Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly Fall 2014

Mount Holyoke fa l l 2014

Alumnae Quarterly

$2 Million on the Table

The wage gap persists, and women continue to pay a steep price

I N TH I S I SSU E TH E G REAT DI VI DE A SC H OL A R LY FEAST TH E POW E R OF YOU M ARY LYO N’S H AIR JEW E L RY

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President’s Pen

The Bell family presented President Pasquerella with Mary Webster’s oil lamp during a visit to the President’s House in July.

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When Rosamund’s aunt heard her niece had shared the diary, she became inexplicably incensed and demanded the diary back.

Being linked Rosamund complied, and her aunt burned the to all those treasured volume.

Fast-forward to 1988, Mount Holyoke when Rosamund received a letter from the College women had a archives stating a copy of Mary Webster’s diary had profound effect. surfaced. Apparently the professor, realizing the his— LYN N PASQ U E R E LL A ’80 torical importance of the text, had made a duplicate and had given the archives a copy. Initially researchers’ use of Webster’s diary was restricted, but some fifty years later, those limitations were lifted.

Enter Rosamund’s fifteen-year-old granddaughter, Amelia, who is intrigued by stories of the women in her family. Recently, Amelia plugged her grandmother’s name into a search engine. One click led to another and then another, and up popped my convocation address quoting Mary Webster’s diary.

Amelia and Rosamund said being linked to all those Mount Holyoke women had a profound effect on them. They felt the lived significance of the College throughout the centuries.

There’s more.

To show the family’s appreciation to Mount Holyoke, they presented me with a whale oil lamp that belonged to Mary Webster. We don’t know if it’s the lamp that she turned up to read late into the night, but we like to think so.

That July afternoon when Charlie, Rosamund, and young Amelia joined me for lunch is one I’ll long remember.

The lamp now is sitting prominently on a coffee table in the President’s House. I’m already enjoying telling visitors the long history it represents.

And Amelia?

I’m hoping we’ll soon have another generation of that wonderful family to keep the lights burning.

”

John Kuchle

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t first the letter seemed ordinary enough, but when I read the opening line—I was hooked.

“Quite out of the blue, I’m writing to let you know that your mention of Mary Stewart Webster, class of 1855, in last September’s (2013) convocation address had an impact far beyond what you might imagine.

My mother, Rosamund Purdy Bell, is the President of the class of 1942, and the story of the diary of her great-grandmother, Mary Stewart Webster, is one that weaves three different centuries in the history of Mount Holyoke.”

The letter came from Charlie Bell and detailed an intriguing story of burned diaries, whale oil lamps, and his fifteen-year-old daughter, who brought everything together.

Here’s what happened: In my convocation address last year, I quoted lines from a diary detailing life in the Seminary. Mary Webster wrote about ignoring bells to retire and reading into the night. Luckily for Mary, a teacher decided Mary’s lamp could remain lit “for something very necessary.” I used the quotation to talk with students about our mutual passion for learning.

What I didn’t know was how Mary’s diary ended up—and almost didn’t—in our archives.

In 1938 when Rosamund Bell began Mount Holyoke, an aunt—also an alumna—gave her Mary Webster’s leather-bound diary. Rosamund was thrilled to receive her great-grandmother’s diary and showed it to a family friend—a recently retired MHC professor.

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Contents

D E PA R T M E N T S

2 LYONS SHARE

Praise for the summer issue, memories of Virginia Apgar ’29, support for raising women’s voices

5 UNCOMMON GROUND

Alumnae achievements, Convocation 2014, the class of 2018, a unique gift to the College, Association fellowship winners

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Ten Minutes With: Digital Media Expert Shannon Dalton Giordano ’91 Insider’s View: The Mineralogy and Petrology Lab Go Figure: The Lynk by the Numbers The Maven: Tamara Jacobs ’73 on interviewing

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The Female Gaze: Improv comedian Kelly Buttermore ’03; photographer Ann Ginsburgh Hofkin ’65; authors Lisa Cach ’89, Jen Jack Gieseking ’99, Amanda Maciel ’00, and Susan Rieger ’68

F E AT U R E S

16 Sticker Shock

34 MoHOME MEMORIES

Alumnae navigate a world in

Remembrances of a onetime campus job

which they still earn only seventy-

Geology donation: James Gehrt; Barbara Ketcham Wheaton: Meredith Heuer 1979 passenger bus: MHC Archives and Special Collections BACK COVER: Wesley Cullen courtesy of GFR Media

eight cents on the dollar

On Display: Mary Lyon’s hair jewelry

22 The Great Divide

Then and Now: Inter-college transportation

In the College’s centennial year,

37 CONNECTIONS

a male president took the helm for the first time

30 A Scholarly Feast

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Culinary historian Barbara Ketcham Wheaton ’53 turns to cookbooks to learn about the past

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Mount Holyoke at NYC’s pride parade, alumnae travel with President Pasquerella A Place of Our Own

40 CLASS NOTES 80 MY VOICE

Gabriela Bradt ’96 on “Learning While Mentoring” intern Kelsey Cowen ’16

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LETTERS

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EMAIL

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FAC E B O O K

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TWITTER

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I N S TAG R A M

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LINKEDIN

Lyons Share RAISING WOMEN’S VOICES Bravo to fellow ’56 classmate Judy Stein for voicing the need for louder women’s voices (“Where are the Women’s Voices?” summer 2014, p.

80). It was thus dismaying to read in the New York Times that pro-choice advocates like Planned Parenthood have decided to drop the “pro-choice” slogan in favor of [focusing on] multiple issues for women. In my opinion, this is a mistake, particularly following the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling and anti-abortionists’ increased pressure to outlaw abortion and weaken birth control requirements of the Affordable Care Act. I graduated from Mount Holyoke at a time when abortion was illegal, when there was no required maternity leave (no less paid), when three-fourths of the jobs I applied for were for men only. As a married woman I was denied a credit card in my own name, and women were earning fifty-nine cents for every dollar paid to men.

I was part of the enormous effort, led by NOW, to pass Roe v. Wade four decades ago. We sent coat hangers to our senators and congressfolk to emphasize the alternatives to legalized abortion, which were

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ghastly. As I recall, the law passed Congress by one vote.

Granted there are other obstacles to women’s rights today, particularly equal pay, but in my opinion, it would be a huge loss for women to neglect the pro-choice slogan. The essay stated that “younger women reject political slogans.” I welcome responses from younger—and all— MHCers. Speak out!

—Nancy Kenyon ’56 San Francisco, CA Hooray for Judy Stein! She is SO RIGHT. Having attended both Williams and MHC, the difference between women’s speaking and men’s was so obvious it made [my] hair curl. I am “blessed” with a loud voice, so I have always been able to make myself heard. But it starts with being willing to step up to the mike at a public debate or conference [and] includes speaking clearly and distinctly . . . and coaching and mentoring other women to make their voices heard, literally and figuratively!

REMEMBERING APGAR I was interested to see the article about Virginia Apgar ’29 (“Scoring Infants for Survival,” summer 2014, p. 24). She was one of my mother’s (Katherine Goodman Ensworth ’29) closest friends.

The article notes that she was called Ginny by her friends. However, Mother always referred to her as “Jimmy.”

The archives has a small collection of Mother’s correspondence from Jimmy over the years.

—Anne Ensworth Whitney ’58 via email Thanks so much for your bit on Dr. Apgar. She was a classmate of my mother’s and a personal friend from college days. I remember when my first child was born, hearing the MD say, “She scores an eight on the Apgar scale.”

Never did find out why she did not get Welcome to MHC! How many times will you walk these stairs in your lifetime? #blanchard #mountholyoke

—Margie Johnson Ware ’71 via Association website Judy Stein’s observations are on target even in a way she didn’t realize!

As part of the women’s lib generation, I didn’t think speaking up was much of an issue. Most of my female peers don’t hesitate to offer their opinion. However, in a classroom of mixed genders, I have to remind the ladies to speak to the person farthest away in the room! It’s as if it is ladylike ONLY to speak in a soft voice.

This becomes even more important as we all begin to hear less well.

—Betty Goodwin Long ’69 via Association website

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WE SHARE D

I’m excited to host a ’12 @mtholyoke alumna today after her local job interview! #alumnaestay program @aamhc #sisterhood ALE X AN D R A MARTI N ’05 @ALIXG MARTI N

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You might know that MHC professor of Asian history and language Jonathan Lipman speaks modern Chinese, classical Chinese, modern Japanese, and biblical Hebrew and can read French and German.

But did you know he played as a second-string goalkeeper on the Harvard soccer team in the 1960s and coached soccer at MHC when it was a club sport at the College? #MHCFacultyShare

a ten, but she welcomed her first grandchild a month ago. Obviously those two points she missed didn’t hurt.

A happy memory for me thinking of Mother and her friendship with Dr. Apgar. . . .

Thanks, thanks, thanks.

Blanchard steps: Jennifer Grow; Lipman: Cassidy Anthony ’17

—Kate Cowperthwait Dickens ’53 via email SHOWING SUPPORT I highly applaud the recent summer 2014 Alumnae Quarterly. . . . [The] stories were engaging, interesting, and inspiring! This Quarterly is my first after my two-year class reunion, and seeing the pictures of members of the class of 2012 alongside those of other class years (“Changemakers Reunite,” p. 26) really helped to bring the alumnae experience (and what it truly stands for) full circle. . . .

I did, however, feel that at reunions the idea of “participation” (in donating to MHC) was a message that could have been emphasized more. Donations, however small, are what boost alumnae participation numbers and factor into the College’s rankings. Start small.

But give to MHC. Frequently. Habitually.

Let that be the mantra for the class of 2012 and all our recent graduates.

—Samia Idris Seraj ’12 via email Watch a video of brain injury survivor Carole Starr’s ’89 reunion Back-to-Class session at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/carolestarr.

I met Professor Lipman as a prospective student, and he was one of the (many) reasons I chose MHC!!

—Maggie Lichter Grady ’02

I LOVED his classes and had the privilege of working with him after graduation when he would come and give lectures sponsored

by The Japan Society to high school teachers in NYC. He was always a hit with the teachers! I wish him the best!!!

—Melissa Rockefeller ’94 And he is an awesome advisor. I appreciate all the time he shared when I was a student! —Kristina Nelson Mize ’87

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly

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MOUNT H O LYO K E ALUMNA E QUA RTE R LY Fall 2014 Volume 98 Number 4 EDITORIAL AND DESIGN TEAM

ALUMNAE ASSOCIATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Carly Kite Senior Director of Marketing and Communications

President Marcia Brumit Kropf ’67 Vice President Julianne Trabucchi Puckett ’91

Jennifer Grow ’94 Editor, Alumnae Quarterly

Treasurer and Chair, Finance Committee Lynda Dean Alexander ’80

Millie Rossman Creative Director

Clerk Ashanta Evans-Blackwell ’95

Taylor Scott Associate Director of Digital Communications

Chair, Classes and Reunion Committee Danielle M. Germain ’93

Lauren Kodiak Marketing and Communications Assistant CO N T RIBUTOR

Olivia S. Lammel ’14 QUARTERLY COMMITTEE

Alumnae Trustee Ann Blake ’85

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Susan R. Bushey Manning ’96, chair Amy L. Cavanaugh ’06 Beth Mulligan Dunn ’93 Shawn Hartley Hancock ’80 Lauren D. Klein ’03 Linda Valencia Xu ’16, student rep.

The Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College, Inc. 50 College Street South Hadley, MA 01075-1486 413-538-2300 alumnae.mtholyoke.edu quarterly@mtholyoke.edu

Chair, Nominating Committee Radley Emes ’00 Director-at-Large Emily E. Renard ’02

love receiving this gem from @mtholyoke & being reminded and inspired by @aamhc to never fear/change @S K ACH I E DZ A CH I E DZ A M U FU N D E ’ 12

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly

SU M M E R 2014

Chair, Communications Committee Shannon Dalton Giordano ’91

I N THI S I SSU E A R ECO R D - BR E A KI N G R EU N I O N 2 01 4 I N V ESTI N G I N O P PO RTU N I TI ES FO R R E I N V E N TI O N

Chair, Volunteer Stewardship Committee Ellen L. Leggett ’75

ESTA BL I S H I N G A DA I LY W R I TI N G P RACTI C E

Life Blood Madeleine Stout ’13 lends a face and a voice to newborn screening

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Executive Director Jane E. Zachary ex officio without vote

Publication title: Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly; ISSN publication number 0027-2493; USPS 365-280; published quarterly; subscriptions are free Office of Publication: Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College, 50 College St., S. Hadley, MA 01075-1486; Contact person: Carly Kite, 413-538-3094; Publisher and owner: Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College Circulation (based on spring 2014 issue): Net press run: 37,141; Requested subscriptions: 33,203 + nonrequested (campus) distribution: 3,732 Ideas expressed in the Alumnae Quarterly do not necessarily reflect the views of Mount Holyoke College or the Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College.

To update your information, contact Alumnae Information Services at ais@mtholyoke.edu or 413-538-2303.

POST M ASTER

(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

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Thank you for the humbling article about the award. It was nicely written. Also, I noticed that my major was incorrect. It says I was a biological sciences major, but I was a biochemistry major. (By happenstance, my mother was as well!)

—Nell Maynard ’14 via email

STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, AND CIRCULATION

This information published as required by USPS

—Pamela Taylor ’77 via email

I N S I D E TH E G E TTE L L A M P H I TH E ATE R

Young Alumnae Representative Elaine C. Cheung ’09 Chair, Clubs Committee Elizabeth Redmond VanWinkle ’82

MOTHER-DAUGHTER CONNECTION I was thrilled to open the summer 2014 issue of the Alumnae Quarterly and see a notice about my daughter receiving the Laurie Priest Alumnae Scholar Athlete Award (news, p. 9). Nell is an alumnae daughter and actually came to campus for the first time when she was six months old. She participated in her first alumnae parade, pushed in a stroller with the class of 1977 at our fifteenth reunion. We are both so proud and enthusiastic to be members of the Mount Holyoke family.

@mtholyoke BTW this @aamhc quarterly is spectacular. Read it cover to cover. @AN NAPB E N N ET T AN NA B E N N ET T ’04

CANOE SING MEMORIES I enjoyed the article “Canoe Sing” (summer 2014, p. 36), having just been at my fiftieth reunion, where some of us made it a point to walk down to Lower Lake to watch the ceremony. But the article omitted the best part of the occasion—the singing of the “Goodnight Song” at the end . . . a poignant moment as the soft voices drift across the water, joined by those on shore.

—Caroline Webster Bernard ’64 via email

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N E WS

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INSIDER’S VIEW

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THE FEMALE GAZE

Uncommon Ground Rare Minerals Added to College Collection Jacqueline Mosher FP’09 grew up amid her parents’ expansive collection of more than 1,000 rock and mineral samples. A few years ago, as she was cleaning out her late mother’s house for an impending sale, Mosher came across three family heirlooms: a cluster of milky quartz crystals from Lyndhurst, Ontario; a deep purple Brazilian amethyst; and platy calcite, also from Brazil.

Faced with finding a place for these rare specimens, she reached out to Mount Holyoke geology professor Steven Dunn, with whom she had worked in 2010, when she had given other specimens to the department.

After speaking with Dunn, Mosher decided to donate her finds to the College, where they would be accessible to educate and inspire both students and faculty.

A religion major at Mount Holyoke, Mosher formed close relationships with professors Jane Crosthwaite and John Grayson as well as with faculty members outside of her major. Because of these connections, reaching out to Professor Dunn was a natural step when looking for a special place to house the exceptional specimens. Sharing them with Mount Holyoke was, she says, a perfect fit. To her the specimens represent growth, potential, and harmony with the natural world—characteristics she feels the College embodies.

To view the specimens, visit the third floor of Clapp and look for display cards that read, “Donation from the Collection of William and Liane Mosher— from Jacqueline L. Mosher, FP 2009.”

James Gehrt

—BY LAUREN KODIAK

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Association Fellowships Offer Unique Opportunities for Alumnae Magness, one of the most renowned biblical archaeologists in the world.

Over the course of her time in Israel, Hayes learned that she was capable of physically demanding work, but, she says, “the actual digging . . . was the easy part.”

One of Hayes’ personal goals was to comprehend the scope of an archaeologist’s work. So in addition to her daily work at the site, she talked to staff members, attended lectures, and spent many afternoons in the registrar’s lab helping to catalogue the days’ finds.

Though she’s back from Israel, the fellowship continues to impact Hayes and her community. She is working to revive Archaeology Day, an event held for middle-schoolers across several Chicago public schools. The annual event stopped when its organizer retired, but Hayes would like to revive it. “I have to discern a way to share my experience with the younger generation,” she says.

Learn more about Alumnae Association Fellowships, including the Lyon’s Pride Fellowship, new last year and awarded to an alumna “pursuing an LGBT, gender, or feminist studies project,” at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/fellowships.

—BY OLIVIA LAMMEL ’ 14

Field Hockey Heads to China

In August the MHC field hockey team traveled to China, where they trained, traveled, and spent an evening at the home of Miu-Hing Ho Chu ’63. Here Rui Zhou ’11 addresses the students, parents, and alumnae gathered at Chu’s home.

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Kristen Elechko ’97 Takes Gold at the Gay Games This past August, Kristen Elechko ’97 won the overall women’s gold medal for the sprint triathlon, silver for her age group in the ten-kilometer road running race, and gold for her age group in the cycling individual time trial at the Gay Games in Cleveland, Ohio. Open to all adults regardless of sexual orientation, the Gay Games is held every four years and is one of the most inclusive sports and cultural festivals in the world.

Having only started competing in triathlons a year ago, Elechko’s success at the Gay Games was all the more impressive. “To be able to walk away with the overall gold medal . . . is one of the greatest accomplishments of my life,” says Elechko. “It feels like such an honor to represent the LGBTQ community and the United States at an international event.”

One month before the races, Elechko joined TEAM.Water.org, a nationwide community of endurance athletes whose passion for sport is matched by a strong commitment to providing safe drinking water to people in developing countries.

Through her participation in the Gay Games, Elechko raised awareness and money for the organization. — L K

China: David Chu; Elechko: Lynn Ischay

Last spring Judith O’Connor Hayes ’68 received the Frances Mary Hazen Fellowship, allowing her to participate in a monthlong excavation in Huqoq, Israel. Awarded to a candidate in the field of classics, the Hazen Fellowship is one of eight fellowships offered annually by the Alumnae Association.

As a high school Latin teacher, Hayes has devoted herself to the study of antiquity. To introduce her students to Roman civilizations, she arranged summer study programs in Italy. On those trips she was always intrigued by the archaeological sites they visited.

Her curiosity later piqued in March of 2013, when she visited sites in Israel and Jordan with her church. When she received an email notification about Alumnae Association fellowship applications last fall, she seized the opportunity to pursue her passion.

Two days after arriving in Israel, Hayes was already in the field preparing to dig. Often on the job as early as 4:45 a.m., she spent long days with a team of five in a four-meter-square plot, helping to uncover the remains of an ancient village near a fifth-century synagogue—a project that was started in 2011 by Jodi

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Summer Study at Mount Holyoke Now in its third year, the Mount Holyoke Professional and Graduate Education (PAGE) program—formerly known as Mount Holyoke Extension—continues to extend the reach of a Mount Holyoke education. In two five-week intensive sessions this past summer, twenty courses ranging from Social Psychology to Organic Chemistry were taught by Mount Holyoke and Five College faculty and alumnae.

Katrina Strikis ’10 was one of nine students to take fellow alumna Cathryn Mercier’s ’81 course, The Hunger Games: Young Adult Dystopia in Popular Culture. Strikis is planning to attend graduate school and says she found the opportunity to return to the

classroom helpful to her continuing academic exploration. Strikis also took Teacherpreneurs, taught by Mount Holyoke psychology professor Megan Allen. The course, focusing on teacher leadership, was conducted online with guest speakers from around the country joining students via video conference during many of the class sessions. Strikis says, “The variety of students that the PAGE program attracts points to its accessibility. It has something to offer to just about everyone.”

The PAGE program also offers opportunities for summer study abroad and courses over January term. For more information, visit mtholyoke.edu/ professional-graduate.

Convocation 2014 On September 2 the campus community—many students in class colors— gathered at Gettell Amphitheater for convocation. In her speech, President Pasquerella shared the College’s new admission policy on transgender students, which formally welcomes applications from any qualified student

Convocation: John Martins; Velez: John Felton

who is female or who identifies as a woman. To a cheering crowd Pasquerella continued, “We recognize that what it means to be a woman is not static.

Just as early feminists argued that reducing women to their biological functions was a foundation of women’s oppression, we acknowledge that gender identity is not reducible to the body.” To read more about the policy and to watch a video of convocation, visit alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/convocation2014.

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Eleanore Velez FP’07 Receives Founders of America Award

Eleanore Velez FP’07 will be honored at the Literacy Network of South Berkshire (LitNet) annual gala, alongside Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and First Lady Diane Patrick, on October 25 in Lenox, Massachusetts. LitNet, a small nonprofit that provides one-on-one tutoring to more than 115 adults in basic reading, English as a second language, math, and GED preparation, will present Velez with its sixth-annual Founders of America Award. The award pays tribute to immigrants who have made important contributions to American society in general, and to life in the Berkshires in particular.

Velez—an admissions counselor and coordinator of the Multicultural Center at Berkshire Community College—was born and grew up in Mexico. A source of inspiration and guidance for hundreds of people in her community, she shares the transformative and liberating powers of education with her LitNet students.

“My time at Mount Holyoke is without a doubt the time when I was inspired to push boundaries and work as hard as I could to ensure that education is not a privilege for a few, but available to all,” says Velez. “Mary Lyon’s determination in creating a space in higher education for women was revolutionary in her time. Her skill, foresight, and vision inspire me to fight for those in our community who have been deprived of an education. Mary Lyon, through Mount Holyoke, gave me an education so I could continue her work and help others find their passions.” — L K

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College Welcomes Class of 2018

Henri Matisse Nu à la fenêtre (Nude at a window), 1944 Pen and ink on paper 274.202254 © 2014 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Matisse Drawings on Exhibit at Art Museum On the evening of September 4 there was not a single empty seat in Gamble Auditorium, where historian, lecturer, and author Olivier Bernier gave the annual Patricia and Edward Falkenberg Lecture. In his talk titled “Matisse: Line, Color, Action,” Bernier explained how Matisse’s brilliance with a paintbrush was rooted in his ability to draw, saying the artist had an “interest in the way a single line can define an amazing space.” Flipping through projector slides of paintings, Bernier demonstrated how Matisse often whittled his work down until all that remained on the canvas were shapes, lines, and color.

“What you have left is the essence,” Bernier said.

The exhibition Matisse Drawings: Curated by Ellsworth Kelly from The Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation Collection features Matisse drawings from 1900 to 1950 and is on display through December 14 in the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum. — O L

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On August 27 Mount Holyoke welcomed to campus 547 first-year students, selected from 3,201 applicants, one of the largest and strongest pools in the College’s history. The class of 2018 came to Mount Holyoke from thirty-six states and thirty-one countries, and 28 percent of the class are international students.

Thirty-nine transfer students and thirty-eight Frances Perkins Scholars also joined the student body.

As part of their orientation, new students participated in a Common Experience, presented by the Student Government Association (SGA) and supported by the Office of the Dean of Students. Students were encouraged to read Smith College graduate Piper Kerman’s Orange is the New Black, selected, says SGA President Casey Accardi ’15, “because of the gender and social justice themes present in the book and series and because we wanted a dynamic selection that would help bring our community together.”

On August 30, the campus community gathered in Chapin Auditorium to discuss gender equality and the other themes represented in Kerman’s memoir with Dr. Shabnam Javdani, assistant professor of applied psychology at NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

Students were also invited to attend two events held at UMass Amherst to continue their conversations. The first, on September 11, featured a talk

by Laverne Cox, activist, educator, and acclaimed actress of the Orange is the New Black television series, which in its first season also featured actress Michelle Hurst ’74. Piper Kerman also visited the UMass Amherst campus on October 1 to discuss her book. — L K Read more about some of this year’s new students at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/firstiefocus.

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DIGITAL ME D I A E X P E RT

Social Support S H A N N O N D A LT O N G I O R D A N O ’ 9 1 received her master’s

degree in international development from American University and began her career managing USAID and World Bank projects overseas. In 1999 she and her husband returned to Massachusetts with plans to start a family. The ensuing years brought infertility challenges as well as career development at Fidelity Investments.

In 2004 she gave birth to twin sons, and her experience brought her to Fertility Planit, an online community for family building, where she soon took on the role of chief marketing officer. In 2013 Giordano left Fidelity to start Serendipity Social Media Inc.

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I wanted to do good work without being away from my house for twelve

” Meredith Heuer

hours every day.

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On starting a business: Ten years into my job at Fidelity, I met a woman on the Seven Sisters LinkedIn group. She was a Smith grad and the founder of Fertility Planit. She was looking for help with social media, and I volunteered. I kept my day job and started doing all of Family Planit’s social media, bringing together family building experts and producing trade shows in LA and NYC. My work led to other requests for help. Soon I had four clients and decided it was time to branch out on my own, taking the leap in August 2013.

On embracing social media: What’s going to engage people and bring them to your business? That’s the true value of social media.

Platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn provide a venue for sharing ideas, products, services, and very real innovation. I’m inspired by the creative aspects of social media analysis, community management, and content development. My clients include infertility authors, psychologists, musicians, and lawyers. I love to work to find their voices and understand what they care about in order to build their networks and bring their wisdom and expertise to others.

On going forward: Building a family was the most difficult challenge of my life. Ultimately it’s been the greatest gift in my life as well. Now a mom to ten-year-old twins, I’m able to share the hard-won wisdom and life lessons that brought me to motherhood.

Fertility of the soul and body is within all of us and brings us to new places. That may include mothering a child or birthing a new business or solving the issues of our time around hunger, justice, and peace.

There are so many ways we can use our Mount Holyoke education and alumnae network to change the world.

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The Mineralogy and Petrology Lab Lining the halls on the third floor of Clapp are more than a dozen glass-enclosed display cases of rocks and minerals, samples from all over the world and as varied as amethyst to marble. Many more samples are housed in the mineralogy and petrology lab— known to students as the “rock lab” and now located at Clapp 319. In the past twenty-five years, the lab itself—one of five laboratories used by the department—has been relocated three times, but the iconic cabinets that showcase cataloged samples of thousands of rocks and minerals have been moved each time. Here’s a just a glimpse of some of the varied specimens in a room where first-year seminar students and senior geology majors alike can manipulate and study samples up close.

View a slideshow of more photos from the lab at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/mineralogy.

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James Gerht

insider’s view

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go figure

go figure

The Lynk by the Numbers

55

Percent increase in summer internship placement since Lynk funding was introduced

Fraction of senior class expected to present at the 2015 Senior Symposium

Number of alumnae with whom students can connect on LinkedIn

14,167

22

Number of alumnae who sponsored student internships made possible by Lynk funding

Year of the first Sophomore Institute alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

2013

$3,000

Amount available to every undergraduate to support a summer internship in the United States

$3,600

Amount available for each international internship

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the maven

AR E YO U A MAVE N?

Pitch us your area of expertise at quarterly@ mtholyoke.edu.

THE INTE RV I EW MAV E N

The Power of You TA M A R A JACO B S ’ 7 3 , founder and president of Tamara Jacobs

Communications Inc., is the author of Be The Brand and the upcoming Success is a Planned Event and an expert on establishing and leveraging the “power of you.” The marquee companies that make up Jacobs’ client base span industries from pharmaceutical to financial to retail powerhouses and include Bayer, Chase, Genentech, Novartis, Pfizer, and Revlon. The skills Jacobs shares about how to make a good first impression in the job market are applicable to anyone searching for a job, including our newest alumnae, hitting the workforce and soon to be the next wave of leaders, movers, and shakers.

As a distinguished Mount Holyoke alumna your degree will certainly be a factor in securing an initial interview. However, in order to maximize your impact during this critical conversation, you will need to employ a set of strategies to ensure that you put your best foot forward. Whether you are interviewing for your first job, re-entering the job force, or changing careers, it is critical that you research the company, highlight your strengths and experience, and convey that you are excited about the opportunity and ready for a challenge.

1. Believe in Yourself We’ve all heard it time and time again: “I hope they like me!” Well, hope is not a strategy, and let me add my own mantra: “Success is a planned event!” Success is the

result of devising and applying useful strategies, and you start by working from the outside in.

2. Dress for Success Rather than buying a new outfit to wear to an important interview, consider wearing something you already own. When you wear something for the first time, you spend a great deal of psychic energy feeling self-conscious. Wearing something tried and true is much more effective, and as a result, you will enter the room with more confidence.

3. Set the Tone A good handshake will set a winning tone.

When the interviewer comes into eyesight, extend your arm fully (no bent elbows). She

will mirror you, taking the same approach and creating an additional three feet of space between you. This allows for an accommodation for height differential and an elongated moment of connection. Be sure your grip is “web to web,” connecting the space between the thumb and index finger.

4. Plan Your Must Airs Before you go into any interview, plan the three things the interviewer must hear about you—these are your must airs.

Instead of citing your work or academic accomplishments as a laundry list, attach what you’ve done to how it will benefit the company, e.g., “I excelled in my law firm internship, was an exceptional sales associate at Lululemon, and was an outstanding waitress at IHOP.” Translation: “I will be able to deal with your company’s complexity, meet your need for better personal client relationships, and deliver outstanding customer service.”

5. Send a Thank You Within five days of an interview, send a handwritten thank-you note. Thank your interviewer for meeting with you personally, state how you connect to the culture and mission of the company, emphasize that you will take this opportunity seriously, and remind her of your unique contributions.

A well-written note will set you apart from the competition, make you a memorable candidate, and put you in the running for the job of your dreams.

— B Y TA M A R A J A C O B S ’ 7 3

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the female gaze

P HOTO GRA P HY

P ER FO R M I NG A RTS

Life Revealed Through a Lens Photographer Ann Ginsburgh Hofkin ’65 has mastered the art of slowing down, pausing to appreciate moments in life. In her thirty-eight years behind the camera, she has relished finding beauty and inspiration in the mundane, choosing seemingly basic subjects—like clouds, rivers, and trees—to transport her to a surreal and magical state. Using infrared film, her photographs capture both the visible spectrum and the light that lies beyond what the human eye can comprehend, resulting in moody, mysterious images that challenge perception.

A philosophy major at Mount Holyoke, Hofkin never entertained the idea of becoming a photographer until she came across the work of Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, and Diane Arbus in 1976. She soon enrolled in the Ansel Adams Workshop at Yosemite National Park, where the first inklings of her style emerged after she was encouraged to truly look at and interpret her surroundings.

In 2001 Hofkin traveled to Israel as part of a cultural arts exchange and worked collaboratively with an artist from AR E YO U AN the Kinneret ARTI ST? region. Together Email your they explored and submission to quarterly@ considered mtholyoke.edu. the historical

significance of the local landscape, which led to the creation of a permanent installation at the Poriya Government Hospital near Tiberias. Since then, she’s made many trips back, each visit producing an increasing feeling of being home. Her photographs from Israel reflect a spiritual awakening and passion for pro-Israel advocacy that informs and enriches her life.

In addition to six solo exhibitions in Israel, Hofkin’s work has been featured in the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum (in 2004), Weill Art Gallery in New York City, Sande Webster Gallery in Philadelphia, and Nina Bliese Gallery in Minneapolis among others. This past summer, she was one of twenty-five artists whose work was displayed at the Jewish Artists’ Laboratory Exhibit, which showcased the exploration of light through unconventional study.

Hofkin attributes her ability to tackle projects with confidence and enthusiasm to her four years spent with remarkable professors and classmates at MHC. “I have rarely felt inhibited when striving to accomplish anything simply because I am a woman,” says Hofkin. She also cites her late mother, Fruma Winer Ginsburgh ’45, who was an obstetrician and gynecologist, as an important role model in having the courage to pursue her goals. — L K

Chile_07_7, 2007/2013. Black and white infrared archival pigment print, 18 in x 23 in

Thinking on Her Feet Though comedy is not her official job, Kelly Buttermore ’03 spends five days a week at the Magnet Theater, a wellknown comedy club in New York City.

She performs in sketch comedy and improv shows and teaches introductorylevel improvisational comedy there.

“I was sort of obsessed with Saturday Night Live in college,” Buttermore says.

She had ambitions of writing for the show and tried her hand at the SNL style when she took on Junior Show as head writer. The show was called Juniors at Work Play, a spoof of the Blanchard renovation during that time.

When she learned that most SNL greats had roots in improv, Buttermore began to consider taking classes as a path to her dream job. The summer before her senior year at Mount Holyoke, she was a research intern at the Museum of Television & Radio, now Paley Center for Media, in New York City. During her free time, though, Buttermore frequented the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre (UCBT), admiring female comedians including Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, and Rachel Dratch.

After graduating Buttermore took improv classes, first at UCBT and then, following her teacher Armando Diaz, at the Magnet Theater, which offers a variety of comedy shows and classes such as long-form improv, scripted sketch comedy, and musical improv.

Though taking improv classes was originally a way for Buttermore to reach the writer’s table, she became passionate about performance itself. In 2005 she met fellow improv comedian Greg Wilker, and they hit it off. Buttermore, a history major in college, discovered that Wilker was a history teacher. They teamed up to create and perform several history-themed sketch shows, including

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BO O KS

The People, Place, and Space Reader Edited by Jen Jack Gieseking et al.

ROUTLE DG E

“Kelly Buttermore and Greg Wilker Present: 1776,” which they performed at the Magnet in 2011.

Continuing her passion for historyinfused comedy, Buttermore and fellow improv writer/performer Justin Peters cowrote their own history-themed show, premiering it as the duo From Justin to

The People, Place, and Space Reader brings together scholarly writings from a variety of fields to

Kelly Buttermore ’03

Woody Fu

Kelly at the Magnet in October. And for the past two-and-a-half years, she has performed with an eight-person improv team called Horses.

Last winter Buttermore joined the teaching staff at the Magnet as a Level One instructor, teaching the fundamentals of improv. She is also a contributing writer for Reductress, an online women’s magazine that puts a satirical spin on publications like Cosmopolitan and Glamour.

Buttermore is currently grants coordinator for the American Council of Learned Societies, though admits she still has Tina Fey-esque aspirations.

“That’d be great,” she says, “but right now I’m happy with what I’m doing. . . .

I get to do what I love to do, and not everybody can say that.”

See a video of Buttermore at alumnae. mtholyoke.edu/kellybuttermore.

—OL

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make sense of the ways we shape and inhabit our world.

With a companion website, peopleplacespace.org, it is a resource for students of urban studies, geography, design, and sociology, and for anyone with an interest in the environment.

JEN JACK GIESEKING ’99 is a cultural geographer and postdoctoral fellow in digital and computational studies at Bowdoin College. S/he is writing her second book, Queer New York: Constellating Geographies of Lesbians’ and Queer Women’s In/Justice in New York City, 1983-2008, which is the first lesbian and queer history of the city.

Tease

Amanda Maciel B LOO M SBU RY

A coming-of-age novel for young adults about a teenage girl who faces criminal charges for bullying after a classmate commits suicide. In the summer before her senior year, in between meetings with lawyers and a courtrecommended therapist, Sara is forced to reflect on the events that resulted in her classmate Emma’s death—and ultimately consider her own role in an undeniable tragedy.

AMANDA MACIEL ’00 has worked in book publishing since graduating from Mount Holyoke College and is currently a senior editor at Scholastic.

Tease is her first novel and was named an IndieBound Indie Next List winner.

Slave Girl Lisa Cach

SI M O N AN D SCH USTE R

The first volume in 1,001 Erotic Nights, a trilogy of novellas that follows Nimia, a slave girl at the end of the Western Roman Empire. In Slave Girl, Nimia falls in love with the barbarian prince Clovis, future king of the Franks and founder of France.

The story continues in Barbarian’s Concubine and concludes with Siren of Gaul.

L I S A C AC H ’89 is a national bestselling, award-winning author of more than a dozen books, including Have Glass Slippers, Will Travel. Her novel Dating Without Novocaine was named one of Waldenbooks’ “Best Books of 2002,” and she is a two-time finalist for the RITA Award from the Romance Writers of America.

The Divorce Papers Susan Rieger

CROWN PU B LISH I NG G ROU P

When her firm’s divorce attorneys are unavailable, criminal law associate Sophie Diehl finds herself handling an intake interview for the daughter of one of its biggest clients, who insists Sophie go on to represent her. This modernday epistolary novel tells the story of a contentious divorce entirely through emails, letters, memoranda, New Year’s cards, newspaper articles, interviews, cases, and laws.

SUSAN RIEGER ’68 was trained as a lawyer and has been a teacher of law, a college dean at Yale, an associate professor at Columbia, and a freelance journalist. The Divorce Papers is her first novel.

See more recent alumnae books at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/ fall2014books.

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STICKER SHOCK Alumnae navigate a world in which women still earn only seventy-eight cents on the dollar

By Erin McCarthy ’06

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WOMEN TYPICALLY

LOSE MORE THAN

$11,600 A YEAR BECAUSE OF THE WAGE GAP. [MYWAGEGAP.ORG]

Dr. Margaret Fredricks ’00 spent three years searching for a job as a chemist in Germany after earning her doctorate from Technische Universitat Munchen.

She worked as a copyeditor for chemistry journals in the meantime. Being a foreigner and a woman were two strikes against her in the job hunt, especially as employers assumed there’d be a language barrier or visas to deal with, she says. After a long search, negotiating for a competitive salary didn’t seem like an option when the offer came for a project-based position as a chemist at a small, German materials technology company.

Fredricks soon knew how much the gap between men’s and women’s earnings was costing her. She spoke to male colleagues and researched the average salary for chemists in Germany. She estimated that men in similar positions earned thousands more—anywhere from 5,000 to 20,000 euros more than she was earning.

Fredricks’ experience is not unique to her career in the sciences or to Germany. The wage gap between men and women has become a hotbed issue globally. The firing of the New York Times’ first female executive editor, Jill Abramson, in May 2014 renewed media and advocacy groups’ focus on the wage gap and gender dynamics in the workplace, as reports suggested that her management style and her complaint about making less than her predecessor led to her dismissal.

ONGOING INEQUITY Growing awareness of the wage gap comes as women play an increasingly critical role in the United States economy and outpace men when it comes to enrolling in college. Women currently make up 47 percent of the US workforce and are increasingly responsible for the financial health of their families. They are the sole or primary source of income in 40 percent of households with children, and married mothers are the primary or co-breadwinners in nearly two-thirds of families, according to the Pew Center for Research.

BREAKING DOWN THE WAGE GAP IN AMERICA MEN* WOMEN OVERALL BLACK WOMEN ASIAN WOMEN NATIVE AMERICAN WOMEN HISPANIC WOMEN *NON-HISPANIC WHITE MEN [ AAUW.ORG]

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Yet, women make just seventy-eight cents for every dollar a man earns, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. More than five decades ago, in 1963, that figure was fifty-nine cents—indicating relatively slow progress toward closing the gap. A confluence of factors enable the wage gap to remain, experts say.

Maternity and family leave can often be major setbacks, and some women’s tendency not to negotiate or to negotiate less aggressively compared to their male counterparts can leave them on uneven footing. Women continue to be seen as secondary candidates in the workforce, and variables such as occupation, college major, and age still don’t account for the disparity between men’s and women’s earnings.

A 2012 Yale University study showed that when male and female science faculty were shown identical application materials for a laboratory manager position—with either a male name or a female name attached—they rated the male student as significantly more competent and selected a higher starting salary for him. In the same year, a report from The American Association of University Women (AAUW) found that after accounting for college major, occupation, economic sector, hours worked, months unemployed since graduation, GPA, type of undergraduate institution, selectivity of institution, age, geographical region, and marital status, there was still an unexplained 7 percent difference in male and female college graduates’ earnings one year after graduation.

THE WAGE GAP COSTS “Some people say it’s justified because of the different jobs women and men have, but that’s just baloney,” says New York Democratic Congresswoman Nita Lowey ’59. The wage gap “begins the first year out of college and occurs throughout stages of life.”

Representative Lowey is a cosponsor of the Paycheck Fairness Act, first introduced by Congress in 2009. The act would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 by expanding the scope of the Equal Pay Act of 1963 to “provide more effective remedies to victims of discrimination in the payment of wages on the basis of sex.” Passed by the House of Representatives in 2009, the act was blocked

by Republicans in the Senate for the fourth time in September 2014. Lowey says she has seen some improvement in pay equity in the professions since she graduated from Mount Holyoke in 1959, but not enough. “Although we made some progress in the early ’90s, there’s still so much work to do,” she adds.

The gender earnings gap narrowed by only 1.7 percentage points between 2004 and 2013, a slower pace than during the previous ten years, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR).

EQUAL PAY FOR

EQUAL WORK. [EEOC.ORG]

78 CENTS

64 CENTS

THE EQUAL PAY ACT REQUIRES THAT MEN AND WOMEN IN THE SAME WORKPLACE BE GIVEN

90 CENTS

59 CENTS

54 CENTS

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46

PERCENT OF MEN ALWAYS NEGOTIATE SALARY FOLLOWING A JOB OFFER, COMPARED TO

30

PERCENT OF WOMEN. WOMEN WHO FAIL TO NEGOTIATE THEIR SALARIES AT THE START OF THEIR CAREERS COULD LEAVE UP TO $2 MILLION ON THE TABLE.

In 2009, President Barack Obama signed his first piece of legislation: the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which ensures that people can effectively challenge unequal pay. This year, the president issued an executive order that prohibits federal contractors from retaliating against employees who discuss their pay. Despite these advances, the wide divide between men’s and women’s earnings remains a difficult one for many to cross.

“The wage gap has really stagnated for ten years now,” says Ariane Hegewisch, study director at IWPR. IWPR estimates that if the earnings gap continues to narrow at the same rate as it has since 1960, it will take until 2058 for men and women to see equal pay. And several more decades of a pay inequity will do plenty of harm, as women’s lost income translates into less spending power to drive the US economy, which is still in the midst of a slow recovery. The wage gap costs US women who are employed full time, as a group, more than $511 billion every year, according to the National Partnership for Women and Families.

“We know this has real economic consequences for the women workers themselves, but [also] consequences for their children, their communities . . . and the economy,” says Naomi Barry-Perez ’96, director of civil rights at the US Department of Labor.

Barry-Perez has spent her entire career focusing on workers’ rights. Now, at the Department of Labor, she walks into the Frances Perkins Building every day and leads a team that works to ensure that job-training programs, unemployment insurance, workers compensation, and other support systems follow nondiscrimination and equal opportunity policies.

Barry-Perez’s department has resolved some pay compensation cases successfully and is now starting to look at the issue more proactively and in a systematic way. “It clearly is an issue of equity. . . . If you’re a woman who’s performing the same or similar work as a man, you should be getting paid the same,” she says.

SPEAK UP TO EARN MORE While the wage gap is often associated with higher-power jobs where salary negotiation comes into play, it affects all levels of workers.

Female chief executives, for instance, earn only 80 percent of what male CEOs earn, but lower-wage workers are victims as well, and women make up the majority of this segment of the workforce. Women represent 76 percent of workers in the ten lowest-wage jobs, and they suffer a 10 percent wage gap in these occupations, according to Sarita Gupta ’96, executive director of Washington, DC-based Jobs With Justice. “What we see is more and more women joining the low-wage workforce,” Gupta added. Nearly twice as many women as men work in occupations with poverty-level wages, like home health aides, cashiers, and domestic workers, according to IWPR. Not only do these women suffer particularly low wages, especially for tipped workers, but many lose out on benefits when employers don’t offer full-time work.

Labor experts recommend that women who believe they may be victims of gender-based pay inequity go to their equal employment opportunity or human resources office or speak with a trusted supervisor. Female employees can tell HR they’re concerned their pay may not be in line with their peers and ask for an explanation. They may also use this conversation as an opportunity to ask for a raise or to request that their pay be—at the very least—brought to the same level as their male colleagues in comparable positions.

[SALARY.COM]

Learn more about negotiating a salary from Maura Belliveau ’85 at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/salary.

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Margaret Stearns Mansker ’99 is a manager of human resources compliance in the hospitality industry, where she works on a team dedicated to equal employment opportunity and affirmative action issues. In Mansker’s industry, government contractors are subject to government audits to make sure hiring and employment practices are fair to people of all races, genders, and ethnicities. Equal employment opportunity and affirmative action teams, for example, will examine a company’s workforce to make sure it reflects the diversity of the surrounding population and also examine compensation by title to make sure it is fair.

“It’s really tough for women,” she says. “You know you’re not supposed to talk about your salary, and it’s really hard to determine whether it’s because of past experience, your performance, or your gender. It’s one of those times where you really need a strong human resources department.”

UNFINISHED BUSINESS Women need to understand that they are earning less and that there is still work to be done to close the wage gap. As an intern at the nonprofit MotherWoman in Hadley, Massachusetts, Leigh Edwards ’14 organized an Equal Pay Day in nearby Northampton to raise awareness this past April. For her, the experience proved an opportunity to discover that policy changes in other areas could make a big difference in putting women on equal footing in the workplace. “We found that the wage gap [would be] mitigated if women had adequate paid sick leave and better child care,” she says. But before there are major policy changes in the US or elsewhere, the next step for women is to

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aggressively research pay levels for jobs they want, negotiate harder, and share their stories publicly and with other women, experts say.

And that’s exactly what chemist Margaret Fredricks ’00 ultimately did. Last summer, when she learned that her contract job would be extended through to the end of the project, she found the confidence to ask for more money—and got it. She knew that she had become invaluable to the project, and that opened a window to ask for more money. She set a hard and fast minimum annual salary requirement and made it clear she was willing to leave the job if the company’s offer fell short. Fredricks surprised herself: “For [a difference of] 1,000 euros, I was willing to walk out of the company,” she says. “I never really thought I would be the type to be able to do something like that.”

She now makes 10,000 more euros a year than she did just a few months ago. And while she’s proud of herself, saying, “Now I feel like I’m getting closer to what I’m worth,” she knows she needs to continue improving her negotiating skills. In the future Fredricks plans to set a higher bar for the minimum salary she’s willing to accept, and she will certainly negotiate. But for now, she’s satisfied.

IT TAKES WOMEN AN

EXTRA THREE MONTHS OF WAGES TO MAKE UP THAT 22-CENT DIFFERENCE. [ AAUW.ORG]

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Erin McCarthy ’06 is a writer and journalist based in New York.

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I-IE T DIVIDE

BY HUGH HOWA RD

In the College’s centennial year, a male president took the helm for the first time.

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N O FA N FA R E A C C O M PA N I E D T H E

Although she would live another decade,

DEPARTURE OF MARY EMMA WOOLLEY

Miss Woolley, as many students of the time

on July 27, 1937. Her staff watched from the

called her, would never return to the campus in

President’s House as the large car turned left on

South Hadley. The reason was simple enough:

College Street and headed north, followed by a

Her successor as president, Roswell Gray Ham,

small truck piled with suitcases, hat boxes, and

was a man.

crates containing china, curtains, and the books

Woolley had transformed a quiet school

and papers of her presidency. The most visible

devoted to training Christian girls into a com-

woman in American higher education sat erect

munity of women scholars. She introduced

and alone in the rear seat as she bade a silent

comprehensive entrance examinations and

farewell to Mount Holyoke College.

ended the requirement that students perform domestic duties. She made a PhD requisite for

PRESIDENT MARY EMMA WOOLLEY

Woolley, dressed in academic garb in 1903, two years into her thirty-six-year presidency.

faculty status. In shaping a rigorous academic environment, she sought to train women to be leaders at home and abroad. (At United States President Herbert Hoover’s invitation, she served in Geneva as a delegate to the Conference on the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments in 1932, an unprecedented honor for a woman.)

Just a few weeks before her 1937 departure, a range of accomplished women had assembled to celebrate the College’s centennial, including Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, class of 1902, the first woman to serve in the US cabinet. By all accounts, the May weekend had been memorable; as Radcliffe president and Smith alumna Ada Comstock concluded, “Never in my experience has an audience been so deeply stirred by a conviction of the importance of giving free and wide opportunities to women.”

Yet, to Woolley’s indignation, a century of unbroken female leadership had ended, as one of the most visible of those opportunities, her very job, now belonged to Ham, an associate professor at Yale and a former Marine Corps captain in the Great War. The announcement of his appointment a year earlier had been a stunning blow to Woolley, College faculty, and many alumnae. The likable Ham, a self-effacing scholar best known for his knowledge of John Dryden’s poetics, could claim little administrative experience. Perkins spoke for many when she disparaged him as a man of “ordinary capacity.”

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A COMMITTEE’ S DECIS ION THE BACK STORY BEGINS with the letter

of the law. As chartered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Mount Holyoke College was administered by twenty-five trustees. Twenty were self-elected for ten-year terms, while five alumnae were chosen by other graduates to

ON CEREMONY

TOP: President Woolley and four College trustees, later involved in the selection of Roswell Ham as her successor, 1934.

BOTTOM : Faculty members in President Woolley’s

inauguration procession, May 15, 1901.

serve for five years. Charged with the overall governance of the institution, the trustees chose the president of the College, who also served as an ex officio board member.

In the mid-thirties, the majority of Mount Holyoke’s board members were men; in addition to the alumnae representatives just two women served as trustees. The eighteen male members consisted of two ministers, one school headmaster, an attorney, and a majority mix of businessmen, including industrialists, bankers, and financiers.

After her return from the Geneva conference in 1932, Woolley and the trustees agreed her retirement would coincide with the College’s centennial. In the fall of 1934, a five-member Committee on the Succession to the Presidency was established to identify candidates. The committee assembled a long list, including names suggested by Woolley, the faculty, alumnae, and others. The suggestions were winnowed down to a list of seventy-one, and, late in 1935, four additional trustees were invited to join the committee. The nine-member committee then consisted

Photos courtesy of MHC Archives and Special Collections

of five men and four alumnae, with a notable

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found, she should be preferred to a man,” alumnae trustee Rowena Keigh Keyes, class of 1902, wrote, in January 1935, to fellow trustee and classmate Frances Perkins.

In 1931 Woolley had confided to a friend her concern at the board’s “masonic character”; her worries proved prescient, as interviews conducted with male candidates went unreported to the larger body of the committee. The names of some of those interviewed (including Ham’s) never appeared on the candidate list. Only many decades later, with the 1999 deposit of a cache of internal board correspondence at the College archives, did the extent of the behind-the-scenes maneuvering become known. These documents are the basis of a detailed and compelling recounting of the events in the recent book A

THE GENEVA CONFERENCE

President Woolley at the Conference on Reduction and Limitation of Armaments, held in Geneva, Switzerland, 1932-1933.

Yale-related constituency, as a third of the committee had strong New Haven connections (Lottie Bishop, class of 1906, was as executive secretary at Yale, Howell Cheney a member of the Yale Corporation, and Edgar Furniss dean of Yale’s graduate school).

At the time, there was no fixed expectation for the gender of presidents at elite women’s colleges. Among Mount Holyoke’s peers in the Seven Colleges Conference neither Barnard nor Wellesley had ever had a male president; Vassar and Smith had never had female heads. (In a curious inversion of the Mount Holyoke story, Smith’s first woman president would take office in 1975, the school’s centennial year.) Although Bryn Mawr and Radcliffe had been led by men in the past, the office holders circa 1935 were women.

However, there was a strong expectation among members of the College’s entire board of eighteen men and seven women that the com-

Male President for Mount Holyoke College by Ann Karus Meeropol, a former LITS Scholar-inResidence at the College (McFarland, 2014).

The events unfolded after board of trustees president Alva Morrison confided in President Woolley, in May 1936, that the board had offered Ham the job. Ham had accepted, and, Woolley was told, his appointment would be ratified at the forthcoming trustees’ meeting.

Woolley rose to express her adamant opposition at the committee’s June meeting. “I can imagine no greater blow to the advancement of women than the announcement that Mount Holyoke celebrates its centennial by departing from the ideal of leadership by women for women, which inspired the founding of the institution and which has been responsible in large measure for its progress.” A prolonged public airing of the dispute followed, during which a range of faculty, alumnae, and outsider voices attempted—and failed—to derail Ham’s inauguration.

mittee, adhering to tradition, would nominate a female candidate. That proved illusory from the committee’s first meeting. “I am the only one on the committee who believes heartily that if a really suitable woman for the position can be

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A M IXED LEGA CY M A RY WO O LLEY H AD B E E N A PION EER, the first woman to enroll at Brown, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

After accepting a post at Wellesley, she rose rapidly to full professor, head of the biblical studies department, and gained wider recognition. At age thirty-eight, she accepted the job as Mount Holyoke’s eleventh president.

Everyone agreed her presidency had been a resounding success. In raising the College’s visibility and intellectual caliber, she had gained national recognition not only for Mount Holyoke but also for herself. Smith College president

William A. Neilson put a widespread perception into personal terms when he observed, “Mount Holyoke is Miss Woolley.” His admiring remark had a negative connotation: Though hers would be a hard act to follow, some of the trustees appear to have suffered from what might be called Woolley fatigue.

The board had wholeheartedly endorsed Woolley’s participation in the Geneva peace talks, but her commitments to numerous organizations had frequently taken her away from the College, including six months spent in Asia on the China Education Commission. She lectured widely, and her three terms as president of the American Association of University Women, she admitted, amounted to a second job. She was also a professed pacifist as well as an outspoken supporter of Democrat Franklin Delano

A LIFE TOGETHER

Mary Woolley, left, and her partner, Jeannette Marks, on a hillside, circa 1930s.

Roosevelt, whose policies were anathema to most of the conservative businessmen who populated the Mount Holyoke board.

In a more intimate sphere, Woolley’s long-standing relationship with Jeannette Marks was, for some, a source of discontent. A former student of Woolley’s at Wellesley, Marks followed Woolley to Mount Holyoke and became a professor of English literature. Since 1909, the two women had both resided in the newly constructed President’s House. While they maintained separate quarters—and Woolley took pains to maintain a cordial formality with Marks in public—their relationship was widely understood to be a life partnership.

Some on the faculty grumbled that Marks received special treatment, but, more damning, Woolley’s connection to Marks played into what newspapers, opinion-makers, students, and others far from South Hadley had begun to say publicly, that progressive women—Woolley was just one visible example—were out of touch.

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Woolley’s generation had aspired to indepen-

commonplace. But that was changing. Among

dence. At her arrival in South Hadley in 1901,

newly enfranchised women who came of age in the

roughly one American woman in five remained

highly sexualized 1920s, the number who remained

unmarried. It was a time when many College

unmarried dropped precipitously. By mid-century,

alumnae pursued professional careers and

the ratio of single-to-married women would fall to

maintained rich friendships with other women,

one in twenty.

not a few of them as couples; among the faculty

To their critics, women’s colleges had become

on the campuses of women’s colleges, married

“feministic” and “over-feminized.” (The Boston

women were the exception and female couples

Globe used the term “spinster management,” and those who protested Ham’s appointment were dismissed as “a handful of antiquated females.”)

PRESIDENT ROSWELL GRAY HAM

Board of Trustees President Alva Morrison, left, and Ham in November 1937, shortly after Ham took office as the College’s twelfth president.

The pre-war years saw a decline in separatism—a strategy manifest at the turn of the century in the successful suffrage movement, women’s clubs, settlement houses, and thriving women’s colleges.

In feminist historian Estelle Freedman’s succinct estimation, “The old feminist leaders lost their following when a new generation opted for assimilation in the naive hope of becoming men’s equals overnight.” President-designate Ham expressed this narrowing of expectations when he told the Holyoke Transcript-Telegram: “The fact must always be kept in mind that women’s main vocation is marriage.”

For the businessmen on the College board, the demographic changes were a practical concern; as chairman Morrison saw it, “a majority of our own trustees . . . [will] not send their daughters to Mount Holyoke.” They also worried about money; they wanted not only to attract the daughters of affluence but to ensure sound fiscal management. Woolley had managed through difficult times, but there was a perception that a male president would bring a sharper business acumen.

In short, Professor Ham was the antithesis of President Woolley. His sudden emergence as the board’s choice after not having been on the short list may actually have been the result of the widower’s remarriage in early 1936. Trustee Henry Kendall, a highly successful businessman and the son of Mount Holyoke’s oldest living graduate at

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the time, had worried aloud at Mount Holyoke’s “lack of social facilities” and, according to Frances Perkins’ recollections, was among the board members who wanted a “president who had a nice wife who could entertain visiting dignitaries and trustees and would be the charming hostess.” The new Mrs. Ham had impressed the trustee interviewers as a valuable presidential partner.

As Morrison explained bluntly to a new alumnae trustee in the weeks before Ham was named president, the circumstances all added up to one conclusion: Mount Holyoke needed, he wrote, “A strong man at the head.”

A M AN AT THE HELM ON C E P RE S I D E N T HAM T O O K OFFIC E, the controversy that had played out in local and national papers over the preceding months immediately faded. Ham served until 1957 and is remembered today as a good and

STUDENT CONNECTIONS

Four members of the class of 1958 in February 1958 with former president Roswell G. Ham, who served the College from 1937 to 1957.

quietly competent president, one who enjoyed teaching more than administration. He captained Mount Holyoke quietly through the war years and after. He instituted changes gradually,

ering women to become intellectuals more than

shifting the life of the College away from the

for her refusal to return to the College. She led

brownstone Gothic structures on College Street

Mount Holyoke through one of its most success-

to modern brick residence halls constructed

ful periods of growth and remains one of the

lakeside for a student body that, during Ham’s

most influential leaders in twentieth-century

tenure, increased by 75 percent. By 1950, he

higher education.

quadrupled the men in a faculty that, under Woolley, had been 93 percent female.

Mary Woolley never witnessed these changes in

Writer and historian Hugh Howard is the author

person, though she had an opportunity to return

of Mr. and Mrs. Madison’s War and the forth-

to campus on multiple occasions. Just a year

coming Houses of Civil War America.

before her death, confined to a wheelchair after a stroke, she refused the honor of a professorship in her name—she could not, she wrote, until a woman was once again president of the College.

Neither she nor her stalwart supporter Frances Perkins would live to see that day.

Years after Woolley’s death in 1947, Perkins expressed regret that her friend hadn’t softened her stance and accepted defeat with “good humor,

Watch a video of Ann Karus Meeropol speak about the Woolley-Ham controversy at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/woolleyhamvideo.

sophistication, and fine manners.” But Woolley remains the College’s longest-serving president, and she is remembered for her legacy of empow-

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Culinary historian Barbara Ketcham Wheaton ’53 turns to cookbooks to learn about the past

BY SONIA SCHERR

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“Ladies and gentlemen,” announced Barbara Ketcham Wheaton ’53, addressing the twenty occupants of a staid conference room at the Radcliffe Institute’s Schlesinger Library, “I have been asked to tell you how to cook a peacock.”

T WA S A RE A SON A BL E RE QUE ST. Wheaton, a pioneer in the relatively new field of culinary history, had once prepared a peacock for 150 people attending a Harvard banquet, an event that imagined a fifteenth-century feast at the court of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. This past June, in a tone combining seriousness of purpose with wit and zest, Wheaton recounted the experience to students in her weeklong annual seminar on reading historic cookbooks. “The first thing you have to do,” she explained, “is persuade some other person to find a peacock and make sure it still has all its feathers on it.”

Wheaton’s peacock, frozen solid, came to her home in Concord, Massachusetts, from Middletown, Connecticut, where, she was told, the owner of a nursing home raised fancy fowl. She skinned and roasted the bird, then used linen thread to stitch it back together, feathers and all. She constructed a wire armature to hold up its neck and affixed gold leaf to its eyelids and beak. Wheaton declared the peacock “the ultimate party dish” for frugal cooks who want to make an impression: “It tasted like old pheasant: very tough, a little bit rank. There were plenty of leftovers.”

Wheaton’s culinary venture is emblematic of her unconventional path as a scholar— one dedicated to exploring a source of knowledge that researchers had long overlooked: historic cookbooks. “They are the voices of people whose normal speech rarely got written down at least until the nineteenth-century, and that means men as well as women,” she says. “These were not people with much status; they were housewives, people in domestic service. Writing cookbooks was not considered a glamorous occupation.”

Today, these books provide a window into the past. If you know how to read them, Wheaton says, you can find information about a culture—from its beliefs about health to its religious practices to its technological innovations—that is unavailable anywhere else. “People say, ‘It’s just a cookbook. It tells you to do something.’ But the author also reveals things about his or her time and place unintentionally. They’re fun to decode,” Wheaton says.

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In the cookbooks she’s read, Wheaton has come across recipes for a medicine to cure the bite of a mad dog and for a poison to spread around the edges of a room to keep away insects. She has found recipes adapted to accommodate the privations of wartime, including the rationing of ingredients during World War II. She has encountered descriptions of elaborate tabletop ornaments fashioned from sugar, instructions for a pie that releases live birds when the crust is lifted (the birds are slipped into the pie through a hole in the bottom just before serving), and numerous recipes for turtle soup, despite the fact that this popular nineteenth-century delicacy was rarely attempted by home cooks.

“I think cookbooks really do touch on people’s lives—on their imaginations and on their hopes and fears,” she says. “They are so full of desperate practicality and, on the other hand, all kinds of imaginative stuff. No one’s going to cook that turtle soup, but they’ll read about it, and it will make their world a little more romantic.”

IN RECOGNITION of her scholarship, Wheaton received the 2013 Roget Award, a lifetime achievement award in the cookbook world. Yet she never set out to study culinary history; in fact, it didn’t exist as a discipline when she was young.

At Mount Holyoke she majored in art history—an interest that arose partly from growing up in a museum-going family and in a home filled with paintings. “I like to look at things in the natural world as well as in the made world,” says Wheaton, who would ultimately regard cooking as an art, too.

At the recommendation of her advisor at Mount Holyoke, who thought it would be good preparation for graduate school, Wheaton also studied German for two years. The classes, taught

by Erika Meyer and Edith Runge, met three times a week in addition to twice-weekly conversation sessions. They would prove invaluable when Wheaton began studying cookbooks.

“I’ve been thankful for them ever since because it made learning Dutch easier and because I’ve used German in my research.”

While her language classes gave her practical skills, a geography course she took as a sophomore influenced her thinking more deeply. Taught by Minnie Lemaire, it encouraged her to consider how environment affects societies, causing events to unfold differently in one place than in another.

The ideas she encountered in the course helped shape the questions she would later ask about culinary history.

One thing she didn’t do at Mount Holyoke—in fact, had never done—was cook. In Philadelphia, where she grew up,

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her family had employed a cook who prepared all the meals. In college, the undergraduates ate together in dining rooms, where they were served by their sister students. She loved to eat, however, and as a doctoral student at Harvard University began cooking with a housemate because the university’s food at that time was awful.

Their initial meal proved a challenge. “My task was to cook a potato,” Wheaton recalls, “and I didn’t know how to cook a potato. The next morning I bought my first cookbook.”

That was Irma Rombauer’s The Joy of Cooking, originally published in 1931, which had become a bestseller during World War II. For Wheaton, it was the beginning of an enduring love of cooking that encompassed dinner parties for friends and everyday meals for her family. This kitchen experience would inform her scholarly approach to reading cookbooks. “I look at the recipes, and I mentally try to prepare the dish. Each one is like a little action—actually a succession of actions. It has sensory qualities for the cook as well as the eater.You put your whole body into the cooking if you’re on task. It’s physical as well as mental.”

In a few years she would advance beyond what she calls “the Irma Rombauer and Betty Crocker stage.” After earning a master’s degree in art history in 1954, she dropped out of Harvard to marry a fellow doctoral student. In 1958, the young couple moved with their infant daughter to the Netherlands so Robert Wheaton could study Dutch history at Utrecht University. Barbara Wheaton

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began cooking from La Bonne Cuisine de Madame E. Saint-Ange, a meticulously detailed 1927 manual on French home cooking that inspired many chefs, including Julia Child. “I was marketing in Dutch and cooking in French,” Wheaton says.

She traveled to other European locales, buying cookbooks wherever she went. Soon she grew curious about why, and how, such different styles of cooking had developed across the continent. Influenced by her art history training, and by Lemaire’s geography course, she started seeing cooking in a new light. “I came to realize that cooking, like other crafts and skills, has a history, and it’s very much affected by the place and time it’s happening in. After that, it became quite interesting to me.”

of Congress). She also took cooking lessons at L’École des Trois Gourmandes with Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck, Julia Child’s partners in writing Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Yet she was almost entirely alone in her work because culinary history still had not emerged as a field. “As a shy person, it was very nice because I didn’t feel intimidated by any experts,” she says.

In fact, it would be fifteen years before she met another culinary historian, Joyce Toomre, a translator and writer specializing in Russian food. In early 1980, at the invitation of mutual friend Ann Robert, Toomre and Wheaton met for lunch at Robert’s restaurant, Maître Jacques, in Boston. Over salmon in puff pastry, they began a friendship that led to the founding that spring of the Culinary Historians of Boston, the oldest such group in the US.

IN 1960 , the family returned to Cambridge, where Wheaton

Meredith Heuer

was home with toddlers and desperate for intellectual stimulation. She got a card for Radcliffe’s library, hoping to find something to read. “I went upstairs,” she says, “and walked along the rows of shelves and saw Eileen Power’s translation of a medieval French cookbook.”

Le Ménagier de Paris (The Goodman of Paris) was written in the late 1300s by someone—the identity of the author is unknown—who purported to be an elderly man educating his young bride about household matters. “I was fascinated,” Wheaton recalls. “When my children were asleep, I had something to read and think about.”

Power provided footnotes that led Wheaton to English medieval cookbooks. From there, she read German and Italian medieval cookbooks. Within months, she’d told friends she wanted to write a history of European cooking from the Middle Ages to the present. Eventually her husband suggested she narrow her scope so she would be able to finish.

The family’s 1964 move to Paris, prompted by her husband’s decision to change history specializations from Dutch to French, helped her find a focus for the book: French cooking in the early modern period. Though Wheaton’s two years in Paris weren’t carefree—her husband was away alternating fortnights on research trips, and Wheaton had young children to look after—she was able to spend time in the reading room of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (the equivalent of the United States Library

Read about fellow alumnae cookbook author Cathy Barrow ’78 at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/cathybarrow.

UCH HA S CHA NGED in

Wheaton’s career, and in the field of culinary history, since that group’s first meeting, a brown-bag lunch in Radcliffe Yard. In 1983, her book, Savoring the Past:The French Kitchen and Table from 1300 to 1789, was published to wide acclaim.

In addition to teaching in the Radcliffe seminars, she went on to serve as honorary curator of the Schlesinger Library’s vast culinary collection, which houses the papers of luminaries such as Julia Child, Elizabeth David, M.F.K. Fisher, and Irma Rombauer. She has assisted researchers with a wide range of projects, including author Allegra Goodman, whose 2010 novel, The Cookbook Collector, features a fictional cookbook collection that Wheaton helped Goodman create.

At age eighty-three, Wheaton remains passionate about sharing her knowledge with others. Her yearly seminar on reading cookbooks in a systematic way has become increasingly popular, drawing an international group of scholars in diverse disciplines as well as museum interpreters, food writers, and professional cooks. She always tells participants they will know less at the end of the seminar than at the beginning; that is, they will make discoveries that challenge their assumptions.

Indeed, those surprises are why, after fifty years, Wheaton still finds her work exciting. “There’s so much more to learn,” she says.

“The longer you study something, the more puzzling it is.”

Sonia Scherr is a freelance writer based in New Hampshire.

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O N D I S P L AY

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T H E N A N D N OW

MoHome Memories For Whom the Bell Tolls Remembrances of a onetime campus job FOR SIXTY YEARS visitors to Mount Holyoke dorms rang a

doorbell and were let in by a student covering the bell desk. Prior to the fifties, housekeeping staff monitored the comings and goings of each dorm, while students occasionally covered bell duty during the labor shortages of World War II. Beginning in 1951, all students were required to do work in their dorms, including bell duty, during which they were expected to sit quietly and read or study when they weren’t answering the door or calling up to rooms to announce guests. In the sixties, bell desks became more social hubs. Three decades later, with the introduction of the OneCard that gave students access to all campus buildings, bell desk workers were no longer needed and the position was discontinued.

We reached out to our alumnae community on Facebook and selected a few comments to share that tell the story of sitting bells through the decades.

“When I was there . . . sitting bells was a requirement, and it never seemed to be an onerous task. It was always fun to see who was going where and with whom, and there was always someone hanging out to chat with.” —Ruth Gerard Poley ’58 “Not a job for us, but a ‘volunteer’ requirement, along with some dish detail in the kitchen . . . . Bells beat dishes hands down! Great people watching at curfew on weekends (yes, curfew). In loco parentis was alive and well, until we (’67) were the first to have keys to the dorm and no curfew second semester senior year.” —Susan d’Olive Mozena ’67 “I sat . . . for all four years. I think I made $2.10/hr., so I made enough spending money that I didn’t have to ask my parents for anything beyond tuition, room and board, and books. I was usually able to study while sitting, so it was an easier job than most.” —Joanne P. Legare ’78 “I was a lucky freshman in 1983 who landed a bell desk job. . . .

I loved being the ‘receptionist’ for the dorm, talking with people, announcing pizza, flowers, and boyfriends, and getting to know my dormmates. I remember knitting, playing backgammon and cards, and occasionally studying.” —Jane Zippe Putscher ’87 “I remember groups of students gathered around the TV watching Desert Storm unfold. . . . If you really *needed* to study, you had to put up a sign asking people not to stop and memories!” —Stephanie Freed Charlot ’92 “Sat at Mead desk for one year. Everyone would stop by and chat with me, so I never got bored. When we switched to the

Students at the bell desk in Safford Hall, 1971.

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OneCard I was pretty sad.” —Sara McKee ’01

MHC Archives and Special Collections

talk to you. Lots of chatting, a little studying, many great

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on display

ARTIFACT

Markers of Grief Mary Lyon’s hair jewelry

ON THE EVENING OF March 5, 1849, Mary Lyon’s close friend Rebecca Fiske sat down to write a letter to her dear friends to inform them about Lyon’s condition; she wrote, “Have you been anxious about Miss Lyon? What should I tell you of her?

She is near the end---.” As she scrolled out the last dashes, Fiske was alerted to Lyon’s death. Although likely shaken by the news, she returned to her pen and paper minutes after and wrote, “I was just going to tell you that she was near the gate of heaven. . . . She is already there—at rest in the bosom of her savior, it was about half past eight, her spirit took its flight from earth.”

Mary Lyon’s earthly remains would be prepared for burial, and although it is not clear when her hair was shorn from her head, we do know that in the days, months, and years that followed, Lyon’s hair was distributed to friends and students. The act of disconnecting hair from the body marked a “rite of passage whereby the hair is transformed into a personal relic and a model of remembrance,” according to Karen Bachman, a professor of design at Fashion Institute of Technology, jewelry designer, and author of a 2013 journal article “Hairy Secrets: Hair as Human Relic in Jewelry.” Mary Lyon’s locks would be transformed into a variety of memorial objects. Some of these objects found their way back through Mount Holyoke’s gates.

The objects in the College’s collection include three crosses,

a bracelet, a ring, one vial of hair, and hair in a wooden frame. These items may seem morbid or even repulsive to some, but when positioned in historical context it is possible to see that hairwork was a means for nineteenth-century American society to mourn the departed. The nineteenth century marked the beginning of the United States’ sentimental era, a time when overt emotional expression was best kept to oneself. Despite this time of emotional restriction, the art of hairwork gained popularity as an acceptable means of “outward expression of [a] person’s inner sentiments,” according to historian Helen Sheumaker’s work Love Entwined: The Curious History of Hairwork in America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007).

Hair jewelry became a symbolic language that narrated to the public the wearer’s story of grief and sorrow. Jewelry made out of hair had the power to connect the living and the dead when kept closer to the wearer, who

was comforted by the fact that the lock of hair taken from their loved one’s head would be frozen in time, maintaining its natural color and texture for the remainder of her lifetime and beyond. The College’s collection of Mary Lyon’s hair jewelry is housed at Archives and Special Collections, where visitors can see for themselves the intricate artifacts of Mount Holyoke’s influential founder.

—BY BRIE LOWENSTEIN FP’ 14

Adapted from Brie Lowenstein’s independent research project “Remembering Mary Lyon: 19th Century Mourning Jewelry.”

James Gerht

View a slideshow of more of Mary Lyon’s hair jewelry at alumnae. mtholyoke.edu/marylyonhair.

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1968

2014

1968 was a year of change for the Five College system. Hampshire College had been founded three years previously and was preparing to open its doors to students in 1970. There were several meetings to establish the details of the Five College Consortium, and the intercollegiate bus system was often a topic of conversation at these meetings.

When students want to leave campus they board the PVTA (Pioneer Valley Transit Authority), the largest regional transit authority in Massachusetts.

Instead of saying each letter “P-V-T-A,” Mount Holyoke students refer to the bus as “The Piv-Ta.” Ten of the current fleet of PVTA buses are hybrid vehicles with diesel-electric propulsion to reduce greenhouse gases.

Previously, nine-passenger vans (pictured, top) had shuttled students between the colleges. As intercollege cooperation picked up, however, it became clear that the small shuttles were not adequate to meet the needs of students who were taking classes and participating in activities on other campuses.

It was decided the vans would be supplemented with larger chartered buses, subsidized by the now five colleges’ student government associations and minimal student fees.

The buses ran from Mount Holyoke to Amherst College to UMass and back,

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NOW

There are two lines that stop on the Mount Holyoke campus.

The 39 line runs between Mount Holyoke and Smith, stopping at Hampshire, Atkins Farm, and several places in Northampton along the way.

The 38 line runs from Mount Holyoke to UMass and back again, making stops at Hampshire and Amherst College. leaving Mount Holyoke approximately every hour on the hour during the week from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Evening buses operated seven days a week. There was no bus that ran between Smith and Mount Holyoke; students wishing to travel between the two women’s colleges had to transfer lines.

The loading point was the south side of Mead Hall, and the bus did not make any other stops on campus unless, according to the Five College Information Handbook, “specific exceptional arrangements have been made in advance.”

Buses no longer stop at Mead; The PVTA’s main campus stop is on Lower Lake Road, near Blanchard. It also stops other places on campus, such as on Park Street across from Torrey Hall, near the Art Building on Lower Lake Road, near South Rockefeller Hall on Chapin Road, and on College Street, across from Pearsons.

—OL

1968: MHC Archives and Special Collections; 2014: Rusty Clark

then and now

THE N

Inter-college Transportation

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C L A S S A N D C L U B I N FO J U S T K E YS T R O K E S AWAY

|

Class and club contacts are available online at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/classes or alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/clubs.

Connections President Pasquerella Joins Alumnae Trips In June President Lynn Pasquerella ’80 joined the Alumnae Association-sponsored voyage “In the Wake of the Vikings” with thirteen sister alumnae and their guests.

The seven-day cruise began in Glasgow, Scotland, stopped in the Outer Hebrides and the Shetland Islands of Scotland, passed through the fjords of Norway, and concluded in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Toward the end of the trip, alumnae gathered on the observatory deck of the ship for a reception. “What an amazing group of women! We told stories, hugged, laughed,

took photos, and sang the alma mater,” said President Pasquerella. “I can’t think of a better way to welcome the summer than with this extraordinary group of funny, brilliant, talented Mount Holyoke women and their traveling companions.”

To read President Pasquerella’s blog, visit alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/scotlandjourney.

To learn more about travel opportunities with other alumnae, including a winter trip to Australia and New Zealand that President Pasquerella will join, visit alumnae. mtholyoke.edu/travel. — L K

Mount Holyoke Marches at NYC Pride Parade In June a group of nearly 100 Mount Holyoke students, staff, and alumnae from the classes of 1985 to 2014 marched together at the New York City Pride Parade—the largest civil rights demonstration of its kind. Sarose Klein ’15 organized the contingent as part of a special Lynk-UAF supported internship in which she studied event design.

SU PPORT

THE

FOU NDER’ S FUND Your gift to the

FOU N DER’ S F U N D

Pasquerella: John Kuchle; Pride: Mohini Ufeli ‘14

at the

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Alumnae Association

HELPS US SU PPORT

the activities of alumnae around the world.

VISIT

alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/ff

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“

I remember waiting at that Blanchard bus stop for the PVTA to go on the Mountain Day hike . . . along all of the Seven Sisters range, and feeling especially victorious at reaching the top of Skinner!

”

— E L I SE EVA NS ’ 10

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Jerry and Marcy Monkman/EcoPhotography.com

a place of our own

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my voice

ESSAY

Learning While Mentoring

By GABR IEL A B RADT ’96

HAVE AN O PI N I O N TO S HAR E?

Pitch your topic at quarterly@ mtholyoke.edu.

potentially doing an internship with the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension (UNHCE) and NH Sea Grant, where I am a marine fisheries specialist working with New Hampshire’s commercial fishing industry and coastal habitat conservation. Kelsey had a Lynk-funded internship from the College and was looking for a research and community outreach experience.

I had several projects in mind that would be good for an intern, though admittedly I wasn’t certain how I might fund one or if I wanted to supervise an internship. It was Kelsey’s Mount Holyoke affiliation that made me reconsider. Kelsey joined me on June 10, and for ten weeks we worked together in the field (aka the beach), at the office, and some days in my driveway while we waited for samples to dry out in the sun.

Kelsey’s marine fisheries internship was comprehensive. She was exposed to fieldwork, protocol design and development, data collection, geographic information systems, and outreach and education. She used technical and reasoning skills she gained as a physics major to help me develop and test a protocol that may change how I

Kelsey Cowen ’16 (left) and Gabriela Bradt ’96.

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conduct my research in this area. She also began thinking about how to use what she has learned from me to enhance her work in her senior year. For example, as part of her capstone course this fall, Kelsey began to think about doing a comprehensive primary-source research project on microplastics, covering topics such as their ecological effects and the public’s role in this type of research.

Kelsey has an understated confidence and a willingness to do I came pretty much anything. Her indeto see my pendence has made working with her easy because she doesn’t need role not to be “managed,” and this enabled us to spend more time actually as Kelsey’s working than training. I enjoyed working with her primarily superior . . . because I trusted that I could send her out to do field work alone and but as a that she would do a good job. And I trusted that she would produce colleague. quality results.

Mentoring Kelsey came about naturally, whether we were sitting in my office, processing samples of sand looking for minute pieces of plastic, or spending hours on a hot, crowded beach, measuring out transects while getting curious looks from beachgoers. We discussed everything from better ways to modify my research design to my experiences in graduate school to politics, women’s issues, minimum wage, confidence in the workplace, how MHC has changed (or not changed) since I was there, and what she hopes to do after graduation. I came to see my role not as Kelsey’s superior, telling her intern what to do, but as a colleague, teaching and learning from another colleague. The fact that we are both Mount Holyoke women facilitated our abilities to work together in this way. We are both highly independent, eager to learn, and like to talk about everything. I will miss working with Kelsey, and I hope that she and I will keep reconnecting in the future. Besides the lessons learned from her internship, I hope she has also gotten a glimpse into how I have managed, as a mom and a working woman in science, to “do it all” in a realistic way. And, thanks to Kelsey, I am definitely open to hosting other Mount Holyoke interns in the future.

“

”

Gabriela Bradt ’96

LAST SPRING Kelsey Cowen ’16 approached me about

9/19/14 2:45 PM

The Laurel Chain Society Together we are the strength of the chain.

The Laurel Chain Society recognizes all alumnae who consistently make a gift— in any amount, to any fund—to support Mount Holyoke. Each year, every year, through the years. Are you in?

mhfund@mtholyoke.edu | 800-642-4483 | www.mtholyoke.edu/go/lcs

MHQ_Fall14_Depts_press.indd 25

9/19/14 2:45 PM

50 College Street, South Hadley, MA 01075

SMART. Wesley Cullen ’00 General manager of 18,000-seat Coliseo de Puerto Rico. Knows building maintenance, security, contracts. Tutored Paul McCartney in Spanish. Explorer. Vegetarian. Super positivo.

Improving the world through events.

Find an Alumna | Connect to Your Class | Find a Local Club | Career Network | Volunteer

alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

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9/29/14 9:31 AM