Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly Winter 2015 by Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College

Mount Holyoke win te r 2015

Alumnae Quarterly

Practical Pursuit

Infusing professional skills into a liberal arts education EMBEDDED PRACTITIONERS

I N TH I S I SSU E C H EMICAL REACTION CAMPUS UND E R QUARAN T I NE

NEXUS

COMMUNITY-BASED LEARNING

RAIS I N G BAC KYARD C H IC K EN S H ERBARI UM COLLECTION

LYNK ON THE ROAD

ADVISING

LIVING-LEARNING COMMUNITIES

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1/5/15 12:37 PM

President’s Pen I A LWAY S L O V E H E A R I N G students and

alumnae invoke Mary Lyon’s name. From “Mary Lyon would want me to take this job” to “Mary Lyon would want Mountain Day on Tuesday” (or Wednesday or Thursday or whenever a paper is due), calling forth our founder speaks to how close we feel to her legacy. We are all descendants of Mary Lyon. Even 178 years after the Seminary’s founding, we remain connected to her vision of excellence and opportunity. But alumnae and students aren’t the only ones who feel that special kinship. Families of alumnae also share that affinity: daughters, nieces, partners, husbands. In fact, all over the world there are who respect the education earned by the women

Cassandra West ’79 and her son Christopher West

in their families. Take eleven-year-old Elliott

highly principled, warm, and caring. Now the

Laibson-Brown of Minneapolis. His

third-generation owner of Clarkdale Fruit Farms,

mothers are Tracy Laibson ’98 and

Tom donated three apple trees to Mount Holyoke

Kristen Brown ’95. To hear Elliott tell

several years ago. “My pickup barely made it,” he

it, he has two favorite blankets for

recalls, “It was so loaded down.” But the trek was

curling up to read Harry Potter.

important to Tom—a lasting tribute to a woman

founder speaks to

“It’s a tie,” he says, between the

whose gifts were enhanced by the College. “She

“green, fuzzy one” and the blanket

was very forward thinking,” he says.

how close we feel

with all the Mount Holyoke buildings on it. Elliott has never been to Mount

is Cassandra West ’79. Chris remembers visit-

to her legacy.

Holyoke—at least not yet—but he

ing Mount Holyoke when he was in the sixth or

imagines it. “I think it’s on the side of

seventh grade. “Gorgeous,” he says. The campus

— LYN N PA SQ U E R E LL A ’80

a mountain,” he says. “With a forest.

impressed him as a place where students took

There are nice teachers and good

academics seriously. Now a professional in the

classroom materials.” It has to be a

Denver recreation department, Chris thinks

wonderful place. After all, he says, “It

about his mother’s college friends. “These

helped make my moms who they are.”

women have been around since I was born,” he

Calling forth our

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Tom Clark of Deerfield,

Then there’s Christopher West, whose mother

says. They stick together, embracing a passion

Massachusetts, could be called a grandson

for education and hard work and supporting

of Mary Lyon. His grandmother, Margaret

each other in ways that he finds admirable. “How

Bacon Griswold Clark, class of 1904, trans-

can you not be influenced by a network of posi-

ferred to Mount Holyoke from Wesleyan when

tive and successful women?” he asks. “If I have

the Connecticut institution stopped accepting

a family, they’ll be reminded every day of their

women. “Mount Holyoke rescued her,” Tom says.

motivated and smart grandmother.” What will

Although his grandmother died before he was

he tell them about Mount Holyoke? Two words,

born, Tom says his family remembers her as

Chris West says, “I’m thankful.”

John Kuchle

“ ”

sons and grandsons of Mary Lyon—boys and men

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W I N T E R 2 0 15

VO LU M E 9 9

NUMBER 1

Contents

D E PA R T M E N T S

2 LYONS SHARE

Questioning wage gap numbers, remembering campus transport, celebrating President Ham, sitting bells

5 UNCOMMON GROUND

F E AT U R E S

Chemical Reaction: Liz Daly; Breunig: James “FrameShot” Garner; Herbarium: James Gehrt

16 Practical Pursuit

Mount Holyoke stands apart when it comes to helping students infuse professional skills into a liberal arts education

9 Ten Minutes With Olympic Alpine Skier Imogene Opton Fish ’55 10 Insider’s View The Pump House

22 Chemical Reaction

12 Go Figure Alumnae-hosted Thanksgiving 2014

Two alumnae are demanding that companies remove toxins from the products women use every day

28 Campus Under Quarantine

In the fall of 1918 Mount Holyoke endured the deadliest flu outbreak the world had ever seen

32 A Once and Future Flu

Q&A with Miriam Aschkenasy ’94, Massachusetts General Hospital’s deputy director of global disaster response

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Asian Symposium, alumnae-student networking, Mountain Day mini-reunions, McCulloch Center celebrates ten years, CDC updates

13 The Maven Andrea LeClair ’02 on raising backyard chickens

34 MoHOME MEMORIES

A window into plant life of the past 35 On Display Miniature artist book 36 Then and Now Fire drills

37 CONNECTIONS

Student-alumnae mixer, European Symposium, alumnae travel opportunities, Reunion 2015 38 A Place of Our Own Abbey Chapel

40 CLASS NOTES 80 MY VOICE

Elliot Ruggles ’06 on “Uncommon Experience: Being Transgender at Mount Holyoke”

14 The Female Gaze Collage artist Janice Hayes-Cha ’84; circus artist Lauren Breunig ’08; authors Emily Arsenault ’98, Leslie Anne Miller ’73, and Katy Simpson Smith ’06

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LETTERS

FAC E B O O K

TWITTER

I N S TAG R A M

Lyons Share Shock” (fall, 2014) does not present a clear picture of wage inequality. One should not compare women overall to non-Hispanic white men (the $1 baseline). The appropriate comparison would be between non-Hispanic white women and non-Hispanic white men since the wages of Black women, Native American women, and Hispanic women contribute negatively to the seventy-eight cents overall wage of all women. The wages of Asian women contribute positively to that seventy-eight cents wage. I would also like to see comparisons between the subgroups of women and subgroups of men. The sixteen photos at the start of the article create the misleading

#mountholyoke @kitchencorners I so wish I was there

impression that women present a unified wage experience. I suspect that women of color, who know that they are earning less than their white counterparts, might find that it minimizes the wage discrepancy they face on the basis of both gender and color. The article would have been enhanced had it related the experience of one or two of the low-income women described as a group on page 20. It may be rare that a Mount Holyoke graduate finds herself a member of the “low-wage workforce,” but the voices of these women need to be heard directly. Advocacy for higher wages or salary is a learned skill appropriate for those women who have financial resources to sustain them for a period of unemployment. The reality of the low-wage experience is that negotiating as an individual for a higher salary may negotiate you out of a job that you are ill-equipped to lose. —Jane McMahon Kennedy ’69 Luray, VA

Editor’s note: The data included in “Sticker Shock” were taken from an American Association of University Women report on earnings ratios by race/ethnicity. Detailed earning comparisons across gender, race, and geographic location can be found at aauw.org. I am the proud father of two Moho graduates, Alix Boucher ’00 and Anne Gabrielle Boucher ’13. I strongly disagree when Erin McCarthy ’06 quotes Margaret Stearns Mansker ’99 as saying, “You know you are not supposed to talk about your salary.” Of course you are allowed to speak about your salary, and in fact writing or telling you it’s

Join the Conversation quarterly@mtholyoke.edu

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not allowed is illegal and in breach of the very basic protection of organizing spelled out by federal law. If this is part of any company policy, you can complain to your local National Labor Relations Board, and they will investigate and have this changed. I know because that’s exactly what we did with Lionbridge Technologies, a Microsoft contractor that tried, like so many companies, to prevent its employees from comparing compensation and finding out they are being discriminated against, which is another breach of the law. The problem is most employees seem to ignore the law or are afraid to use it to complain. We used it and also realized that trying to negotiate individually would only lead us so far. Therefore the advice I would give and that is missing from this article is “organize” to create unions as so many women did who brought us the eight-hour workday, the weekend, etc. Don’t choose to fight this injustice on an individual basis only by better negotiating for yourself. Organize and negotiate collectively. —Philippe Boucher P ’00, 13 via Association website

Lauren Kodiak

ON STICKER SHOCK The graph on pp. 18-19 of “Sticker

alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

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WE SHARE D

Thank you for highlighting the challenges that women continue to face in the workplace in terms of earning equal pay for equal work. How can we still be fighting this fight in 2014? My work focuses on the ways in which people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgender (LGBT) experience economic insecurity as a result of anti-LGBT laws and discrimination. Households led by two women, for example, have much lower incomes than either households led by two men or households led by heterosexual couples, due in large part to the impact of sexism. Research finds that transgender people have extremely low incomes compared to their non-transgender counterparts. What’s more, emerging research shows that when transgender women transition, they actually earn less than they did when they presented as men at work, while transgender men see a bump in their salaries. And this doesn’t even take into consideration the challenges that LGBT people face in accessing benefits like health insurance for themselves and their families or taking job-protected leave to care for a loved one. We all have multiple identities—as women, people of color, individuals living with disabilities, and people with varying sexual orientations and gender identities. This diversity improves the bottom line for employers, but it should not also result in a smaller paycheck for anyone. —Naomi Goldberg ’04 via email

Here’s a footnote to your story about President Roswell Gray Ham. During a reunion I discovered that President Ham had disappeared. Some friends and I wandered into Ham Hall, where we had lived 1970-71. “Roswell,” as we affectionately called him, was a friendly presence in the entry hall in the form of a bronze bust. His nose was shiny from being rubbed for good luck. I was distressed to see that he wasn’t there. People at the desk didn’t know why he was missing. I had to find out. I contacted facilities and archives. They were not able to help. I wrote to President Joanne Creighton. She didn’t know either but thanked me for my “sleuthing” and referred me to Wendy Watson, at the time curator of the Mount Holyoke Art Museum. Watson told me the sculpture had disappeared in or before 1974 and had never resurfaced. Back then, she said, the campus collection of portraits was not systematized and tracked. An investigation was done at the time of an inventory in 1974, and no clues were found. Watson speculated that the sculpture may have been tossed into the lake from a Ham Hall balcony and might some day be rediscovered “when archaeologists of the 23rd century excavate the lake bed.” Unless an alert reader of the Quarterly can shed some light on this case, it will remain a mystery. —Elise Power ’72, Pittsburgh, PA

Rebecca Lee Rose ’15

Lauren Kodiak

PRESIDENTIAL HISTORY Thank you for your article “The Great Divide,”

by Hugh Howard (fall 2014, p. 22). I regret not learning more about those who created my beloved Mount Holyoke when I was a student, so I appreciate the interesting and informative piece about Mary Woolley, who helped shape the College in so many ways. Please continue to include historical articles in the future!

Another secret message found in the library. This one is a quote from a song written by Edith Piaf in 1945 and sung by many other singers as well, including Louis Armstrong.

“When you kiss me heaven sighs, and though I close my eyes I see la vie en rose.” Happy Tuesday MHC alumnae! Original French lyrics by Edith Piaf, with music by frequent Piaf collaborator Marguerite Monnot and Louis Guglielmi. English translation by Mack David. Written in 1945, first recorded in 1947 (by Piaf herself, of course). Ask French 225 students, both past and present, about this song: they know all about it! —Chris Rivers,

Mount Holyoke French professor I took this photo while working at the library this summer! —Rebecca Lee Rose ’15

—Anne Werley Smallman ’97 via email Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly

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M OU NT H O LYOK E A LU M NA E QUA RT E R LY Winter 2015 Volume 99 Number 1

The article on

EDITORIAL AND DESIGN TEAM

Carly Kite Senior Director of Marketing and Communications Jennifer Grow ’94 Editor Millie Rossman Creative Director Taylor Scott Associate Director of Digital Communications CONTR IBUTORS

Alicia Doyon Lauren Kodiak Stasia Walmsley Linda Valencia Xu ’16

The Alumnae Association of

QUARTERLY COMMITTEE

Mount Holyoke College, Inc.

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

50 College Street South Hadley, MA 01075-1486 413-538-2300 alumnae.mtholyoke.edu quarterly@mtholyoke.edu Ideas expressed in the Alumnae Quarterly do not necessarily reflect the views of Mount Holyoke College or the Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College. To update your information, contact Alumnae Information Services at

ALUMNAE ASSOCIATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS

President Marcia Brumit Kropf ’67 Vice President Julianne Trabucchi Puckett ’91 Treasurer and Chair, Finance Committee Lynda Dean Alexander ’80

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

Clerk Ashanta Evans-Blackwell ’95

POST M AST ER

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

(ISSN 0027-2493; USPS 365-280) Please send form 3579 to Alumnae Information Services Mount Holyoke Alumnae Association 50 College Street South Hadley, MA 01075-1486

Alumnae Trustee Ann Blake ’85 Chair, Nominating Committee Radley Emes ’00 Director-at-Large Emily E. Renard ’02 Chair, Communications Committee Shannon Dalton Giordano ’91 Young Alumnae Representative Elaine C. Cheung ’09 Chair, Clubs Committee Elizabeth Redmond VanWinkle ’82 Chair, Volunteer Stewardship Committee Ellen L. Leggett ’75 Executive Director Jane E. Zachary ex officio without vote

BELL DESK DUTIES One very cold and blustery winter

Mary Woolley in the latest

evening in 1950 I found myself sitting bells in Rockefeller Hall. It had been a very quiet evening until the bell rang and in tumbled two men dressed in heavy woolen coats and all wrapped up in thick scarves. They were also quite inebriated. They introduced themselves and said that they were supposed to be doing a reading for the English department. I didn’t know which auditorium or lecture hall they should go to, so I told them to go back to the main road and turn in at the main gate and hopefully someone could direct them. About an hour or so later a group from the dorm returned from the program. So he did indeed get there, albeit a bit late, which he said was because of bad directions. He, as you have probably guessed, was the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. The fall Alumnae Quarterly with the sitting bells article (“For Whom the Bell Tolls,” p. 34) arrived just as the New York Times had several articles about him for the centenary of his birth on October 27, 2014.

@aamhc MHC Alumnae

—Ann Burrow ’51, Hamden, CT GETTING AROUND I am responding to the article in the

most recent Quarterly regarding the transportation system for what was the Four College, later to morph into the Five College system (“Intercollege Transportation,” fall 2014, p. 36). I was the student president of the Four College Committee, elected in the second semester of 1968. I subsequently became the first president of the Five College Committee, as it was then called, as groundbreaking for Hampshire occurred in the early fall of 1968. Ironically, two of my cousins later graduated from Hampshire College.

Quarterly is absolutely fascinating and still so relevant to women in HE today! C A S E Y B R I E N Z A ’03 @C A S E Y B R I E N Z A

Transportation between campuses was not a well-oiled machine at that time. It took considerable effort to get the system into gear. While cooperation and collaboration were being integrated into four distinct, individual schools, there were some kinks that appeared, not the least of which was what the various student associations were responsible for funding. It appears that those bumps in the road have been resolved and that buses are now an accepted part of the norm. It’s good to know that our efforts were worth the time. —Kathie Florsheim ’69 via email During my years at MHC, there was an hourly van to Smith and an hourly bus to Hampshire, Amherst, and UMass. There was only one stop at each school. UMass had a free bus to Hampshire Mall, so we used to go there on the Five College bus on weekends and catch the bus from there to the mall. I took courses at all four other schools, and I have to say the Five College buses always served me well. —Lisa Halliday ’79 via Association website

alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

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N E WS

TEN MINUTES WITH

INSIDER’S VIEW

GO FIGURE

T H E M AV E N

THE FEMALE GAZE

Uncommon Ground Asian Alumnae Symposium Draws Crowd from Around the World

Ron Yue

Sheila Lirio Marcelo ’93, founder and CEO of Care.com, delivered the keynote address on Friday evening.

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Mount Holyoke College’s Asian Alumnae Symposium drew more than ninety guests, including alumnae from all over the world, to Hong Kong November 7–9, to explore the topic Women and Entrepreneurship: Staying Relevant in a Changing World. The event, organized collaboratively by the College, the Alumnae Association, and a committee that included Eleanor Chang ’78, Barbee Chuidian ’90, Leslie Fu Pang ’97, and Nancy Sun ’80, featured panel discussions, networking, and alumnae-led tours of the city as well as an awards presentation honoring two accomplished alumnae. During a festive ceremony the Alumnae Association presented the Mary Lyon Award to Maimuna Ahmad ’09, founder and CEO of Teach for Bangladesh, a startup nonprofit organization working to eliminate educational disparity in Bangladesh by enlisting diverse leaders to spend two years as full-time teachers in low-income schools before going on to shape systemic change. The Alumnae Association’s Achievement Award was presented to Maria S. (Corina)

Gochoco-Bautista ’78, currently senior economic advisor in the economics and research department of the Asian Development Bank while on leave as professor of economics at the University of the Philippines School of Economics. She has published widely in the areas of open economy macroeconomics and monetary policy. Hong Kong was a fitting location for the weekend’s theme, which aimed to “explore how women, education, social consciousness, and the entrepreneurial spirit are reshaping Asia and empowering women to become successful entrepreneurs in a fast-changing world and an increasingly global economy,” noted Chang. See photos from the event at alumnae.mtholyoke. edu/asiansymposium2014.

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly

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Career Center Launches New Programs College career offices used to be places only seniors visited, looking for their first job after graduation. Liz Lierman, director of Mount Holyoke’s Career Development Center (CDC) since May, has a far broader vision for her office. Lierman’s office has three main goals. First, students should feel prepared for multiple careers. Second, the CDC should connect students to recruiters, professionals, internships, and other opportunities. And third, a relatively new priority for MHC, Lierman says the CDC should integrate career development throughout students’ college experiences, including co- and extracurricular activities. Since Lierman’s arrival, the number of visits to and participation in the center’s programs, which already were robust, have increased substantially.

Last year more than half the student body, and 76 percent of seniors, used the CDC for advising and/or attended a workshop or group program. One pilot program brings CDC services from their office to other central spaces on campus. The CDC also reaches beyond campus by leading career-exploration trips such as the one on October 27 to New York City, which took eighteen students to tour financial trading floors and network with MHC alumnae on Wall Street. CDC staff are always working to gather information about student needs and preferences and devising new ways to meet them. “We are looking at faculty, students, staff, and alumnae opinions about what we’re doing now and where there might be gaps. Then we’re piloting small changes, and we will integrate the successful ones in future plans,” Lierman says.

MHC Field Hockey Sets Ranking Record In November, the Mount Holyoke field hockey team competed in the NCAA championship tournament for the second year in a row, winning the first round at home and falling to defending national champion Bowdoin in the second round. The Lyons ended the season with a 17-4 record and achieved a ranking of thirteen—their highest ever.

Fall Faculty Dance Concert Brings Together Diverse Inspirations What do the Hindu goddess Ganga and Henri Matisse have in common? Each was the inspiration for a piece in the Mount Holyoke College Dance Department’s Fall Faculty Concert, which took place November 13–15. The varied program featured works by guest choreographers Claudia Lavista and Omar Carrum and MHC faculty and staff Paul Matteson, Ranjanaa Devi, Peter Jones, and Charles Flachs.

alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

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Leymah Gbowee P’16 Speaks at McCulloch Center’s Tenth Anniversary

MHC Endowment Surpasses $700 Million The Mount Holyoke College endowment has grown to more than $717 million for the first time. Shannon Gurek, vice president for finance and administration, attributed this milestone to the continued generosity of alumnae and other donors, who contributed $13 million to the endowment in the last fiscal year, and to the alumnae-based volunteer investment committee that, along with the consulting group Cambridge Associates, manages the College’s endowment. Income from the endowment covers about 25 percent of the College’s annual operating expenses, funding priorities such as student scholarships, faculty compensation, research opportunities,

On October 23, Nobel Laureate Leymah Gbowee P’16 delivered the keynote address at the tenth anniversary celebration of the McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives. A Liberian peace activist, trained social worker, public speaker, and women’s rights advocate, Gbowee received the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for leading Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace, a nonviolent movement that brought together Christian and Muslim women to play a pivotal role in ending Liberia’s fourteen-year civil war in 2003. In 2012, Gbowee founded the Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa (GPFA), which focuses on providing education and leadership opportunities that prepare youth to contribute to sustained development in Africa. In her lecture, titled “Women’s Leadership: Ending Wars and Building Peace,” Gbowee spoke on how her life during the war drew her to activism, saying, “I tell people one day I was seventeen, and in four hours, I was an adult, and I never went back.” In particular, she emphasized the role of women in building peace: “When women are left out of the equation when it comes to peace building, it becomes very difficult for them to be able to do well.” Moreen Tonny ’15, who was an intern at GPFA and attended the event, says, “Leymah Gbowee is one of the few people who actually make me believe that peace is possible in this world. She is an incredibly strong woman.” Established in 2004, the McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives was envisioned to weave global competence and international education into college curricula through courses, conferences, research, international internships, study abroad programs, and collaborations with external organizations to prepare Mount Holyoke students for citizenship and careers in today’s globally interdependent world. For more information on the tenth anniversary of the McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives, visit alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/mcculloch.

facilities and equipment, and various programs and awards. For more information, visit alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/endowment.

2014 Treasurer’s Report Online The Alumnae Association’s treasurer’s report for the fiscal year July 1, 2013 to June 30, 2014 is now online at alumnae.mtholyoke. edu/treasurersreport. The Association’s assets, liabilities, and net assets for the year are included in the report as the Statement of Financial Position.

Michael Angelo

To request a paper copy, contact Watch Nobel Peace Prize winner Leymah Gbowee’s keynote address at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/gboweespeech.

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Karen Northup-Scudder at 413-538-2300.

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From New York to Bangladesh, Alumnae Gathered for a Mountain Day Scoop

Alumnae & Students Network at Lynk Event

On Monday, September 29, President Pasquerella made an announcement: It was Mountain Day! Students made the trek to the top of Mt. Holyoke or slept in, enjoying a day off. Alumnae around the world gathered at local creameries at 18:37 (6:37 p.m.) to connect with other alums and enjoy celebratory scoops of ice cream together. Approximately 131 total

LGBTQ Alum Oral History Project

View a slideshow of alumnae and students networking at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/careerfair2014.

When Archives and Special reviewed the College’s holdings, the department discovered a distinct lack of representation for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) student population. As a result, ASC is embarking on a project to document the Mount Holyoke student experience. The archives team is seeking alums who identify as LGBTQ and are available to come to the College to be interviewed about their student years. If you have questions or are interested in participating in this project, please email archives@mtholyoke.edu.

events—in thirty-eight US states, including Hawaii, and twenty-two countries—were held across the world, up from ninety-six in 2013. “Getting together with these younger alumnae is always magical!” says Sylvia Van Sinderen ’73, who met up with ten alumnae at Ashley’s Ice Cream in New Haven, Connecticut. View a slideshow of the Mountain Day alumnae reunions at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/mountainday reunions2014.

alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

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Organized by the Alumnae Association in collaboration with the Career Development Center (CDC), the Alumnae and Student Career Networking Fair at Mount Holyoke College on November 2 gave students the opportunity to get to know alumnae one-on-one as well as to learn about a range of career paths. Students attended alumnae-led panels on “Education, Journalism, Media, and Communications,” “Global Business, Health, and Scientific Research,” “Law and Public Policy,” and “Nonprofits” as well as workshops on financial preparedness after college and using the Mount Holyoke Alumnae Association Career Network. The networking fair fits nicely with the College’s Lynk experience, according to Liz Lierman, director of the CDC. The Lynk is designed to get students to think about how to prepare themselves for potential careers within the context of a liberal arts education. Networking with alumnae helps provide advice and context for that self-reflection process. Jinyoung Park ’15, a senior sociology major, said she was surprised that the alumnae she spoke with had what she called “nonlinear career trajectories.” The takeaway message: “Find out what is really important to me at this point in my life and just do it.” Bharati Manandhar ’15, a senior economics major, realized the importance of thinking about her future. “I learned to think long term about where I want to be in my life, rather than worrying about my first job out of college,” she said.

Ben Barnhart

Collections (ASC) recently

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ten minutes with

OLYMP IC A L P I NE S K I E R

Achieving Great Heights At the age of nineteen, I M O G E N E O P T O N F I S H ’ 5 5 traveled to Oslo, Norway, to represent the United States in women’s slalom alpine skiing at the 1952 Winter Olympics, placing fifth. After graduating from Mount Holyoke with a major in art, she raised three daughters, received master’s degrees from Harvard and Northeastern, and worked in higher education, retiring in 1992. In October 2013 she was inducted into the Mount Holyoke Athletics Hall of Fame. Today, she’s traded downhill skiing for cross-country skiing, which, she says, she’ll never give up.

“

At the level of the Olympics . . . if you’re going to do well, you have to go a little bit faster than you think is probably

”

Deirdre Haber Malfatto

smart to do.”

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On her journey to the Olympics: I started skiing when our family moved from Germany to North Conway, New Hampshire. I got my first pair of skis when I was eight years old, and I just took to it. In high school, I was the only girl on the ski team, which was a little awkward. In 1951, I took a year off from college at the University of New Hampshire and went to Sun Valley, Idaho, for a program for up-andcoming skiers. We’d wait tables in the evenings in the resort and ski during the day with a coach. We went around to all these races, four of which were tryouts for the Olympics, and I managed to do well enough to be chosen for the team. It was a big thrill; I couldn’t get over the fact that I made it. I then took another year off from college to compete in the 1952 Olympic Games. On her time at Mount Holyoke: After the Olympics, I decided it was time to get serious about my education and applied to Mount Holyoke as a transfer student. I was accepted and came to campus in fall 1952. It was really hard to be back in college—a more structured environment than I was used to— after two years off. It took a while to adjust to taking tests and writing papers again. I lived in Mandelle Hall and loved walking early in the morning to my 8:00 a.m. classes across the bridge over Lower Lake. I remember all sorts of things from my time at Mount Holyoke—my political science professor Ruth Lawson, hiking up the hill behind Mandelle to keep fit for skiing, and going to Northampton for a beer. On her greatest accomplishment: I’m very fortunate to have had the Olympic skiing experience, but I also had a wonderful husband, kids, grandkids, career, and volunteer work that have meant so much to me. I am very proud of my family life. The fact that all my kids and grandkids are really nice people, responsible, and contribute to their communities—I take a lot of pride in that.

Watch more of the interview at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/imogenefish.

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The Pump House

The Pump House, and what was referred to as the “kissing bridge,” were familiar sights to Mount Holyoke women of earlier generations. Although the original kissing bridge is gone, the Pump House remains, situated along the stream that runs between Upper Lake and Lower Lake, now surrounded by the Willits-Hallowell Center and Prospect. It is the oldest building on campus, having survived the numerous fires that destroyed so many of Mount Holyoke’s original structures. n In 1852, the Trustees approved the

n Almost fifty years later the Mount

construction of the building and the pump that it protected in order to supply the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary with running water. “That was an eventful day in the history of Holyoke,” an unknown student wrote in a letter home, “when water was first introduced to the Seminary building,” a huge structure that housed every aspect of students’ lives and was located along College Street. Instead of long pilgrimages to the basement with pail in hand to dip hot water from a great copper boiler (especially arduous for those living on the fourth floor), students now merely stepped outside of their rooms to draw water from a hall faucet.

Holyoke News published a humorous, albeit macabre, story entitled “Cats Prepare for Feline Farewell, Receive Royal Treatment in Shack.” By that time the Pump House had acquired the nickname the Cat House, due to its use as a holding cell for stray cats before they were euthanized and used as specimens by the zoological department. The “cat cells,” where felines were held, were actually partitioned cages. Most of the animals were only kept overnight, and the building was heated so that the cats were comfortable until their ultimate demise.

n In 1879, a separate artesian well

House was temporarily restored to its original purpose and for a while housed a monitoring system that helped control the flow of stream water for irrigation of the Orchards Golf Club. Now it is used as an ad hoc storage facility, holding pails, bug nets, and supplies for the nearby Talcott Greenhouse. — B Y T AY L O R S C O T T

James Gehrt

was dug that supplied drinking water to the campus, and the unfiltered brook water from the Pump House was used for washing. Later, when the College acquired a comprehensive water-purifying system around 1908, the building fell into disuse.

n In more recent years the Pump

A plaque on the front of the building tells a brief history of the Pump House.

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Taylor Scott

insiderâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s view

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View a slideshow of the Pump House through history at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/pumphouse.

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go figure

Alumnae-hosted Thanksgiving 2014

International students join alumnae for a holiday meal

Number of students who participated

2018

Class with the largest number of participants

Number of students who were paired with a “bridges” alumna, a graduate of the class fifty years prior. Judi Harris ’65 hosted 2015 classmates Ly Nguyen and Huong Vu

Number of alumnae hosts who opened their homes in New England

40 Percent of student participants from China

Percent of student participants from the class of 2018

8554

Number of miles from Mount Holyoke to Vietnam, the farthest home country of twelve student participants

2001

Year the program was started by former Alumnae Association President Cynthia Reed ’80. Ann Quinton Slocum ’80 and Donna Van Handle ’74 now carry on the program.

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the maven

THE CHICK E N MAV E N

Raising Backyard Chickens A N D R E A L E C L A I R ’ 0 2 had no farming experience when she first

got chickens, but now she has a flock of ten in her five-acre backyard in Western Massachusetts. LeClair was a professional librarian for eight years and now is marketing coordinator for Riptide Publishing. She blogs about life on her quirky farm at farmlifesupport.wordpress.com.

Have you ever had fresh eggs laid the same morning? They taste better and are better for you than store-bought eggs. Best of all they came from your chickens, so you know what went into them—sweet grass, organic feed, no growth hormones or pesticides. Chickens are clever, have strong preferences about their food, home, and companions, and will come running when they know you have treats. They have a wide range of speech beyond clucking, and they are fun to watch as they forage for bugs or bask in the sun.

Start easy. You think you’d like your own flock of backyard chickens, but you’re not sure about baby chicks? Start with pullets— young chickens who have just started to lay. Most catalogs sell chicks because they need to be shipped. (That’s right! Your mail is peeping!) But many local farmers will raise chicks for you until they’re eight- to twelve-weeks old. And since chicks are very hard to sex, starting with pullets means you’re also much less likely to get a surprise cockerel. Find a supplier by asking at a feed store, CSA, or farmers’ market, or even look on Craigslist.

that it offers shelter from the weather and protection from predators. Free ranging is great for chickens, but you want to be sure that they don’t wander into your neighbors’ gardens. Covered runs provide the best protection, but you can also get electric fencing or movable runs called “chicken tractors” to keep your flock’s grazing area fresh. Supplement their diet with grass clippings, cracked corn, and stone grit.

But what about the noise? Roosters are wonderful guardians of their flock, but not everyone wants the constant crowing. Some city rules will even prohibit roosters because of the noise. You don’t need a rooster to get eggs. Hens lay eggs daily whether or not those eggs are fertilized. If you do decide to get a rooster, you can have only

AR E YO U A MAVE N?

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

one per flock of about twelve hens or the birds will get territorial and fight.

Finding the right fit. Check your local ordinances—you might be surprised what is allowed. Research different breeds. Do you want brown eggs, or white, or even blue or green? What are your climate conditions? Do you want chickens with ornamental feathers? Find the right kind of chicken for you, and don’t be afraid to try heritage breeds. Check your library for books, visit backyardchickens.com, and ask around. You’ll find that people who keep chickens will love to talk about their flocks! —A N D R E A L E C L A I R ’ 0 2

Watch Andrea’s chickens in action at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/ chickenmaven.

No barn? No problem.

Marinacci

Chickens don’t need a lot of space. A general guideline is two square feet per bird for the coop and four square feet per bird for the run. What’s most important about chickens’ housing is

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the female gaze

BOOKS

What Strange Creatures Emily Arsenault HARPE RCO LLI NS

COL L AGE

Picking up the Pieces In 2006, a year after enduring aggressive treatment for breast cancer, Janice Hayes-Cha ’84,

with her bald head and sullen expression. Hayes-Cha’s process this time was

a mother to four children under the age of

different. She formed her first portrait by

five, learned she had cancer again; this time

artfully cutting and layering the cards from

it was in her colon. Determined to make

the stacks that had filled her hospital room,

sense of her experiences, she turned to art.

creating a detailed collage depicting herself

Many years prior, Hayes-Cha had faced a different but difficult series of challenges— a divorce from her first husband, the death

as a cancer patient. Other collages followed. After receiving a clean bill of health, Hayes-Cha and her family relocated to Philadelphia from Boston, a move that prompted her to make the decision to pursue her collage art full time. “When people in Philadelphia asked what I did,” she says, “I just said I was an artist, and no one batted an eye. I had a whole other identity in Boston; it would have been harder to do it there.” In Boston, Hayes-Cha had spent twenty

Love and family meet scandal and murder. Quiet academic Theresa Battle finds herself out of her element when her brother is arrested for murder. Attempting to prove his innocence, Theresa starts a series of investigations that lure her deeper into danger. This novel explores familial bonds, academia, and young adulthood. EMILY ARSENAULT ’98 studied philosophy at Mount Holyoke and has worked as a lexicographer, an English teacher, and a Peace Corps volunteer in rural South Africa. Her other novels include The Broken Teaglass, In Search of the Rose Notes, and Miss Me When I’m Gone.

years in various marketing, fundraising, and healthcare management roles, most recently as executive director of Massachusetts General Hospital’s Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease. She credits her decades of professional work experience as invaluable to the launch of her thriving art business. A member of the women’s art collective MamaCITA, HayesCha is proud to be an active participant in—and be supported by—Philadelphia’s vibrant art scene. (She also sells her work at janicehayescha.com.) But she is also quick to point out that art was not the only Uncommon Women, Mount Holyoke College, 2014. Mixed-media collage, 9 in x 12 in

thing to help her through her illness. “My Mount Holyoke friends have been my biggest cheerleaders—getting me

of her father, and the subsequent death of

through cancer, attending my first solo

her mother. To help understand her own

exhibit, buying my art. They’ve been

complex feelings at the time, she turned

phenomenal,” she notes. “My circle gets

to her longtime passion for art, painting

larger over the years. I feel like I have more

self-portraits. After her cancer diagnoses,

Mount Holyoke friends now than I did

she decided to create a new self-portrait to

thirty years ago.”

solidify this period in her life—complete

—BY LAUREN KODIAK

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The Story of Land and Sea: A Novel Katy Simpson Smith HARPE RCO LLI NS

A story of women dying prematurely and of the men left behind to mourn them, The Story of Land and Sea is set in coastal North Carolina at the end of the American Revolution. The novel follows three generations of a family and their ties to their new country.

KATY SIMPSON SMITH ’06 received an MFA from Bennington College and a PhD in history from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the author of the nonfiction book We Have Raised All of You: Motherhood in the South, 1750–1835. The Story of Land and Sea is her first novel.

Start With a House, Finish With a Collection Leslie Anne Miller SCAL A ARTS

Start With a House, Finish With a Collection documents Miller’s expanding love for American art and antiques. Filled with photographs of a diverse collection of furniture, folk art, and paintings, the book illustrates how to integrate antiques into a modern lifestyle and includes historic details of selected works. LESLIE ANNE MILLER ’73 received her law degree from

James “FrameShot” Garner

Temple University and is former general counsel of Pennsylvania and former chair of the Board of Trustees of Mount Holyoke. This is her first book.

See more recent alumnae books at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/ winter2015books.

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AR E YO U AN ARTI ST?

C IRCUS A RTS

Email your submission to quarterly@ mtholyoke.edu.

Balancing Act When Lauren Breunig ’08 took a camp counselor position at Circus Smirkus in 2006 hoping to work with children and get a taste of what it would mean to work in the field of education, she wasn’t expecting to propel herself head first into circus life. Now a full-time circus artist, Breunig works at the New England Center for Circus Arts (NECCA) in Brattleboro, Vermont. She spends her days training students of all ages while continuing to refine her own skills. Breunig’s summer at Circus Smirkus drew her to study with El Circo del Mundo, a social circus organization in Santiago, Chile, where she spent a semester abroad. There, she completed an independent study project on experiential education, a project that solidified her commitment to pursuing a career as a circus artist and expanded on her academic work in her major in critical social thought. After graduation, Breunig spent two years with NECCA ’s intensive performance training programs, learning circus tricks as well as the intricacies of producing an artistic program. In the middle of her second year at circus school, she designed her own apparatus, the Sliding Trapeze.

In 2012, Breunig moved to Arizona, where she taught and performed with several studios and events companies. She also worked with an Arizona State University troupe, an experience that allowed her to develop her own characters within an ensemble cast and to explore unconventional movement. As the only aerialist, she says, “It was an interesting challenge to work with the rest of the dancers and actors on the ground . . . then try to translate that movement into aerial work on my own.” Now back in Brattleboro, Breunig is balancing her dual roles as teacher and performer, and sometimes she finds it is her students who are teaching her new skills. “It’s very humbling when your eight-year-old camper is teaching you how to juggle,” she says. Someday Breunig would love to go on tour with a circus company, but for now she enjoys being a part of such a supportive community and says, “NECCA was a really huge part of my formation as a circus artist and as a teacher.” She also hones her performing skills as a member of Windborne, a group of singers dedicated to American folk music and traditional vocal music from around the world. — BY L I N D A VA L E N C I A X U ’ 1 6 Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly

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Mount Holyoke stands apart in a crowded higher-ed landscape when it comes to helping students infuse professional skills into a liberal arts education

BY JILLIAN DUNHAM â&#x20AC;&#x2122;97 WITH ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CARLY KITE Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly

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Passing through Mount Holyoke’s McCulloch Center one day, Norma Shindika ’16 saw a listing for an internship with Embark Energy—whose mission is to empower clean energy entrepreneurs around the world. The opportunity was doubly intriguing because it was in her home country. Shindika came to Mount Holyoke from Tanzania, where caring for the environment has become an increasingly vital concern. Deforestation has threatened native species of plants and animals and is a major contributor to broader social concerns like climate change and the spread of disease. Yet it has continued unabated. “The forest industry there is very important,” Shindika says. Alternative businesses struggle to find a foothold; investors and locals have tended to back timber, a booming business that promises, at least for now, much bigger returns. “The clean energy sector has been given a lot of backlash,” she says. An economics major, Shindika knew about the banking and finance sides of the energy field, but she wanted to explore other ways in which she might expand her knowledge. After landing the internship with Embark Energy, Shindika spent two months in Arusha, Tanzania, learning about every aspect of the company. As part of her work, she created teaching materials and social media strategies for emerging business owners and helped formulate business plans to strengthen existing companies. Shindika’s internship also connected her to two Mount Holyoke alumnae, Evgenia Sokolova ’01, director of Embark’s finance network, and Maria Alaguru ’03, who works in communications at the company.

Learn more about LEAP presentations that students gave on their summer research and internship experiences at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/leap2014.

And, she met a potential investor interested in supporting Embark entrepreneurs, an experience that gave her unexpected insight into the small-business world. “My geology class at Mount Holyoke gave me a background in renewable energy,” Shindika says. “But [at Embark]I learned about the structure of private investment in the world of renewable energy financing, and I got a chance to talk to entrepreneurs about the challenges they face when interacting with foreign investors.” Internship experiences like the one Shindika enjoyed are but one, albeit critical, piece of Mount Holyoke’s Lynk experience—a comprehensive effort to integrate classroom learning with every other part of a Mount Holyoke education, from extracurricular activities to academic advising to networking with alumnae.

DELIVERING ON A PROMISE

ast July, a Time magazine article touted Mount Holyoke alongside two universities as “more the exception than the rule” among institutions that offer “options under which students get to work with employers in their chosen fields before graduation.” Prior to that, President Lynn Pasquerella ’80 made headlines with the announcement that the College will guarantee funding for one qualified summer internship or research experience for every student at Mount Holyoke. Many students will have multiple internships throughout their undergraduate careers, but the opportunity for guaranteed funding is only offered by a handful of small liberal arts colleges. Students approved for domestic internships via The Lynk receive $3,000 in funding, and students pursuing international opportunities receive $3,600—numbers that have already translated into increased

access to professional placements for a greater number of students as well as increased access to fields that typically don’t offer paid internships. Since the launch of The Lynk in fall 2013, internships are up 55 percent. And this past summer 417 students had funded opportunities. Lyndsey Ingram ’01 can understand why. During the summer after her sophomore year, she applied for a prestigious internship at Sotheby’s in London. She got an interview and managed to navigate the process while visiting a friend there over break. After landing the offer, she quickly questioned how she would pay for transportation, lodging, and basic living expenses. Back in South Hadley, Ingram asked the College for a grant in order to support her work that summer. She received $2,000, which allowed her to spend two summers working at Sotheby’s, an experience that led directly to her current work as a gallerist at Sims Reed in London. “That’s where I started my career,” Ingram says. “And it was made possible by the money that Mount Holyoke gave to me.” According to Associate Dean of Faculty and Professor of Sociology Eleanor Townsley, what’s new about The Lynk is the academic infrastructure that connects systematic funding to a broader process of intellectual self-reflection—a combination that better prepares students to synthesize learning experiences throughout their four years. “What’s different now is that the College has formalized the idea that the internship does not stand alone,” says Townsley, who has been involved in various iterations of MHC’s curriculum-to-career initiatives over the years. “Students applying for internships go through

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The internship is but one of many pieces of The Lynk experience that prepares students to synthesize learning inside the classroom and out.

EMBEDDED PRACTITIONERS Professionals across fields, including alumnae, help mentor students via targeted classroom projects

NEXUS NEXUS combines academic course work, a pre-experience course, a practical experience (internship, research project, or summer job), and a post-experience course

COMMUNITY-BASED LEARNING Students work with local communities through courses, independent studies, internships, and research and service projects

LYNK ON THE ROAD Small groups of students travel off campus to meet with alumnae in specific industries and discuss career development

ADVISING

LIVING-LEARNING COMMUNITIES

Academic deans, faculty and staff members, peers, the CDC, and alumnae form an extensive, four-year, studentadvising network

Students who share academic or social and cultural interests form clusters to create more intimate residence halls

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a set of guided exercises. When they return from the experience, they are required to reflect on what they have learned, think about how it connects to their academic program, and then present to an audience. We have found that this process helps students to integrate classroom learning with practical experience and talk about it in a compelling way.” According to the director of the College’s Career Development Center (CDC), Liz Lierman, The Lynk is also unique because each student can customize her own journey. “The internship funding process is stu-

dent-driven, providing an important chance for students to consider their goals, then identify and pursue internships that will help them achieve these goals,” says Lierman, who took the reins of the CDC last May. “The CDC supports students as they envision the myriad ways their academic interests can be used to facilitate change in the world,” continues Lierman. “We help them translate academic skills and achievements into the language of their chosen field and form mutually rewarding connections to alumnae, employers, and other professionals.”

Mount Holyoke students intern at some of the most influential organizations in the world.

UNICEF • SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION • CONDÉ NAST • HEIFER INTERNATIONAL • NATIONAL AUDUBON SOCIETY • BREAST CANCER FUND • US DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES • PARTNERS IN HEALTH • SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM • THE NATURE CONSERVANCY • MICROSOFT • AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL • PENTAGON • DELOITTE • UNITED NATIONS • GOOGLE • NASA • KPMG • PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS • OGILVY & MATHER • US DEPARTMENT OF STATE • CNBC • GOLDMAN SACHS • DISCOVERY CHANNEL • JP MORGAN • WORLD BANK • OXFAM • CITIBANK • NEW YORK TIMES • GOOGLE • SIEMENS • DOW JONES • SOTHEBY’S • PFIZER • MERRILL LYNCH • FULBRIGHT COMMISSION • ALCATEL-LUCENT • WHITE HOUSE • 20

LEANING ON ALUMNAE

irsten Edepli ’90 has had a half-dozen Mount Holyoke students come through her lab at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. Recently those students have been supported by funds from The Lynk. Interns work with some 5,000 zebrafish, which members of Edepli’s team examine to help develop treatments for two kinds of liver disease. “We go by the basic paradigm that by understanding the liver of a fish we can understand what goes wrong in the liver of a person,” she says. All interns are paired with a postdoctoral scholar when they get to Edepli’s lab, which is part of the Division of Liver Diseases in the Department of Developmental and Regenerative Biology, and work closely with those postdocs in their own research areas. Interns attend lab meetings and make presentations. Intern Salma Amin ’15 was even included as an author on a paper that attempted to identify some of the mechanisms of fatty liver disease. Of course, with thousands of zebrafish, there is plenty of grunt work as well. “Every lab member learns how to feed the fish, how to clean the filter, how to scrub the tanks,” Edepli says. “They wash the floor; they maintain the colony.” Alumnae have long played an important role in facilitating professional opportunities for students. For many of them, working with a Mount Holyoke student means taking an active part in the educational process while giving back to their alma mater at the same time.

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“THE INTERNSHIP FUNDING PROCESS IS STUDENT-DRIVEN, PROVIDING AN IMPORTANT CHANCE FOR STUDENTS TO CONSIDER THEIR GOALS, THEN IDENTIFY AND PURSUE INTERNSHIPS THAT WILL HELP THEM ACHIEVE THESE GOALS.” LIZ LIERMAN, DIRECTOR, CAREER DEVELOPMENT CENTER

In Edepli’s nearly all-women lab (although that’s not by design), some of the lessons revolve around what it means to be a female scientist. “It’s very important to mentor with other women scientists,” Edepli says, noting that she had female mentors throughout her education, from her undergraduate work to her postdoc at MIT. “I had amazing role models but no acknowledgment of the role that gender plays in all of it,” she says. Having a mostly female lab shows students potential paths for themselves and gives them confidence that they will be able to navigate gender politics in the workplace. “I like that students are paired with someone in an advanced state of training; they can see, ‘This is how I am doing it,’” she says. Back in London, where Ingram is now gallery manager at Sims Reed— a leading international print gallery— a proficient, industrious intern is an enormous help and can, in turn, gain exposure to all aspects of her business. “We’re a big gallery, but we’re a small staff,” Ingram says. Enter art history major Livi Lichens ’15, who found Ingram’s gallery internship through the McCulloch Center but wasn’t sure if it would come together. “I applied on an impulse,” Lichens says. “I had worked at college art museums—Loeb at Vassar and Mead at Amherst. But I wanted to go a bit more into the busi-

ness side, to work at an art gallery,” she says. After winning the job, Lichens spent her days cataloging work, greeting clients and seeing to their requests, and pulling prints by artists as renowned as Andy Warhol and David Hockney. She began to see how the market is dictated by what is being shown in museums in addition to what is being purchased by major collectors. For instance, “The Matisse market is very strong due to the recent The Cut-Outs show at the Tate Modern, now at the Museum of Modern Art,” she says. It wasn’t, she realized quickly, the job that was depicted on the reality television shows she had seen. But, most importantly, Lichens found the work compelling. “It is one way to put an art history degree to use,” she says. “It’s so competitive to get a position, but [the internship] reinforced my decision that this is something that I want to do.”

A CONFIDENT FUTURE

n campus, the excitement around The Lynk continues to build for faculty, staff, and students. Lierman notes that first-year students, who in past years may not have thought to visit the CDC so early in their undergraduate experience, are stopping by to start exploring their interests generally—instead of waiting until it’s time to launch a job search.

The hope is that this shift in culture will give MHC students an added advantage after graduation, given the fact that Mount Holyoke women already tend to have qualities that employers want. Edepli definitely sees the “Mount Holyoke effect” in the students she has employed. “All of the students in my lab are smart and hardworking,” she says. “But the ones who did not go to Mount Holyoke can be a little uni-dimensional. Mount Holyoke students are always really well integrated into the lab, friendly, and willing to go the extra mile.” Lierman also underscores that The Lynk is a forward-facing way to ready students for the rapidly changing world that awaits: “By the time students leave MHC, they should know how to conduct a job search throughout their lives,” she says. “One of the powerful things about a liberal arts education is that students can draw on those skills again and again. Many students will have successful careers in several different job areas, including some that don’t even exist yet.”

Jillian Dunham ’97 is the founding editor of Curie Review, a publisher of women’s archives and narratives.

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(

Chemical Reaction Two alumnae are demanding that companies remove toxins from the products women use every day

)

By Maureen Turner

It was late in the day at a regional meeting of hazardous waste managers, and the session Ann Blake ’85 was attending was wrapping up—or, rather, trying to wrap up. “There were two hands still up,” she recalls— hers, and one belonging to a woman sitting on the other side of the room. “We were both continuing to ask probing questions, and the rest of room was like: ‘Will you stop already?’” she says with a laugh. When the session finally ended, Blake, an environmental and public health consultant, sought out the other persistent questioner to introduce herself—and she promptly discovered that she was a sister Mount Holyoke alumna, Aimee Boulanger ’90. (Not that that was especially surprising, Blake says: “We get around.”) Their alma mater wasn’t the only thing Blake and Boulanger had in common. As the two chatted, they soon realized that they shared a connection to Women’s Voices for the Earth, or WVE, a small but influential nonprofit based in Missoula, Montana. Blake serves on WVE’s board of directors and has contributed research to several of the group’s

reports. Boulanger, like Blake an environmental health consultant, served as the organization’s executive director from 2002 to 2005 and later sat on its board; she remains a close supporter of WVE. WVE (pronounced “weave”) works to eliminate toxins in common consumer products, with a particular focus on products for women, who are exposed at a disproportionately high rate to dangerous chemicals in cleaning products, cosmetics, and other personal-care items. WVE does this by tapping into women’s passions for environmental justice and leadership. In our society, women are still largely expected to assume roles of service and support, Boulanger points out. The inequities in this expectation notwithstanding, she says, “it makes sense that women be given added resources, tools, ideas, and support to ascend as leaders to translate this expectation . . . into broader societal-level power, to create positive social change.” WVE’s mission is deceptively simple: to “amplify women’s voices to eliminate the toxic chemicals that harm our health and communities.” The group does so by raising public awareness of the risks of those toxins, pressuring corporations to

Photographs by Liz Daly Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly

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Hormone-disrupting chemical Bisphenol-A is found in thermalpaper store receipts.

83 percent of over-the-counter lotions contain fragrance allergens.

Teflon can release chemicals linked to developmental harm and cancer when heated to 450 degrees.

F F |

C C |

F F

Many infant car seats, bassinets, and changing pads contain toxic flame retardants.

Triclosan, an ingredient added to many consumer products— including soaps, toys, clothing, and cookware— to reduce or prevent bacterial contamination, has been linked to breast cancer.

change their manufacturing processes, and lobbying for stricter governmental regulation. In 2013, WVE’s groundbreaking report “Chem Fatale” outlined the numerous hazardous components commonly found in feminine-care products such as tampons, pads, and douches— components that have been linked to cancer, reproductive problems, allergic reactions, and infertility. The report led to WVE’s high-profile “Detox the Box” campaign, which demands that the industry clean up its act. Specifically, the campaign targets a major player in the feminine-care industry—Procter & Gamble, maker of Tampax and Always products—calling on the company to end its use of problematic ingredients. It does so, in part, via a hilarious, albeit not uncontroversial, video spoof of a popular Saturday Night Live skit. Humor aside, the feminine products industry is serious business. According to the latest industry data, sanitary products for women are a $3 billion market in North America, and a $26.5 billion market globally. Women who use sanitary products probably think they’re perfectly harmless—if they think much about them at all. “People assume because it’s on the market, it’s safe,” Blake says. But that is an incorrect, and perhaps even dangerous, assumption to make. United States consumer-protection laws, Blake notes, have a benefit-of-the-doubt bias, a built-in assumption that a product is safe until proven otherwise. As a result, she says, “most of what’s on the market has not even been tested.” And another key issue, Blake continues, “is the unknown impact of multiple, low-level, daily exposures to chemicals over a lifetime or at critical times of development.” This lack of data is especially worrisome for women, adds Boulanger. “The vast majority [of these chemicals] haven’t had any health testing at all, and those that have, have been mostly tested for their impact on men,” she says.

oulanger first learned of WVE when she moved to Montana to work for another environmental group. “When I heard the name of the organization alone, I thought, ‘that’s the organization for me,’” she says. Why focus specifically on women and environmental health? That’s a question that’s often asked of WVE, says Boulanger, who points to the numerous ways women’s issues and environmental issues overlap. The chemicals that are of most concern are lipophilic—or tend to migrate to fat. Because women have a higher percentage of body

fat than men do, their bodies absorb and accumulate more toxins, putting them at higher risk. Women also use more personal-care products—including some, like tampons and douches, that are used inside the body. And they can pass on chemical exposures to their children during pregnancy and through breastfeeding. In addition, because women continue to do more housework than men and are more likely to be employed as cleaners, they are also more likely to be exposed to toxins in cleaning products. Often, women of color are at particular risk. For instance, as the “Chem Fatale” report notes, AfricanAmerican and Latina women use douches and vaginal sprays at a higher rate than white women and therefore are exposed to more of the toxins in those products. WVE also works with Vietnamese women, who make up a large portion of nail-salon employees and are exposed to chemicals in their trade. WVE’s work, Blake says, is about social justice as well as environmental justice. And the group is not afraid to take on bigger cultural problems, from issues of race and class that leave certain groups of women more vulnerable to toxins to societal messages that drive the feminine hygiene industry by preying on women’s insecurities, including, as Blake puts it, “That whole body-image thing. ‘You don’t want to be dirty down there.’ “That, to me, is why WVE’s work is so crucial and necessary,” she says.

hile women may be at greater risk than men for some toxic exposures, they can leverage power, starting with their influence as consumers. Women, Boulanger notes, “continue to be the lead decision-makers about the products they buy for the home,” including cleaners, personal care products, and food. For many women, a trip to the grocery store can be a maddening experience, with seemingly every purchase calling on them to sort through the latest news about product safety. “What parent hasn’t been in that situation where you’re completely overwhelmed by this?” asks Boulanger, herself the mother of two young daughters. “Which sunscreen? Tuna: yes or no? Which organic vegetables should I spend my money on?” WVE works to provide women with reliable information about product ingredients so they, in turn, can “leverage their power as consumers” to persuade corporations to make healthier products, she says. “Women are writing in [to companies] and saying, ‘I’m not going to use that nail polish, or buy that tampon brand, until you remove this particular chemical,’” she says.

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“

The vast majority [of these chemicals] haven’t had any health testing at all, and those that have, have been mostly tested for their impact on men.” AIMEE BOULANGER ’90

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“

We come knowing that we want to change the world, and it gets honed at Mount Holyoke. ANN BLAKE ’85

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But consumer activism is only part of the solution. “We can’t shop our way out of this,” Boulanger says, noting that sometimes public pressure to get a manufacturer to stop using a particular dangerous chemical can result in the company simply switching to a different, but equally bad, one. Boulanger notes that there are leading green companies pioneering less-toxic product development, and both she and Blake applaud their work. But WVE will continue to press the bigger, mainstream companies to do the same, beginning with pushing for disclosure of ingredients, so that when women make their purchases they can be sure all products are safe—not just those that are the more expensive options and/or sold at natural foods stores. What we need, Boulanger says, are broader approaches to keep dangerous chemicals out of products in the first place. WVE supports passage of a federal Chemical Safety Improvement Act, a long-overdue update to the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, and calls for amendments to make the reform bill even stronger. While the bill has bipartisan support in Congress, not to mention the backing of many environmental and public health organizations, its progress has been slow. Pressure from female voters—regardless of their party affiliations—could help move the reforms forward.

lake and Boulanger both describe their experiences at Mount Holyoke as key to their understanding of women’s leadership potential. Blake grew up in Bangkok, where her parents worked for the United Nations. Going to college in the States, she says, made sense because she had US citizenship through her American-born father. (“It was also about getting as far away from home as possible while remaining on the planet,” she acknowledges.) While she chose Mount Holyoke sight unseen—it was too far from Bangkok for her to visit—“it turned out to be a great fit,” she says, “I’d grown up in big Asian cities, and here was this paradise of a little rural area.” Mount Holyoke, she says, was where she and her classmates developed the confidence to become leaders in their fields. For Blake, that has meant a career that includes almost a decade working for the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Department of Toxic Substances Control. In 2002, she founded a consulting firm in Alameda, California, where she lives with her husband. She also serves on a state panel on the implementation of California’s “Green Chemistry” initiative to reduce the use of hazardous chemicals in manufacturing.

“We come knowing that we want to change the world, and it gets honed at Mount Holyoke,” says Blake, who joined the College’s Board of Trustees in 2012. Studies show that graduates of women’s colleges go on to assume leadership roles at much higher rates than their peers at coed schools, she notes, saying, “Until that’s not true, there’s a place for us.” Boulanger grew up with a strong sense of the importance of social responsibility, which she attributes to her mother, an early-intervention nurse who works with babies with disabilities. “I went [to Mount Holyoke] thinking I wanted to do something to change the world, but I didn’t know what that would be,” she says. The answer came in an environmental geology course, where Blake learned about the dangers posed when pesticides find their way into groundwater. “I left every single class absolutely electrified,” she says. “Here was this very relevant way to take this intellectual learning and channel it into making the world a better place.” Boulanger has worked for the Alaska Center for the Environment, the Sierra Club, and the Institute for Children’s Environmental Health. Today she lives in Washington State and is the coordinator for both the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance, which works to create a global standard for responsible mining practices, and the state chapter of the nonprofit Collaborative on Health and the Environment. Boulanger and Blake share a desire to use science to effect tangible, positive change, and that’s what drew them to their work with WVE, an organization that’s making a real impact. A public campaign by the group recently helped persuade SC Johnson to agree to disclose on product packaging the chemical fragrances used in its air fresheners and cleaners, including Glade, Windex, and Pledge. And last year, Procter & Gamble removed a carcinogenic chemical from Tide laundry detergents after being called out by a WVE report. WVE is focused now on demanding that Procter & Gamble disclose the chemicals in their Tampax and Always products. It’s a victory Blake seems confident will come. “While WVE may be a small organization based in Montana, there is a collective effort across the country of thousands of ‘actionistas’—independent advocates for change—who are willing to engage the attention of the consumer products industry and regulators,” she says. “Together we’re effecting significant change.”

Maureen Turner is a journalist from Northampton, Massachusetts.

Dioxins, furans (a result of bleaching), and pesticide residues are found in many brands of tampons and pads. 1

The FDA considers tampons and pads “medical devices” and therefore is not required to list ingredients.

CH2 HC

Styrene (also found in tires) and acetone H3C (often in nail polish) have been found in Always pads.

C CH3

CH3

Reproductive toxin dibutyl phthalate is an ingredient in many brands of nail polish.

View a list of companies that have “detoxed the box” and are endorsed by WVE as safe products at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/safeproducts. Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly

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CAMPUS UNDER

QUARANTINE

In the fall of 1918, Mount Holyoke endured the deadliest flu outbreak the world had ever seen

BY OLIVIA LAMMEL â&#x20AC;&#x2122;14 28

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An electron micrograph showing recreated 1918 influenza virions

N THE WEEKS BEFORE STUDENTS FLOCKED TO CAMPUS IN THE FALL OF 1918,

a deadly strain of influenza reached the shores of Boston with a group of sailors who were docked at the Commonwealth Pier. The College opened its gates to students on September 20, and within three days, ten cases of the flu were reported. Over the next week the number of new cases reported climbed each day. Students complained of sudden high fevers, muscle and joint aches, and chills. Some developed pneumonia. The disease was highly contagious. On September 24, there were thirtythree new cases of the flu on campus. Two days later, there were thirty-one more. Over the course of just a few weeks, more than a quarter of the Collegeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s entire student body of 864 were sickened by the worst influenza outbreak the world had ever seen. The epidemic on campus affected everything from living arrangements to student activities to beloved college traditions.

The influenza pandemic of 1918, commonly known as the Spanish Flu, ultimately resulted in death for as much as 5 percent of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s population, with estimates ranging from 20 million to 100 million victims in a period of less than two years. While the exact number is difficult to know for certain, experts say that more people died in the 1918 influenza epidemic than died of the bubonic plague or in World War II. One in four people was infected with Spanish Flu and, unlike with most flus that came before and after, the virus struck young adults aggressively, putting college-aged students and young faculty at particular risk. Almost half of all the influenzarelated deaths in the outbreak of 1918 occurred in people between the ages of twenty and forty; as many as 8 to 10 percent of all young adults living at the time were killed by the virus.

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ADDING SICK WARDS

The flu in South Hadley resulted in fewer deaths than in other communities across the country, perhaps in part due to the town’s relative geographic isolation. Still, in the first days of the semester, it became apparent that the Everett House infirmary, which was located on the site where the current Reese Psychology and Education building stands, would not be able to hold the rapidly growing population of sick students. Dr. Hooker’s House, located on Park Street, opened as an infirmary on September 25, adding forty more patient beds. At the time, the house was used as faculty housing and was known as Dr. Hooker’s House because it was built for Mount Holyoke botany professor Henrietta Hooker, class of 1873. Adding a second infirmary was not enough. New reports of influenza among students and faculty emerged so quickly that Brigham Hall, at the time a residence for both students and faculty, was quickly converted into a third emergency hospital. The healthy residents of Brigham were moved to other dorms, and five nurses attended to the steady stream of sick patients. In the Health Services Annual Report for 1918 a nurse wrote, “The Superintendent of Residence Halls worked early and late in the most efficient fashion, ordering many new supplies, and doing the thousand and one things incident to preparing these houses for hospitals.” The College’s quick reaction to the epidemic, isolating ill patients and quarantining those who may have been exposed, contained the outbreak, which could have devastated the community if left unchecked. Though College records put the total number of reported cases of influenza on campus at 219, many students were not formally treated because there was no room for them in the campus infirmaries. All sick students, even those with a mere hint of a cough or a slightly stuffy nose, were discouraged from attending class. “All classes are about halved by this epidemic,” wrote physics

professor Mildred Allen in a letter to her mother. A student from the class of 1920 explained the half-filled classrooms in an October issue of the Mount Holyoke News: “It is almost a habit. Classes seem incidental. If we awake in the morning, feeling unusually sleepy, we decide to stay in bed—at least some people do. We excuse ourselves and the truth is not in us.”

TAKING IT EASY

Faculty understood that attendance would be sparse, but unlike at the surrounding colleges—Smith, Amherst, and UMass— they voted not to cancel classes at Mount Holyoke. At a meeting on October 1, a member of the faculty said, “It would be better to go on with the daily routine with the understanding that the momentum would be less.” All other student gatherings at the College, including Sunday chapel and daily chapel exercises were canceled until mid-October. President Mary Woolley, about halfway through her tenure as leader of the College, asked the students to use the chapel period “as a time for walks in the open” to ward off the flu. She insisted that “the day, while spent in the open, should not be used as a general picnic day, but should be observed in a quiet and reverent manner,” according to an October 1918 Springfield Republican article titled “God’s Out of Doors.” Despite the quarantine, the College still held Mountain Day on September 30. In their Llamarada yearbook, members of the class of 1921 recounted, “Mountain Day came and the few of us who had not been laid low by the ‘flu’ tramped about while the rest of us, wrapped up in steamer rugs, sat around lackadaisically on back porches with an emaciated, let-me-die look.” Because so many students were too ill to climb the mountain in September, a faculty member put forth a motion at a faculty meeting a few weeks later to hold a second Mountain Day. The motion

Listen to Mount Holyoke’s chair of theater arts, Susan Daniels ’79, read the letters that physics professor Mildred Allen wrote to her mother about the flu epidemic at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/1918flu.

“MOUNTAIN DAY CAME AND THE FEW OF US WHO HAD NOT BEEN LAID LOW BY THE ‘FLU’ TRAMPED ABOUT WHILE THE REST OF US, WRAPPED UP IN STEAMER RUGS, SAT AROUND LACKADAISICALLY ON BACK PORCHES WITH AN EMACIATED, LET-ME-DIE LOOK.” LLAMARADA, CLASS OF 1921

passed, and it was decided that October 17 “be called a holiday and not mountain day in order to eliminate some risk of students taking too-long walks.”

CONTAINING THE THREAT

The College’s efforts to contain the campus outbreak were quite successful. There had been no new cases reported on campus since the first week in October. And by midOctober the Everett House was, once again, the only infirmary on campus. “Nearly all the girls are back in classes again,” wrote Evelyn Eaton, class of 1919, in an October 13 letter to her mother. “We feel that so far as the immediate college is concerned that we are out of the woods,” Mildred Allen wrote to her mother the same day. Though vitality had largely been restored, the campus was still under strict quarantine. A notice from the dean’s office, read at lunch on October 22, urged, “Students are not to leave town nor to eat in public places in town. The permission to use the Amherst Trolley was for Mountain Day only.” And, “Friends of students are not to visit or call at the College.” Even the trustees weren’t permitted to come to campus that fall for their annual meeting, and Founder’s Day festivities were reported to be lackluster.

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Unparalleled Impact

REMEMBERING THE VICTIMS

2500

2000

FLU DE AT H S PE R 1 0 0 , 0 0 0 PEOPL E

A look at flu deaths per 100,000 people illustrates the dramatic effect of the Spanish flu when compared to the three subsequent flu pandemics since 1918

3000

In South Hadley, the epidemic had not cursed the campus as it had ravaged the rest of the world, where mail piled up at post offices and garbage piled up in the streets because sick workers couldn’t come to work. But even the Field Memorial Gate could not entirely shield Mount Holyoke from the tragic reaches of the global outbreak that wiped out entire families. “Almost every day we hear of a death of some alumna,” wrote Mildred Allen, “that in spite of the good condition here we realize the seriousness of the whole situation.” Mount Holyoke had survived the flu with one death, a first-year student from southeastern Pennsylvania named Elizabeth M. Smith, class of 1922. A memoriam for Smith was included in the winter issue of the Alumnae Quarterly. “The sadness of her death was very real,” wrote Ethel Barbara Dietrich, professor of economics and sociology, “because we could understand those freshman hopes, because we know something of what her loss means to her father and mother, and because we felt that in her death from influenza and pneumonia Mount Holyoke was paying one of the sacrifices of the war.”

2778 deaths per 100,000

3.5 Billion

3 Billion

1500

1000

1.8 Billion

1 500

67 deaths per 100,000

29 deaths per 100,000

8 deaths per 100,000 0

1957-1958 Asian flu

1968-1969 Hong Kong flu

2009-2010 Swine flu

Sources: flu.gov, census.gov, cdc.gov

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1918-1919 Spanish flu Olivia Lammel ’14 is a former editorial assistant at the Alumnae Quarterly and an aspiring writer.

6.8 Billion WO RL D P O P U L AT IO N IN B IL L IO N S

By early November restrictions had been loosened. In a letter dated November 7, Allen noted that students could now have visitors to campus. The following evening, it was arranged for students to go into Holyoke to see the New York Philharmonic. And on November 12, 1918, a day after World War I had officially ended, Mount Holyoke students participated in the city of Holyoke’s armistice parade. The campus quarantine was officially lifted the following day on November 13. Still, the faculty was wary of a second outbreak—as had happened at nearby Amherst College—and students were encouraged not to go home for Thanksgiving if there was “no special reason they should go.”

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Alumnae Quarterly: The flu of 1918 killed an estimated 30 million to 50 million people worldwide, with some estimates even higher. Why was this flu so deadly?

By S ARA BARRY ’94

AQ: What else medically contributed to the deadliness of the disease?

Leise Jones Smyrl ’01

A Once and Future Flu

Miriam Aschkenasy: Every year the influenza virus mutates. In 1918 the virus changed dramatically, forming a new subtype of the flu that had not been seen before. When a shift like that happens the body doesn’t recognize past immunity to flu, the virus quickly spreads, and we see higher rates of complications and death. In 1918, nobody knew what caused the flu. In fact, it wasn’t until the 1930s that influenza was determined to be a virus. Not understanding the cause prohibited the development of effective prevention and treatments and contributed to the pandemic’s toll.

Q&A with Miriam Aschkenasy ’94

Miriam Aschkenasy ’94 is the deputy director for global disaster response at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Center for Global Health. When she isn’t involved in daily management duties like planning and teaching, she leads teams in disaster response—including a twenty-two-day deployment to the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan in 2013—and continues her own clinical work as an emergency department physician. Aschkenasy has worked with several international organizations, including Oxfam America and the World Health Organization, and has run field hospitals during acute crises and responded to cholera outbreaks in Zimbabwe and Ethiopia. She holds a medical degree from Tel Aviv University Sackler School of Medicine and a master’s in public health from Harvard School of Public Health. The Quarterly spoke with Aschkenasy about the 1918 flu virus [“Campus Under Quarantine,” p. 28] and the flu today.

MA: While influenza is a virus, many people who get the flu also develop bacterial pneumonia, which may set in as a result of the virus weakening the lungs. Today we can treat pneumonia with antibiotics. In 1918 that wasn’t an option. This flu also spread faster than communication did at the time. And the pandemic happened during World War I, with masses of people moving around the world and living close together. AQ: We’ve had pandemic flu in 1957, 1968, and, most recently, in 2009 with H1N1—or swine—flu, which had similarities to the 1918 virus. The death toll from the 2009 pandemic is estimated to be as high as 575,000, still considerably lower than in 1918. Is this indicative of our ability to cope with the flu now?

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MA: We’re due for another pandemic flu, but we’re also more prepared to deal with it than people were in 1918. We understand the cause of the flu and how it spreads, our data collection and communication are better now, and we can build a vaccine that stops the flu or at least slows it. That the 2009 H1N1 pandemic wasn’t so deadly was a bit of luck and a lot of preparation and good policy. During the outbreak we learned what works and where things can be done better. We know we need to be able to produce vaccine more quickly. And we need to continue to make improvements to preparedness plans for pandemic flu, because we will see it again. AQ: So you’ve talked about being prepared for pandemic flu. What about seasonal flu? MA: There are lots of viruses we get during “flu season,” but they aren’t all influenza. With the flu you get very high temperatures and body aches, and you are weak and drained for quite a while after. I tell people, if it wasn’t that bad, it wasn’t influenza. The seasonal flu still kills with annual death rates ranging from 3,000 to 49,000 in the United States and from 250,000 to 500,000 worldwide. It’s a serious threat, especially to the elderly, the very young, and people with respiratory diseases. AQ: What should people do to keep from getting the flu? MA: Get a flu shot. I get my flu shot every year; my kids do, too. Even when it’s not 100 percent effective— and it isn’t always because scientists can’t know the exact strain they are manufacturing the vaccine for each year—you still get protection from seasonal flu.

AQ: In 1918, quarantine was used in an effort to contain the flu. Is this an appropriate response? MA: It was one of the first widespread quarantines. In 1918, one town [Gunnison, Colorado] shut itself off from people coming in—closing off roads and not letting people off of trains—and they had no flu cases. Since flu is an aerosolized disease (one spread by tiny airborne particles) that can be transmitted before symptoms are clear, quarantine and isolating sick patients does make a difference in a pandemic. AQ: As we speak, there isn’t much in the news about flu, but there is a lot about Ebola. Can you compare these two diseases and the American public’s risks of contracting them? MA: Ebola is spread through exposure to body fluids, so you need much closer contact to be at risk of contracting Ebola. The flu is contagious before people show symptoms of being ill, so there is a much greater risk of exposure and infection. People ask me how they can be safe from Ebola. But Ebola is not a risk for Americans (and people living in the Northern Hemisphere in general) unless they are traveling and working in West Africa. Flu is a real risk. And I always recommend that people get a flu shot.

Sara Barry ’94 is a freelance writer in Western Massachusetts.

WHAT ’S T H E DIFFER E NCE ? INFECTIOUS disease caused by microorganisms in air or water and potentially transferable to individuals CONTAG IO US disease capable of spreading rapidly from person to person by contact or close proximity EPIDEMIC a higher than expected occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time PA N DE MIC an infectious disease epidemic prevalent over a whole country or the world ISOLATION separating people with contagious disease from others not similarly infected QUARANTINE a restraint upon the activities of people exposed to a contagious disease

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O N D I S P L AY

T H E N A N D N OW

MoHome Memories Herbarium Collection

A window into plant life of the past UN TIL 1905, the creation and maintenance of an herbarium

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View a slideshow of more of the College’s herbaria at alumnae. mtholyoke.edu/MHCherbaria.

department made room for new equipment and lab space, where students no longer kept the plant specimens they used for learning. Today, the remaining collection is housed in Archives and Special Collections as well as in Clapp Hall and continues to provide valuable insight into plant populations over time. — B Y T AY L O R S C O T T

James Gehrt

was a regular part of a Mount Holyoke student’s coursework. In fact, during the mid-nineteenth century collecting specimens for one’s herbarium was one of the few approved activities in which Seminary students could partake while completing their mandatory, daily one-mile walks. A collection of preserved plants—usually dried and mounted on stiff paper, underneath which important data were recorded— herbaria were essential for the study of plant taxonomy and geographic distributions. Mary Lyon herself kept an herbarium, as did famed Mount Holyoke botany professors Lydia Shattuck, class of 1851, and Henrietta Hooker, class of 1873, evidence of the strong emphasis Mount Holyoke put on the study of science even in its earliest years as an institution. The College’s original herbarium collection, which was housed in Williston Hall—the former art and science building that stood roughly where Clapp Hall is now located—contained thousands of valuable plant specimens that as a whole gave detailed insight into the vast flora of the Pioneer Valley. When the building burned to the ground in 1917, the entire collection was lost. But a determined botany professor, Alma Stokey, who taught at the College from 1908 until 1942, set out on a path to recreate the College’s herbaria. She solicited specimens from Mount Holyoke students, alumnae, and professors and also reached out to peers at other colleges, including her alma mater, Oberlin College, which donated nearly 2,000 specimens. By the 1970s, these collections were largely forgotten about as the biology

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on display

A RT IFACT

The Saddest Day Miniature artist book

ON A PR I L 1 5, 18 6 5, Antoinette (Nettie) Bacon, class of 1866, was

returning to South Hadley in a public carriage when she learned a shocking piece of news: President Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated. That same day, Bacon began a letter to her brother Alonzo, explaining the confusion and grief the news had caused. “Pen can never express the feelings of the Northern people at this sad news,” she wrote. “What is to become of us!” The feelings of anger and shock that Bacon conveys in her letter are underscored by a sense of weariness. “The war,” she worried, “is farther from its close than we have thought.” In reality, the war had effectively ended six days before, when General Robert E. Lee surrendered at the Appomattox Court House in Virginia. Bacon’s letter provides a remarkable glimpse into how the public received the news of Lincoln’s assassination and how long it took for information to travel. The reports she heard on April 15 were incomplete. Many people believed, for instance,

that in addition to Lincoln, Secretary of State William H. Seward had been the victim of a successful assassination attempt. When she completed her letter two days later this fear was alleviated; however, Bacon’s anger toward the perpetrators of the crime and the southern “Rebs” who took such delight in the event remained. “Today,” she wrote, “has been I believe the very saddest day this nation ever saw.” After graduating from Mount Holyoke, Bacon went on to teach among freed slaves for the American Missionary Association in Washington, North Carolina, and Port Royal, South Carolina. More than a century later, in 1991, staff at Skyefield Press found Bacon’s letter among a stack of old papers in an antique shop and transformed it into a miniature artist book. Two copies of the book, entitled The Saddest Day, can be viewed at Mount Holyoke’s Archives and Special Collections. — B Y E M I LY W E L L S ’ 1 5

Read a transcript of The Saddest Day at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/saddestday.

James Gehrt

The Saddest Day, 1 5/8 x 1 7/8 x 3/16 in

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2014

1920

Contemporary buildings are much safer than those of decades past, which were constructed mostly of wood and did not contain smoke alarms or sprinklers.

In 1917 Williston Hall—the College’s art and science building—burned to the ground. Fire was a common occurrence and of utmost concern, not just at Mount Holyoke but across the country. In fact, President Woodrow Wilson issued the first National Fire Prevention Day proclamation in 1920.

Each Mount Holyoke dorm has three scheduled fire drills per year. Fire safety inspections are performed four times annually, during which each dorm’s team of student community advisors ensures that their building is free from hazards such as halogen lamps, upholstered furniture, and, most importantly, candles and incense, the most common causes of fire.

Fire drills were held in each hall at least once a month. However, students did not always have to evacuate the building. Instead, they merely reported to the first floor for roll call. Students were advised to do several things before reporting, including putting on a bathrobe and slippers, finding a towel, closing windows and transoms, putting out gas lamps, leaving the doors to their rooms open, and, finally, going quickly and quietly to the first floor. Hair curlers were the only permitted electrical devices in students’ rooms. All other devices would incur a $5 fine if found. Fluids commonly used in cleaning substances and oil lamps that were once commonplace in dorm rooms, such as naphtha, gasoline, or benzene, were also strictly forbidden starting in 1920.

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NOW

Today, the main message communicated to students during a fire drill is, “Get out and stay out.” When an alarm sounds, students are instructed to put on a coat, grab a towel (to cover their faces), leave the lights on, and exit the building. Each dorm has a designated fire safety zone outside of the building where students are to report for roll call and wait for the “all clear” signal, given by a member of the campus police department.

Once a year, students were required to perform a variety of fire safety exercises, including using rope ladders to climb out of windows, passing buckets of water down an assembly line, and carrying fire hoses to different stories of buildings.

Learn more about the history of fires and fire safety at Mount Holyoke at alumnae.mtholyoke. edu/mhcfire.

In contrast to the arduous safety exercises students were asked to perform in 1920, students today tend to stand around in their pajamas— chatting or reading—waiting to be called back inside. —TAY L O R S C O T T

1920: MHC Archives and Special Collections; 2014: Millie Rossman

then and now

THE N

Fire Drills

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

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

Connections S AV E T H E DAT E

Reunion 2015 Reunion I

May 15–17 1945, 1965, 1975, 1990, 1995, 2005, 2013

Reunion II

May 22–24 1940, 1950, 1955, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1985, 2000, 2010

European Alumnae Symposium artwork by Patricia Baron ’14; Reuion photo by Deirdre Haber Malfatto

alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/reunion

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Travel Abroad with Sister Alumnae We invite you to join one or more of the Alumnae Association’s travel opportunities this year. Visit alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/travel.

Local Alumnae Host Meet-up with Students In September, the Mount Holyoke Club of the Pioneer Valley hosted an alumnae-student mixer in Shattuck’s Cassani Lounge. More than fifty attendees enjoyed ice cream and good company. While this is the first event the club has officially hosted on campus, in the past they’ve also participated in first-year library M&Cs, Mary Lyon’s birthday, and athletic contests. Club president Linda O’Connell ’69 is eager to further connections between Mount Holyoke students and local alumnae. “What we find every time we are on campus is that students love to connect with us—and we love to connect with them,” she says. “Plus, we laugh a lot when we’re together.” — B Y L I N D A VA L E N C I A X U ’ 1 6

SAVE THE DAT E

European Alumnae Symposium to be held in Leuven, Belgium The thirteenth European Alumnae Symposium will take place in Leuven, Belgium, October 2–4, 2015. The weekend will feature lectures and cultural events organized by Benelux alumnae. Topics include the evolution of European power and influence on different areas of society and on world developments, and discussions on work-life balance and professional skills. Learn more at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/leuven. Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly

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a place of our own

“

Walking into the darkened chapel, carrying candles and chanting in Latin, gave me the chills every time.

”

Ben Barnhart

— D I A N A N I XO N F I S C H E R ’ 8 9

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Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly

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In Memoriam

The Alumnae Association lists alumnae deaths as they are reported. 1930 Kathleen Hussey 10/03/2005 Betty Davis Worley 12/14/2005 1931 Eleanor Simonson Ottaway 08/11/2004

Clara Regina Ludwig ’37 Clara (Reggie) Ludwig died August 16, 2014, in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Ludwig received her bachelor’s degree from Mount Holyoke in 1937 and a business degree from Simmons College in 1938. She then joined the staff of the president of Harvard University, where in 1945 she began working in undergraduate admissions—a move that set her career path for the rest of her life. In 1951 she returned to Mount Holyoke to work in admissions and was named director of admissions in 1958. She held the post until 1981. In 1967, the Alumnae Association awarded her the Alumnae Medal of Honor, citing her “individual and wise attention” and her work aiding prospective students, including leading the way in “opening up opportunities for disadvantaged students.” A devoted alumna, Ludwig was active as a volunteer for her class for more than two decades, serving as treasurer, vice president, and fiftieth reunion chair. In her retirement, she volunteered at the Mount Holyoke College archives, working for more than twenty-five years with the manuscript collection. Ludwig was also an outdoor enthusiast and environmentalist and was a fifty-year member of the Appalachian Mountain Club and for many years treasurer of the Friends of the [Holyoke] Range. In her mid-seventies she began a ten-year series of visits to Italy with family and friends, exploring the wonders of Renaissance painting, sculpture, and mosaics, savoring urban centers, and being thrilled by Italian opera, especially Verdi.

1935 Gwynneth Jones Randles 10/00/1995 Mary Harford Sawyer 03/13/1996 Perry Halligan Toy 01/15/2000 Jessica Kirkpatrick 06/08/2004 Margaret Coon Bowman 02/07/2006 Marion Brown Lang 07/21/2014 Helen Conley Kidder 07/26/2014 Molly Whitehill Dunphy 09/02/2014 1936 Irene Bander Slosberg 11/00/1982 Moritia-Leah Haupt Frederick 07/02/1996 Jane Howe McGuiness 06/06/2004 Shirley Fayette Langler 05/21/2006 Anna Wilson Trammell 11/30/2006 S. Warren Hallock Cable 02/28/2007 Vera Snow Squire 07/19/2010 Lois Allen Morrow 12/05/2011 Roberta Herington Phillips 09/13/2014 1937 Jean Millett Hoffman 11/00/1981 Sara McLaughlin Tarkington 06/18/1993 Elmyra Roper Stortz 07/02/1999 Edith Miller Davidson 12/11/2004 Elizabeth Billings Johnson 10/30/2005 Eileen Hill Langell 06/13/2007 Antoinette Marzano Ramenda 05/24/2008 Marjorie Manning Postma 11/23/2010 Evelyn Hutchinson Hyatt 06/12/2013 Bess Pazeian Vickery 05/31/2014 Clara Ludwig 08/16/2014

MHC Archives and Special Collections

class notes

1934 Florence Alburger Widutis 06/00/1989 Marian Jackson Rolanti 10/05/1997 Helen Forney Howells 01/26/2000 Barbara Leavitt Ninfi 09/04/2009 Helen Hopkins Vance 02/22/2010 Marion Baldwin Norris 09/17/2014

alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

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1938 Elizabeth Cray Romaine 07/07/2006 Frances Gutermuth Koerner 10/22/2013 Marjorie Winter Johnson 10/15/2014 1939 Latilla McKnight Plume 12/12/2001 Marian Foster Thompson 03/08/2005 Dorothy Bowie Valenzuela 09/18/2013 Winifred Law Madison 12/16/2013 Marjorie Stewart 08/03/2014 Anne Edwards Fulton 08/31/2014 Catherine Ross Merwin 09/07/2014

1945 Rachel Anderson Roberts 10/05/2012 Carolyn Hemstead DeLong 04/26/2014 Marjorie Kohlberg Chilcoat 07/29/2014 Katherine Karbiner Fritz 07/23/2014 Fruma Winer Ginsburgh 09/11/2014 Alice Budd Klayman 10/06/2014 Doris Vanderlip Manley 10/25/2014 1946 Susan Cane Stone 08/26/2014 Linda Beakes Hawley 08/28/2014 June Cary Jubinville 09/25/2014

1940 Lucie Nichols Johnson 09/16/2005 Shirley Tuck Decker 05/06/2008 Janet Hall Crump 07/06/2008 Marion Gilde 01/09/2009 Caryl Reeve Granttham 01/24/2009 Eleanor Griffeth Coulton 03/12/2010 Mary Baylies Magill 07/11/2010 Susan Ullman Rosenblum 04/16/2013 Beatrice Sobol Case 03/14/2014 Elizabeth Stephen Sproule 07/27/2014

1947 Sarah Jackson Pelgrift 05/31/2014 Elizabeth Harrison Benny 08/08/2014

1941 Frances Sweet Gordon 03/04/2011

1951 Natalia Evtushenko Bezugloff 10/04/2014

1942 Louise Line Grout 06/25/2014 Jeannette Hamilton Hawkes 08/14/2014 Katherine Pierson Hubbard 08/20/2014 Marjorie Jacobs Kraus 11/03/2014

1952 Diane Curtis Schnabel 08/23/2014 Nancy Neill Burdick 09/22/2014 Catherine Longyear Cummings 10/11/2014

1943 Margaret Machlin Rueckert 01/01/2007 Mary Wright Rainey 06/19/2014 Nancy Rothschild Florsheim 09/23/2014 1944 Eleanor Anderson Burgess 08/05/2014

1948 Anne Dalzell Bacon 10/22/2014 1950 Erika Elling Rohrbach 03/15/2014 Mary Jane Kurth Longabaugh 09/09/2014 Priscilla Atwater Marsh 10/17/2014

1953 Barbara Hollingworth Gibbons 06/07/2013 Joan Cooper Rhinehart 08/31/2014 Mary Fincke de Treville 10/17/2014 1958 Sheila Maki Korhammer 10/24/2014 1959 Cynthia Elliott Sams 02/01/2014 Lucy Straub Blanchfield 06/12/2014 Lois Perrone Megliola 08/19/2014 Edith Smith Blish 10/06/2014

1960 Ruth Passweg Dunkle 09/04/2014 1965 Patricia Barron Patenaude, Date unknown Clare Sherman 10/1965 Leslie White O’Brien 10/16/2014 1966 Gretchen Hunicke Lengyel 09/17/2014 Margaret Wyman Tent 09/20/2014 1967 Elizabeth Egbert 08/31/2014 Katherine Land 09/26/2014 Astrid Merget 10/13/2014 1970 Ruth Baxter-Tagliatela 09/16/2014 M. Patience Wine 09/26/2014 1971 Cynthia Gibson Beerbower 07/26/2014 1972 Alice Nixon Burress 09/05/2014 1977 Laurie Carlson 02/28/2013 1982 Constance Rowley-Colombo 09/30/2014 1991 Erin Chliveny 09/01/2014 FP/CG/MA Judith Lidberg (FP’97) 09/23/2014 Judith Hopkins (CG ’61) 08/08/2014 Emily Kemp Schlesinger (MA ’38) 11/09/2008 Alice Kessler Chambers (MA ’42) 09/10/2010 May Kaung Tang (MA ’42) 12/18/2012 Elizabeth Launspach Primm (MA ’38) 12/20/2013 Darhl Foreman (MA ’48) 08/02/2014 Helen DeGere Milne (MA ’48) 10/20/2014

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly

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my voice

ESSAY

Uncommon Experience: Being Transgender at Mount Holyoke By EL L IOT RUG G LE S ’06

Pitch your topic at quarterly@ mtholyoke.edu.

alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

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“ ”

easy. There were lots of questions about whether someone perceived as male could be a true feminist, and I did not always feel that there were spaces in my Mount Holyoke community to voice what I was going through. But at MHC I learned an ethic for approaching life. I learned about social justice, critical thinking, feminist ideology, and how to listen to that little voice inside myself that helps me live an authentic and fulfilling life. Expressing myself in a masculine way—beginning at college—made me feel as if a weight had been lifted. When people ask about my gender identity, I prefer to use the term transman or to define myself as a man with experience living in the world as a woman. But I also recognize that most people who meet me will never know that part of my history. When I finally reconciled my decision to physically transition, I promised to embody what men can be in the world instead of what most men currently are. Now, as an academic, queer, and feminist community organizer and activist, I have dedicated my life’s work to combating misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia for all those affected by gender oppression. And I am proud to say that my alma mater is also actively engaged in this pursuit.

Kim Rosen

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

AT THE State University of New York at Oneonta, I work with transgender and gender non-conforming college students. In addition to the typical anxieties of first-year students, these students often have added burdens, like dealing with verbal harassment or a lack of safety in bathrooms. My job is to advocate for them and provide resources, a safe space, and support. When I entered Mount Holyoke as a first-year student in the fall of 2002, I experienced many typical feelings— uncertainty, homesickness, excitement—but I also carried a burden. I felt a discomfort interacting with the world—a feeling that I had a hard time defining or even talking about. Because while most of my peers were at ease with their assigned sex at birth, I was not. It was At Mount Holyoke, at Mount Holyoke that I beI learned an ethic gan to explore how I might become more comfortable for approaching life. in my body. Now known as gender dysphoria, the term that defines my experience did not yet exist in popular discourse when I was an undergraduate. Last summer, I traveled back to Mount Holyoke for the first time since beginning testosterone treatment and having “top surgery.” In other words, I returned to campus as someone perceived by the world as a man. I am so proud of my Mount Holyoke education—an experience that was a privilege to me. Yet, as a de facto man, I have reflected deeply about my position in this world as a Mount Holyoke alum and my place in general within feminist communities. My most formative memories of being able to express my gender authentically happened at Mount Holyoke. Whether it was dating, dressing for a Drag Ball, or being able to speak my mind in class without fear of being seen as “too smart,” I had freedom in this community that I had not otherwise been granted. I came to know people at MHC with a diversity of gender expressions not represented in the Massachusetts suburbs where I grew up. Along with these interactions came a chance for me to imagine a different future for myself. It wasn’t always

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Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s FebruMary. This woman deserves a party! Mary Lyon got us started. Nearly 200 years later, we are stronger than ever. Celebrate Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s birthday month and the impact of Mount Holyoke College at mhcten.mtholyoke.edu. Send a photo of Mary and you, wherever you are, whatever you are doing! februmary@mtholyoke.edu #FebruMary #MaryGoesGlobal

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50 College Street, South Hadley, MA 01075

Genevieve Ellison FP’97 Feminist. Writer. Identifies her fears, faces them, and turns them into dreams and adventures. Operates excavators, dozers, loaders. Manages hazardous waste. Works hard jobs in unusual places—like Antarctica—so she can travel the world solo.

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

alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

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