Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly Summer 2018

Mount Holyoke s u m m er 2018

Alumnae Quarterly

I N T H I S I SSU E 18 REASONS TO ATTEND REUNION ALUMNAE RUNNING FOR OFFICE FINDING HOPE AT THE END OF LIFE ESSAY CONTEST WINNERS

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President’s Pen

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technology, engineering and mathematics than any of our peer liberal arts colleges.

We are creating spaces and opportunities

“

When asked how I feel about this opportunity to serve you and the College … my first reaction (and perhaps the most enduring one) is a renewed and weightier sense of responsibility: the responsibility to preserve and advance and to protect and promote this extraordinary institution — its excellence, its beauty and its values.

— S O N YA S T E P H E N S

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to build on this legacy of success, renewing the sense of community at the heart of the intellectual endeavors and connections of liberal learning in a residential setting and

ensuring that a Mount Holyoke education remains global, current, accessible and truly inclusive. The $50 million Community Center, now completed, is the centerpiece for this aspiration, while a $3.5 million stateof-the-art Maker and Innovation Lab under construction this summer will create new learning opportunities across the curriculum and outside of the classroom. Both of these new spaces have been designed to high environmental standards, as we advance the College’s commitment to sustainability with ambitious curricular and facilities goals, including that of carbon neutrality by our bicentennial in 2037.

These initiatives, and many more, contribute to the desirability of the Mount Holyoke experience, with applications and yield up significantly for the class of 2022.

Many of you have contributed your time, energy and resources to these priorities, and I am deeply grateful for your loyalty to the College — demonstrated in so many ways — and for the support you have shown me. Alongside that renewed and weightier sense of responsibility, then, I feel honored, privileged and truly joyful to be in this work of advancing Mount Holyoke with you, for our students and for generations to come.

We are just getting started.

Courtesy of MHC Office of Communications

WI T H ALL THE E XCITE M E N T of Commencement and Reunion behind us, it is with great anticipation and resolve that we engage in the deep work of summer, in preparation for the fall and the return of the students. While the rhythm is different — and repairs to the clock in Mary Lyon Hall make the hours seem longer and slower — the work itself is more concentrated and more urgent. Perhaps, for me, this sense of urgency is amplified by this moment, by the sense of entering more fully into the long (laurel) chain of Mount Holyoke’s history as the College’s 19th president. I have said to many of you, when asked how I feel about this opportunity to serve you and the College, that my first reaction (and perhaps the most enduring one) is a renewed and weightier sense of responsibility: the responsibility to preserve and advance and to protect and promote this extraordinary institution — its excellence, its beauty and its values. To do this, we must indeed work with consequential urgency and with creativity and commitment.

Soon you will receive a President’s Report that details the initiatives undertaken to date under the Plan for 2021. With two years of the Plan behind us — and the opportunities of a new horizon created by a new presidency — this is a moment of reflection on all that has been accomplished and an occasion for yet greater ambitions for the College as we deepen our commitment to those institutional priorities. We have invested in academic excellence, recruiting and supporting outstanding faculty, renewing the curriculum and ensuring that our students are well prepared for success after graduation. Ninety-seven percent of recent graduates have held an internship while at Mount Holyoke (and 98 percent of employers said they would consider hiring their interns), more than 92 percent are employed or in graduate school within six months of graduating and — over a 50-year period documented by the National Science Foundation — Mount Holyoke has produced more women with Ph.D.s in science,

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Contents S U M M E R 2 018

VOLU M E 10 2

N U M BE R 3

F E AT U R E S

D E PA R T M E N T S

16 She’s Running

2 LYONS SHARE

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Mount Holyoke Seminary in Turkey, giving blue lions their due, love for the library, a look back at #MHCReunion

Women are declaring their candidacy for elected office in record numbers, and Mount Holyoke alumnae are both on the ballot and behind the scenes

22 Resilience Shared

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6 UNCOMMON GROUND Maria Z. Mossaides ’73 begins term as Alumnae Association president, College welcomes new diversity leader, students win Fulbright Awards, Commencement 2018

Essays by Candice M. Hughes ’86 and Jaime Jenett ’97

26 Gifts of the Spirit

With a new book, Mona Marich Hanford ’64 makes the case for faith in a field where Mount Holyoke alumnae have a legacy of leadership

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10 Female Gaze Painter Claudine Lang Bing ’60; duct tape artist Kerry Mott ’09; authors Sarah Aliberti Jette ’01 and Marcella Runell Hall

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12 Ten Minutes With Brewer Kate Irvin Telman ’08

Cover and 50th reunion book detail: Deirdre Haber Malfatto; back cover: Chris Lawton; Hanford: Erin Schaff; Sanders-McMurtry: courtesy of MHC Office of Communications; painting detail: courtesy of Kerry Mott ’09

14 Insider’s View Interfaith Sanctuary

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36 MoHOME MEMORIES

1918 50th reunion class book

37 On Display Signs of sustainability 38 A Place of Our Own Mary Deacon Bullard Garden

40 CLASS NOTES 80 MY VOICE

Resilience essay contest, by the numbers

36 32 18 Reasons to Attend Reunion

Alumnae returned to campus for innumerable reasons, and we share — in photos — a handful of some of the most popular

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L ET T E R S

EM A IL

FAC E B O OK

TW ITTER

I NSTAGR A M

L I N K E DI N

Lyons Share

LIBRARY ADMIRATION What a fabulous building (“Library Atrium,”

winter 2018, p. 37)! I visit it every time I return. It is the symbol of excellence and significance of the College.

—Ellie Miller Greenberg ’53 via Association website FINDING INSPIRATION

“The Mount Holyoke Seminary in Turkey” (spring 2018, p. 16) reminded me of another example of Mary Lyon’s influence on the founding of a school, this time in Missouri.

After reading Mary Lyon’s writings on founding Mount Holyoke, Virginia Alice Cottey made it her goal to emulate her. In 1884 she founded Cottey College in Nevada, Missouri.

In 1927, during her retirement, she donated the college to P.E.O. Sisterhood, a philanthropic and educational organization that supports women’s education through loans and grants. Cottey College is now a small, highly rated women’s four-year college.

—Alison Reid Daifuku ’56 via email

During my early years at Mount Holyoke in the 1970s, one of my friends noticed a plaque about the Ely sisters in the chapel, and that started me on a journey to learn more about their time in historic Armenia and to see whether perhaps their paths crossed with my grandmother (her family was Armenian protestant).

—Lisa Misakian ’78 via Association website CLASS COLOR CUP CORRECTION The article (“Class Color Cup a Success,”

spring 2018, p. 7) says that red Pegasus alumnae came in first with the largest number of donors, but the graph shows red at 929 and blue at 935. I wasn’t a math major, but isn’t 935 the higher number?

—Deirdre (Dee) Drummey Boling ’88 via email EDITOR’S NOTE: Our sincere apologies for the error, and

@mhcalums The laurel chains have been delivered for tomorrow’s parade! #mountholyoke #college #tradition #mhcreunion #mountholyoke2018

congratulations to all of the blue lion classes, who achieved outstanding success in the FebruMary Class Color Cup challenge.

Marina Li

At the time Charlotte and Mary Ann Ely, both class of 1861, were in Turkey, the region surrounding Lake Van and Bitlis was primarily inhabited by Armenians. Most of the students were orphans, likely due to purges perpetrated by the Turkish in Armenian villages beginning in the late nineteenth century and prior to the major genocide in 1915.

My Armenian grandmother was orphaned in this way. Unfortunately, she never got to the Mount Holyoke Seminary. She was raised and educated by nuns in a French orphanage in Adana, Turkey, before she and my grandfather fled Turkey in 1910.

—Susan Yeshilian Manaras ’68 via Association website

How to find — and connect with — alumnae Check out the career directory and connect with nearly 20,000 alumnae! alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/careerdirectory

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M OUNT H OLYOK E ALUMNAE QUARTERLY

WE SHARE D

Summer 2018 Volume 102 Number 3

“That’s my identity ... the Orchards and Mount Holyoke,” former golf coach Bob Bontempo said. “I’ve done a few other things, but my time there is where I am probably most remembered.”

EDITORIAL AND DESIGN TEAM

Jennifer Grow ’94 Editor and Interim Senior Director of Marketing & Communications Millie Rossman Creative Director Anne Pinkerton Assistant Director of Digital Communications

“

He is the only person who ever made me feel like I had potential and ability in a sport. I wish I could tell him how much I appreciated him and his classes.

—Caroline Carlson Jorgensen ’97

The Republican file photo courtesy masslive.com

I still have some Bontempo tees.

—Elizabeth M. Stone ’75 Congratulations, Bob! So happy to see this article.

—Martha Hicks-Pofit ’73 Didn’t miss a practice and even brought my golf pro hubby to meet Coach!

—Sarah Daman Israelson ’82 I loved being coached by him! Thank you!

—Marianne Lund ’95 Wonderful article about a wonderful guy!

—Cindy Lewis Milewski ’82

Congratulations to @MHCFH and @MHC_Lax19 midfielder Kaiti Braz ’18 on being named the 2017-18 Laurie Priest Alumnae Scholar-Athlete Award recipient.

She was presented her award by @aamhc Executive Director, Nancy B. Perez at the Annual Awards Celebration. #GoLyons #LyonsPride @M H CLYO N S M H C ATH LETI C S

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ALUMNAE ASSOCIATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS

President Maria Z. Mossaides ’73 Vice President Susan Brennan Grosel ’82 Treasurer and Chair, Finance Committee Alice C. Maroni ’75 Clerk Markeisha J. Miner ’99

Jess Ayer Class Notes Editor and Marketing & Communications Associate

Young Alumnae Representative Tarana Bhatia ’15

CON TR I BUTORS

Chair, Classes and Reunion Committee Melissa Anderson Russell ’01

Alicia Doyon Emily Krakow ’20 Maryellen Ryan Elizabeth Solet

QUARTERLY COMMITTEE

Lisa Hawley Hiley ’83 Perrin McCormick Menashi ’90 Susana Morris ’02 Carolyn E. Roesler ’86 Tara L. Roberts ’91, chair

The Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly is published quarterly in the spring, summer, fall, and winter by the Alumnae Association

Chair, Nominating Committee Danetta L. Beaushaw ’88

Chair, Communications Committee Marisa C. Peacock ’01 Chair, Volunteer Stewardship Committee Charlotte N. Church ’70 Chair, Clubs Committee Elizabeth McInerny McHugh ’87 Alumnae Trustee Rhynette Northcross Hurd ’71 Executive Director Nancy Bellows Perez ’76 ex officio without vote

of Mount Holyoke College, Inc. Summer 2018, volume 102, number 3, was printed in the USA by Fry Communications, Inc., Mechanicsburg, PA. Periodicals postage paid at South Hadley, MA, and additional mailing offices.

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

The Alumnae Quarterly welcomes letters. Letters should run not more than 200 words in length, refer to material published in the magazine, and include the writer’s full name.

Letters may be edited for clarity and space.

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 MAST E R

(ISSN 0027-2493; USPS 365-280) Please send form 3579 to Alumnae Information Services Mount Holyoke

To update your information,

Alumnae Association

contact Alumnae Information

50 College St.

Services at ais@mtholyoke.edu or

South Hadley, MA

413-538-2303.

01075-1486

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly

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SUMMER 2018

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Lyons Share: Reunion Alumnae come MoHome for Reunion 2018. During the last two weekends in May, we welcomed back nearly 1,600 alumnae from classes ending in eights and threes plus the class of 2016, Frances Perkins Scholars and all alumnae/i who hold graduate degrees from Mount Holyoke.

Generations spanning nearly a century traveled from across the globe to reconnect with each other and the idyllic campus they still call home. To view additional photos and social media coverage and to watch a video, visit alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/reunion.

@mhcalums (7)

@cmazur_rocks

@1988mhc

@oliviabolerbooks

@jhbutash

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MHC Over 40 Facebook group

@mtholyoke

@mhcalums

Choir rehearsal

Elfing reunion @bea_yonce

@mailemae

Alumnae row

@suzybuzz

@kpendi Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly

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SUMMER 2018

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N EWS

FEM A LE GA ZE

TEN MINUTES W ITH

I NS I DE R ’ S V I E W

Uncommon Ground Alumnae Association Welcomes New President A F T E R A O N E - Y E A R T E R M A S president-elect, on July 1 Maria Z. Mossaides ’73 assumed the role of president of the Alumnae Association. As the Association’s next leader, Mossaides will guide the organization in its mission to provide diverse programs, expertise and resources to foster lifelong learning and to empower alumnae to connect with each other and with the College.

“I am very fortunate to be the first person to serve as the Alumnae Association’s president-elect,” said Mossaides.

“The opportunity to serve on the board and to participate in the committees has given me a deeper understanding of the varied work of the Association.”

A Worcester, Massachusetts, resident, Mossaides has dedicated herself to social service, holding a wide range of positions in the public and independent sectors as an attorney and an administrator. She served for several years as executive director of Cambridge Family and Children’s Service until, in 2015, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker appointed her child advocate for the Commonwealth, a position she still holds.

Mossaides has served for more than 30 years in a number of volunteer roles for Mount Holyoke, including as committee chair for The Mount Holyoke Fund. When her daughter, Sophia Apostola ’04, enrolled at the College she began to see the many opportunities to foster connections between alumnae and students.

“Mary Lyon recognized that her graduates needed to support each other in order for them to achieve success in their chosen profession,” Mossaides said. “Early graduates paved the way for the next generation of students to follow.

I cannot imagine the difficulties that these pioneers faced, proving that women could benefit from higher education.

The one constant has been to support Mount Holyoke so that the College can educate the next generation of leaders. We can continue this commitment by connecting our alumnae with current students and providing the support to launch their careers and lives.”

Outgoing Alumnae Association president Marcia Brumit Kropf ’67 stepped down from her role June 30.

“It has been my great pleasure to work with Maria this past year,” she said. “She is an experienced executive and leader, as well as a devoted volunteer. I am excited about her ideas for the future of the Alumnae Association.”

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College Welcomes New Vice President

Mossaides : Lisa Quinones; Sanders-McMurtry: courtesy of MHC Office of Communications

Kijua Sanders-McMurtry, an expert in strategic diversity initiatives in higher education, has been appointed Mount Holyoke College’s first vice president for equity and inclusion and chief diversity officer. Sanders-McMurtry brings two decades of experience in higher education, largely focused on diversity and inclusion and student life and most recently served as the associate vice president and dean for community diversity at Agnes Scott College, a liberal arts college for women in Decatur, Georgia.

“I am thrilled that Kijua has agreed to join the senior leadership of Mount Holyoke,” President Sonya Stephens said in a letter to the community. “She is an extraordinary leader who brings a breadth of experience, unparalleled energy and a strong vision to her work.”

Deepening the College’s understanding and practice of diversity, equity and inclusion is an important pillar in the College’s strategic plan. As an officer and member of the president’s cabinet, Sanders-McMurtry will play a key role in furthering these efforts, in part by developing programming and training for faculty, students and staff.

“I am excited to embark on this journey in such a diverse campus community where bold steps will be needed to reach our collective goals of justice, equity and inclusion,” SandersMcMurtry said. “My greatest hope for Mount Holyoke is that our work as a College community will demonstrate that our ideals are ones we live and breathe.”

Read more about diversity, equity and inclusion at Mount Holyoke at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/dei.

Seven Mount Holyoke Students Receive Fulbrights In a record-breaking year, seven Mount Holyoke students (and one alternate) were named Fulbright Scholars this past spring. In addition, two students were named winners of the Davis Projects for Peace awards, and two received Critical Language Scholarship awards.

Uswa Iqbal ’18 was one of the students to win a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship Award.

Iqbal’s proposal for a community project in Hamtramck, Michigan, was a winner in last year’s Davis Projects for Peace contest.

For her Fulbright Award, Iqbal will go to Taiwan, where she will apply English teaching skills honed in her work with English language learners as a tutor in Michigan.

Iqbal’s English teaching fellowship dovetails with her career goal of practicing medicine. When she heard of the Fulbright selection, she delayed her entry into a master’s program in medical anthropology at the University of Oxford and deferred her applications to medical schools.

“I want to work in the medical field with immigrant, refugee and minority communities,” said Iqbal, who was a double major in anthropology and biology. “Having this kind of experience, learning how to connect across cultural and language barriers and how to, for example, get over difficulties when people have different belief structures is really important in order to be able to do that work effectively.”

Jon Western, vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculty, said that this year’s spate of awards reflects on Mount Holyoke students’ ability and perseverance but also on the faculty’s scholarly excellence and commitment to student achievement. “When our students come on to our campus, they find enormous support from faculty for their growth and success,” said Western. “Our faculty channel their interests, energy, enthusiasm and intellect to position each student for the greatest possible outcome.”

The Core Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program offers more than 400 teaching and/or research awards in more than 125 countries and is primarily funded through the U.S. State Department. Read more at alumnae. mtholyoke.edu/fulbright.

Mary Lyon Award Winners At the College’s Celebration of Excellence on campus in April, the Alumnae Association presented the Mary Lyon Award to Nayantara Kakshapati ’05, Suchi Saria ’04 and Chloé Zhao ’05.

The Mary Lyon Award celebrates young alumnae (within 15 years of graduation) who demonstrate exceptional promise or sustained achievement in their lives, profession or community and whose work embodies the humane values that Mary Lyon exemplified in her life and inspired in others. Read their citations at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/awards2018.

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Congratulations to the following Mount Holyoke faculty, who in May celebrated their retirements at a gathering with President Sonya Stephens and Dean of Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs Jon Western prior to being granted emeritus/a status. Between them, these 10 faculty served the College for 314 years. Read excerpts from their citations at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/emeriti2018. n

Art Museum Celebrates the Work of Joan Jonas ’58 In July the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum opened a yearlong exhibition of the work of Joan Jonas ’58. Once called the “Mother of All Performance Art,” Jonas has used mirrors in her groundbreaking multimedia works since the late 1960s, using the concept of the mirror to show us that images are not facts but reflections of our individual imaginations and assumptions. This focused exhibition — the first of the artist’s at her alma mater — brings together four mirror-themed works that span her prolific career. It runs from July 17, 2018, through June 16, 2019.

Jonas, who in June was selected as a recipient of the prestigious 2018

Kyoto Prize in arts and philosophy and in 2015 represented the United States at the Venice Biennale, is also Mount Holyoke’s 2018–2019 Leading Woman in the Arts — and the first alumna in the program’s 13-year history. She will be on campus in October to give the Leading Woman in the Arts Lecture and will return in January to work with students, who will create and present a multimedia performance.

Leading Woman in the Arts is organized by the Weissman Center for Leadership in collaboration with the College’s InterArts Council.

Learn more at alumnae.mtholyoke. edu/jonas.

Common Read

“The Book of Unknown Americans” by Cristina Henriquez was selected as the 2018 Common Read. The novel uses first-person reminiscences drawn from an array of characters from Latin America to examine the immigrant experience in the United States. Learn more at alumnae. mtholyoke.edu/commonread2018.

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Catherine Bloom, language instructor in French

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James Coleman, professor of dance

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Terese Freedman, professor of dance

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Jeanne Friedman, senior lecturer of physical education and athletics Gail A. Hornstein, professor of psychology and education Linda Laderach, professor of music Andrew Lass, professor of anthropology on the Ford Foundation Sandra M. Lawrence, professor of psychology and education Laurie Priest, senior lecturer of physical education and athletics Joseph Smith, professor of art

Jonas: Moira Ricci, courtesy the artist and Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York/Rome; Graduates: Tim Llewellyn; Perez and Kropf: Deirdre Haber Malfatto

With Gratitude

Join an Alumnae Association Trip Abroad

We invite you to join one or more of the upcoming travel opportunities, such as a trip through southern Africa, which includes a three-night river safari on the Zambezi Queen.

For more information and to register, visit alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/travel.

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Marcia personifies all that is wonderful and special about Mount Holyoke alumnae and why we are so passionate about our experience here. Her work has been tireless in forging partnerships that have allowed us to better achieve our strategic goals. With grace and humility, and with courage, Marcia has brought innovative approaches to confronting old challenges. We thank her and wish her all the best in the years to come.

— A L U M N A E A S S O C I AT I O N E X E C U T I V E D I R E C T O R N A N C Y B E L L O W S P E R E Z ’ 7 6 , D U R I N G T H E A N N UA L M E E T I N G I N M AY, T H A N K E D O U T G O I N G P R E S I D E N T O F T H E B OA R D , MARCIA B RU M IT KRO PF ’67, WH O STE PPE D DOWN FRO M H E R FOU R-YE AR TE RM I N J U N E

Commencement 2018

S AV E T H E DAT E

2019 Mount Holyoke Alumnae Symposium in Asia

Uncertain weather didn’t dampen the spirits of the nearly 600 graduates of Mount Holyoke as they gathered in the College’s Field House in Kendall Sports and Dance Complex to celebrate Commencement 2018. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi delivered the keynote address to the graduates, their families and friends. “I have confidence in the impatience of youth to work very hard to shorten the distance between what is inevitable to us and to you, and inconceivable to others,” said Pelosi, who received an honorary Doctor of Laws during the ceremony. Read more at alumnae. mtholyoke.edu/commencement2018.

The third Mount Holyoke Alumnae Symposium in Asia will take place in Jaipur, India, January 11–13, 2019. Throughout the weekend alumnae will have the chance to engage in thoughtprovoking talks, discussions and cultural events with experts from a wide variety of fields.

Through rigorous intellectual and social engagement, attendees will explore India’s evolution into a global economy and have a ringside view to one of the most fascinating and complex cultures in the world.

For more information, visit alumnae. mtholyoke.edu/jaipur.

In Memoriam

Landonia Richards Gettell MA’65 died on Feb. 4 in Palo Alto, California.

Wife of former Mount Holyoke President Richard Glenn Gettell, Landonia was often recognized for her intellectual curiosity, her interest in athletics and her extraordinary conversational skills. Read more in Class Notes on page 77.

SALT: Student Loan Help

Mount Holyoke College has teamed up with the nonprofit organization SALT to help current students and recent Mount Holyoke alumnae manage their money and student loans.

All services, including membership fees, are free of charge.

Visit alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/salt.

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FE M A LE G A ZE

OIL PA I NT E R

“Stellarum,” 2017. Acrylic painting on canvas, 18 inches x 24 inches. Collection of Carolyn Casady Derby ’60 and Steve Derby.

IN FALL 2002, Claudine Lang Bing ’60 was an art professor on Semester at Sea. The time she spent traveling around the world on a ship and gazing at stars in the night sky stayed with her and became the inspiration for her most recent work as an artist. She is fascinated with discoveries in astronomy and physics, and the themes of creation and changes in our planet and the universe form the basis of her current paintings.

When Bing first arrived at Mount Holyoke in 1956, she did not think that being an artist was a career path available to her. She became an English major and

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continued to search out opportunities involving art. For her work-study job, she showed slides in art history classes. She was also allowed to use the art studio whenever she had time, an opportunity that resulted in the work that would set her on her path.

During her junior year Bing was nominated by the College to attend Yale’s Norfolk Summer School of Art. She was awarded a full scholarship.

“My future was determined in many ways through that summer,” she says. Bing not only prospered in her art at Yale, but she also met her husband, David Bing, a scientist and

1960 graduate of Wesleyan who passed away in 2000.

In 1960 Bing received the Janet F. Brooks Memorial Prize, given annually to a painter in the graduating class. The award instilled in her a confidence in her work that she had never before felt. In addition to producing her own artwork, she spent much of her career teaching, holding positions at Cleveland Museum of Art, Michigan State University and Massachusetts College of Art and Design, where she taught for 26 years, served as department chair, and received a distinguished teaching award before retiring as professor emerita.

In November 2017, Bing’s series “Moving Through Space and Time” was shown at Galatea Fine Art in Boston, the most recent of seven solo exhibitions.

Her work has been included in group exhibitions across North America and in China and France. She also published a visual memoir of poetry and watercolor prints, “Painting Out of Sorrow,” expressing her journey after the loss of her mother.

“I have loved being an artist and also helping others develop their own creativity through my teaching,” says Bing. “I have found meaning and purpose in the combination of teaching others and creating my own art.”

To view more of Bing’s work, visit claudinebing.com. — B Y E M I LY K R A K O W ’ 2 0

Courtesy of Claudine Lang Bing ’60; courtesy of Kerry Mott ’09

Cosmic Abstractions

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FE M A LE G A ZE

D U C T TA P E A RT IS T

Breaking Records through Art

BOOKS

What the Wind Can Tell You Sarah Marie Jette ISL AN D PO RT PRESS

In this middle grade novel, Isabelle is determined both to win the middle school science fair with her wind machine and to have her brother, Julian, who has epilepsy and uses a wheelchair, serve as her assistant. But after he has a grand seizure, everything changes.

Sarah Aliberti Jette ’01 served in the Peace Corps in Mongolia, studied rehabilitation counseling and now teaches fourth grade. This is her first novel.

UnCommon Bonds: Women Reflect on Race and Friendship Edited by Marcella Runell Hall and Kersha Smith PETE R L ANG I NC .

A collection of essays written by women representing multiple identities who address the experiences of race, ethnicity and friendship in the context of the United States.

Marcella Runell Hall is vice president for student life and dean of students at Mount Holyoke and author or editor of several books.

WEB EXCLUSIVE

See more recent books at alumnae. mtholyoke.edu/summer2018books.

“I’VE BEEN SELLING PIECES to Ripley’s Believe It or Not for several years now,” says Kerry Mott ’09, an artist whose unusual medium is duct tape and whose oversized works take thousands of hours of meticulous planning and implementation to complete.

When someone who worked at Ripley’s encouraged her to submit her work to Guinness World Records, Mott jumped at the chance. She was soon rewarded.

The record-breaking piece is a wall-sized, dramatic image of an erupting volcano emerging from ocean waves against a night sky replete with a full moon and its elaborate craters. It has officially been deemed the largest piece of artwork ever made from duct tape, and Guinness bought it for a new venue they are creating.

“I basically invented my own style of art, which is similar to pointillism,” Mott says.

“Creating my own methods does come with some challenges. It took me a lot of trial and error, because I had no other points of reference.” She has honed her distinctive style and gained a great deal of exposure by entering contests, including ArtPrize — one of the most heavily attended public art competitions in the world — located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where her volcano creation was first on display.

Mott graduated from Mount Holyoke with a degree in neuroscience and behavior with the plan to go to medical school, but her hobby from high school kept drawing her back. She had made duct tape bags for fun and sold them to her friends. “I would create designs on the front of the bags, and the designs became more and more intricate until I got to a point where, since the designs were my focus, I figured I could translate it to a twodimensional art form,” she says.

Each piece Mott creates is painstaking. She decides on an image, makes a sketch and plans the colors to use — limited by what is available in duct tape. Then she hand cuts tiny rectangular pieces of tape (a dozen could fit on a penny) and positions them parallel or perpendicular to each other, carefully layering until the form she desires takes shape.

Mott has tackled a wide range of images in her wall pieces — plants, animals, cityscapes, landscapes and portraits, including one of Paul McCartney — to push herself to see what she can accomplish with the unlikely medium.

She has also created replicas of artwork “that others could immediately identify, such as Van Gogh’s ‘The Starry Night,’” she says.

Mott has shown her work in galleries in her home town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, as well as in Washington, D.C., New York, Michigan and New Jersey. She was recently chosen to participate in a “collector’s show” in Grand Rapids, where her creations will hang alongside the work of artists including Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, Janice Biala, Fairfield Porter and Robert De Niro Sr. She is thrilled with the reception to her unique style of art, and says, “Perhaps my duct tape art could be in the Smithsonian someday!”

To view more of Mott’s work, visit kerrymott.com. — B Y A N N E P I N K E R T O N

“Windy City,” 2016. Estimated 30,000 pieces of duct tape on canvas, 30 inches x 39 inches.

WEB EXCLUSIVE

Watch a video of Mott demonstrating her process at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/ mott.

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TE N M I N U TE S WI TH

BREW E R

A Recipe for Success K AT E I R V I N T E L M A N ’ 0 8 is the assistant brewer at The People’s Pint in Greenfield,

Massachusetts, a restaurant that serves fresh-brewed beer and locally sourced food. Her role at the restaurant — a local favorite — is to shepherd the beer from raw ingredients to finished products, producing new batches a few times each week. She worked hard to attain her first job in the industry, calling on the same determination she used to secure chemistry internships as an undergraduate.

On her undergraduate experience: I came to Mount Holyoke wanting to major in chemistry and Spanish, and I did. I liked what I was doing and kept up with it and had a really interesting internship every summer. To get these highly competitive internships I wrote to all of the forensic labs in California that I could find, reaching out until someone got back to me. I worked in a forensic lab that had overflow work from government agencies and private citizens, and I worked with a forensic chemist and on various protocols to be able to assess different chemicals in certain substances.

But, through all of these different jobs, I realized I didn’t want to be in a lab by myself doing research. The work I did with the campus ministry, both during my time as a student and in the five years following graduation, when I joined the staff, helped me to realize that there were more ways that I could make a career.

of the beers, and I had my resume ready.

Then, I went to events in the area where I knew I’d cross paths with brewers and people in the industry. I made myself available, told them I was looking for a job, and about four years ago I got an email from the head brewer at The People’s Pint saying he had a part-time bottling position.

I accepted the position, even though it was only 20 hours a week and wasn’t going to

“

It’s really tasting a beer

that I made and thinking, ‘OK, what would I change?’

”

pay the bills. I started in bottling, and in six months I had brewed my first batch of beer, using one of my home-brew recipes. A year later, I became the assistant brewer.

On the benefit of having a varied perspective: The People’s Pint has four employees in the brewery, and I think it’s really helpful when you have a variety of perspectives working together, especially in a group that small. It produces better results.

Taking classes outside my major and being around people with different interests inspired me. I felt the freedom to go into a career that was nontraditional because I knew the range of skills I had prepared me for what was to come.

On pursuing brewing: I grew up with a dad who is thrifty and who also likes to drink good beer. He was a home brewer, and I was an extra pair of hands to help bottle. He’s a scientist, too, so it was like a grown-up extension of the science experiments we did together.

After college I started brewing in the basement of my first apartment. It’s like the organic chemistry of cooking. It takes a long time, and eventually you produce a product that you can consume.

WEB EXCLUSIVE

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Learn about another alumna brewer, Gretchen Schmidhausler ’81, at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/ schmidhausler.

Anja Schütz

On making her own opportunities: I home brewed a bunch of batches and took them around to about a dozen local breweries. I had written up descriptions

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Congratulations Reunion 2018 Awardees

ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Awarded to an alumna for outstanding achievements and service to society that exemplify the values and virtues set forth by the College, through salaried or volunteer fields of endeavor.

ELEANOR G. ROGAN ’63

SUSAN RIEGER ’68

FRANCES G. BURWELL ’78

LYNN M. KELLY ’78

LAN CAO ’83

LINA MARIA RIVERO CASHIN ’88

ALUMNAE MEDAL OF HONOR Awarded to an alumna at her twentieth reunion or beyond for long-term eminent service and leadership in promoting the effectiveness of the Alumnae Association and/or College.

MARIA ZOE MOSSAIDES ’73

ELEANOR CHANG ’78

ELIZABETH TOPHAM KENNAN AWARD Awarded to an alumna whose accomplishments in the field of education exemplify the values set forth by the College, honoring the service of former President Elizabeth Topham Kennan ’60 to the College and to higher education in general.

MIRELLA JONA AFFRON ’58 ELIZABETH WARD TANNENBAUM ’68 W. ROCHELLE CALHOUN ’83

LOYALTY AWARD Awarded to an alumna who has demonstrated consistent effort and active involvement in one area of service over an extended period of time.

Volunteer effort may be on behalf of a class, club, affinity group, the Association, or the College.

NANCY BEAL ALLEN ’53

JOAN MILLER MORAN ’58

DIANA MARSTON WOOD ’58

ALICE GODFREY ANDRUS ’63

PAULA BRAGA LEIDICH ’68

CAROLYN E. DORAIS ’68

SUSAN GRAHAM SIMPSON ’68

KAREN KELLY TAGGART ’68

ELIZABETH A. CLARKE ’73

ELLEN J. FLANNERY ’73

CHERYL RYAN MALONEY ’73

NANCY G. ROSOFF ’78

CAROLYN CONANT-HILEY ’83

JUDITH G. URQUHART ’83

LAUREN E. COOK ’98

DANIELLE GERMAIN ’93 CHRISTINE A. GORA ’98

WEB EXCLUSIVE

Read more about the award winners at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/awards2018.

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I NS I D E R’ S V I EW

Interfaith Sanctuary Part of the original Mary Lyon Hall building constructed in 1897, the small chapel that now houses the Interfaith Sanctuary was originally a space used for Christian prayer, with a simple altar and wooden pews that seated about 60 people. Since the construction of Abbey Memorial Chapel, completed in 1938, the space has been known as the “little chapel” by many generations of Mount Holyoke students and alumnae.

Beginning in 1999 a group of students, faculty and staff converted the space into Abbey Interfaith Sanctuary. Available to students and community members of all faith backgrounds (and to those of no faith as well), the sanctuary offers a place for reflection, journal writing, meditation, singing, dancing, walking the sacred labyrinth and even yoga nidra.

Original stained-glass windows still bring in light from the Mary Deacon Bullard Garden on one side and open directly into the interior of Abbey Memorial Chapel on the other. And the space is easily manipulated to suit the needs of the groups that gather there, with stacking chairs, pillows and tables and even a baby grand piano.

—BY ANNE PINKERTON

WEB EXCLUSIVE

View more photos at alumnae. mtholyoke.edu/interfaith.

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Deirdre Haber Malfatto

I NS I D E R’ S V I EW

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She’s

Running Since Hillary Clinton’s defeat in the 2016 presidential election, record numbers of women have declared their candidacy for elected office. This season, Mount Holyoke alumnae are both on the ballot and behind the scenes.

Written by Hannah Wallace ’95 Portraits By Alison Kolesar

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Last spring, Emily Martz ’94 left her job as deputy director at the Adirondack North Country Association to run for U.S. Congress in her conservative upstate New York district. The decision came, in part, out of a conviction that Democrats weren’t successfully communicating that they represent white, working-class people. “In my area in particular, which is 97 percent white and low-income, Democrats as a party did not articulate that they stand for their own constituents,” says Martz.

It also grieved her to see political discourse in America become so polarized.

“One of the big reasons that we had the results we did in 2016 is because we just weren’t talking to each other,” says Martz, who majored in history and minored in politics at Mount Holyoke. She began having as many conversations as she could with people who had different political backgrounds than her own. By May, she had decided to run for the U.S. House seat in her district: New York’s 21st.

> Emily Martz ’94

Making Herstory Martz was one of a record-busting 467 women running for seats in the U.S. House this year,* according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute of Politics. (The previous record had been 298, set during the 2012 election cycle.)

Record numbers of women are running for other political offices as well: In mid-May, for example, 47 women were running for governor, including Stacey Abrams, who on May 22 won Georgia’s primary and could become the nation’s first black female governor if she wins in November. There’s also been a surge of women running at the local level, for state Senate and House, city council and school board.

Most of these female candidates are left-leaning: 352 of those 467 women who ran for Congress are

Democrats. And all of the alumnae we were able to identify for this article share this party affiliation. The 2016 presidential election of Donald Trump — a candidate with no political experience — over Hillary Clinton, who had many years of experience, including eight years as senator from New York, has for some been a motivating force.

Mount Holyoke women have long pursued careers in public service — some as elected politicians and others in appointed positions. The first to come to the minds of many alumnae is, of course, Frances Perkins, class of 1902, who was appointed secretary of labor by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933. But Mount Holyoke has also produced a host of other well-known alumnae who have held political office, including Ella Tambussi Grasso ’40, who in 1974 was elected Connecticut’s first female governor, New York congresswoman Nita Melnikoff Lowey ’59, who is currently serving her 15th term, and Elaine Chao ’75, current U.S. secretary of transportation and secretary of labor under President George W. Bush. To identify alumnae who may join the ranks of these whose stories and legacies we already know, we engaged with clubs and Facebook groups, put out a greater call on social media, and searched the Alumnae Association’s directory.

We found several women who are running for office — some for the first time — and others with careers in the political arena.

* Shortly before we sent this issue of the Alumnae Quarterly to the printer, we learned that Martz did not win the primary. She soon declared her intention to run as the Democratic candidate for New York State Senate in the 45th district. Martz and a group of volunteers worked to gather the needed support, collecting 1,998 signatures — nearly double the 1,000 required — in just nine days. She is running against an eight-term Republican senator who has not had a Democratic challenger since 2006.

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Wake-Up Call The first time Eileen Hartnett Albillar ’96 ran for elected office was last year, when she threw her hat into the ring for township supervisor in Warrington, Pennsylvania. She won. “After the presidential election, I was incredibly motivated,” says Albillar, who is a social worker and the mother of two young children.

“So many things aligned. It was time for women to step up!” In her job at Bucks County Opportunity Council, Albillar works on anti-poverty and homelessness issues, as well as public transportation options. “When I thought about my community and how I could better advocate for those in need, I wanted to get involved at the municipal level.” Since township supervisor is a volunteer position in Pennsylvania, Albillar continues to work 30 to 35 hours per week as a social worker.

Albillar’s classmate Tami Gouveia ’96 has known since she was at Mount Holyoke that she would one day run for office, but it wasn’t until she founded and co-led the Massachusetts chapter of the Women’s March in the fall of 2016 that she took the plunge. A progressive Democrat, she is now running for state representative in Massachusetts’ 14th Middlesex district, a liberal, predominantly white enclave northwest of Boston that includes the towns of Acton, Carlisle, Chelmsford and Concord.

“Seeing our ability to organize something on such a large scale in a three-month period built up my confidence and my network,” Gouveia says, referring to the Women’s March. But her decision to run also came out of her vision for where this country should be going. “We have extreme income inequality, extreme health disparities — whether it’s based on gender, immigration status, race or ethnicity,” she says. “I was fearful that Trump’s administration would make things worse, and I think that is proving to be true.”

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At Mount Holyoke, Gouveia majored in politics, taking classes with Preston Smith, Joan Cocks and Douglas Amy. In Electoral Politics, Amy covered ranked-choice voting, an issue that has come to the fore in the U.S., particularly in Maine and Massachusetts. “I learned about this in the classroom 25 years ago!” Gouveia says. In the fall of her junior year, she volunteered for Ted Kennedy’s successful re-election campaign for U.S. Senate against Mitt Romney. A single mom of two teenage boys who still has a full-time job as project director at The Rippel Foundation (a health care innovation firm), Gouveia says this state representative race is nonetheless the right race at the right time. She is running for the seat vacated by another woman, Democratic State Representative Cory Atkins, who is retiring after serving for almost 20 years. Gouveia is up against three male candidates in the primary in September — two are Democrats and one is Green-Rainbow Party. If she wins, she will not face a Republican candidate in the general election.

> Eileen Albillar ’96

Training Camp As recently as five years ago a research study by Jennifer Lawless at American University and Richard Fox at Loyola Marymount University concluded that women are less likely than men to think they’re qualified to run for office, and, at the same time, men are 15 percent more likely than women to be recruited to run.

“It’s a fairly intelligent decision to think that the idea of running for office is not smart,” says Karen Middleton ’88. “You don’t feel you have privacy, you are attacked.” Case in point: When she was a Colorado state representative from 2008 to 2010, Middleton received Facebook messages from strangers criticizing her attire and makeup. After leaving the Colorado legislature in

> Tami Gouveia ’96

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2010, Middleton spent three years as president of Emerge America, which recruits and trains Democratic women candidates in 25 states. Her job, in other words, was to convince women to run for office — regardless of such drawbacks. “We’re needed.

And time and time again, when women are leading, the conversation, the office, the policy are all changed.

The pros outweigh the negatives once you are in.”

“Women used to say ‘I’m not qualified to run for office! I’ve never done this,’” echoes Mary Jane Trapp ’78, who has already served one six-year term as a judge on the 11th District Court of Appeals in Ohio and is now running for another. Trapp helped organize political trainings for female candidates sponsored by the Ohio Democratic Women’s Caucus. These trainings, which teach candidates communications and messaging, how to build a volunteer team and fundraising basics, are crucial to helping women overcome their insecurities about running for office. “After a weekend of training a woman who you literally had to beg to run, she’ll say, ‘Now I have the tools to do this.’”

In recent years, many political organizations and political action committees have sprung up to help recruit, endorse and elect female

> Karen Middleton ’88

>Resources Emerge America

> Recruits and trains Democratic women leaders to run for public office in 25 states. The organization’s signature training program is 70 hours long (one weekend day each month for six months), but it also offers three-day “boot camps” for women running in the current election cycle and a one-day “Taste of Emerge” for women who are just starting to think about running.

EMILY’s List

> Helps get pro-choice Democratic women elected. Run to Win, its national recruitment and training program, has elected 116 women to the House, 23 to the Senate, 12 women governors and more than 800 women to state and local office. The organization offers free daylong trainings around the country, as well as free webinars.

Maggie’s List

> Helps elect conservative women to federal public office by providing trainings, financial support and get-out-the-vote programs for female candidates.

National Federation of Republican Women

> Via its campaign management schools the organization has trained thousands of Republican women to manage political campaigns and to be successful elected officials.

Ready to Run®

> Rutger’s Center for American Women and Politics sponsors this nonpartisan training program (now in more than 20 states) to encourage women to run for elected office. Depending on the state, the training is either one or two days long. The curriculum covers fundraising, positioning oneself for elected office, navigating the political party structure, media training, the nuts and bolts of organizing a campaign, mobilizing voters and crafting a message.

She Should Run

> Also nonpartisan in its outlook, She Should Run does not offer in-person trainings but instead has an online She Should Run Incubator — web-based courses, articles and short inspirational videos to offer support and guidance to women who want to run.

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candidates. There are nonpartisan organizations like Ready to Run and She Should Run. On the left, the two best known are Emerge America and EMILY’s List; on the right, there are Maggie’s List and the National Federation of Republican Women.

There are many other regional organizations like Eleanor’s Legacy in New York, Annie’s List in Texas and Sally’s List in Oklahoma.

When Middleton, now the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado, was president of Emerge, she worked with the state Emerge programs and attended many of their trainings. One is a six-month training (held on weekends) and the other a weekend boot camp. The boot camps are meant for women who are running this election cycle. The more in-depth program helps potential candidates build their skills — and their networks.

Karin Power ’05, a Democratic state representative in Oregon, took Emerge Oregon’s longer training back in 2015, after she had been elected to city council in the Portland suburb of Milwaukie. “It was fantastic — a chance to hang out with other women who care deeply about the direction of civics and politics,” she says. The Emerge training helped her determine what type of political office she might want to run for some day and which major players and stakeholders she’d need to seek endorsements from. “So when this House of Representatives position opened up, I did not panic. I went to get my Emerge Oregon handbook off of my bookshelf and started doing the work.”

Albillar says she never would have run for township supervisor in Pennsylvania if it weren’t for the training she took with Emerge — even though it was a decade ago. “I had no interest in politics at all until someone [from Emerge Arizona] literally came up to me and said, ‘Did you ever consider running for office?’” The training planted a seed, she says. In the intervening years,

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she has been honing the skills she learned. “In Emerge you learn about fundraising, public speaking, how to get your message out, networking, all of that,” Albillar says. “Whenever I had an occasion to do a TV spot for work, I thought ‘This will be good practice.’ So I’ve been fine-tuning these skills to help me gain confidence over time.”

Gouveia, who is running for the Massachusetts House seat, also graduated from Emerge training a decade ago, and she’s still in touch with the other women who completed the program. “We’re sharing information, we’re sharing strategies. We’re using each other as a sounding board for things we’re experiencing.”

Fundraising Smarts “Fundraising is not natural to most people,” says Ann O’Leary ’93, who was Hillary Clinton’s senior policy advisor for many years and now practices law at Boies Schiller Flexner LLP in Oakland. “But it’s so important to learn to fundraise.” Fundraising is critical because it buys visibility: television spots, direct mailings and lawn signs. Most candidates hire a paid campaign manager, as well. Emerge and EMILY’s List trainings both cover fundraising basics.

But one doesn’t always need to follow received political wisdom to the letter. When Martz was exploring running for Congress, she was told that she shouldn’t run unless she could raise $100,000 from her immediate circle of friends and family. “Well guess what? I cannot come up with $100,000,” Martz says. “I thought to myself, ‘That is not the reason not to do it. If that’s the bar, then we’re excluding very good people from running.’” Through EMILY’s List she met a woman who wanted to be part of a grassroots campaign, and together they figured out how to raise money without needing to rely on the pockets (deep or otherwise) of family or friends. In addition to throwing house parties, making phone calls and using social media, they reached out to board members of social service organizations and economic development nonprofits that share Martz’s values. The Mount Holyoke alumnae network was incredibly supportive, too, says Martz. And each quarter, Martz and her campaign volunteers managed to raise more than the quarter before. By May, despite an average contribution of $120, they had raised more than $215,000.

Oregon Representative Power says fundraising is easier if you stay focused on the issues.

“Try to think of your campaign in the third person when you’re approaching fundraising, and then it becomes less about you and more about what you stand for. For example: ‘Why

> Mary Jane Trapp ’78

> Karin Power ’05

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> Lisa Kouchakdjian ’92 would I care about electing Karin Power to office?’ Because she reflects my values and will fight for the things I care about. By investing in her, they’ll be investing in a healthier and safer environment, in better schools, in more transparent and accountable government and in the next generation of women who are stepping up to lead.” This approach shifts the focus from a personal ask to fundraising for outcomes we all want to see in our communities.

And if you’re not running for office but want to pour your energy into getting a woman elected, O’Leary has a tip. “The hardest time women and people of color have is in the primaries,” she says. “Help those people get to victories in the primaries, and then they can tap into a larger Democratic fundraising circle.”

Balancing Act One of the reasons women don’t run for office as much as their male counterparts is because — even in 2018 — they continue to be primary caregivers for their children. But women aren’t letting this stop them anymore. Last April, the U.S. Senate became slightly more family friendly when senators

unanimously passed a resolution allowing any senator to bring a baby onto the floor during a vote. Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth, for whom the rule was ostensibly passed, took advantage of this new rule a day later, bringing her 10-day-old infant onto the Senate floor so she could vote.

This determination is shared by many MHC alumnae politicians, many of whom are mothers. “Family is a part of our lives. I don’t make an apology,” says Albillar, whose husband, Josh, is a police officer. “I want to change the culture so it’s more acceptable to bring your children and families. Community is every age.” Albillar also realizes the power of modeling for her children that women do have a place at the table in government. She tells the story of when her 5½-year-old daughter went with her to a fundraiser for a local state candidate. The candidate was giving her stump speech and started talking about “The Little Engine that Could.” Albillar’s daughter tugged on her arm and asked, “Mommy can I ask a question?” Albillar told her to wait until after the speech, but the candidate had heard her and said, “Do you have a question?” Albillar recalls. “And my daughter said, ‘I like how you brought up “The Little Engine that Could.” He tried and he tried until he made it!’

And it was such a proud moment for me. My daughter had a voice — she wasn’t afraid.”

Gouveia’s sons, ages 13 and 16, have been supportive of her decision to run. Not only do they cook dinner and take care of the family pets, her older son has gone canvassing with her, takes photos on the campaign trail and has encouraged other youth to volunteer for his mom’s campaign. “And my younger son said, ‘You should do it, you would be really good at it! You will help a lot of people,’” says Gouveia.

Power, the Oregon representative, says a lot of people ask her how she balances work and family life.

“And frankly, you don’t,” she says. “But if we don’t have younger working women engaged in politics, you miss that five- to 10-year learning curve. My wife and I were personally committed to making it work so that I didn’t have to wait. And it’s hard, but I’m amazed by how many other women are out there who are supportive.” Power brings her two-year-old son with her everywhere, including the State Capitol. Her leadership has been very supportive of her need to leave early one day a week, to pick him up at daycare.

Rallying Cry When Lisa Kaprielian Kouchakdjian graduated from Mount Holyoke in 1992 with a degree in politics, Colorado Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder gave a rousing Commencement speech in Gettell Amphitheater. When Schroeder graduated from law school in 1964, she said, there were 24 women in

the House of Representatives and just one woman in the Senate. “Today [i.e., 1992] there are 29 women in the House and there are two in the Senate. That is not very much progress, not at all,” she said. “I think we have a tremendous public service crisis in this country. … Let me tell you, you cannot build a government that is better than the people running it. So if you don’t like the people running it, for crying out loud, get out and run it yourself! The time has come!” Kouchakdjian never forgot Schroeder’s words. “That speech has stayed with me my whole life,” she says.

After Mount Holyoke, she went on to get her law degree and became a litigation attorney. But a few years ago, she ran for Sudbury Public School Committee in Massachusetts and won. In March 2018, she won a second term. “I love it. I love using my advocacy skills to support students and teachers,” she says. She’s committed to her community and to her role on the school board. “We have a lot of work to do.”

O’Leary agrees. Though she was uniquely devastated when Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 — she had spent three months before the election preparing for the transition to the White House — she is buoyed by the surge of women around the country who are running for office now. “One of the things I’ve always said to the young people who work for me is that one of the biggest lessons you learn is, ‘I’m the adult in the room. If I don’t step up, no one will step up.’” That can mean stepping up for elected office or being a leader in your organization or in your community. “It’s incredibly inspiring to see women stepping up for office, and I hope they keep stepping up. We have to lead.”

Hannah Wallace ’95 lives in Portland, Oregon, and writes for Civil Eats Inc., Food + Wine and Vogue.

WEB EXCLUSIVE

Read about five alumnae working to help get women elected at alumnae. mtholyoke.edu/supportsquad.

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ESSAY CONTEST About a year ago we launched an essay contest, but the idea had been percolating around our office for a while. We talk often during meetings about how to share more alumnae voices in the Alumnae Quarterly. And about how to include more personal stories that will resonate with our diverse readership. Last summer we decided to turn that question to you, our readers. We gave you a theme: Resilience.

Here we share two essays from those submitted during the six months that the contest was open.

They were selected by a team of five readers — two magazine staff members and three alumnae volunteers who serve on the Alumnae Quarterly committee. The selection process was blind, with names and class years of each entrant revealed only after the process had been concluded.

We are grateful to everyone who submitted their work and hope to offer another opportunity for you to do so in the future. For more details about the submissions, turn to page 80.

—Jennifer Grow ’94, editor 22

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E S S AY C O N T E S T

STARING DOWN THE

UNIVERSE At 28 years old, I sat on the beige carpet of the house I had lived in during high school, leaning against the couch, next to my mother, watching her die.

Seven years earlier, I walked the short distance from Ham Hall (then the international dorm) to the stage of the Gettell Amphitheater in my crisp, new, white cotton dress, grinning as then-college president Liz Topham Kennan ’60 handed me my diploma with the customary handshake. From the far-back benches, my mother, younger brother and grandparents applauded me, the oldest and first of my generation to graduate from college.

Two shadows tinged my supreme happiness: my father’s absence — my parents having divorced during my first year; and my mother’s struggle to accept the “nerdiness” — her words — of her biologist daughter. That day, though, we put aside our differences. After the ceremony we gravitated to the winding paths lined with crayon-colored tumbles of blooms behind the greenhouse and snapped family photos by the koi pond.

Now, my world had shrunk to a stuffy, dimly lit room in a modest

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colonial house in a New England town where a hospice nurse sat at the ready day and night. Upstairs, in a narrow guest bedroom mostly filled by a stiff antique bed, my worldly belongings, stuffed in suitcases and cardboard boxes, covered the floor. Within the boxes, in a red tube, lay my doctoral degree in anatomy and neurobiology from Boston University School of Medicine. All the hours of tracing blood vessels and nerves, of running my fingers over rough sutures defining sections of the human skull, were utterly useless. There was not one piece of knowledge gained in my 100hour weeks of studying medicine that would save my mother.

Whenever I was not sprawled on the floor in silence watching my mother breathe, I crept upstairs to my computer to scroll through job ad after job ad. Weeks earlier, when I had received the call that my mother was dying, I was nearing the end of a one-year teaching contract at a New Jersey college. The year before, I’d completed two years of postdoctoral research on Alzheimer’s disease, during which I’d fallen in love with a fellow scientist, and spent a month traveling Hong Kong and Macau with him. But, we had ended the

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relationship when he returned to Hong Kong for good.

I was newly alone and at a career crossroads, veering away from research, yet not sure where I was headed.

The country was in a modest recession. Jobs were scarce.

When the call came, there was nothing keeping me from returning home to share my mother’s final days, bringing all of my belongings with me.

As I leaned against the couch, watching my mother’s chest rise and fall each day, not entirely sure that it would (hoping that it would, yet also hoping that it would not, and that she would be released from the constant grinding pain), I floated, untethered, unsure of who or what I was, almost feeling like I didn’t exist. Each day, listening to my mother’s rasping breath, my identities were stripped away one by one: scientist, girlfriend, daughter, until nothing was left but a pure essence, a spark, suspended.

What was left was me, alone, disconnected, seemingly nothing. I could blow on the spark, believe in myself enough to grow past the crushing pain of being stripped bare day after day. Or I could do nothing.

I discovered, slowly, that I refused to be crushed. The spark, fueled by a hard kernel of will, flared, fanning into flames. Out of this a voice grew that simply said, “No.” No matter how stripped and laid bare, I stood up from slumping on the floor all night, holding my mother’s hand, and walked upstairs to the computer. I had graduated with degrees that my mother didn’t understand. But still, I wanted to succeed. And I knew she would want me to as well. Once again, we had put aside our differences, and my mood began to shift.

I sent cheerful, earnest cover letters about my interest in the advertised jobs. I sent them day after day, month after month, the marigolds and impatiens of summer withering, browning, finally vanishing, erased by snow.

While other families were giving thanks and tucking into turkey and gravy, I held my mother’s hand for the last time, with my stepfather, and my grandparents and aunt clustered around. The day after the funeral, I packed my boxes to move in with my new boyfriend, whom I later married. Another spark had turned into flame.

Near the start of the New Year, the endless “Nos” finally turned to “Yes,” and I regained my membership in the club of the employed, becoming a vice president at a venture-backed startup. A year after that I was promoted, and by the end of my second year, I was generating $4 million in revenue from nothing. I had learned the meaning of grit, the essence of resilience. To simply live — even without my mother — defying the universe.

Candice M. Hughes ’86 leads the consulting firm Hughes BioPharma Advisers, working with a third of top biopharma firms, managing corporate alliances and supporting regulatory affairs. An accomplished storyteller, her poetry and creative nonfiction have been published in The Allegheny Review and The Lyon Review. She is a recipient of the Mount Holyoke College Ida F. Snell Poetry Prize and a Pen Works Honorable Mention for Creative Nonfiction. She is the author of two novels, “Dead Evil” and “Death on a Thin Horse.”

Jaime Jenett ’97 lives in Oakland, California, with her wife, Laura (Smith ’95), and their son, Simon.

Inspired by her innumerable experiences of kindness and compassion on her journey parenting Simon, Jaime started the nonprofit Tikkun Rising to support Tikkun Tokens, the kindness recognition project she launched on her 40th birthday.

Learn more at tikkuntokens.org.

WEB EXCLUSIVE

Read “Resilience” poetry

by Lily Rodriguez ’09 at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/ rodriguez.

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TRINITY OF RESILIENCE I am an unwilling expert in resilience.

In 2005, five months before our wedding, my partner, Laura, suffered a significant brain injury.

Though she eventually recovered, my memories of our first year of marriage are of my wife’s flat affect and impaired memory, instead of sweet nothings whispered at bedtime. We regained our footing, only to have our infant son, Simon, diagnosed with acute congestive heart failure in 2008. After four months in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), we were released to the brutal reality of parenting a gravely ill, tubefed baby with a very uncertain future.

I am not the same person today as I was before these events, but I am happy. In the early years, I could not have imagined happiness would be possible. Three things helped me move from surviving to thriving: receiving, rejoicing and releasing.

Immediately after both incidents, a tsunami of help came rushing to our doorstep. My first instinct was to try to do everything myself. However, Laura and I quickly realized that receiving and accepting whatever people offered us was the sunlight that would help us photosynthesize trauma into a life. We said yes to everything, no matter how uncomfortable it felt. The result was lasagna and dog walks, and rooted relationships to hold us upright when fear and trauma threatened to knock us down.

Receiving meant accepting help in ways I never could have anticipated. As Seven Sisters grads in our mid-30s, my wife and I never imagined needing ongoing financial assistance from our parents, but we did, and we took it, gratefully. When I found myself ground down from the unrelenting anxiety and depression of parenting a child with a life-threatening disease, I finally accepted a pre-

BY JAIM E JEN ETT ’ 9 7

scription for an antidepressant medication. It was one of the hardest and best self-care decisions I’ve ever made in my life. I made it so that I could thrive.

We learned to rejoice whenever possible. Our second day in the ICU, “A Brand New Day” from “The Wiz” started playing on the iPod we brought with us. Locking eyes, Laura and I started dancing, and as we silently shimmied around the isolette that held our baby’s tiny unconscious body, connected to a respirator and two poles of intravenous medication, we shared a tearful smile. Our resident physician watched our silent revolt against death, and then, a few beats later, joined in.

I grabbed every shiny nugget of joy that caught my eye. We threw ourselves a wedding at the hospital. Yes. Really. Facing the prospect of California’s anti-gaymarriage initiative, Proposition 8, we needed to get legally married, because our formal, glorious wedding held three years prior wasn’t legally binding. So the tuxedo and wedding dress came out of storage, and we got married again in the hospital courtyard, accompanied this time by Simon. And an IV pole.

Releasing my hold on what things “should” look like is probably the most valuable thing I’ve learned about surviving stress and trauma. My notions of what a first year of marriage “should” look like eventually had to go, because I would never have that. Simon’s diagnosis required me to slowly release my vision of a typical child and embrace a new normal. It took a few years, but I eventually learned that pining for something that can never be only leads to misery.

For years, just keeping my head above water felt like a triumph. But it turns out there was more for me than just getting by. I still adore my wife. Parenting feels more like fun than work. Perhaps most important, when someone asks how I am, I can honestly, joyfully reply, “great!” By learning to receive, rejoice and release, I’ve been able to create a life that is more than bearable. It’s a miracle.

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GIFTS SPIRIT OF THE

With a new book, Mona Marich Hanford ’64 makes the case for faith in a field where Mount Holyoke alumnae have a legacy of leadership

By Abe Loomis

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“Be honest with me,” Mona Marich Hanford ’64 told her oncologist when she learned the bad news.

“Don’t give me false hope.”

More than a year later, Hanford has not only held off the deadly cancer she is still fighting, she has also published the book on end-of-life care that she was in the midst of writing when she received her own terminal diagnosis.

“We all have an expiration date,” she says.

“And that’s not something Americans talk about.”

She thinks it’s time we did. And there’s a word she wants us to use when we do. That word is “God.” “There are hundreds of caregiver support groups,” Hanford says, “because families struggle when they have someone with a chronic or terminal illness. But they’re all related to disease.

None of them do anything about the next chapter — about ‘do not be afraid.’ We’ve moved God out of the conversation in America.”

By “God,” Hanford doesn’t mean one particular god. She acknowledges that the forms faith can take are a matter of personal belief, and, as such, are vastly diverse.

“I happen to be a Christian,” she says, “because my grandfather was a bishop and priest, but I think God is accessible for everyone. Whether or not you go to church, you are a spiritual person. We all have beliefs and values that connect us to a deeper meaning of life. Some of us have a deep faith in the God of our choosing, be that the Spirit, the Light, a Higher Power or whatever faith gives us hope and peace.”

Hanford’s new book, “The Graceful Exit: 10 Things You Need to Know: Face Reality, Make Wise Choices and Find Hope at the End of Life” — which was on the Washington Post’s Washington Bestsellers List for paperback nonfiction two weeks after its publication in March, where it remained for four weeks — mentions God

frequently. But the book also defies easy classification. Don’t expect miracles, Hanford tells her readers. But don’t forsake optimism about what comes next, either.

Hanford is a realist and an optimist and wants to live fully until the end of her life. She was a Russian major at Mount Holyoke. She treasures Dostoevsky, whose words are as applicable today as they were centuries ago when he wrote them: “Death is impossible for us to fathom: it is so immense, so frightening, that we will do almost anything to avoid thinking about it.

Society is organized to make death invisible, to keep it several steps removed. That distance may seem necessary for our comfort, but it comes with a terrible price: the illusion of limitless time, and a consequent lack of seriousness about daily life. We are running away from the one reality that faces us all.”

“Make sure you or your beloved family member get the best medical care possible, but don’t get caught up in fantasy,” she writes. “Medical science has come a long way, but it has not yet eradicated death or the slow decline imposed by so many diseases. Embrace the elephant in the room, our mortality. It is the first step to a graceful exit.”

Endings are inevitable. What Hanford wants to do, she says, is “shine a little hope forward as people are facing the exit door.” She notes that “there are religious books that talk about God, and death and dying books that talk about dying and palliative care.” But, she says, “There isn’t a book that has wedded those two that I know of.”

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Through her writing and speaking, service on the boards of hospice organizations and projects such as The Hope Initiative, a five-part course she created with Reverend Jamie Haith of northern Virginia’s Holy Trinity Church, Hanford wants to help people from all faiths and backgrounds prepare for the spiritual and emotional struggles they may face in confronting questions of life and death. Her ultimate goal is to prevent the fear of death from getting in the way of wise, humane choices.

“We can try and block God’s timeline by hooking our loved ones up to lots of machines,” she said in an interview posted on Harvard University’s website, the Initiative on Health, Religion and Spirituality, “and once a person gets tied up to those machines and they are old, they rarely get untied.

The person becomes a prisoner. But it doesn’t have to be like that.”

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Hanford isn’t the only Mount Holyoke College alumna who has sought to ease the path for those nearing life’s end. In fact, it’s something of a tradition. Represented most famously by Florence Schorske Wald ’38, the celebrated founder of hospice in the United States, an inspired cohort of Mount Holyoke alumnae have gone on to apply their skills and talents to bringing a measure of peace and comfort to people facing death.

“There are all kinds of examples that I could give you of hospice stepping in and transforming the end-of-life experience,” says Kathy Brandt ’87, a hospice consultant and leading expert in palliative care. “Just by being there and listening to the patient’s family and helping them do what they want to make the end-of-life experience as peaceful, as loving, as comfortable as possible. It’s really quite magical.”

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Erin Schaff (2); Courtesy of Florence Wald

Mona Marich Hanford ’64 (far left) wrote a book about coping with the end of life after caring for her husband in the years prior to his death and her subsequent cancer diagnosis.

Kathy Brandt ’87 (left), a hospice consultant and expert in palliative care, had the opportunity to meet Florence Schorske Wald ’38 (right) — credited as one of the first advocates for hospice care — at an awards ceremony.

Through The KB Group, her Washington, D.C.-based consultancy, and her former work at the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, Brandt has raised millions of dollars to increase access to palliative care and hospice and has focused on improving care to veterans, family caregivers, children and underserved populations. She is also writer and editor of the fourth edition of the National Consensus Project’s “Clinical Practice Guidelines for Quality Palliative Care,” which outlines consensus guidelines so that patients with serious illness can access quality palliative care in the U.S. Brandt met Florence Wald once, and she never forgot it.

“She was getting an award,” Brandt says. “And I worked at the organization and was helping to plan the ceremony where she was going to be recognized, and so I read her bio. And then I went up and said to her, ‘Oh my goodness, we both went to Mount Holyoke!’ We had a nice conversation about how Mount Holyoke had prepared her to be an advocate for people who were having horrible deaths in the hospital cut off from their loved ones — which is how it used to happen before hospice.”

A double-major in politics and women’s studies, Brandt started her own career at the NHO (now known as the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization) in Alexandria, Virginia. She hadn’t intended to build a profession in the palliative-care field, but she gradually realized that the work she was doing — which included helping programs caring for people with HIV and developing tools to help disenfranchised people access newly introduced Medicare benefits for hospice care — fit perfectly with her training at Mount Holyoke and with what she wanted to do. She kept at it and worked her way up, launching her own company in 2013.

Meeting Wald when she did, Brandt says, gave her a jolt of encouragement.

“I don’t believe Mona or I would have been working on these issues in the same way if it wasn’t for Florence,” Brandt says. “Florence’s work literally changed the way people die in this country — for the better. She really saw it as a calling, and something a lot of folks in hospice — especially the early pioneers — saw, which was that it was a social change movement as much as a health care movement.”

A member of the National Women’s Hall of Fame and an American Academy of Nursing “Living Legend,” Wald, who died in 2008, was herself influenced by the work of public-health nursing pioneer Lillian Wald (no relation) and psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. As a nurse and teacher of nursing at Yale, Florence Wald was drawn more to home care than hospital care, and she encountered a kindred philosophy in a 1963 lecture at Yale by the English physician Cicely Saunders, the founder of hospice in England.

Captivated by what she had heard, Wald resigned as dean of Yale’s nursing school to research palliative-care alternatives for the dying.

She subsequently became one of the founders of Connecticut Hospice Inc., now in Branford, Connecticut, which began home care in 1974 and opened an inpatient hospice in 1980. In that role, Wald worked to give the terminally ill the option of spending their last days at home — rather than in the hospital — with caregivers trained to provide a measure of peace, comfort and dignity. According to the most recent figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4,000 hospice programs were operating in the U.S. in 2014, providing care to more than a million patients.

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Wald’s work laid the foundation for advocates and caregivers like Hanford and Brandt, and for Shelly Lo ’92, a medical oncologist, hospice and palliative-care physician and associate professor of medicine at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, who decided to pursue science, and eventually medicine, after taking a biology class during her first year in South Hadley.

“I actually entered Mount Holyoke thinking that I was going to be a history major,” Lo says. “It was during my first biology class with [Professor] Rachel Fink that I said, ‘Wow, this is really cool. Biology is really great!’ So, I took another class my second semester with her, and I ended up becoming a biology major.”

Her enthusiasm led her to medical school, and it was during her residency at Albany Medical Center in Albany, New York, that she discovered her interest in palliative care.

“Looking back now,” she says, “I think I chose to become an oncologist because I really liked the palliative-care aspects of oncology. It was very rewarding to be able to provide patients with just the basics: a good night’s sleep, getting their pain under control, really essential things that we often take for granted that make a world of difference. That was something positive that I could do as a medical resident.”

Lo is careful to point out that while all endof-life care is palliative care, not all palliative care is end-of-life care — and also that palliative care isn’t simply about comfort; in some cases, it can make a difference to outcomes.

She cites studies showing that for patients with advanced-stage lung cancer, the integration of palliative care at the time of diagnosis not only improves quality of life but can also boost survival rates.

Still, she says, “there is a stigma against palliative care because people do consider it end-of-life care. There is a real fear of dying in this country. For our patients who have cancer, they don’t want to ‘give up.’ Some patients, as well as providers and family members, may see palliative care as giving up. We need to educate patients and providers that all people facing serious illness may benefit from the extra layer of support that palliative care provides.”

The idea of death as a failure — for doctors, patients or family members — is an important part of what Hanford hopes her book will change.

In addition to shifting our perception of death as only an ending, she writes, “we need to realize that when we offer our loved one hospice at the end of life, we are doing everything we can.

In fact, we are redefining what ‘doing everything’ really is. It’s not trying every invasive medical

“It was very rewarding to be able to provide patients with just the basics: a good night’s sleep, getting their pain under control, really essential things that … make a world of difference.”

— Shelly Lo ’92

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treatment and being hooked up to machines, it’s being present with our loved ones.”

To Hanford, it is the refusal to consider spiritual possibilities, withholding the comforts of faith when patients are facing death, that is the real failure.

“This is what got me writing the book,” she says.

She heard an interview with a hospice chaplain on National Public Radio, “someone paid to wear a collar, who had been trained at Harvard Divinity School, and this person was writing a book, and said, ‘You realize that we, hospice chaplains’ — who are representing God and should be giving us a little hope for the future — ‘can’t use our spiritual tools to help you. We can only use the tools in your toolbox.’ I thought, that’s ludicrous! If you went to a hospital, and you went to a medical doctor, you don’t say ‘Hey, this is what’s wrong with me, and I brought the tools for you to fix it.’”

Hanford’s perspective has been formed, in part, through hard personal experience. She cared for her husband for eight years as he struggled with multiple health issues, an experience that she says sparked her own passionate advocacy around endof-life issues. He died in their home, under the care of hospice, and her book, which is punctuated by drawings illustrating her points, features photos of him in a comfortable chair in front of a picture window with the family dog. It is a peaceful scene and, to Hanford, it represents what it means to face death surrounded by familiar comforts and loving allies.

For many, she believes, such comforts can mean the difference between choosing a peaceful death and trying to prolong physical life at any cost.

“It occurred to me that one of the reasons people do that is because they don’t have God in their lives,” she says. “They don’t have any place to go. If I were just thinking of the dirt or the furnace, in a columbarium, it would be pretty frightening and I’d hang on to everything too.”

Hanford, who chaired a sold-out 2001 conference at the Washington National Cathedral called Journey of the Soul — Peace at Last, knows she is nearing the end of her own journey. But she is fairly brimming with hope. Her frequent visitors

— a friend set up an online signup sheet, which is booked out for a month — leave her Maryland home feeling not sorrowful, she says, but inspired.

“Because there’s no sadness and no silence,” she says. “And I think it’s so refreshing to everybody when I put the elephant on the table and talk about how I’m dealing with it. I’ve demystified the frightening thing. They’re full of hope when they leave.”

Hanford’s goal in “The Graceful Exit” is to nurture such hope by returning faith to the end-of-life conversation — and with that faith, a sense of mystery, curiosity and, importantly, humility.

“I don’t think I have all the answers,” she says.

“And that’s why I talk about the possibilities.”

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

Praise for “The Graceful Exit” This very readable book does an excellent job of “normalizing” a taboo subject in our culture.

In sharing her experience with end-of-life issues, Mona speaks to us in her own voice so that by the end of the book we feel as if we have been partners in her journey. Her “God moments” make us reflect on incidents in our own lives that, if we didn’t have a name for them before, we do now.

— Barbara Margulies Rossotti ’61, former chair of the Mount Holyoke College Board of Trustees and former board chair of the Washington Home and Community Hospices

WEB EXCLUSIVE

Read an interview with Pamela Wohlgemuth ’89, a nurse practitioner specializing in palliative care, at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/wohlgemuth.

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In May nearly 1,600 alumnae came back to Mount Holyoke to celebrate with classmates. With countless reasons to return to campus at any time, we share here — in words and photos — just a glimpse of why many alumnae attended Reunion.

Reasons to

Attend

Reunion 2018 PHOTOGRAPHS BY D E I R D R E H A B E R M A L FA T T O .

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1 Had never been to Reunion. 2 Have never missed Reunion!

3 Couldn’t wait to see old friends. 4 Hoped to make new friends.

5 Because I’d never seen the Chihuly sculpture in the library.

6 To return to Abbey Chapel (where we were married)!

WEB EXCLUSIVE

Read the class poem by Linda Dove ’88, shared during Reunion at the Alumnae Meeting at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/dove.

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15

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extraordinary, intelligent women.

inspiring to be with a group of

Knew that it would be energizing and

Special Collections.

17 To sing “Bread and Roses” at Mary Lyon’s grave. 18

Craved a new souvenir from Archives &

14 To take a tour of campus. 15 Couldn’t wait to visit an old dorm. 16

Williston Memorial Library — of course!

11 To get a Mount Holyoke Forever (temporary) tattoo. 12 To frolic on Skinner Green again. 13 To return to

to check out the Dining Commons.

9 To see my mother/daughter, who had Reunion the same weekend! 10 Excited

parade costumes, colors and signs.

7 Wanted to meet President Sonya Stephens. 8 Couldn’t wait to see all the

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ON DI S PL AY

A PL AC E OF OU R OW N

MoHomeMemories Documenting a Grand Celebration Class of 1918 50th reunion book A MONG THE TR E A SUR ES held by Archives and

Special Collections are reunion books going back decades.

It’s hard to know just how longstanding the tradition of creating these mementos is, but a copy from the class of 1863 is one of the earliest in the College’s collection.

Many 50th class reunion booklets — a tradition that continues today — chronicle the lives of alumnae since graduation, but this one, written by several members of the class of 1918 after their class’s campus reunion in 1968, documents the event itself in great detail. The 24-page, softbound booklet featuring a cover illustration of a tophatted rider bouncing upon a winged horse includes a list of the 84 attendees; personal remembrances of cocktails and meals; the election of new class officers; and a community picnic — all familiar details to those who have attended Reunion in recent years. Campus changes are also recorded: A “meditation center at Eliot House, the swimming pool in the new gym, and the new residence halls” — Abbey, Buckland, Ham and 1837.

A description of 1918’s reunion exhibit mentions memory books, photos, reunion costumes and gym clothing, including long-skirted uniforms. Class of 1918 alumna and former editor of the Mount Holyoke News, Helen Giddings, contributed a few of her own poems, one of which is titled, “To Mary Lyon.” Further pages hold names of deceased classmates, letters from a beloved local cobbler and financial reports, including a reunion gift of nearly $100,000!

Though the content of the reunion books has varied over time and with each unique class, the tradition is one that alumnae still hold dear. As reunion attendees leave campus with a renewed sense of camaraderie among their classmates they take with them a keepsake to return to again and again.

Caption tk

—BY ANNE PINKERTON

Read a poem by alumna Helen Giddings at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/giddings.

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ON DI SP L AY

Campus Commitment Signs of sustainability OVER THE PAST YEAR visitors to Mount Holyoke may have noticed the installation of 10 new signs throughout campus: green in color, green in focus. An initiative led by the Miller Worley Center for the Environment, and rooted in the current strategic plan, the signs help tell the story of the College’s commitment to sustainability — and to preparing the next generation of environmental leaders.

The signs highlight a range of topics, including the Campus Living Laboratory, energy-efficient features of Kendade Hall, local food initiatives and reduced food waste at the Dining Commons, and environmental internships and research opportunities.

Learn more about the Miller Worley Center for the Environment and ongoing sustainability priorities, including the College’s pledge for carbon neutrality, at mtholyoke.edu/mwce.

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“

This special blessing and sending is simply our way of bringing a moment

for you to intentionally hold as sacred — regardless of your religion or worldview

or what gives meaning to you. We take this time to exchange a spiritual blessing or simple gift from your heart with another member of your class.

— A N N E T T E M C D E R M O T T, D E A N O F R E L I G I O U S A N D S P I R I T U A L L I F E , D U R I N G T H E

”

C O L L E G E ’ S B L E S S I N G A N D S E N D I N G C E R E M O N Y F O R S E N I O R S , W H I C H TA K E S P L A C E I N T H E M A R Y D E A C O N B U L L A R D G A R D E N B E S I D E T H E C H A P E L E A C H M AY

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A PL ACE O F OU R OWN

WEB EXCLUSIVE

Deirdre Haber Malfatto

Read more about Commencement traditions at Mount Holyoke at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/ commencementtraditions.

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M Y VO I CE

A Year in Resilience Alumnae Quarterly essay contest, by the numbers About a year ago, in the summer 2017 issue, we announced an essay contest, open to all former students of Mount Holyoke.

The selected essays appear in this issue, on pages 22 to 25.

Here, on this page usually devoted to an essay, we share a little bit about the process of the contest and the alumnae who participated.

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Total number of submissions

12

Class animals of writers 9 blue lions 11 green griffins 3 yellow sphinxes 9 red pegasi 1 purple phoenix

Number of essays dealing with illness, disability or injury

80

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Fraction of essays submitted from writers who graduated before the year 2000

5

Number of alumnae and staff who served on the selection committee

52

Percentage of essays submitted in the two weeks before the December 15 deadline

2/3

45

Percentage of essays mentioning Mount Holyoke

1983, 1986, 1994, 2009 Graduating years of alumnae who served on the selection committee

Marina Li

1

Number of alumnae who submitted poetry

Number of essays written by alumnae who graduated in 2000 or later

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W E A R E MOU N T HOLYOK E .

Our paths to — and from — Mount Holyoke differ widely, but they all crossed here.

When you invest in Mount Holyoke, you pave the way for all those who follow in your footsteps. x

T H A N K YOU.

The Mount Holyoke Fund

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50 College Street, South Hadley, MA 01075

“Releasing my hold on what things should look like is probably the most valuable thing I’ve learned about surviving stress and trauma.”

—Jaime Jenett ’97 Read more on page 25

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