount Holyoke, I studied religion, especially Buddhism … This experience has helped me turn what could have been a boring job into a fruitful, almost spiritual practice,” she said. An environmental studies major at MHC, Hutcheson said she feels “grateful … to be working at a job that I feel is fairly good, from an ethical standpoint. I am working for a small, local company, making something that people hopefully will not just consume and throw into a landfill,” she said. Hutcheson’s MHC friends are “generally pretty positive about the work I do and see its value,” but she admits she has felt “a bit inferior for not being in grad school or ‘knowing what to do’ with my life … I probably won’t be a concertina maker all of my life. I am grateful to have a job that uses different skills than those I was learning at Mount Holyoke, but that also has some continuity with what I was doing at MHC.”

“I get to be inventive and figure out how to do something new.”

Left : B en Barn h art,

Right: Andy Duback

Kirsten Baumgartner Stetler ’96 to create. The good part, though, is that at the end of the day, Carefully scraping the last bits of dough from her mixing bowl, Kirsten Baumgartner Stetler ’96 makes sure not a single you really feel like you’ve worked,” she said. Her creativity and hard labor shine through when a chocolate chip goes to waste. It may be her 300th batch of customer wants a cake in the shape of something off the wall. cookie dough, but she wouldn’t trade baking for the world. “Sometimes I will discuss how the idea could be executed with “There is … something soothing about repetitive work. my boss … Or I’ll look online for photos of what other people When you get in a zone, you don’t have to think about what have done, or just Google ‘pterodactyl,’ so I know that I’m you’re doing anymore and your mind is clear; that’s really accurately representing the thing they want on the cake,” said nice,” said the Vermont resident. Stetler. (Yes, she did design a pterodactyl cake.) Stetler, who left Mount Holyoke midway through But just because she chose a career in the kitchen doesn’t sophomore year for financial reasons, said, “I had a great mean her education went to waste. “I don’t think there’s a experience at MHC, but it was too brief. I wish I could have hands-on job that doesn’t involve the intellect, unless maybe stayed longer because I’m sure I would have benefited more.” you’re in a factory just pushing a button all day. Baking is a After leaving MHC, she first went home to Philadelphia science; you have to understand how it works to be successful. to earn money to finish school. Her interest in photography blossomed, and Stetler finished her degree at the Art Institute If a recipe doesn’t come out right, you need to be able to figure out chemically what went wrong and how to fix it,” of Boston (AIB). she said. “I decided to study photography because it was something I enjoyed doing, and I knew I needed to get my bachelor’s Is your collar blue too? degree. I didn’t think much about a career path at that point because, after several years of trying to finish college, that felt Share how you work with your hands at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/hands_on. like my career,” said Stetler. After graduation, she took a job in the Student Services Office at AIB, and “ended up on a ‘cubicle career’ track … I never pursued a career in photography because it was very personal for me, and I didn’t want to lose my enthusiasm for it by making it my job,” she explained. For assistant pastry chef But something about cubicle life didn’t sit well with her. “I Kirsten Baumgartner was feeling unhappy being in front of a computer all day, not Stetler ’96, samples are, doing anything creative, and I didn’t feel I was really helping well, icing on the cake. anyone or contributing anything to the world. And spending half of your waking hours doing something you don’t enjoy is such a waste. I decided that if I had to work … I would rather spend that time doing something I enjoy,” she said. Baking fit the bill. “I chose baking as a career because I have always enjoyed making bread, and working with yeast just fascinates me. As a living organism, it’s so interesting; there’s nothing else like it in cooking. I loved baking at home and wanted to learn more, to master it. Even though I’m done with school, there is still a ton more to learn about bread and yeast.” So last year, she and her husband picked up, packed up, and moved to Vermont so that Stetler could enroll in a baking program at the New England Culinary Institute; she graduated earlier this year. After finishing an internship, the Vermont Cake Studio in Waterbury employed her as assistant pastry chef. So far, she loves it. “Everyone I’ve told about my career change has been enthusiastic,” Stetler says, and some confide that their own secret ambition is to be a baker. Working for half her previous salary and at the bottom of the pay scale, since she’s new to the field, Stetler says she still makes a living and that the tradeoff is worth it for the enjoyment and the career possibilities baking provides. “Definitely the hardest part of my job now is the physical labor, just being on my feet all day, lifting fifty-pound bags of flour, rolling out croissant dough for pastries that take all day

By Hannah M. Wallace ’95 Illustrations by Raul Allen

The story of Phoebe Prince, a fifteen-year-old student at South Hadley High School who took her own life last January after being bullied mercilessly by classmates, made national headlines. The Boston Globe ran a column titled “Untouchable Mean Girls,” and Phoebe’s photo was splashed on the cover of People. The case appeared on the evening news and was debated on the Dr. Phil and Today shows. Massachusetts Northwestern District Attorney Elizabeth D. Scheibel ’77 took an aggressive stance with Prince’s bullies, handing down serious criminal charges including civil rights violation with bodily injury, which carries a maximum penalty of ten years in prison. “It appears that Phoebe’s death on January 14 followed a tortuous day for her, in which she was subjected to verbal harassment and threatened physical abuse,” Scheibel said in March. “The events were not isolated, but the culmination of a nearly three-month campaign of verbally assaultive behavior and threats of physical harm.” Scheibel also charged the two male bullies with statutory rape because they were seventeen and eighteen, while Phoebe was under the age of consent. Although Scheibel was not at liberty to discuss the ongoing case with me, she said that bullying is an issue her

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office has been working on for at least a decade. “A couple of years ago, we saw an increase in bullying between girls— increased aggression,” added Scheibel. Bullying is Serious

What happened to Prince was extreme, but many children and teens endure less serious harassment and taunting that can have a lifelong psychological impact. South Hadley High had a history of bullying incidents before Prince’s case. A 2005 survey revealed that 30 percent of students said they’d been bullied in the past year. National research shows that as many as 25 percent of US students are bullied with some frequency. Prince’s suicide has served as a wake-up call not just for South Hadley High, where an Anti-Bullying Task Force was formed soon after her death, but also for schools, administrators, and parents across the country. Prince’s case galvanized Massachusetts legislators to revive a decade-old anti-bullying bill (it passed last April), and it has inspired school districts from coast to coast to launch anti-bullying curricula. “For too long, schools in general and organizations that

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work with kids have taken the perspective of, ‘Boys will be boys, and girls will be girls, and everyone goes through this,’’ says Christopher E. Overtree, director of The Psychological Services Center at UMass–Amherst. But as a teacher or parent, it is vital to intervene. Sabrina Vollers ’02 was bullied ruthlessly as a kid. “I was hit, spat on, called mean names, taunted, tricked and pranked, completely ostracized, even had my books and belongings peed on,” recounts Vollers. This occurred from fifth through eighth grades, and she didn’t escape the misery until she left for an all-girls’ boarding school for her freshman year of high school. Vollers, like other alumnae I interviewed, remembers this harassment with startling specificity, even though it happened decades ago. She says she never could have survived those torturous years without the support of her parents. (Interestingly, they had both been bullied as children, too.) “They were never like, ‘Why are you so unpopular?’ They were very sympathetic and always told me that, if I ever had to do anything in my defense, they would totally back me up,” she says. Her father always told her, “If anybody hits you, you hit them back.” At one point, Vollers did just that, when a kid in English class called her a “fat pig” and drew a line from her forehead to her chin, cutting her with his pen in the process. “I was so upset that I punched him right in the face,” says Vollers. “The teacher said, ‘Oliver, go to the principal’s office right now and stay there until the end of the day.’” Vollers remembers this as one of the few times when a teacher was on her side. Christina La Luna ’93 says that teachers at her Catholic elementary school in Pennsylvania only worsened her already miserable situation. During a vocabulary lesson, one teacher introduced the word lunatic. Because of her name, “From that point on, I was known as “La Lunatic,” she recounted. “It was very hurtful for that to dog me year after year.” What Teachers Can Do

Teachers should intercede when they witness bullying, but they often don’t, say bullying experts, mostly because they aren’t taught how to recognize and handle difficult social relationships. “Teachers get little training in understanding social relationships,” says Susan Engel, a senior lecturer in psychology at Williams College. “They don’t know how to evaluate a kid who needs treatment” for bullying behavior. In July, Engel and her colleague Marlene Sandstrom, a psychology professor at Williams College, wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times, urging schools to go beyond

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quick-fix anti-bullying measures (such as a one-time assembly speaker) and instead invest in comprehensive training sessions in which teachers and administrators learn how complex children’s social interactions really are. “Some bullies have a pathology underlying their bullying—they need special therapy,” says Engel, but the more common kind of bullies are otherwise nice kids. “If they came to your house with their parents, they’d seem like cute, normal kids. And they are, but they’ve gotten really off track.” These are the kinds of kids teachers can typically reach, says Engel. Furthermore, students need to know which adults they’re supposed to report bullying incidences to, and that adult needs to be nonthreatening. “It’s amazing how many kids, when you ask them, say, ‘I wouldn’t know who to tell,’” says Sandstrom. “And then many teachers say, ‘Stop being a tattle-tale.’”

In Norway, where a series of bullying-related suicides in the early 1980s forced a national conversation about how to combat bullying, the government passed comprehensive anti-bullying legislation. In their op-ed, Engel and Sandstrom described that country’s efforts, which have been extremely effective. “There, everyone gets involved— teachers, janitors, and bus drivers are all trained to identify instances of bullying, and taught how to intervene. Teachers regularly talk to one another about how their students interact. Children in every grade participate in weekly classroom discussions about friendship and conflict.” During the first two years of these programs, bullying fell by half. The man behind Norway’s initiatives is Dan Olweus, and his anti-bullying prevention program is considered one of the most effective in the world. Many US schools have already implemented it with great success. Several years ago, D.A. Elizabeth Scheibel’s office invited bullying expert Rosalind Wiseman, author of Queen Bees and Wannabees, to present her Owning Up curriculum to interested area teachers and administrators. The program aims to get students to take responsibility for unethical behavior. Wiseman’s two-day workshop used a “train the trainers” approach—teachers returned to their schools to implement it. Scheibel’s office recently sent a staff person to

become a master trainer in the Olweus program; this fall, the D.A.’s office will offer that program to district schools. At Wahconah Regional High School in Massachusetts, history teacher Caitlin Harrigan Graham ’07 rarely sees bullying. She credits the school’s long-term investment in promoting a sense of community between students and faculty via an annual “Civility Day.” “Kids tell heart-felt stories. Teachers say things like, they used to have a lisp and were made fun of—and that’s why they became a teacher in the first place. This hits home with the kids,” says Graham. “One teacher spoke about being gay, and growing up at a time when it was not all right.” The only time that Graham witnessed bullying at her school was last year, when she overheard a sophomore boy teasing a freshman girl who had had an abortion earlier in the year. “They were in study hall talking about a book they’d read in which this character had had an abortion. He said, ‘That’s you,’ and poked her. She looked upset,” recounts Graham, who immediately went over to remonstrate him. “He instantly said, ‘I’m really sorry Ms. Harrigan, I’m really sorry, Sarah,’” says Graham. Improving the social climate through something like Civility Day is exactly what Overtree, the UMass–Amherst professor, does as a senior consultant for the Center for School Climate and Learning. “I think of my work not as anti-bullying but as pro-social work,” he says. “We try to stimulate a positive social climate that makes bullying stand out as a negative behavior.” He does this by first understanding what a school’s community norms are and then by forming student leadership teams. “Bullying happens in front of other kids. We need bystanders to step up,” he says. In one Tennessee school that Overtree and his colleagues assessed, the main issue was that the students lacked empathy. Instead of having teachers give lectures on bullying, faculty and staff approached the dilemma creatively: they purchased hand looms and started a club where students made hats for newborn babies in the community as well as pediatric cancer patients at local hospitals. “It was just a little hat program, but it had a drastic change on the demeanor of the school,” he says. “Every student became engaged. Academically, things improved, too.” Overtree says this side benefit is common. “After a good climate-improvement process, you will see about an 11 percent improvement in academics.”

Anti-bullying Resources • Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (www.olweus.org) Dr. Dan Olweus is the pioneering bullying researcher whose anti-bullying initiatives were adopted by the Norwegian government and rolled out at public schools there in the early 1980s. (As a result, the incidence of bullying fell by half.) This site contains program materials, video archives, and up-to-date information on conferences and online seminars.

• Stop Bullying Now (stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov), produced by the Health Resources and Services Administration, has sections targeted to both kids and adults. For adults, there are tip sheets, background on cyberbullying, and best practices in bullying prevention. For kids, the site has cartoon Webisodes illustrating common bullying scenarios (pictured below), tips on how to be a youth leader, and simple steps to take if you’re being bullied.

• The Center for School Climate and Learning (www.necscl.org) This site has information and videos about the New Hampshire-based company’s services—which include student leadership training, Webinars for teachers and administrators, and SafeMeasures (a four-stage process that brings together teams of student and adult leaders to set goals, create action plans, and initiate projects that promote measurable school climate improvement). There is also a great page of resources that relate to school climate, bullying, respect, and safety.

• Rosalind Wiseman: Creating Cultures of Dignity (http://rosalindwiseman.com) The author and educator on children, teens, parenting, education, and social justice aims to help parents, educators, and young people successfully navigate the social challenges of young adulthood. Her blog posts cover topics such as “5 Ways to Prevent and Stop Cyberbullying” and “Why Are Our Girls So Angry?”

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What Parents Can Do

Sabrina Vollers ’02 remembers clearly how her mother calmed her down during the worst of her harassment. “When I came home from school crying, my mom used to tell me ‘Look, these people are nothing. They don’t mean anything in your life and you’ll soon be on to bigger, brighter, and better things. It won’t matter what happened in grade school.’” Her mom’s words have borne themselves out. Vollers, now getting her PhD in biochemistry, has a great circle of friends and is amused by one turn of events. Some of these very same bullies now want to “Friend”

Vollers on Facebook. “I certainly wish them the best,” she says, “but I don’t want to be their Friends.” Aside from emotional and moral support, parents can also play a crucial role by communicating with teachers and administrators. “Parents need to be on board with the bullying policy,” says Sandstrom, who suggests sharing the policy with parents at a mandatory PTA meeting. That way, they’ll know whom to talk to—a guidance counselor, the principal, a teacher, or all three—should their child become a bully or the victim of bullying. But parents also need to teach their kids to respect others and appreciate their differences. Elizabeth Scheibel ’77, the D.A. in the Phoebe Prince case, says she never would have dreamt of talking to anyone the way the kids at South Hadley High allegedly spoke to Prince. “I don’t want to sound Pollyannaish, but I was raised in a home where we were taught manners, respect, and civility,” says Scheibel. “It wasn’t acceptable to talk about others in a negative way. It wasn’t tolerated, quite honestly.”

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The New Twist of Cyberbullying

It used to be that bullying was more common among boys, but with the advent of Facebook, Twitter, and text messaging, bullying is now equally prevalent between both genders, says Overtree. Girls tend to be more proficient at what social scientists call “relational aggression”—teasing, malicious gossip, and verbal threats—all of which are facilitated by technology. Boys, however, also use technology to harass their peers. Susan Vaughan-Fier ’94 is a teacher at a private high school in Minnesota, where several boys were suspended last year for sending harassing texts of a sexual nature to female classmates. “The girls who reported it later wanted to recant,” says Vaughan-Fier, explaining that they were bullied again—by the same boys and by female peers—for having spoken out to their teachers. “But the text evidence was there.” This incident motivated the school to examine its sexual-harassment policy and to institute weeklong homeroom lessons on sexual harassment. Barring your children from the Internet is not practical or necessary, says Gail Scanlon FP’94, who works in Mount Holyoke’s Library, Information, and Technology Services and who served on the Online Behavior Subcommittee of South Hadley High’s AntiBullying Task Force. “It was important for me to help people understand that barring access to the Internet and social-networking sites is not the answer to eliminating bullying,” says Scanlon. Among her task force’s recommendations were free workshops for parents about online safety and privacy issues; a public service announcement student contest against cyberbullying; and mandating that each student receive at least two hours of training about cyberbullying each year. Psychologist Susan Engel says that, while the Internet offers another venue for bullying, it hasn’t necessarily increased bullying. “Kids have always gossiped and done it away from adult eyes,” she says. “They used to do it at the park or in the woods or at the back of a soda fountain shop.” It’s naïve to think that bullying can be prevented entirely. However, being pro-active—by teaching kids civility, creating community, and forging collaboration—can create an environment in which bullying becomes rare. When there’s a shared sense of responsibility, of working toward a common goal—remember the Tennessee students who made hats for pediatric cancer patients—kids are more likely to have empathy for one another. Engel’s son’s school district has started a community garden. “It promotes community and a sense of shared responsibility, a sense of the common good,” she says. “Any school could do this. It’s just a matter of will.”

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Words Worth a Second Look

Poetry

Nonfiction

Grace Only Follows By Wendy E. Ingersoll (March Street Press) Set against the marshy backdrop of Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Ingersoll’s book of poems fine-tunes the complex melody of a woman’s life that includes the end of a long marriage, the birth of a first grandchild, and aging parents. Loss and grief are inevitable, the verses relate, but grace, too, follows. Wendy E. Ingersoll ’69 is a musician and piano teacher outside Wilmington, Delaware. Her book was awarded first prize in the 2010 Delaware Press Association communications contest.

Wine: A Cultural History By John Varriano (Reaktion Books) Coproduced by the MHC Art Museum and a companion to its fall 2010 special exhibition, Wine and Spirit: Rituals, Remedies, and Revelries. Wine: A Cultural History is not an exhibition catalog but a sweeping and richly illustrated narrative history of wine. Drawing on works of art from museums all over the world, along with literary traditions, Varriano clues us in to the cultural companions that have accompanied wine since the time of Homer and Hesiod. John Varriano is emeritus professor of art history at MHC, where he taught for thirty-nine years. He is also the author of Italian Baroque and Rococo Architecture; Rome: A Literary Companion; Caravaggio: the Art of Realism; and Tastes and Temptations: Food and Art in Renaissance Italy.

Threads Give Way By Shannon K. Winston (Cold Press Publishing) In this debut collection of poems, Winston translates sensory vibrations and murmurings into language. Vulnerability, dissolution, and new beginnings are central themes in her poems, which one reviewer noted are “filled with quiet leaps of surreal lyricism.” Shannon K. Winston-Dolan ’03 grew up in Chicago and Paris.

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Mark Hampton: An American Decorator By Duane Hampton (Rizzoli) Often cited as a classic American success story, Mark Hampton grew up in small-town Indiana and went on to become one of the country’s most admired interior designers. He worked for famous private clients, including Jacqueline Onassis and President George H.W. Bush, and institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This book offers a comprehensive look at his broad career and intuitive sense of design. Duane Flegel Hampton ’64, Mark Hampton’s widow, is a writer and editor specializing in interior design. She also wrote The Art of Friendship, a compilation of Mark Hampton’s watercolors.

The Hidden Children of France: 1940–1945 Edited by Danielle Bailly; translated by Betty Becker-Theye (SUNY Press) In World War II, during the Nazi occupation of France, ordinary French citizens saved six out of seven Jewish children from deportation. This book offers the testimony of eighteen former “hidden children” who describe their incredible journeys and the risks taken by their countrymen to save them. No one who lived through the experience came out unscarred. Readers likewise will be moved by these stories of courage and survival. Danielle Schneck Bailly ’56, retired professor of linguistics at Paris Diderot University, was herself a hidden child. She connected with translator Becker-Theye, a friend of classmate Judy Kramer Stein, thanks to the e-networking prowess of Ellie Rogowski Landowne ’56.

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Uncommon Women Together— Generations Apart By Joan W. Ripley and Nancy Mohr (self-published) In 2004, students in an MHC sociology class were assigned to study alumnae from the class of 1955. In turn, the alumnae conducted a reciprocal research project, asking the same questions of the current students. Uncommon Women offers the two groups’ sometimes different and often similar answers to questions about values, learning, choices, and traditions. Joan Winkel Ripley ’55 lives in Mount Kisco, New York. Nancy Leech Mohr ’55 lives in Unionville, Pennsylvania.

Jody By Joanna Bradshaw (AuthorHouse) Jody Bradshaw jokes that she had been paid to go shopping, around the world, for forty years. As the first female vice president of Macy’s and later top executive at Bloomingdale’s and Abraham & Straus, Bradshaw proved early on in the retail world that women were not just educated consumers but also skilled managers and leaders. Joanna “Jody” Bradshaw ’60 is currently working on a book to help independent retailers compete against large chain stores.

A Closer Look

Paranoid Parents: Get a Grip! When Christie Horn Barnes’s husband died suddenly of a stroke six years ago, she was left alone to parent two-year-old triplets and a daughter who was four. Panic set in. “I was in shock,” the 1977 alumna recalls of her bereavement and the consequent hyper-attention she paid to protecting her children. “I worried about them crossing the street, playing with strange dogs—anything.” She wasn’t alone.

“One woman came up with 225 things she worried about,” recalls Barnes. “And that’s what really got me going on The Paranoid Parents Guide.” For three years, she called federal agencies, health-care professionals, and everyone else involved in children’s safety, and started to compile a database. What she found surprised her.

Coupled with the marketing dogma that fear sells better than happiness, we are spoon-fed our worst nightmares about things we can’t control. “And folks are really bad at understanding that kind of risk,” Barnes says. The Paranoid Parents Guide offers lots of facts and the tools to help moms and dads parent with common sense. Children are not kidnapped and killed in droves, as some reports would lead you to believe. In fact, the biggest killer in every age group is the car accident, hence her focus on seat belts.

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Barnes for several years fed her hunger for safety by running a store that featured the safest children’s products she could find, including high chairs, jogging strollers, and educational games. In surveys she did of her customers, 75 percent admitted they, too, worried about absolutely everything.

“Busy parents base their worldview on what they see on the news,” Barnes says. But news and talk-show coverage of teen suicide, child kidnapping, and stranger danger are all aberrant events. “It’s not a good assessment of what’s in your world. It’s about sensation,” Barnes underscores.

Barnes’s research left her with enough material for a series Forget about the shark attack or football concussion or of Paranoid Parents books. Her next two guides will focus tainted food or the horrors of plastic, she notes in the guide, published in September. Parents who want to find the middle ground between raising independent “If kids wear bicycle helmets and kids and being racked with worry need only focus are buckled into car seats, it cuts on two things.

down the death rate 90 percent.”

“If kids wear bicycle helmets and are buckled into car seats, it cuts down the death rate 90 percent,” she says. “Do these two things and there’s not a whole lot else to be afraid of.” Is she kidding? Did she miss the story about the doubling in incidence of hideous, infectious diseases, or the exposé on school shootings in small towns? No, she did not, and that’s just the point. The Barnes family (from left: Abby, Leela, Zach, Christie, and Nathan)

on education—our schools are not bastions of illiteracy and violence, as some media would have you think, she says —and food. Raising healthy, independent children is not easy, Barnes admits. But moms, dads, and kids would all breathe a sigh of relief if the parenting approach shifted from endless hovering to supervised risk taking. “We’re seeing kids who are starting driver’s education who have never crossed a road by themselves,” she says, incredulously. “Your purpose as a parent is to prepare them for the world outside without you.” Anyone for a midnight swim? —M.H.B.

feeling paranoid? Check out www.paranoidparentsguide.com

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alumnaematters First Thoughts: Lynn Pasquerella ’80 reflects on becoming president of her alma mater On a recent trip to Seattle to visit a group of extraordinary alumnae and catch a Mariners game, I bought a Sleepless in Seattle nightgown in the hotel gift shop. Nora Ephron’s film is one of my favorites, and there is a scene from the movie that reminds me of Mount Holyoke every time I watch it. Tom Hanks’s character, Sam, is describing the magic of falling in love and reveals to a radio psychologist, “It was like going home, only to no home I had ever known.” This is exactly how I felt the first time I stepped onto Mount Holyoke’s campus. It was like magic. I knew instantly that I was just where I belonged, though I had never been in such a magnificent, intellectually vibrant place in my life. In meeting with hundreds of alumnae over the past several months, so many of you have talked about the feelings that inspired you to attend Mount Holyoke. These shared experiences create a sense of sisterhood that makes us distinctive. I know that wherever I am in the world, I will be welcomed by a Mount Holyoke alumna. For instance, after I sent out my introductory message to the community on July 1, in which I mentioned our project in Kenya, I heard from both current students

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and alumnae who are living and working there. They offered not only to greet me but also to provide assistance with our program. Stephanie Shanler ’91, who works in child protection for UNICEF, volunteered to mentor and to promote educational and career opportunities for Mount Holyoke women interested in safeguarding human rights. This same graciousness and generosity of spirit is as prevalent right here at home as it is halfway around the world. Alumnae from South Hadley and the surrounding communities have taken the time to visit me during open office hours to introduce me to local organizations and businesses. As a result, Mount Holyoke is poised to be a more visible force in the lives of our neighbors. From my service on the Economic Advisory Council for Elaine Pluta FP’96, mayor of Holyoke, to emceeing South Hadley’s “Holiday Stroll” this December and working on anti-bullying campaigns throughout the year, I am looking forward to strengthening our outreach and fostering our alliances. As alumnae, our Mount Holyoke identity connects us all. We truly are uncom-

mon women who continue Mary Lyon’s legacy through purposeful engagement in the world. For some, this takes the form of serving as caregivers for children, parents, pets, partners, and friends. For others, it involves hectic professional lives or civic engagement at the local, regional, national, and international levels. In every case, the liberal education we have received at Mount Holyoke has empowered us to thrive in an increasingly complex global society and to respect the narratives and experiences of those different from ourselves. It is the richness of what Mount Holyoke has to offer to the world, through its alumnae, that makes it such an honor and privilege for me to serve as the college’s eighteenth president. Thank you for welcoming me back home, and for all that you do. Through your daily activities, and in all aspects of your lives, you enhance Mount Holyoke’s prestige.

Th i s Pag e : B o t t o m : Wi l l i a m M i c h e l , To p : G e o r g e O ’ B r i e n , Bu s i n e s s We st

Romeril, who has volunteered with the ARC for 15 years after disasters ranging from Hurricane Katrina to plane crashes, stayed in Haiti for several weeks to handle communications queries as the media streamed into the stricken country. In the months since then, the American Red Cross has dramatically expanded its presence and programs in Haiti. Amanda West ’89 and Julie Sell ’83 both arrived in the country in May to take up staff assignments. West, who has worked as an ARC information officer at national headquarters in Washington, DC, since January 2009, went to Haiti temporarily to support the field office. Her job is to gather facts and figures on programs, use tracking tools, and write reports.

Sell, who has spent many years as a journalist, most recently with the Economist, accepted a one-year assignment as ARC spokesperson in Haiti. She is responsible for communicating about Red Cross programs with the national and international media, donors, the Haitian public, and partner organizations. Assigned to share a Red Cross apartment in Port au Prince before they had met, West and Sell were surprised and delighted to discover that they were both Mount Holyoke alums. “At first we couldn’t believe it,” says Sell. “But then we looked at each other and realized of course this is where Mount Holyoke women would want to be, trying to make a difference in a challenging situation.” The devastation in Port au Prince and surrounding areas was so extensive that some longtime humanitarian workers have called it the world’s worst urban disaster since World War II. The American Red Cross has raised more than $470 million for earthquake relief in Haiti, and has vowed to stay in the country until every dollar donated for Haiti has been spent. Its programs range from emergency relief to shelter, healthcare, disaster preparedness, and microcredit loans. Further information is available at www.redcross.org/Haiti.

She’s Got Manufacturing Wrapped Up Recent editions of the Western Massachusetts newspapers BusinessWest and The Republican have heralded Kate Putnam’s machine manufacturing plant in West Springfield. Not every US manufacturer has shipped its work overseas, and for the last fourteen years, Kate Putnam ’73 has provided work for area men and women and a supply of high-quality wrapping machines to businesses large and small. Here’s her story.

When Kate Putnam ’73 bought Package Machinery Corporation in 1996, the old-boy network that characterizes the machine manufacturing industry was in full swing. Literally. Golf was the networking tool of choice for her industry peers, who were either engineers who had invented a packaging machine or first sons who inherited a business and had manufacturing in their blood. Not so for Putnam, who is president of the company. She prefers tennis. And while her grandfather and an uncle ran the original company, which today makes and repairs machines that wrap consumer products such as candy, tissues, tea, and tape, her early understanding of packaging was limited to what she saw in the grocery store. That didn’t stop her. Putnam quickly learned the

ins and outs of the industry and parlayed her corporate banking background into a company that in the last fourteen years has shipped forty new machines, priced up to $300,000 each. She says, “I don’t try to impress the guy at Kraft,” one of her customers, with technical expertise. She has six experienced employees who can come up with the right machine for the right job, and contractors to put them together.

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O p p o s i t e Pag e : B e n B a r n h a rt

Making a Difference in Haiti “It was all first aid and basic survival in the beginning,” says Winnie Romeril ’89, who arrived in Haiti as an American Red Cross (ARC) volunteer five days after the devastating January 12 earthquake that left 1.5 million people homeless and killed more than 230,000. “Even over a week after the earthquake, we were still finding people, many of them children, with horrible injuries.”

Instead, she uses her problem-solving expertise to offer ideas on particular machines, materials, and the benefits of packaging for customer appeal. She’s also part of the movement toward greener products and packaging, and tweets and blogs online about efficiencies, saving energy, and using fewer resources.

Julie Sell ’83 (left) and Amanda West ’89 were surprised to find themselves working side by side when assigned to American Red Cross staff positions in Haiti.

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A Springfield, Massachusetts, native and history major at MHC, Putnam also devotes a lot of time to area economic development efforts. She is on the board of Bay State Health and the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts.

Tips From “Back to Class”: How to Write a Book

The recession took a toll on her business, but Putnam says she is seeing an uptick now in interest for new machines from entrepreneurs, if not from corporations. She still finds golf too timeconsuming and the beer tents that highlight executive golf outings too caloric. But she has mostly managed to “check her frustration” with her male colleagues. Now, how would you like that product wrapped? —M.H.B.

Sibella Connor Giorello ’85, author of a popular mystery series featuring forensic geologist Raleigh Harmon, has no doubts that you can write the book you have in mind. She came back for reunion in May and presented a backto-class workshop in fiction writing. Her ideas and tips were clever and fun. Following are excerpts from her talk.

Write That Book! A Short Guide to Your Big Adventure

though right now might be pretty awful. You can do this, really.

How long has that story lived inside your head? Years? Decades? Too long. That’s probably the best answer.

It’s like rowing a boat.

Now is the time to give that story life on the page. Did you win the lottery? No. Did your family suddenly realize you’re a genius, and offer to do all the chores while you dream and type? Right. The point is, it’s never a good time to write a book. So you will never have a better time than right now—even

Don’t listen to anyone who says writing is fun. Writing is not fun. Writing is hard work. What’s fun is having written. I tend to think of writing as rowing a boat. Every morning (or night, depending on temperament), a writer climbs into a boat and begins rowing across a lake. And rows. And rows, and rows. The writer gets tired. She stops rowing. She drifts—and now she realizes she’s going to have to row that much

Instant Nostalgia: Burning Issues From Your College Days What, we asked you via our Facebook page, were the burning issues on campus and around the world when you were at MHC? Read a few of your answers here; then add your own (we’d love to hear from you pre-1950s grads too!) at www. alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/burningissues. The McCarthy hearings, Rosa Parks sits down, first trans-Atlantic phone calls, no men in our rooms, required chapel, domestic airline service begins. “I felt guilty about premarital sex; then I gave in.”

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“Vietnam, Cambodia, tuning in, turning on, and dropping out. We were into everything.”

“Conflict between Sox and Yankees fans until Bucky Dent hit that homer in the fall of 1978.” “Great food in the dorms, late-night right-to-life discussions, the Jonestown mass suicide. “We talked more about MIT men than Amherst men.”

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harder just get to back to where she started. Writing requires selfdiscipline, hard work, and persistence. For encouragement, join a writing group.

What if the boat capsizes? People often don’t write because in the back of their minds, they’re afraid of finishing and discovering their book is not very good. Well,

here’s a news bulletin: Your book won’t be that bad. It will be worse. The first draft of every book stinks. John Irving (who once taught at Mount Holyoke) said something like, “I’m not the best writer out there, but I am the best re-writer.”

it an identification guide to the strange flora and fauna encountered while rowing across the lake. Read it; keep it handy.

Start rowing before it gets dark.

A schedule is key. Morning people, set your alarm for one hour earlier than usual. Put the coffee maker on auto-brew, slip bread in the toaster the night before. Be ready to write when you get up. And for one hour, write.

First, buy The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield. Consider

When I began writing a novel, I was the mother of

“I still have a T-shirt somewhere that reads ‘Mount Holyoke College against Apartheid.’” “President Reagan shot, John Lennon shot, the Pope shot. Luke and Laura got married, MASH off the air, Liz Kennan and Michael Burns an item” ”Anwar Sadat’s assassination, the first space shuttle flight, horror at suggestion of fruit for M&Cs.”

The trial of OJ Simpson; MHC denied funding for Asia House, dozens of students marched; talk of affirmative action and whether it was still necessary.

My compass point was a small note card above the computer monitor. It displayed a math equation so basic even I could understand it. 500 x 30 = 15,000. 500 words a day. For one month. Equals 15,000 words. In six months, I had 90,000 words. The length of a published novel.

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two kids under the age of four, writing several magazine articles each week, and ghostwriting a memoir for a wealthy family. And yet, in that first year, I managed to complete a rough draft of the novel.

The more you write, the more habitual writing becomes. You build some necessary muscles. And when you finally pull the boat to shore you’ll say, with utter confidence, “I’m a writer.” For videos and slideshows of other reunion classes, visit the Watch & Listen section of

alumnae.mtholyoke.edu.

“9/11: women walking around campus like zombies, classes canceled, families in New York, no one could get through on cell phones.” “Started MHC the day after Princess Diana’s death, a distraction from the nerves many of us faced.” “More Bush administration, war in Iraq, new residence hall, the Red Sox win the World Series twice, marriage equality, transgender rights.”

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Thank You

to every alumna and friend who has made a gift to the Founder’s Fund. Your generosity has helped support alumnae postgraduate projects from medical study to music, international relations to education.

Thank You for making a contribution to the endowment fund of the Alumnae Association. Your gifts encourage MHC alumnae to serve their communities—and develop their own potential—with the help of fellowships.

Find out more about the Founder’s Fund. Visit our Web site at www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/giving/founders.php.

Thank You.

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Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation This information published as required by USPS • Publication title: Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly; publication number 0027-2493; USPS 365280; published quarterly; subscriptions are free. • Office of Publication: Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College, 50 College St., S. Hadley, MA 01075-1486; contact person: Emily Weir, 413538-2301; Publisher and owner: Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College; editor: Emily Weir • Circulation (based on summer ’10 issue): Net press run: 33,000; requested subscriptions 31,573 + nonrequested (campus) distribution: 1,000

Find Alums Around the World Stay in touch with fellow alumnae in your city or cities that you visit. From Seattle to Boston to London, you’re all over the world! Class and club contacts are listed “Classes, Clubs, and Groups” on our Web site, alumnae. mtholyoke.edu.

Visors and Coasters and Plates, Oh, My! To benefit the Alumnae Scholar Program, lots of MHC-related products, from wineglass charms to dog leashes, are available for sale from your classes and clubs. See details and photos of the products at “Shop for Gifts” on our Web site, alumnae.mtholyoke.edu.

Fun Places to Go, Nice Places to Sleep The Alumnae Association’s Bed-and-Breakfast Program offers travelers comfy, affordable—usually $30 to $80 a night— accommodations and breakfast in an alumna’s home. MHC students, alumnae and their immediate family, and MHC faculty and staff are eligible to stay at some fun and pretty places. Proceeds support student financial aid through the Alumnae Scholar Program. Check out the B&B offerings under “Programs and Services” on our Web site, alumnae.mtholyoke.edu. Mou n t Ho lyo k e Al u m na e Qua r t e r ly

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travelopportunities January 5–19, 2011 Namibia and South Africa by Sea: Natural Treasures and Human Accomplishments With lecturers from Yale University and the American Geographical Society The arc of Southern Africa is one of the most astonishing natural environments on the planet. Flamingos fill the sky, elephants and giraffes move with lumbering grace though the terrain, and humpback whales roll in the ocean waters. Join us for an extraordinary journey to the immense wilds of Namibia and South Africa. We will be exploring no fewer than five of South Africa’s outstanding game reserves. Each is a unique biosphere, from the Kariega River Valley to Hluhluwe-Umfolozi National Park, the country’s oldest, and where the black and white rhinos were saved from extinction. The astounding landscapes are not South Africa’s alone, however. We will also witness tens of thousands of flamingos and other seabirds take flight in Namibia’s Walvis Bay, and marvel at the 1,000-foot-high dunes of the Namib Desert’s world-famous sea of sand. The story of Namibia and South Africa is also one of history, culture, colonialism, and independence. We will explore these aspects as well, with visits to Namibia’s diamond country and South Africa’s gorgeous Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, with an overnight stay in Cape Town. Accompanied by distinguished study leaders and area experts aboard the elegant Corinthian II, our trip highlights the natural and cultural wonders of the Cape of Good Hope, and beyond. There is an optional postcruise extension to Victoria Falls.

Rates start at $10,995 per Dover—England trip person. For reservations or further information, please contact Travel Dynamics International at 1-800-2575767 or 212-517-7555 or via e-mail at lrandall@ travdyn.com. February 15–28, 2011 Expedition to Antarctica With Columbia University, the University of Chicago, and Dartmouth and Smith Colleges Cruise with us to Antarctica, Earth’s last frontier and untouched wilderness, on this spectacular fourteen-day journey that provides you with the optimal Antarctic experience. Explore the rugged volcanic topography, observe the antics of the hospitable wildlife, and visit the outposts of some of history’s most intrepid explorers, accompanied by an expert team of naturalists who will lead excursions and share their knowledge of this vast region’s unique ecosystem. Discover the secrets of the White Continent from aboard the exclusively chartered, deluxe MS Le Boreal for two nights in cosmopolitan Buenos Aires before following such adventuresome explorers as Amundsen, Scott, and Shackleton into the austral summer, when long sunrises paint the icescape in soft shades of pink and gold, and normal human scales and reference points disappear amid the fantastically shaped icebergs, turquoise glaciers, penguin rookeries, and breaching whales. This is nature in its most pristine form. Complement your expedition with the special postcruise option to breathtaking Iguazú Falls. Prices start at $6,595 per person. For more information or to make reservations, please

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Antarctica trip

contact Gohagan & Company at 800-922-3088 or 312-609-1140 or via e-mail at information@ gohagantravel.com. April 15–27, 2011 The Red Sea, the Nile River, and the Holy Land With Northwestern University A five-night sail from Ain Sukna to Aqaba, plus two days/one night in Luxor, two nights in Cairo, three nights in Jerusalem, and visits to Petra and Amman. Join us on this exclusive journey encompassing five major sites—Jerusalem, St. Catherine’s Monastery near Mount Sinai, Petra, Luxor, and the great pyramids—featuring a unique cruise on the Red Sea. Journey through antiquity, visiting sites that bring 5,000 years of human history to life, and sail along the ancient trade routes of the Red Sea aboard the twenty-five-cabin, yachtlike sailing vessel, the MY Harmony V. Enter through the city gates into Jerusalem, a holy city to three of the world’s great religions, where the faithful gather at the Western Wall (the Wailing Wall), the Dome of the Rock, and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Wind through dramatic wadis to the sixth-century Monastery of St. Catherine at the foot of Mount Sinai. Enjoy excursions to the fabled “rose-red” city of Petra and the Nile Valley city of Luxor (Thebes), ancient center of the world during the Middle Kingdom. Visit the iconic great pyramids at Giza and wonder at the enduring power

of the inscrutable sphinx. There is also a postprogram option to explore the religious heritage of Cairo. The Red Sea, the Nile River, and the Holy Land program offers incomparable opportunities to immerse yourself in the panorama of human history, along with the comforts and the benefits of luxury, small-ship travel. Prices start at $4,795 per person. For more information or to make reservations, please contact Gohagan & Company at 800-922-3088 or 312-609-1140 or via e-mail at information@ gohagantravel.com.

Red Sea/Nile River/Holy Land trip Interested? To request a brochure for any of these trips, please call the Alumnae Association at 413-538-2300 or visit www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu. For additional information, please call the travel company sponsoring the trip.

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