Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly Fall 2017

Mount Holyoke fa l l 2017

Alumnae Quarterly

Lessons of the Landscape Professor Lauret Savoy digs into the essential questions of her—and our—American past

I N T H I S I SSU E ALUMNAE BEHIND THE CURTAIN 100 YEARS OF QUARTERLY DESIGN INSIDE THE CLOCK TOWER VIRGINIA APGAR’S MEDICAL BAG

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I T HAS B E E N TRU LY delightful over the last year to relive, in the pages of the Alumnae Quarterly, one hundred years of Mount Holyoke history, alumnae engagement, and forum for discussion. This celebration of the Quarterly has brought to the fore—as the class histories do in the Annual Meeting—the trove of memories, the views from and of the campus, and the common bond that connects the Mount Holyoke of 1917 to that of 2017 and to all of the classes in between. You may remember the words of editor Margaret Ball, class of 1900, who described the value and intentions of the Quarterly in the first issue in April 1917. She wrote: This Quarterly makes its first appearance at a moment when every institution in the country must question its own reason for existence, must determine that it will contribute something of positive value to the life of the nation or will discontinue its own efforts in favor of some more essential activity.

There’s relevance in Ball’s statement to the contemporary moment, of course: a moment in which conflict, division, violence, and terrorism are calling upon the resources of each of us and of institutions to make sense of it all, to support free speech and civil discourse, and to defend the values of democracy and civil rights. It is a moment that is testing our understanding of conflict and of nation, of peace and of humanity.

Centenaries and other anniversaries are, like this one that celebrates the Quarterly, opportunities for retrospectives and new perspectives. Advocating for the value of education, and for Mount Holyoke in the landscape of higher education, Ball articulates the need for every college, in time of war, “to keep the habit of believing in education,” and the obligation “to strengthen and fulfill its own high purpose.” That theme returns through the decades of the Quarterly in the exploration and defense of the liberal arts and remains an important focus for us today. In a 1952 essay, excerpted as a part of this celebration, Professor Alan Van Keuren McGee wrote that “without offering vocational training, Mount

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Holyoke awakens the life in which the good vocations are found; without imposing philosophies, it shows what a sound philosophy is; without promising final answers, it finds what questions need answers.” This year, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty Jon Western will support a number of faculty seminars focused on questioning and seeking to understand the contemporary moment, with opportunities for the Acting President community to hear from Sonya Stephens participants in roundtable events. This is the value of liberal learning, expressed incorporated into the decor. All of this is through the agile scholarship of the faculty and building community in the extraordinary offered in ways that serve to build intellectual ways that a residential college can. And, as community and human understanding in both we await the opening in the spring of the time-honored and forward-thinking ways. new centerpiece of our This retrospective also community and the top reminds us that Clapp Hall priority in our Facilities was, in 1922, a proposed Master Plan—the $50 new science building on million Community the site of Williston Hall, Center with dining—we destroyed by fire in 1917. are reminded that we Identified in the recent Centenaries and continue to build history Facilities Master Plan as and community at one of the College’s “highother anniversaries Mount Holyoke, and that est and best use” buildings, our traditions remain Clapp continues to be home are . . . opportunities even as they change. to the sciences, including for retrospectives I’d like to think an innovative robotics that one hundred years lab, the GeoProcessing and new perspectives. from now, when the Lab, and the departments Quarterly is celebratof computer science and — S O N YA S T E P H E N S ing two hundred years, environmental studies, future master planners among others—a reminder will be saying that the that disciplines, technoloCommunity Center, too, gies, and pedagogies evolve is one of our highest and within these weathered best use facilities, and halls. Similarly, Blanchard that faculty, alumnae, Hall has evolved from its and others will still be advocating for the free early beginnings to be a newly renovated space exchange of ideas, promoting the liberal arts, for student life, leadership, and community, and celebrating what Mount Holyoke brings to though vestiges of its past uses—including the landscape of higher education. as the College’s gymnasium—have been

MHC Office of the President

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Contents F E AT U R E S

D E PA R T M E N T S

16 Style with Substance

2 LYONS SHARE

In our final issue celebrating the Alumnae Quarterly’s centennial we examine the evolution of the magazine’s design

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Sycamores as a residence hall, praise for class notes, alumnae connections and achievements

5 UNCOMMON GROUND

Alumnae fellowship opportunities, remembering Kavita Datla, grant funds makerspace project, Blanchard updates, Convocation, call for essays 10 The Female Gaze Pianist Kathryn Hobbie ’69; digital puppeteer Dorien Davies ’98; authors Mary Lynn Skinner Bayliss ’64, Susan Rieger ’68, and Rebecca Loose Valette ’59

Cover: Anja Schütz; Apgar’s bag: Deirdre Haber Malfatto; Cavosora: Kelsey Ingram; clock tower detail: James Gehrt

12 Ten Minutes With Social entrepreneur Marie Cavosora ’91

14 13 The Maven Marylee Bomboy ’67 on becoming a birder 14 Insider’s View Clock tower

34 MoHOME MEMORIES

Alumnae Quarterly coverage of the College’s centennial; fire rope from 1922 36 On Display Virginia Apgar’s ’29 medical bag 37 Then and Now Language labs 38 A Place of Our Own Richard Glenn Gettell Amphitheater

40 CLASS NOTES

12 22 Alumnae Behind the Curtain

80 MY VOICE

Dihann Geier ’78, “Welcome to the Club”

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Five alumnae share how their professional expertise may not put them in the limelight but is essential to their chosen industries

30 Lessons of the Landscape Supported by an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, Professor Lauret Savoy digs into the essential questions of her—and our—American past

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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 RESIDING AT SYCAMORES As a student I lived in Sycamores

(summer 2017, p. 14) during my sophomore year, so I really enjoyed reading the article by Olivia Collins ’18 and seeing the photos. Thank you!

Some history is missing. The fifth paragraph seems to say that Sycamores had some sort of religious purpose beginning in 1959 and a few years later became a residence for local high school girls until 1985.

There were fifteen of us who lived in Sycamores during the school year of 1963–64, and we were just ordinary “uncommon” Mount Holyoke students. I remember the housemother and the cook, but if there was a maid I definitely don’t remember that.

Quite a few of us reconnected at our fiftieth reunion in 2016. We visited Sycamores and admired the restoration work done on the rooms we lived in when we were nineteen or so. We reminisced about our housemother, Mrs. Knowlton, who let us into her private living room so that we could watch the funeral of President Kennedy on her television.

Join the Conversation quarterly@mtholyoke.edu

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facebook.com/aamhc twitter.com/aamhc instagram.com/mhcalums alumn.ae/linkedin

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I am sure that at least the classes of 1965 and 1967 also had sophomores in residence at Sycamores.

—Barbara Jones Nickles ’66 via email Editor’s Note: We received several letters, online comments, and emails about our Sycamores piece, all questioning our reporting that the building was designated as a religious center in 1959. Many of you wrote that you lived in Sycamores during the 1960s.

Your outreach sent us back to check our sources, and we found two separate newspaper articles that described plans for Sycamores as a religious center. Our best guess is that perhaps the plans for the religious center never came to fruition.

We thank all of you for reaching out and setting the record straight.

IN PRAISE OF CLASS NOTES Thank you for the thirty-eight pages

ON LAUREL PARADE TRADITIONS The singing of “Bread and Roses”

as part of the [laurel chain] ceremony (“A History in Laurel,” summer 2017, p. 16) was initiated by my class, the class of 1978, and we are so proud that it has become a part of the tradition of the laurel parade.

—Laurie Soojian Woo ’78 via Association website

@mhcalums The cutest use of this bag!

From @siroscarthepug: “Every powerful Mount Holyoke woman needs a powerful pug by her side. Hu-Mom may have two degrees, but who was the one smart enough to trick her into carrying me the whole way home?” #mountholyoke #alumna #pug #bag #cute #repost

of utterly absorbing Class Notes in the summer 2017 issue (p. 40).

I’m old enough to remember when class notes seemed to rely too heavily on the “reflected glory” cast upon alumnae by their husbands’ successes. You can detect some of that in the summer issue look-back (“In Your Own Words,” p. 24). But nowadays it’s all about us, our glories, our trials, and our achievements. The class notes are a piece of MHC history, for sure, but also a pretty reliable indicator of the progress all women have made. I hope the Quarterly will continue to give the class notes all the space they need.

These are our stories, after all, the making of our history.

—Lisa Lansing ’64 via email

alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

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MOST PO PU L AR POST

When Mary McClintock ’78 recently bagged groceries at Green Fields Market for her co-op hours, the cashier told the customer, “That will be $18.37.” McClintock said, “That’s the year Mount Holyoke College was founded.” The woman shopping smiled and asked, “Did you go to Mount Holyoke?” That’s when Mary and her classmate Adria Elskus ’78 became reacquainted. #FindYourPeople

Our new @aamhc board clerk, a mighty sphinx! @A AM H C M O U NT H O LYO KE ALU M S

RT @MJ M L AWD ETRO IT MAR KE I S HA J . M I N E R ’99

A Sphinx with a Sphinx @aamhc #poweredbymountholyoke #Vatican

This story warms my heart. There really is an incredible bond between MHC alumnae. It is so incredible! Oprah Winfrey often asks, “What do you know for sure?” For me, I know for sure that I am deeply proud to be an MHC alumna. It is like being part of a global sister tribe!

—Liah Love Caravalho ’03

The Rider, the latest film by Chloé Zhao ’05, took the top prize at the Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight.

Adria Elskus ’78 . . . we’re famous! And, Mount Holyoke College Class of 1978, I just sent a longer version of this story to Diana Fischer Baker ’78, our class scribe. Hopefully, the Alumnae Association will share that story in the Quarterly. SO, MHC alums . . . What stories have you sent in to your class scribe recently? Go for it! —Mary McClintock ’78 I have enjoyed being the conduit for two MHC friends via Facebook.

I hope the three of us can get together sometime.

—Barbara Butler Mitchell ’55 Awesome story! —Diana Fischer Baker ’78 What a wonderful story!!! —Genevieve Davila Plumadore ’03 Mount Holyoke College Class of 1978. Our classmates are all over Facebook! —Lucy Effron ’78

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly

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Lyons Share

M OU N T H O LYO K E ALUMNAE QUARTERLY Fall 2017 Volume 101 Number 4

Taylor Scott Senior Director of Marketing & Communications Jennifer Grow ’94 Editor Millie Rossman Creative Director Anne Pinkerton Assistant Director of Digital Communications Jess Ayer Marketing & Communications Assistant CONTR IBUTORS

Alicia Doyon Sara Rottger ’19 Maryellen Ryan Elizabeth Solet

QUARTERLY COMMITTEE

Lisa Hawley Hiley ’83 Carolyn E. Roesler ’86 Sara Rottger ’19, student rep

ALUMNAE ASSOCIATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS

President Marcia Brumit Kropf ’67 President-elect Maria Z. Mossaides ’73 Vice President Susan Brennan Grosel ’82

Quarterly is published quarterly

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

(ISSN 0027-2493; USPS 365-280) Please send form

in the spring, summer, fall, and winter by the Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College, Inc. Fall 2017, volume 101, number 4, was printed in the USA by Lane Press, Burlington, VT. Periodicals

Ideas expressed in the Alumnae Quarterly do not necessarily reflect the views of Mount Holyoke College

Young Alumnae Representative Tarana Bhatia ’15 Chair, Nominating Committee Nancy J. Drake ’73 Chair, Classes and Reunion Committee Melissa Anderson Russell ’01 Chair, Communications Committee Marisa C. Peacock ’01

Chair, Clubs Committee Elizabeth McInerny McHugh ’87

Executive Director Nancy Bellows Perez ’76 ex officio without vote STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, AND CIRCULATION

This information published as required by USPS. Publication title: Mount Holyoke

The Alumnae Quarterly welcomes

Alumnae Quarterly; ISSN publication number 0027-2493; USPS 365-280; are free.

include the writer’s full name. Letters

Office of Publication: Alumnae

may be edited for clarity and space.

Association of Mount Holyoke

Alumnae Association

To update your information, contact

College, 50 College St., South

50 College St.

Alumnae Information Services at

Hadley, MA 01075-1486.

South Hadley, MA

ais@mtholyoke.edu or 413-538-2303.

Contact person: Taylor Scott,

Information Services Mount Holyoke

01075-1486

Shabnam Koirala-Azad ’99, a Nepali becomes first female South Asian dean at Univ. of San Fran in the US @nepalitimes

@reawakenyourbrilliance (Julie Seibert Coraccio ’91) I always knew there was another reason I loved Wonder Woman. Created by the husband of an alumna of my alma mater. Cannot wait to see WW in action again! #wonderwoman #proud #poweredbymountholyoke #mtholyoke #mountholyoke #womeninbusiness #businesswoman #girlboss #girlpower #almamater #raleigh #raleighnc #women #strongwomen #dccomics

published quarterly; subscriptions

material published in the magazine, and

3579 to Alumnae

RT @MAD H E S IYO UTH MAD H E S I YO UTH

Directors-at-Large Katherine S. Hunter ’75 Amanda S. Leinberger ’07 Alice C. Maroni ’75

Mount Holyoke College.

than 200 words in length, refer to

@SACM U SAM R ACHANA AD H I K AR I ’ 11

Alumnae Trustee Elizabeth A. Wharff ’75

or the Alumnae Association of

letters. Letters should run not more

@aamhc @mtholyoke @nepalitimes

Clerk Markeisha J. Miner ’99

postage paid at South Hadley, MA, and additional mailing offices.

Nepali MHC alum

Treasurer and Chair, Finance Committee Tara Mia Paone ’81

Chair, Volunteer Stewardship Committee Charlotte N. Church ’70 The Mount Holyoke Alumnae

Great news from fellow

413-538-3159; Publisher and owner: Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College.

Circulation (based on summer 2017 issue): Net press run: 35,798;

Convocation: Rob Deza

EDITORIAL AND DESIGN TEAM

Requested subscriptions: 33,518 +

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unrequested (campus) distribution: 2,280

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N E WS

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THE FEMALE GAZE

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TEN MINUTES WITH

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T H E M AV E N

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INSIDER’S VIEW

Uncommon Ground

Convocation Celebration

“Members of this beloved community, we are in this thing together. We all have to do our part to make this place our home, MoHome, where we can all thrive, learn from each other, challenge each other, and be able to give each other grace. So, beloved community, let your beauty, your brilliance, and your bravery shine all over the world like glitter.”

Lisa Quinones

—D OROTH Y M OS BY, A S S O C I AT E DE AN OF FAC ULTY

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly

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F R O M L E F T T O R I G H T:

Miranda Schmidt ’19 and Amelia Johnson ’20

College Receives Grant for New Arts and Technology Initiative A $500,000 grant from the Sherman Fairchild Foundation will launch Mount Holyoke College’s MEDIAL Project, a significant new initiative at the intersection of arts and technology. “MEDIAL”

Lynn Pasquerella ’80 Celebrated on Campus

Accompanied by friends and family, Mount Holyoke’s eighteenth president returned to campus in August for the unveiling of her presidential portrait, which was installed on the fourth floor of Williston Memorial Library.

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stands for “MHC Empowering Discovery, Innovation, and Artistic Learning.”

The grant will be applied largely to upgrading media and film production, audio, and sound production facilities, including

a new digital music lab, and substantial upgrades to the College’s Makerspace.

“This grant is a wonderful illustration of the liberal arts in the twenty-first century,” said Jon Western, vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculty, who noted that making, experiencing, and teaching art is increasingly technological and collaborative.

The funds support efforts to expand artistic spaces where students can create, exhibit, and perform multidisciplinary art as well as to increase the number of related course offerings. These improvements will significantly elevate and sustain a powerful “maker culture” at Mount Holyoke—one of the most important goals in the College’s strategic plan, The Plan for Mount Holyoke 2021—and help transform teaching and learning across the curriculum.

Project manager Nick Baker, a Library, Information, and Technology Services liaison who helps faculty use and integrate technology and library resources in their teaching, notes that the grant’s goal is to create robust and flexible spaces for students today and in the future.

“The MEDIAL Project blends arts and technology in an extraordinary way, and Mount Holyoke is uniquely positioned to create these blended spaces,” Baker said.

“The level of creativity here that grows out of our students’ diverse backgrounds and interests means that what they’re generating is incredibly exciting. Given the global challenges we’re facing, we need more outside-of-the-box, design-focused creative thinking. Mount Holyoke is the perfect place to do that.”

Read more at alumnae.mtholyoke. edu/makerspace.

— B Y S A S H A N YA R Y

Discounted Insurance for Alumnae

The Alumnae Association sponsors an alumnae insurance program. Learn more at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/insurance.

alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

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News

Courtesy Megumi Yoshida

Alumnae Fellowships Fund the Furthering of International Perspectives

Makerspace: courtesy Nick Baker; Pasquerella painting detail: Kyley Butler ’18

“As a first-generation Japanese immigrant to the United States, I have personal experiences that I’d like to write about to contribute to the tapestry of migrant stories,” says Megumi Yoshida ’09, a 2017 recipient of a Frances Mary Hazen Fellowship from the Alumnae Association.

Yoshida used the funds she received to attend the Yale Summer Writers’ Conference this year.

Yoshida studied anthropology and film studies while at Mount Holyoke. After graduation, she became involved with an organization focused on improving human rights in

the Philippines. Through her work she realized how her own personal story intersected with forms of privilege in the US and beyond, a theme she became eager to explore. Following that experience, Yoshida moved to Mexico City, immersing herself in the local culture and working with the International League of Peoples’ Struggle as an ally for human rights in Mexico.

With her educational background and her interest in diverse ethnic viewpoints and experiences, Yoshida’s next step was to work on enhancing her skills in screenwriting so that she could tell personal stories

that raise consciousness around multicultural and social justice issues through, she says, the most “entertaining and impactful way possible.”

“I believe it is the storyteller’s job to overwhelm the narrative with diverse perspectives so there is no longer room for the myth of white supremacy,” she says. Exploring through storytelling and filmmaking how the political influences the personal, Yoshida hopes to broaden her audience’s understanding of human rights issues and effect cultural change.

“My participation in international solidarity informs my journey as a writer,” she says.

“And I believe my content will be stronger and richer for having awareness of the complexity of human rights issues on a global level.”

Yoshida’s Hazen Fellowship award covered her travel, tuition, room and board, plus the application fee for the program.

Thanks to generous gifts from alumnae, the Alumnae Association is pleased to provide a number of fellowships to support research, travel, and study. To learn more about fellowship opportunities, visit alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/ fellowships.

Reminder: Call for Essays!

We’re looking for essays about resilience, and we will select at least one for publication in the Alumnae Quarterly.

Tell us, what does resilience mean to you?

How have you lived it, observed it, been in awe of it, craved it?

To learn more about our essay contest and to submit your work, visit alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/ essaycontest.

—BY ANNE PINKERTON

Support the Founder’s Fund

Join an Alumnae Association Trip Abroad

Your gift to the Founder’s Fund at the Alumnae Association helps us support the activities of alumnae around the world. Visit alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/ff.

We invite you to join one or more of the Alumnae Association’s travel opportunities, including an expedition to Antarctica, a Dutch waterways cruise, and a small-ship trip through Japan. For more information and to register, visit alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/travel.

The Inland Sea of Japan

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly

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For so many young people, attending college is a rite of passage that places them on a similar plane with parents or other family

S AV E T H E DAT E

Reunion 2018

members. It draws them closer. When you are the first in your family to attend college, it’s the opposite. It tears you away

Reunion I

from your family and community. You become permanently dissimilar—different at college, but also at home, simulta-

May 18–20 1948, 1968, 1978, 1993, 1998, 2008, 2016, Frances Perkins Scholars

neously. Colleges should recognize that some students are making it in their own way, without a support system.

—DAVID HERNÁNDEZ , ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF LATINA/O STUDIES, IN A JULY 2017 COLUMN IN THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, “A FIRST- GENERATION STUDENT’S SURVIVAL STRATEGY: WORK MORE, SLEEP LESS”

Reunion II

May 25–27 1943, 1953, 1958, 1963, 1973, 1983, 1988, 2003, 2013

BY THE NUMBERS

Mount Holyoke’s Newest Students

alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/reunion

The newest members of the Mount Holyoke student body were welcomed to campus during several full days of orientation events and programming. The 540 incoming first-years, 32 transfers, and 20 Frances Perkins Scholars are a diverse and talented group, and, in her address to the students and their families, Vice President for Enrollment and Dean of Admission Gail Berson shared just some of the achievements of the incoming students, including:

Deirdre Haber Malfatto

One is one of India’s youngest certified SCUBA divers

148 were active in environmental groups

“Firstie Plants” Thrive

Since 1971 Talcott Greenhouse has given incoming students a plant when they arrive on campus. This year each pot included a scannable bar code linking to care instructions. Read more at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/ firstieplants.

115 held positions as peer group leaders, teachers, or mediators

Two were home schooled

One served as a camp counselor for Syrian children in Jordan

One interned at a hospital in Cuba

Join the Alumnae Stay Program

@mhcbotanicgarden on Instagram

Alumnae Stay provides free, temporary, and safe housing to a Mount Holyoke College student or alumna traveling to pursue academic and professional growth. Volunteer or find a room at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/alumnaestay.

@mhcbotanicgarden

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alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

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News

MHC Office of Communications

In Memoriam Kavita Datla, associate professor of history and a member of the Asian Studies and Critical Social Thought programs and the Department of International Relations at Mount Holyoke, died July 22 after a long illness.

“Professor Datla was an exceptional scholar and teacher, a wonderful colleague and mentor,” said Acting President Sonya Stephens and Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty Jon Western in an announcement to the College.

“We are deeply saddened by this loss to our community, and our thoughts and deepest sympathy are with her family, her friends, and all at Mount Holyoke,” Stephens and Western said. “Kavita will be greatly missed and remembered with admiration and affection.”

Datla, who came to Mount Holyoke in 2006, was an accomplished scholar.

Her research interests included the political, social, and cultural history of modern South Asia, and she published the book The Language of Secular Islam: Urdu Nationalism and Colonial India (University of Hawaii Press) in 2013.

“Those of us who shared the third floor of Skinner with her will never forget the joy we felt when her big, wonderful laughter filled the hall,” said Mary Renda, chair of the history department. “Kavita’s generous spirit, light touch, and incisive mind will be deeply missed.”

A beloved teacher, Datla was a recipient of the 2016 Mount Holyoke College Faculty Teaching Award, which cited her “transformative work with students.”

She was described by students as “wonderful,” “incredible,” and “passionate.”

Her lectures were deemed “enrapturing,” her class discussions “fantastic.”

In addition to introductory courses on modern South Asia and the British Empire, she also taught courses on gender, religion and politics, nationalism, and the Indian Ocean world. Her many affiliations with academic departments and programs spoke to the breadth and interdisciplinary nature of her research and interests.

Datla is survived by her parents, Sita and Raju, and brothers, Vishnu and Bobby. A celebration of her scholarship and teaching is planned for December 2 and will include a symposium in Gamble Auditorium, lunch at Willits-Hallowell, and a gathering in the Stimson Room. All are welcome. For more information, go to mtholyoke.edu/acad/history. To read a personal remembrance of Datla written by Areeba Kamal ’16, go to alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/datla.

Blanchard Project Updates The Community Center building project continued over the summer, and students and other Mount Holyoke community members returning to campus this fall stepped into a renovated Blanchard. In addition to new carpet, lighting, and furniture throughout the existing building, a major change introduced in this phase of the project was the relocation of the student life leadership team. Vice President of Student Life and Dean of Students Marcella Runell Hall and her staff now have offices on the second floor. In addition, the newly created Unity Center features comfortable seating throughout the second floor, enabling mid- to largesized groups to host open conversations and programming on topics related to culture and diversity.

The third floor of Blanchard now includes flexible work spaces for various student organizations in a modern, tech-friendly atmosphere.

The shell of the new dining addition is complete, and work continues inside the building, creating individual dining rooms.

Later in the fall semester kitchen equipment will be installed. The new dining center is scheduled to be completed and open for the spring semester.

To read more about the Community Center, and to view the ongoing project via live webcam, visit alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/ communitycenter.

— B Y S A S H A N YA R Y

ALUMNAE AT THE “MOTHER SHIP”

Keep up with your favorite MHC teams at athletics.mtholyoke.edu

88 alumnae

are employed at Mount Holyoke in jobs across many departments and programs, with job titles from

on-call seamstress

to museum preparator to professor of politics.

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly

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P IANIST

Encouraging a Love of Opera

FOR MOR E TH A N FI V E Y E A R S Kathryn

Hobbie ’69 and her cast of characters have been entertaining and educating elementary school children about the world of opera. Through the production Opera the Great Hobbie and five performers from the nonprofit Opera Quest Northwest travel to elementary schools in southwest Washington to prove that opera isn’t just for the older crowd.

The show begins when the comedic Buffo leaps onstage, singing from The Marriage of Figaro, explaining he’s been asked by the principal to fill in after the “scheduled” assembly was canceled. In this way the children come to the experience with no preconceived notions.

Other characters gradually join in, creating a show that features a love story, a villain with a magic potion, and a femme fatale.

“What’s an opera without Carmen?” says Hobbie, who functions as the one-woman orchestra.

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alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

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— B Y J E S S AY E R

BOOKS

The Dooleys of Richmond: An Irish Immigrant Family in the Old and New South Mary Lynn Bayliss U N IVE RSIT Y O F VI RG I N IA PRESS

The Dooleys of Richmond is the biography of two generations of a dynamic and philanthropic immigrant family in the urban South.

While most Irish Catholic immigrants who poured into the region in the nineteenth century were poor and illiterate, John and Sarah Dooley were affluent and well educated, and they became leaders in business, education, culture, and politics in Virginia.

Mary Lynn Skinner Bayliss ’64 is a writer and lecturer who has published work in Virginia Cavalcade, Richmond Quarterly, Richmond TimesDispatch, the Dictionary of Virginia Biography, and Encyclopedia Virginia.

Courtesy of Kathryn Hobbie ’69; courtesy of Dorien Davies ’98

Kathryn Hobbie added flair to her performance attire during a Halloween 2016 production

While presenting a brief history of opera, the show also educates students on opera’s languages, vocal ranges—soprano, tenor, bass, mezzo soprano, and baritone—and inspirations, such as myths and fairy tales. During each production student volunteers are invited onto the stage to play the roles of Papa, the villain’s evil assistants, and the maid who saves the day.

By the end of the show, which includes a question-and-answer session, the children walk away with an impressive amount of knowledge about opera and its origins. The group also provides curriculum materials to teachers to facilitate continuing education and exposure to the world of opera.

Hobbie, who is also president of the board of Opera Quest Northwest, is proud to share that the performances are held at no cost to the schools. “We feel very strongly about that,” she says. “Most public schools are hard-pressed for arts money, and some have eliminated music altogether. Given this trend, our mission seems more important than ever.”

A music major at Mount Holyoke and pianist for the Chamber Singers, Hobbie spent most of her career in the nonprofit sector as a writer and communication consultant. Familiar with what it took to raise money for nonprofit organizations, Hobbie cofounded Opera Quest Northwest in 2013 to exercise her love of performing. (She’s also an active chamber musician.)

Located in Clark County, Washington, which has roughly sixty-six elementary schools and counting, Opera Quest Northwest performs an average of twenty-two shows per year. The group is on track to hit every third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade class in any given three-year cycle, helping achieve their mission to instill a love of music and the performing arts in their community.

“What keeps us all charged up is the reaction from the kids,” says Hobbie. “I can still remember the first time we took this show into a school, and right from the start they were laughing and clapping. There’s a great joy in that, which keeps you going.”

To learn more about Opera Quest Northwest, visit operaquestnw.org.

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PU P P ET RY

Susan Rieger

Bringing Beloved Characters to Life

CROWN

Six months after Rupert Falkes dies, his widow and five adult sons learn that an unknown woman has sued his estate, claiming she had two sons by him. This novel follows the brothers as they are pitched into turmoil, at once missing their father and feeling betrayed by him, while their mother, in disconcerting contrast, shows preternatural composure.

Susan Rieger ’68 is the author of the novel The Divorce Papers. She is a graduate of Columbia Law School and has worked as a residential college dean at Yale University and as associate provost at Columbia University.

Navajo Weavings with Ceremonial Themes: A Historical Overview of a Secular Art Form Rebecca M. Valette, Jean-Paul Valette SCH I FFE R PU B LISH I NG

Featuring more than five hundred photos and maps, this is the first comprehensive, research-based history of Navajo weavings. With imagery inspired by tribal sacred practices, the book includes never-before-published photographs of weavings and detailed annotations.

Rebecca Loose Valette ’59 and her husband, Jean-Paul, have been collecting and researching Navajo weavings for more than forty years, amassing more than one hundred textiles. Their work has been published in American Indian Art Magazine and Hali, and they have curated two museum exhibits, including Dancers of the Nightway at the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum in 2016.

Female Gaze

The Heirs: A Novel

DORIEN DAVIES ’98 DIDN’T ALWAYS dream of being a puppeteer. Instead, her journey into the Email your tightly knit world of puppeteering began after years submission of acting and writing comedy productions. to quarterly@ Before an encounter with the famed Jim mtholyoke.edu.

Henson Company guided Davies onto her current path, she majored in theatre at Mount Holyoke.

As an undergraduate she was drawn to comedy but says she “always felt that comedy was somehow not legitimate.” After graduating, Davies moved to Los Angeles and spent her first decade out of college challenging this notion and developing what would become a unique comedic style, honed during years of doing improv comedy.

In LA, Davies began attending Henson Company-sponsored workshops, where she learned puppetry skills from seasoned puppeteers and nurtured a connection with the art form. Soon she found her niche and launched what has become a successful and unique career.

Within the puppetry community, Davies represents a rare group—digital puppeteers. She defines digital puppeteering as puppetry in which every movement animates the character. On the children’s television show Word Party, Davies does both the voice and facial movements of an effervescent purple panda named Lulu, whose body is controlled by a different puppeteer.

To develop the role, she says, “I locked myself in a room and learned all the songs,” mastered the voice, and perfected “every mouth shape,” developed to animate the character more fully.

When she booked a significant role in the 2017 Netflix show Julie’s Greenroom, another Henson Company-produced project, Davies faced the choice of leaving her husband and young daughter behind in California to film in New York City. But, she says, “The coolest thing about Henson is that everyone [who works there] is a parent.” The company hired her husband as well, and the family moved together to New York City during the months of the filming.

With a career constantly in flux, Davies, who also works as a voiceover artist and actress, eventually would love to write and produce her own show. “That’s where I’m moving,” she says. She hopes to build on the experience of writing an episode for Word Party and is now putting more time into her own independent projects. — B Y S A R A R O T T G E R ’ 1 9 AR E YO U AN ARTI ST?

Davies in the Charlie Chaplin Sound Stage at the Jim Henson Company

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Ten Minutes With

SOCIA L E NT R E P R E NEU R

Ending Poverty through Dairy and Community M A R I E C AV O S O R A ’ 9 1 is known as the resident “Dairy Godmother” at CalaBoo Dairyard, a social

enterprise that she founded in her native Philippines last year. After a prosperous two decades in corporate America—working in advertising for brands such as Pepsi, Disney, and Kraft Foods—a spiritual crisis and journey of self-discovery led Cavosora back to her home country with the goal of fostering a poverty-free Philippines. CalaBoo sources from smallholder farms raising grass-fed carabaos (water buffalo that produce highly nutritious milk) to create butter, cheese, yogurt, and milk drinks.

On her love of community: People ask, “What does business have to do with love?” But as a social enterprise of Gawad Kalinga Enchanted Farm (GK), we really are in the business of love. People over profit, transformation not transaction, empowerment as our investment. We seek to end poverty by creating shared prosperity.

Our mantra at Gawad Kalinga is, “Less for self. More for others. Enough for all.”

The business exists to solve a problem, not necessarily because it’s a great moneymaking undertaking. The business is run in a way where we don’t wait for profits to help the poor. The business is run with the poor—as partners, staff in training,

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etc.—but it’s a business, so we also look closely at costing, pricing, and profitability for sustainability and growth.

On what keeps her motivated: I spend five days a week at the farm working at SEED (GK’s School for Experiential and Entrepreneurial Development). I teach English—“the language of the rich”—mentorship, and communications. We are creating future dairy entrepreneurs.

I am excited about the freedom to create and innovate and discover solutions to ageold challenges that plague our world and the

knowledge that what I am doing matters, that it contributes to making our world a better place. Having the support of the people around me, believing alongside me, helps sustain my passion.

I am so grateful for my public/private partnerships with the farm and also with the government agency the Philippine Carabao Center, which serves the poorest of the poor, and our farmers at co-op Gawad Kalinga, whose name means “to give care.”

Because, ultimately, relationships—be they professional or personal—are paramount to a productive, meaningful existence.

Our mantra at Gawad Kalinga is, ‘Less for self. More for others. Enough for all.’

Laurent Wey

On how and why she started CalaBoo: I climbed the corporate ladder and then said, now what? How do I create financial wealth to share with other people? I thought, why would I work for a corporation that is part of the problem and volunteer for just a few weeks? We are perpetuating poverty if we do not make conscious choices.

I traveled and I explored all kinds of religions: shamanism, Buddhism, universalism, Native American rituals—I shaved my head— but I was still unhappy. Missing was the Christian part. I wanted to love the way Jesus loved. His purpose was to live for others.

In the Philippines, one-third of people live in poverty. We import ninety-nine percent of our dairy, and eighty percent of that is as powdered milk. I saw the opportunity and need for high-quality dairy. It made good business sense to help build a new industry as a social enterprise. When I look back at my life, I was prepared for it—I always wanted to make butter!

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Laurent Wey

The Maven

THE BIRDIN G MAV E N

Becoming a Birder

By M A RY LEE B OM B OY ’6 7

I never aspired to become a birder; indeed, I never Pitch us your really looked at area of expertise birds or knew at quarterly@ mtholyoke.edu. anyone who did until 1980, when I went on a safari to Kenya. My husband and I were excited to see the incredible animals—elephants, rhino, zebra, giraffes, lions—but what really attracted our attention was the large number of beautiful birds. Everywhere we looked we saw birds—from the superb starlings found in city parks in Nairobi to the weaver birds busily weaving their intricate nests.

We came back from that trip smitten with the bird world and soon bought a house in the country (we then lived in New York City), a bird guide, and bird feeders, joining so many others in what is reported to be the fastest growing hobby in the United States.

It’s easy to see why birding is so popular. Here’s how you can get started: AR E YO U A MAVE N?

Get started Birding doesn’t require expensive equipment. You can observe birds alone, with a partner, or with the whole family, no matter your age or level of mobility. You can bird in your backyard, in your city parks, or when you travel to any part of the world—in fact, anywhere.

You don’t have to have great hearing, a musical ear, or the ability to remember every bird’s song—these all help, but are not required. The essentials add up to a pair of good binoculars and a guidebook.

Wake up early?

Mornings are best for bird-watching—and most organized bird walks do leave early in the day—but even if you can’t get going at 6:00 a.m., you can still find birds later in the day. After all, birds need to feed much of the day. All you need to do is look and listen, wherever you are, whenever you are inclined.

Find a community In 1987, when my husband died, I suddenly found myself spending weekends alone.

The company of birds helped. I discovered that New York’s Central Park was a prime birding location and that birding walks were offered in both spring and fall. Soon I joined my first birding trip, an opportunity that allowed me to travel to beautiful places, see many new birds, and meet people with similar interests.

Many birders find a community through a local club. Some clubs also offer inexpensive birding classes that can be a great introduction to birding and often are supplemented by field trips. You not only learn about birds, you meet others in your area who are interested in birding and get to know some of the best local birding spots. To find out what resources are available in your area, seek out the National Audubon Society, your state Audubon Society, or The Nature Conservancy.

Share your knowledge In the mid-1990s I remarried. My new husband had never been to a national

park, let alone made a hobby of looking at birds. But he did know a lot about art and major art museums. So he taught me about art, and I taught him about birds.

And we each got hooked on the other’s passion!

Today we travel regularly on our own and with birding groups to many parts of the world, looking at and photographing birds. John has become an excellent bird photographer and regularly gives presentations and exhibits in the New England area, where we now live. Birding enriches our life and keeps us active.

Marylee (Lee) Bomboy ’67 and her husband, John Van de Graaff, live in Northampton, Massachusetts. They travel frequently and give presentations about birds to audiences of all ages, including reunion attendees at Mount Holyoke, where in May 2017 they gave a Backto-Class session and shared how to fit bird-watching into your life. Learn more at birdsbyjohn.com.

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On the third floor of Mary Lyon Hall, down a hallway and through two offices, if you look up you will see in the ceiling a small trap door. Under it stands a ladder, next to which hangs a thick tan rope. From this rope, the bell in the clock tower—a sound iconic to the Mount Holyoke community—may be manually rung.

But there are five more levels—and an elaborate system of machinery—above the end of this rope. Each level is approximately twelve feet square with stone walls at least a foot thick and is accessible only by climbing a series of wooden ladders through small openings in the floors. The air is full of dust, and cobwebs cover walls and surfaces.

A place rarely visited and largely outfitted with original parts, the clock tower has held people captive since its construction in 1897. And it is thanks to a system of countless pulleys, chains, levers, pipes, and wires that a lovely peal announces each fall that Mountain Day has, once again, arrived. — B Y A N N E P I N K E R T O N

Inside the Clock Tower

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windows on the westfacing brick wall of the first level and one of many ladders used to climb between floors; 2 the largest of four bells, all of which are on the third level, sounds hourly, one ring for each hour; 3 a trio of smaller bells chime musically each quarter hour when a hammer strikes the outer edge of each bell; 4 a view to the north as seen through slats over a third-floor window; 5 the pendulum of the clock measures more than two feet tall and hangs through the ceiling of the fourth floor; 6 another of the ladders throughout the tower; 7 & 8 the main clock machinery, featuring intricate bronze wheels and cogs, is housed on the fifth level; 9 hundreds of names and dates of visitors—spanning back to the 1970s—are written on the outside door of a closet housing the mechanics of the clock. Also seen are the lightbulbs that illuminate the clock faces; 10 one of four clock faces, each nearly five feet in diameter.

1 one of three small

Here, we take you on a mini tour of the clock tower, as if you were ascending to the top:

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Read more and view a slideshow and video at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/bells.

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S P E C I A L T H A N K S T O R I C H A R D B I G E L O W, T H O M A S M AY, A N D T H O M A S R O B E R T I N FA C I L I T I E S M A N A G E M E N T

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JAMES GEHRT

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Style with Substance: A History of Visual Design in the Quarterly As we close out the centennial year of the Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly, we decided it was time to take a closer look at the physical magazine, in particular its design elements. Up until this point, our coverage of the Quarterly’s first one hundred years has focused almost entirely on the content in the magazine. With this feature, our goal was, as our writer Karyad Hallam ’12 said, “not to think of the Quarterly as a magazine, but as a work of art that happened to have pages and binding.”

Some of the images may be familiar, as we explore here—graphically—many of the same elements we examined in our winter 2017 issue. And, just as it was impossible to share a comprehensive history of letters to the editor (spring issue) or of class notes (summer issue), it is impossible to note every turn that the Quarterly designers took along its one-hundred-year journey. Curated here are highlights of inspired design, beginning with the very first issue in 1917 (the epitome of traditionalism) and leading up to the 1970s, when the modern Quarterly, and the modern magazine as we know it, begin to emerge. What these eras, and all the decades in between, have in common is that with every line and every jot, the design communicates feeling, spirit, personality, and purpose, preserving the historical essence of the time.

—Jennifer Grow ’94, editor quarterly@mtholyoke.edu

The 1910s and 1920s: “Accidentally Aesthetic” Some of the most beautifully made publications come from the turn of the century, and a lot of them clash with the contemporary styles of today. Rather than ornate vestiges of Victorian sensibilities, nowadays the most functional approach is to have “clean” spreads with ample use of white space and layouts that blend illustration or photography together with text in a fluid fashion—creative but not cluttered.

Looking back one hundred years, there is something marvelously earthy about reading text from the Jazz age, something cozy in how the letters are close together (i.e., tightly kerned). The tell-tale speckles, ink bleeds, and irregularities characteristic of the presses of the time now have a charm that is hard to replicate with today’s refined printing methods and high expectations for accuracy of each printed page.

Many world events and technological developments that would go on to inform both content and design had yet to appear. Carol Brown Adams ’50, in a letter to the editor in the spring 1967 issue, looks back on this era as “pre-nuclear, pre-United Nations, pre-TV, pre-jet, pre-computer, pre-population explosion, pre-woman-suffrage.” In its earliest days the Quarterly—one of the oldest alumnae publications of its peer institutions—was not designed in a way that was responsive to current events or trends.

Even so, there is evidence early on of flourishes of creativity in the printing processes. In January 1919 the Quarterly ran a graph showing growth of the alumnae fund over the previous seventeen years. The page looks to have been printed as an insert and sewn into the issue, and the image itself is quite awe-inspiring.

By looking closely at the lines of each letter, you can almost see how many drafts it went through, how hard the artist (not credited) tried to chisel away the inexactitude of the hand-drawn lines—without complete success, but still producing a lovely result.

SEE MORE AT

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In January 1926, the Quarterly included its first foldout page—a reproduction of a letter by Emily Dickinson, class of 1849—but we don’t see much experimentation yet. That would come in the next decade, when new design elements, including some color, were first introduced.

During this era focus on style was likely frowned upon and seen as frivolous by readers, especially in the continued wake of the Great War. (There is a similar postwar trend toward more conservative looks in the 1950s issues that followed World War II.) The editor and designer, then, needed to focus on content and readability above all else.

Since magazines in general were less experimental with space and color before the 1930s, the main outlet for creativity in print was in the form of black and white custom typefaces. Typographer Stanley Morison, perhaps best known for his design of the font Times New Roman, summed up concisely the thinking of the period: style should be “utilitarian” and only “accidentally aesthetic.”

From 1923 to 1930 a group of typographers called the Fleuron Society published a seven-volume journal

Plain paper stock, no gloss, cover feels like construction paper Contents appears on the front cover Publication measures 5 inches by 9 inches, same as academic journals still circulated today

An example of a fleuron

containing essays on excellence in book arts called The Fleuron (a decorative flower-shaped ornament found on buildings, coins, books, and pastries).

“Typographic advisor” is not a job title you come across often these days, but graphic designer certainly is, and these professionals made the case for why graphic design matters. In a 1930 talk called “Printing Should Be Invisible”—a speech that has been printed and reprinted on multiple occasions—typographer and Fleuron Society member Beatrice Warde warned that in experimenting with style, one must guard against being overly showy and distracting from the content of the writing. Hers was a more conservative approach to balancing the changing times. Today balance is sought out in the sense of unifying originality and nostalgia, evoking flavors from the past, as the history of Mount Holyoke is top of the mind to readers of the Quarterly.

Yet even when the historical spirit of the time demanded objectivity and focus on the needs of the audience, even when the designer attempted to create an unadorned look to the printed pages, beauty and individual style are noticed by those who spend time with back issues.

Dense text with sparse black-and-white woodcuts or engraved illustrations

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The 1930s: A Touch of Color The style for the early 1930s begins to feel softer and more inviting, with larger fonts and italics that, by their nature, look like gently lapping waves. Overall the look is very whimsical— perhaps a reaction to the troubled times—and one might find any given page reminiscent of a theatrical quarto or a classical concert program.

Color appears for the first time in May 1931—in an advertisement for decorative plates—the page now aged to a wispy watercolor purple.

Some interesting things happen when an art form previously reserved for the human hand— calligraphy—is transitioned to the workings of a machine that punches and heat-treats and stamps its way to completion. There is a certain efficiency to the process, and yet the personal touch begins to be lost. In May 1934 the streamlined, utilitarian font of the title on the cover gets a stylish and calligraphic redesign into something the editor,

A B C D abc abc A B C D abc abc Times

Garamond

Decorative dividers and fleurons appear above headings Font changes to Garamond and Goudy Old Style, more curvy and floral than Times Italic fonts, looser space between letters and lines

Florence Clement, class of 1914, describes as “French Gothic.” “The very unique feature in this issue is the typography—which surely you have noted and found pleasing to the eye and fancy,” she writes, to this day seemingly breaking a fourth dimension and speaking directly to us from eightythree years in the past.

This sense of time travel happens frequently while reading through previous issues.

Conversations unfold in the Comments and Discussion (letters to the editor) section—renamed Speaking Up in 1960—that illustrate readers’ strong reactions to style and design. Redesigns in general were a chance to showcase individual talent and alumnae designers, but another possible reason for redesign at this time may be inferred from an advertisement for TIME magazine in the May 1932 issue: “Cultivated Americans, impatient with cheap sensationalism and windy bias, turn increasingly to publications edited in the historical spirit.” Designers were beginning to think about a publication’s need to appear more self-aware and became more and more keen to present their work in the right fashion.

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Into the1940s: Many Redesigns, Fewer Resources Before television became a household norm in the 1950s and 1960s, books, magazines, radio, and comics were the chief sources of entertainment and information. But as technology expanded, offering more options, designers began to take more chances—more unconventional turns— perhaps aiming to catch the eyes of readers who had more demands on their attention.

The May 1939 cover of the Quarterly is a perfect example, with the title of the magazine running down the side of the page vertically instead of centered and up top as per usual. The layout change is simple and yet a marked departure from the previous twenty-two years. The new cover look was designed by a member of the Mount Holyoke art department, Anna MacCarthy, class of 1926.

The text is blocky and architectural: the O in Mount and Holyoke and A, Q, and R in Quarterly are filled in like cement frames, and gone are the naturalistic floral headers and curving fonts from earlier in the decade. With the bright monochrome, this cover would not have looked out of place among those of the coming decade of the 1970s, when all four class colors were again used in prominence on the cover.

And, just a year later, the May 1940 Quarterly is redesigned yet again, this time by Elaine Rushmore ’36 and her father A.W. Rushmore. The redesign is proudly explained on the inside front cover, emphasizing the importance of not just reading the magazine to get news but taking it in as a work of art.

Again, the pattern seems to be celebrating individual creativity and offering readers opportunities to be patrons to the arts. These years of designs with no predictability or continuity were a big change from the very first issues of the Quarterly, which were buttoned-up and strictly business.

Unfortunately, as the war years defined resources and priorities, the climate for individual creativity ran dry after 1940 and wouldn’t be seen again for decades. The paper stock of the cover in May 1944 becomes neither matte nor gloss but more like construction paper—just like the first issue. Florence Clement, class of 1914, the Quarterly’s longest serving editor, explains in August 1945: “Paper Shortage.

No doubt you have heard there is one. And that is the reason, and the only one, why this summer Quarterly contains 32 pages instead of the usual 48 or more. . . . Nevertheless, we truly welcome all new subscribers and in time we hope to make up to new and old for this drastic cutting.”

New cover look in 1939 with “filled” letters Length cut from eighty pages to forty-eight Size increased from 7 inches by 10 inches to 81/2 inches by 11 1/2 inches Font size increased from 9 point to 10 point Mailed in a yellow Kraft envelope

Another new look in 1940

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The 1960s and 1970s: Future Shock and the Modern Magazine After the relatively sleepy style era of the 1950s (the luxury of design flourishes mostly going toward advertisements rather than editorial), there is no other way to describe the Quarterly of the early 1960s than as groovy. One might even go so far as to say that by the late 1960s and early 1970s the magazine reached a peak of unrelenting weirdness.

In the winter 1972 issue, end marks (design elements still used today to signal the end of an article, usually a square) are used very prominently, in fact a little too often, as they are both at the end and at the beginning of articles. Several covers and a few interior pages feature text running sideways or wrapped 360 degrees around a paragraph. Capitalization is dropped entirely from headers. To say that graphic designers got carried away with the new technologies available would be putting it mildly, but who’s complaining? Certainly not collectors, or alumnae readers who want always to know more about their hallmark publication.

One thing that has not changed in one hundred years are the alumnae voices in each issue that speak right from the page, often in response to previous issues, in both content and design. A photographic design technique that debuted in the winter 1971 issue—ghosting, a neat trick whereby an image (in this case, one of trees and Mary Lyon Hall) is faded to maybe 10 percent of its original darkness so it can be used as a background behind the text—resulted in a number of alumnae responses. Though they noticed—and admired—the technique, readers struggled with readability. Betty Widtman Berg, class of 1920, expressed her opinions in a letter printed in the spring 1971 issue: “I am really distressed with the last Quarterly—the cover—the back cover—the layout—the format—reading through trees. . . . I was glad to get to the class notes, where there was still some order.” The class notes at that point had not changed in style or layout for more than forty years, a testament to how design can instantly affect readers in ways that are deeply emotional, from quite comfortable to most distressing.

The cover of the spring 1970 issue is worth a mention, too, a raucous explosion of magentas and oranges careening across the page. Putting this side-by-side with the debut issue of fifty-three years earlier is a dizzying experience. An artistically distorted image of a woman fills the whole page, and she appears to be screaming, exuberantly, we hope.

The publication title is tucked on the bottom of the

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Text wraps 360 degrees Ghosting, a photographic technique, is introduced

Yet another new—bolder— cover design

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page on a diagonal, instead of prominently centered and at the top as per tradition. This is an unusual style choice that subverts the principles of visual hierarchy. Perhaps by way of topsy-turvy, upsidedown placement, the designers of the Quarterly were trying to acknowledge the cultural climate of the time: campus-wide protests, future shock, moon landings, free love, and rock ‘n’ roll.

The winter 1971 Quarterly presents a design introduced for the first time and never used again.

The cover features two photographs—one each on the front and back cover—of the same person, leading the reader to imagine what happened between the taking of the photographs. The inside front and back covers also call on the reader to envision a sort of missing piece of the image—a campus skyscape.

The technique is reminiscent of cinema’s Kuleshov effect. First used in the early twentieth century by cinematographer Lev Kuleshov, the technique introduces multiple images of the same scene to tell a story and is based on the belief that we can derive more meaning from viewing these multiple images.

The concept is simple, and clever. And as a technique it successfully demonstrates the potential— and power—of the magazine format as an art form and the Quarterly as a lasting publication. One can only wonder—and look forward to—the changes that are to be seen in the next century.

Karyad Hallam ’12 is a writer, percussionist, and pen-and-ink mixed media artist, exploring the intersection of book arts, graphic design, and the written word as a hybrid of language and art form.

A new photographic approach is used for the first—and only—time End marks used liberally

WEB EXCLUSIVE

View a slide show of past covers of the Quarterly at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/quarterlycovers.

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Alumnae Behind the Curtain

Written by

Lori L. Ferguson

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Emily Dickinson, Virginia Apgar, Wendy Wasserstein, and Frances Perkins are just a few of the celebrated Mount Holyoke alumnae who have made their mark on the world and continue to be remembered for their contributions. But among the nearly 60,000 alumnae of Mount Holyoke College over the past 180 years, there are countless other talented and successful people who have thrived beyond the gates without public knowledge or acclaim.

A production stage manager literally works backstage to ensure a successful show. Similarly, a speechwriter, air traffic controller, voice actor, and virtual assistant carry out their roles largely behind the scenes. All are essential to the people and the industries they serve, and rarely are they publicly acknowledged.

Here we take a look at five alumnae who are excelling in and making meaningful contributions to their chosen professions. All are remarkable and valued.

All are Mount Holyoke educated.

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Finding Her Voice

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or professional—for everything from commercials and voice mail messages to documentaries and video games.

A unique mix of interests and aptitudes has brought MacPhail to this point.

In addition to experience with acting and public speaking, she also knows her way around the technical side of the business—she and her husband are musicians, with a recording studio in their home. Her background in music, coupled with a double major in English and politics, teaching experience, voice acting classes, and, she says, “practice, practice, practice,” put her on the path to success.

“Being a good voice actor is a lot harder than people think—a good voice is only five percent of the challenge,” she says. “You also need acting skills, a musical ear, and the ability to interpret a script in the appropriate way. The voice you use when you’re selling an alarm system is different than the one you use when you’re narrating a documentary. I enjoy being able to do something that not everyone can do.”

MacPhail also delights in the ability to act in virtual anonymity. “As a voice actor, I can perform and still maintain my privacy,” she says. People do recognize her voice occasionally, she says, but not enough for her to feel put on the spot. “Every so often, someone will say, ‘Hey, didn’t I just hear you on the radio?’ and that’s fun,” she says. “I’m very lucky.

I’ve found a career that uses my different skills and experiences and feeds my interests in performing and recording.”

MacPhail: Erin Schaff; Hart: Allison Tucker

Several years ago, Ann Lyles MacPhail ’91 found herself with a demanding career in general dentistry, two lively children at home, and a classic work-life balance issue. When a friend mentioned taking a voice acting class, MacPhail’s curiosity was piqued. “I’ve long enjoyed theatre as a hobby, I participated in speech and debate in high school, and I lectured frequently as an assistant professor of dentistry at the University of Southern California,” she says. “I love talking, and I thought, ‘If someone could pay me to talk, that would be the best!’” So MacPhail signed up for the class, and by the end of ninety minutes, she knew she had found her niche. “Something clicked,” she says simply.

Today, MacPhail runs Voiceovers by Ann, an Arlington, Virginia-based business through which she provides voice talent—sophisticated, sexy, friendly,

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Serving through Writing As speechwriter for United States Army Four-Star General Robert B. Abrams, Meredith Herbolsheimer Hart ’01 serves her country proudly while also maintaining her anonymity. Having assisted politicians and some of the military’s top influencers with their messaging, Hart has come to realize that actively participating in public life without sacrificing

one’s privacy is a luxury. “When I was in my twenties, I thought that I would run for office someday,” she says, “but after working for several high-profile bosses, I’ve discovered that their time is not their own. As a speechwriter, I can be a public servant and contribute to the conversation, but at the end of the day, I can also go home and have a life.”

In her current role, Hart crafts an average of four speeches per month, creates multiple event-specific talking points for “key leader engagements,” and prepares slides and charts for lectures the general is called upon to give.

Her job is fast-paced and high stakes, and she couldn’t be happier. “I’m a very inquisitive person—I ask ‘why’ a lot— and I thrive under pressure,” says Hart.

“I’m motivated by the high expectations inherent in my job, and I like contributing where the need is.”

Hart has had years of experience to prepare for this role. After graduating with a degree in English, she moved to Washington, DC, and took a job as a legislative correspondent for Charles Bass, a member of the US House of Representatives for New Hampshire’s 2nd congressional district. After gaining seniority on Bass’s staff, Hart moved to a writing job with Colorado Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell. When he retired, she moved to the Pentagon, working for the secretary of defense and for the under secretary for intelligence, James Clapper. “General Clapper was a great boss,” she says, “who trusted his staff and empowered us to do our jobs, which was incredibly rewarding.”

Hart enjoys a similar sense of autonomy in her current job within US Army Forces Command at North Carolina’s Fort Bragg, where she has worked as a speechwriter since 2011, serving each four-star general who leads the command. “People are surprised by how much latitude I have in my job,” she says. “For example, I typically research, outline, and write a speech before ever showing it to the commanding general, then we go back and forth with edits.”

Hart credits Mount Holyoke for preparing her to manage such responsibility. “Many people are intimidated by the idea of working with senior officials,” she says, “but it doesn’t bother me. I just keep in mind that they’re people, too. I want us all to succeed.”

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As a young woman, Melissa Holmes ’90 watched the United States Navy’s celebrated Blue Angels perform and immediately decided that she wanted to become a commercial pilot. She started working on her private pilot’s license while in high school and completed her final flight hours during her first year at Mount Holyoke, traveling by bus to Westover Airport. Unfortunately, Holmes later discovered she didn’t meet

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the eyesight requirements for a commercial license. Though disappointed, she was not deterred. “I majored in math and physics, and I had always enjoyed talking to air traffic control when I was flying, so I thought, ‘Why not become a controller?’”

More than two decades later, with countless hours of training and experience in the control room behind her, Holmes is air traffic manager for the

Oakland (California) Air Route Traffic Control Center, responsible for some 350 direct reports and charged with managing an air traffic control center that oversees approximately ten percent of the earth’s air space—more than any other center in the world.

Holmes is one of only a few female managers in this male-dominated profession, yet when asked about her accomplishments and her path to her current role, she is humble. “I demonstrated a strong work ethic and the ability to be a team player,” she says. “I always tried to do a really good job, particularly with respect to my technical abilities, because technical expertise garners respect independent of positional authority.

“I’m an introvert, but I have the ability to speak up when something needs to be said,” Holmes says. She shares that she talked little in high school, particularly in math and science classes, and says, “My paradigm shifted after I got to Mount Holyoke. I learned that what I had to say was valuable.”

Belief in herself has served Holmes well as a controller. “Your typical controller is a Type-A personality,” she says. “And I’m not naturally that way, but I learned. If you’re going to do the job, you’ve got to have a lot of self-confidence. You have to believe that every time you do something, it’s the right thing, because you’re making decisions on a moment-to-moment basis.”

Holmes’ quiet self-confidence also enables her to derive great personal satisfaction from her work. “I don’t have a strong need to be recognized publicly for what I do; I know that I’m doing a good job.” The US has the busiest and safest air space in the world, Holmes says, and knowing that she’s a part of that success offers sufficient validation. “I don’t think of myself as being behind the scenes.

Instead, I see myself as one of the people who make the aviation industry work.”

Holmes also admits that it’s fun to serve in an occupation that’s a bit of a black box to many. “I like the mystique around the position. Everyone’s heard of an air traffic controller, but not many people know what the job entails. What we do is meaningful, and I’m proud of that.”

Holmes: Nancy Rothstein; Young: Meredith Heuer

Controlling the Skies

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Putting on the Show As production stage manager for New York City’s Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Kristin Colvin Young ’97 offers an astoundingly simple explanation for her very complex job. “From the moment you sit down until the moment you leave the theatre, I’m in charge of everything you experience in the performance that’s not done by a dancer,” she says.

Aided by a headset and a handheld radio, Young acts as the communication hub for everything that takes place over the course of the performance. “Not everyone does it this way, but I’m a manager who calls from backstage,” she says. “I like to be right there, part of the action, and physically accessible to anyone who needs me.”

Although she double majored in dance and sociology, Young says she never aspired to dance on stage. “I started dancing as a kid because it was fun, then pursued the major in college because it was interesting and I enjoyed exploring physicality and emotion.” However, dance exposed her to the possibilities of backstage work. “If I wasn’t cast to perform in a piece, I would work backstage wherever I was needed—as a deck electrician, an assistant stage manager, a sound engineer, a light board operator, or a stage manager. My junior and senior years, I was stage managing several concerts at multiple Five College theatres.”

After graduating, Young accepted a job as a technical intern at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Becket, Massachusetts, and suddenly everything clicked. “I met pros who were working backstage, and I realized I could do this for a living,” she says.

A job as company manager and then assistant stage manager at New York City-based Parsons Dance company followed, then in 2000 Young joined the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater as assistant stage manager. She moved into her current position in 2004.

Eighteen seasons after joining the company, Young says she is still learning and growing every day. “I love this company and the work I do, and I want everything to be perfect,” she says. She concedes that she’s good at multi-tasking and not easily rattled, vital skills given that she’s involved with virtually every part of the company. Day to day, Young not only works closely with the company’s associate artistic director but also serves as a liaison with the director of production as well as the marketing, development, and public relations departments. “I’m not a decision maker. I’m more a conduit of information,” she says.

When a performance goes off without a hitch, Young is satisfied, but when the backstage team gets a performance back on track after a problem, she’s delighted. “I’ve managed performances through three earthquakes and numerous serious injuries and other traumatic events that happened before and after the show,” she says. “At the end of the day, it’s not about what happened, it’s how you recover—that’s what shows you’re a pro.”

“I’m not in the company as a star,” Young says, “but that doesn’t mean I view myself as any less important than those on the stage. I’m integral to the work that the dancers do, and as a result, I enjoy the audience’s praise, regardless of whether I’m recognized publicly.”

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Offering Solutions As an undergraduate, Kiri Rix Mohan ’10 was clear about her career path: she was going to be a broadcast meteorologist.

She created an atmospheric studies major and took classes at the Five Colleges and the University of Hawaii at Manoa to gain and hone skills required in the business. But after graduation, Mohan realized the path to success was long and far from certain. “Landing a job as a meteorologist in a major market is incredibly difficult and requires years of paying your dues. I decided it wasn’t the way I wanted to spend my life,” she says. “You don’t always end up where you think you’re going to. . . . And I’ve come to realize that’s OK.” Having put meteorology aside, Mohan began working as an executive assistant (EA) to a sales team and quickly realized that she could just as easily do her job from home, “virtually,” as from the office. A second job as an EA to a CEO pushed her further down the path toward working as a virtual assistant. She realized that her accumulated skill set—a strong sense of organization, a friendly and professional mien, and the ability to write well—enhanced her likelihood for success in the field. She decided to give the virtual option a try, and in 2014 she launched DependableVA.com. “I started my business in May, got my first client in September, and quit my job in July of the following year,” she says. Mohan hasn’t looked back since. After just two-and-ahalf years in business, she has doubled her salary each year and now manages a team of subcontractors as well as her own clients.

Mohan’s clients vary widely and seek her assistance in handling everything from social media and travel plans to meeting arrangements and project management. Mohan’s work load runs the gamut. She manages task lists for large groups to ensure that employees are on track with deadlines and projects, and she juggles the demands of one busy individual’s schedule. “For one client, I’ve researched vacation options, helped him obtain a visa, and booked dinner reservations. I even helped him plan a [wedding] rehearsal dinner,” she says with a laugh.

“I love my work. I have the pressure of performing my job well but not the pressure that comes with running a large company,” she says. “I get the prestige and appreciation without the stress.” Mohan also loves the variety.

“I’m never bored. Every job is different, and my clients are wonderful. I enjoy the pace and the challenge of meeting people’s needs, and when I’m not working for a client, I’m searching for new ones.

“Mount Holyoke taught me that, as a woman, I can do anything I want,” says Mohan. “That lesson was incredibly valuable to me—more than any knowledge I gained of physics or calculus.

I didn’t believe it when I entered as a freshman, but I knew it in my heart by the time I left, and building my own successful business has confirmed it.”

Lori L. Ferguson is a freelance writer based in southern New Hampshire. Visit her website at writerloriferguson.com.

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Pat Piasecki

Read about the “behind the curtain” work of Sharyanne McSwain ’84 at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/mcswain.

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Supported by a Carnegie Fellowship, Professor Lauret Savoy digs into the essential questions of her—and our—American past

By Abe Loomis

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Photograph by Anja Schutz

avid B. Truman Professor of Environmental Studies Lauret Savoy approaches air travel like a baseball enthusiast who records the minutiae of each inning on a scorecard. And while she loves the American pastime almost enough to have that scorecard on hand, it’s the American landscape that is her truest passion.

“On every flight I take across country,” she says, “I bring along the large handdrawn map Landforms of the United States by the master cartographer-artist Erwin Raisz. This map emphasizes the lay of the land, from mountain summits to sinuous river courses. If the ground is visible on cross-country flights, I can follow our course, even over the plains.

Of course, I always try to get a window seat not over the wing.”

Savoy’s fascination with American landforms is intimately connected with her work as a scholar, studying and writing about the ways that American geography, geology, and earth processes are interwoven with race, culture, history, and personal experience.

“I’ve always been drawn to the stories we tell of the American land’s origins and the stories we tell of ourselves in this land,” Savoy says. “Reading the land and interpreting, from rock and fossil clues, plausible histories of ancient environments [formed the basis for] some of my earlier work and teaching.”

More recently Savoy’s work has focused on the intersection of race and the American landscape and the ways the two have interacted and left marks on each other over time. Her first book exploring this topic is Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape (Counterpoint Press, 2015), winner of an American Book Award in 2016. (Read

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her acceptance remarks at lauretsavoy. com.) She has already begun work on a second book project with the working title “On The River’s Back: Seeing Roots of an ‘American Dilemma’ in a History of Landscape and Mixed Heritage in the Chesapeake Tidewater and Piedmont.”

This past spring, she was awarded a prestigious Andrew Carnegie Fellowship to continue and expand her research.

“Our dean of faculty, Jon Western, surprised me last fall when he told me that he wanted to nominate me for the Carnegie Fellowship,” Savoy says. “Though very honored, I honestly thought I was an unrealistic long shot at best. I’m still pinching myself.”

Western was less surprised.

“Professor Savoy is an outstanding scholar, a gifted teacher, and a wonderful storyteller,” says Western, who also serves as the College’s vice president for academic affairs. “She has a rare gift to make her research and writing accessible to a broad and diverse audience—something that is particularly important at this moment in history. . . . We are excited that the research supported by the Carnegie Corporation will culminate in a book that will continue these themes and stimulate more conversations among readers and the broader public.”

Savoy’s curiosity about her place in the landscape was sparked when she was a young girl. In Trace, she recounts a visit to the Grand Canyon with her parents when she was seven. Standing at the edge of that vast geological record of the passage of time, she experienced a kind of awakening.

“Those moments at Point Sublime illuminated a journey of and to perception, another way of measuring a world I was part of yet leaving behind,” she writes. “I felt no ‘troubled sense of immensity’ but wonder—at the dance

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of light on rock, at ravens and whitethroated swifts untethered from Earth, at a serenity unbroken.”

Savoy would come to learn, however, that the country that so enchanted her with its beauty was also one in which grave and ugly injustices were still very much alive. An encounter with a contemptuous shop owner on that same trip to the Grand Canyon, a second-grade classmate cruelly spitting the word “colored” at her, and a fifth-grade textbook that suggested Africans were well-suited to being slaves were among the formative experiences that complicated Savoy’s vision of America and raised inescapable questions about her place in it.

“Trace began in my struggle to answer, or at least face, questions that haunted me since childhood—about origins, about my place in the world,” Savoy says. “I write in the book that sand and stone are Earth’s memory. Yet each of us is also a landscape inscribed by memory and by loss. My ancestors include free and enslaved Africans from the colonial period, as well as colonists from Europe and tribal peoples indigenous to this land. But I knew little of them or how their paths converged to my present. Even though, as an Earth historian, I can track the continent’s deep past from rocks and fossils, the traces of a familial past seemed eroded and lost.”

Savoy’s familial past, to which she devoted the final chapter of Trace, would become the subject of her next project, “On The River’s Back,” and the catalyst for her Carnegie Fellowship.

Though she had already begun work on the project, the support from the Carnegie Corporation allowed her to immediately delve into her research.

According to her proposal, “On The River’s Back” will build on the last chapter of Trace to explore the

environmental history of the landscapes around the nation’s capital “through the lens of an African American family of mixed European and indigenous heritage and its ties to place from the colonial era onward.”

The family in question is Savoy’s family, but her inquiry is far broader. In her Carnegie proposal, she described the ways in which the project will illuminate long-neglected narratives by “placing the history of one family whose bloodlines originated on three continents within the context of an environmental history of the place where these lines converged.”

The project—the basis of a new book—will address the Chesapeake environment and human interactions with it, including tobacco agriculture and its demise; the role of free and enslaved African Americans in the origin of the capital city; free Blacks as “slaveholders” and landholders; free African Americans and the Underground Railroad; and the continuing impact of this history on contemporary life, culture, and ideas about race. The exploration, Savoy writes, will be “framed by the geologic and geographic setting—the lay of the land, deep tidewater rivers, the soils and their exhaustion.”

Through her work, she hopes to build a kind of bulwark for social consciousness and against unknowing: “Placing even fragments of familial stories into historical and environmental contexts gives breath to statistics and helps us understand more fully the fragility of democracy.”

Framing those contexts will be a critical part of the project, and Savoy is grateful to have helping hands.

Mount Holyoke students with majors in environmental studies, history, and geography have assisted in preliminary research by helping to gather

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background information on colonial settlement and land use, slavery laws in Virginia and Maryland, and perceptions of Chesapeake landscapes. As the project progresses, students will focus on documenting demographic shifts in free African American populations as well as landscape changes over time.

The students will be paid as research assistants, but they will also have the opportunity to repurpose some of the research in their own academic work.

“I will encourage them to design aspects of the larger study to fit their interests,” Savoy says, “and thus take ownership by becoming authors of independent studies or theses.”

Savoy’s relationships with her students are at the heart of her work, and the integration of teaching, research, and community service is a guiding principle in her pedagogy. For years, she has taught courses in sedimentary and environmental geology and designed field- and project-based courses such as the introductory course Exploring the Dynamic Earth.

Her recent courses have both supported and grown from her writing and research interests, and they reflect her interdisciplinary approach. These include Perspectives on American Environmental History (which was cross-listed with geography, history, and American studies), Evolution of North American Landscapes (crosslisted with geography), and Reading and Writing in the World, which she co-taught with now-retired Professor of English John Lemly. She regularly mentors undergraduates as they carry out independent research projects and was honored to receive the College’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 2003.

Through her teaching, Savoy says, she challenges students to examine their assumptions about the world, and

she treasures the reciprocity of learning that takes place.

“Mount Holyoke students have taught me that true exchange between a teacher and student—the back and forth, the give and take—requires living and sharing our ideas, our dreams, our struggles and questions, with open ears, mind, and heart,” she says. “To be in such relation is a great, mutually nourishing gift.”

Savoy is taking the full 2017–2018 academic year for research leave, visiting libraries and repositories including the National Archives and Virginia Historical Society. At Georgetown University she will investigate the ties of the Jesuit order to “slave-holding” and to the lives of the long-ago ancestors she will be studying.

Like Trace, Savoy’s new work will illuminate the often surprising relationships between history, peoples, narratives, and the land —and the ways in which those relationships inform contemporary perspectives. As she wrote in her Carnegie Fellowship proposal, “Above all, ‘On the River’s Back’ trespasses supposed borders to reveal often-unrecognized connections, such as the siting of the nation’s capital and the economic motives of slavery. None of these links is coincidental. Few appear in public history. All touch us today.”

Abe Loomis is a freelance writer based in western Massachusetts. Contact him at abe.loomis@gmail.com.

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Read more about Savoy’s work and previous awards at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/savoy.

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MoHome Memories The Cult of Mary Lyon?

Celebrating Mount Holyoke’s centennial

THE COLLEGE R E ACHED its first one hundred years early on in the history of the Alumnae Quarterly, and the magazine celebrated the milestone in its May 1937 issue. The issue opens with a full-page outline of the centenary festivities— planned for May 7, 1937—biographies of all of Mount Holyoke’s “principals & presidents” to date, and an introduction written by Sydney R. McLean, class of 1922, an English instructor at the College at the time.

McLean takes on the question, “Who is Mount Holyoke?” exploring the origins of the seminary and Mary Lyon’s steadfast following. “During her lifetime she was loved, admired, and profoundly respected,” McLean wrote. “Shortly after her death she became almost a cult.

“For a time after her death, many thought that Mount Holyoke could not go on without her. Yet it did, because the principle of permanence was inherent in her plan.

“Even though she made it, talked and worked and prayed it into existence, Mary Lyon is not Mount Holyoke, nor ever was. We of Mount Holyoke are fortunate in having her as founder, for her identity entered into its life; and we are fortunate in the long succession of devoted people who have sustained Mount Holyoke during a hundred years. But they are not Mount Holyoke, and never were; nor are the thousands of us upon whom falls the honor of celebrating the completion of its first century—administration, alumnae, faculty, students, trustees. Mount Holyoke is Mount Holyoke, created to endure from generation to generation, forming its own natural patterns as does any educational institution worthy of the name.

We mark one century, and begin the second.”

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View “Mount Holyoke’s Centenary Program in Outline” at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/centennial. alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

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FRO M T H E A RC H IVES

A Great Escape Fire rope

Last spring, in a box of materials received from members of the Mount Holyoke class of 1922, staff at Archives and Special Collections discovered an original dormitory fire rope.

Before fire escapes were widely installed on campus buildings students relied on these ropes—which were kept in each dorm room—for escaping from their residence halls in the event of a fire. Fire drills were held in Blanchard gymnasium, during which students were required to practice securing the ropes and climbing down the side of the building to safety.

In 1980, according to a letter from Wayne Gass, director of physical facilities, the College’s insurance company advised that the use of the ropes should be terminated as a “secondary means of escape.” Students were subsequently asked to turn in all ropes.

Did you ever use a fire rope? We’d love to hear from you at quarterly@mtholyoke.edu.

Millie Rossman (2)

Keep up with Mount Holyoke Archives and Special Collections at mhc-asc.tumblr.com or follow them on Instagram and Snapchat at mhcarchives and on Twitter @ASCatMHC.

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At 34 feet long and about a 1/2-inch thick, this fire rope shows little wear and was likely never used.

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On Display

ARTIFACT

Tools of a Trailblazer Apgar’s medical bag

DR. VIRGINIA APGAR ’29

is most known for changing the landscape of obstetric medicine with her invention in 1952 of the Apgar Score, the first standardized method A RT I FACT for evaluating newborn health.

But do you know what she carried in her medical bag?

Mount Holyoke Archives and Special Collections does. In fact, they are in possession of Apgar’s medical bag, which she used throughout her forty-year career until her death in 1974. Filled with equipment and medicines, the bag gives a peek into the work and possible day-to-day life of one of the world’s premier physicians and anesthesiologists.

Inscribed with the gold initials V.A., the black leather zipper bag contains medical equipment including a blood pressure cuff, medical clamp, and what may be a few oropharyngeal airway devices (OPAs). According to the Archives, Apgar carried these OPAs with her at all times, either in her medical bag or in her purse. A friend once noted she even carried them “when dressed for opening night at the NYC opera; they were used for resuscitation a number of times.”

Other items in the bag include vials of ephedrine sulfate injectors, ready for instant use to counteract an asthma attack or treat a drop in blood pressure; a bottle of Seconal Sodium, a depressant primarily used to calm the central nervous system;

and a box of film most likely intended for a Kodak Kodaslide stereo slide viewer—similar to the viewfinder toys popular with children for generations—with the words “Lungs” and “For Thursday Evening” written in pencil on the front of the box.

While most of the items are not surprising for an anesthesiologist to have on hand, we can only guess the

films could be of samples belonging to a patient, with whom Apgar may have met or treated on a Thursday night.

The bag and its contents are just a small part of the Archives’ extensive Apgar collection, which includes diaries, scrapbooks, and sound recordings, among other documents and items.

— B Y J E S S AY E R

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Deirdre Haber Malfatto

Learn more about and watch a video featuring Virginia Apgar at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/apgar.

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Then and Now

Language Labs THE N

N OW

Language study in labs beyond the classroom was first introduced at Mount Holyoke in 1947, and for more than a decade the services offered and facilities available shifted often to reflect a growing student population and to incorporate new technology.

Today, the Ciruti Center, converted into a language center in 1989, houses the College’s Language Resource Center (LRC). From online language

and keyboard skins that overlay the traditional Latin alphabet for different writing systems, including Russian, Arabic, and Hebrew.

tutorials to collaborative spaces offering foreign newspapers and spaces for conversation, the LRC fosters a multitude of different learning styles. Students can not only practice their skills with language lab assistants but also with native speakers around the world through video conferencing, or they can create virtual communities using tools like Skype.

Multimedia resources including video cameras and editing software facilitate collaborative learning. A dramatic change from the dial-access retrieval system, this technology offers students the ability to incorporate iMovie productions and other digital narratives into class projects, making the LRC a space where students come together to study languages that seem never to stay the same. — B Y S A R A R O T T G E R ’ 1 9

1960s

2017

By the early 1960s, students had access to gooseneck microphones and headphones that allowed them to record and practice pronunciation outside of class periods. Using a crude system called “dial access information retrieval,” students could also “dial into” recordings of their choice. As the decade continued, various language departments experimented with developing technology and updated recording equipment to aid in students’ progress.

Then: MHC Archives and Special Collections; Now: Kyley Butler ’18

In the mid-1960s, more formal language laboratory opportunities were introduced, and French department records reveal that in 1964 intermediate classes had fourteen to fifteen students per session, a number overwhelmingly higher than students studying other languages.

The 1965 construction of Ham Hall offered students a language lounge and tape recording facilities in the dorm, and in 1969, with students’ growing interest in the study of languages, chairs of the Spanish, Italian, French, German, and Russian departments signed a statement calling for a revitalization of the language lab technology.

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After class hours, students can use self-study language tools like Mango Languages and Rosetta Stone, which teach practical communication skills online. Simple headphones and microphones of the past have expanded into a dizzying array of headsets, lapel microphones,

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APlace PlaceofofOur OurOwn Own

I remember Intro to Skiing with Miss Ruth Elvedt in 1958-59. . . . We hiked up and tried to ski down without using a snowplow turn, because she said that women who learned to snowplow often didn’t progress to parallel turns! That one gym class led to fifteen years on the National Ski Patrol, longer than I spent in anything related to my major. —A N N E

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Deirdre Haber Malfatto

To read other memories of the amphitheater, and to add your own, visit alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/gettell.

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My Voice ESSAY

Welcome to the Club

By D IHANN GEIER ’78

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lived to be eighty-four. It didn’t seem possible that I could lose my mother while we were both so young. Shouldn’t each generation live a little longer and a little better?

Three years later my beloved father died from an aggressive form of prostate cancer, just eighteen months after his initial diagnosis. He was my soul mate. I discussed everything with him—philosophy, world events, politics, poetry, health. I was devastated by his death. But I found myself questioning those feelings. He was eightynine. He had led a full, rewarding life. Hadn’t he finished his job of raising me? Had I thought my parents would be there for me until I died?

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I realized that, yes, I had. The expectations I had put on my parents—to be my biggest cheerleaders over decades of unconditional love—hadn’t been met. I had never anticipated living without them.

I had my first baby thirty-one years ago. When my mother came to see him for the very first time, she said to me, “Welcome to the club.” And I soon came to realize what she meant. Parenthood is a type of club. Few can realize what being a parent is really like unless they, too, are a member of this club. As the saying goes, when you have a child you start wearing your If you are lucky heart on the outside of your body. enough to live a The vulnerability is immense and intense, but so is the joy.

Losing my parents made me a long time, there member of another club, one that will be losses most people will eventually join.

The only way to bypass memberalong the way. ship is to die before your parents, which puts them in a club no human should ever have to join.

An unexpected consequence of already being a member of the club of orphaned adults is that I have coping mechanisms. I’ve developed them from losing my parents.

When my forty-five-year-old brother died unexpectedly from a heart attack two years ago, my only solace was that our father had been spared that unfathomable loss. Losing my baby brother is still dreadful, awful, life-changing. But I get through it.

So is life a series of losses? At sixty years old, even with all the pain in my heart, all the grief I have worked through, I refuse to categorize life in that way.

Life is still wonderful, but not every minute. Life is joyous, but not every day. And if you are lucky enough to live a long time, there will be losses along the way. But while the people you lose may have written a huge chapter in your life, the loss may be only a footnote. That’s how I’ve chosen to look at life and loss. It’s tough, but so am I.

Dihann Geier ’78 is the mother to three sons with her husband of thirty-five years. She is a lactation consultant and breeds golden retrievers. She lives in Chesapeake, Virginia.

Juliette Borda

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

A CL OS E FRIE N D O NC E SA I D to me that life is a series of losses. I thought that was a terribly pessimistic view of life, and I discarded it. I lived my life under a different banner: Life is wonderful! Life is joyous! Sure, there are ups and downs, and life is a lot of work, but it’s also a lot of fun. And I had always been fortunate to be able to focus on the fun.

Then I lost my mother quickly and shockingly—she was a young, healthy seventy-four-year-old—to pancreatic cancer. Yes, she lived to know all six of her grandchildren, five of them already adults. And I was in my fifties, so her job of raising me was long done. But her death still felt to me unfair and premature. Her own mother, who had emigrated from Poland, lived through World War I, starved through most of her childhood, endured rheumatic fever, and smoked cigarettes her whole life, had

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