Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly Spring 2006 by Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College

Spring 2006

Rethinking Retirement Active. Bold. Independent. Rocking Chairs Optional.

18 Linking Women Worldwide 20 A Cell-ebrated Scientist 22 Alumsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Bragging Rights 26 Kissing Christians

Jennifer Kendall Convey Reilly ‘89 goes out on a limb as a ship rigger for the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels.

features Active. Bold. Independent. Rocking Chairs Optional. By Maryann Teale Snell ’86 Alumnae retirees today are enjoying broader—and more active—options than many in previous generations.

18 Build a Better World for Women Create a Support Network in Your Community By Julie Ginocchio Bergin ’99 The winner of the Quarterly’s third and final essay contest suggests one way to improve life for women around the world.

20 Speckle Science: Clare Waterman-Storer ’89 How a ‘Mistake’ Helped an Alum Scientist Track Movement Inside Cells By Avice A. Meehan ’77 Scientist Clare Waterman-Storer ’89 has won a multimillion-dollar award supporting her work on how cells move and change their shapes.

22 Bragging Rights Unusual and Often Unsung Alumnae Talents By Emily Harrison Weir Everyone knows that Mount Holyoke women are multitalented, but few would expect some of the accomplishments we discovered.

26 On Kissing Religion Professor Studies “Kissing Christians” By Kevin McCaffrey Michael Penn’s new book explores the important and complex role kissing played in early Christianity’s development.

Top: Peter Mountain; Gino Domenico

12 Rethinking Retirement

On the Cover Among the alumnae sharing their experiences after reaching retirement age is Sarah Fisher Liebschutz ’56, who juggles adjunct teaching, consulting projects, and yoga. Photo by Steve Baldwin

Volume 90 Number 1 | Spring 2006 MANAGING DIRECTOR OF PRINT AND ONLINE MAGAZINES

Emily Harrison Weir WRITERS

Mieke H. Bomann Erica C. Winter ’92 CLASS NOTES EDITOR

Deborah Sharp DESIGNER

Bidwell ID EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Amy L. Cavanaugh ’06

departments Viewpoints

Quarterly Committee: Avice A. Meehan ’77, chair; Kara C. Baskin ’00, Susan R. Bushey ’96, Diana Bosse Mathis ’70, Marissa Saltzman ’07, Julie L. Sell ’83; Susan Beers Betzer ’65, ex officio with vote; W. Rochelle Calhoun ’83, ex officio without vote

2 Class Notes

Comments on “women at the top,” how the College and Alumnae Association have changed, and other topics

Campus Currents

News of your classmates, and miniprofiles

Bulletin Board 4

Announcements and educational travel opportunities

New Alumnae Association president nominated; Mary Lyon Award winner honored; a primer on the Founder’s Fund; a tribute to Wendy Wasserstein ’71

Off the Shelf Books by alumnae and professors on Pioneer Valley chefs, Sicilian carts, anthropology in outer space, Midwestern women, and more

The Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College is an independent organization that serves a worldwide network of diverse individuals, cultivates and celebrates vibrant connections among all alumnae, fosters lifelong learning in the liberal arts tradition, and facilitates opportunities for alumnae to advance the goals and values of the College.

80 Last Look

Ideas expressed in the Quarterly are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of either the Alumnae Association or the College. Published in the spring, summer, fall, and winter and copyrighted 2006 by the Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College, Inc. Periodicals postage paid at South Hadley, MA 01075 and additional mailing offices. Printed in the USA by Lane Press, Burlington, Vermont.

Admission applications hit all-time high; no encore for Musicorda; forty years of Five Colleges; a course called Primates and Performance; and more campus news

Alumnae Matters 28

Quarterly Deadlines: Material is due November 15 for the winter issue, February 1 for the spring issue, May 15 for the summer issue, and August 15 for the fall issue.

Why Didn’t I Take a Course In …? By Amy Cavanaugh ’06 With so many courses and so little time, most students regret not pursuing some academic subject. Here are a few that some alums said they wish they’d taken.

Comments concerning the Quarterly should be sent to Alumnae Quarterly, Alumnae Association, 50 College St., South Hadley, MA 01075-1486; tel. 413-538-2301; fax 413-538-2254; e-mail: eweir@mtholyoke.edu. (413-538-3094, dsharpmtholyoke.edu for class notes.) Send address changes to Alumnae Information Services (same address; 413-5382303; ais@mtholyoke.edu). Call 413-538-2300 with general questions regarding the Alumnae Association, or visit www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu. POSTMASTER: (ISSN 0027-2493) (USPS 365-280) Please send form 3579 to Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly, 50 College St., South Hadley, MA 01075-1486.

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

viewpoints On Women and Success The graphic depicting the MHC path to greatness is a masterpiece, and I applaud you for including it alongside the feature article “Women at the Top.” The view from the executive suite is worth writing about, to be sure, provided it does not obscure the view from other vistas. Jean Costello, FP’05 West Boylston, Massachusetts

It is encouraging to read “Women at the Top” and know that the College and the Quarterly are indeed keeping up with the times and letting us know that. When I was at MHC, we all knew there was a ceiling— but it wasn’t glass. Barbara Bowman Prairie ’61 Berea, Kentucky

I was surprised by the conclusions reached in “Rede-

fining Success.” (winter). I can’t walk on water, but I’m ambitious and satisfied with my career thus far. I’m also a mother and the wife of an historian in his first tenuretrack position. If you’ve lived with a PhD, you know how ridiculous the academic market is. I decided early on that my “portable” profession and I would “follow my husband.” In August we relocated to New York. Although I began networking several months before the move, I’m still unemployed. The advice I received from other professional moms who stopped working didn’t prepare me for the loss I felt for my professional identity. It took a good four months to feel like a competent full-time mom. The breakthrough came when I realized I could be a great mom despite not working. Don’t

We Want to Hear From You! We love getting mail. Send your thoughts, with your full name, address, and class year, to Mieke Bomann, Alumnae Quarterly, 50 College St., South Hadley, MA 01075-1486 or mbomann@mtholyoke.edu. We reserve the right to edit letters, especially for length (300 words is ideal).

laugh—like you can’t relate to doing it all or doing nothing? But you can! We’re all AType. I was uncomfortable with Saltzman’s framing of the issue: “Many alums ‘wonder if it is OK not to go to graduate school, or to stay at home as a fulltime mom—because MHC doesn’t say those things are OK.’” The blame is ironically misplaced. MHC alumnae are a self-selective group. We demand much of ourselves, and our expectations of our own performance increase the more we take on. This is who we are and not MHC’s fault. It’s not that MHC doesn’t say it’s OK to spend your days at play groups, or even that we need MHC to judge. The real issue is that “the person I thought I’d be” wouldn’t think it’s OK. More useful than the trite “we should all learn to love ourselves” prescription would be the acknowledgement that life happens. We are women who make it happen right back. Our values adapt, and sometimes we change our minds. If we’re going to have lifelong relationships with MHC, we need to acknowledge the

2006 identity we imagined back then, and reconcile her to the women we’ve become. Nadene Tabari Bradburn ’94 Johnson City, New York

A little voice inside dared me to guess what projects “Superwomen” activist alumnae were engaged in before reading the fall cover article. I wasn’t surprised, but I was disappointed, at how predictable the list was. I guessed a whole handful just by reciting the liberal litany of causes: the rain forest, anything with the words “global” or “human rights,” and of course, Planned Parenthood. That’s not to say that some of these projects aren’t noteworthy—they were just, well, predictable. I can’t believe that an alumnae body as active and engaged as we are has no conservative “superwomen.” I know we do, but where was their representation in this article? Didn’t we learn anything from our summer discussion of if we have political diversity at MHC? Or did you just answer that question for us? Margaret Hotchkiss Drye ’80 Plainfield, New Hampshire

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Holyoke has lived out Mary Lyon’s legacy. Far from being “an abomination unto God,” Mount Holyoke was, for me, the perfect environment for examining and strengthening my faith. It was at Mount Holyoke, with its diversity of religious expression and its intellectual challenge, that I first discerned a call to ordained ministry. The religion department and chaplains of all faiths nurtured and encouraged me in this calling. I have always been proud of MHC’s history as a seminary. Interestingly, there were four of us from the class of ’01 who all

cries and whines from this loyal but unhappy reader, it is very gratifying to see such a sea of change. Keep morphing. I like it. Mary Brown Lawrence ’45 Portola Valley, California

A Different Time Some of the letters in your winter issue amused, saddened, or outraged me. No one was offended by compulsory chapel? Nonsense. But there was hardly any point in complaining about it or about the restrictive curfews and weekend privileges. When I married at the end of junior year and came

the recipients of the splendid education Mount Holyoke offers might recognize the arrogance of assuming that any one person or institution possesses the whole truth. Mount Holyoke “an abomination unto God” indeed! Diane Finn Sherman-Levine ’50 Princeton, New Jersey

Misplaced Affection? Mount Holyoke placed a quarter-page ad in the New York Times February 2, announcing that “Mount Holyoke College honors the memory of Wendy Wasserstein Class of 1971.” The next two-thirds of the space

lifelong relationships with MHC, we need to acknowledge the 2006 identity we imagined back then, and reconcile her to the women we’ve become.” “If we’re going to have

some of the detachment from the College was due to living overseas for a number of years, but even when I was stateside, I never felt connected until the last year or so. Hence, my first letter to the Quarterly and, for the first time, a financial contribution to the college before my class agent contacted me. Julie Lovell Gibson ’82 Waxhaw, North Carolina

The Spirit Moves in Different Ways I had to write in response to Judith Vickers Andrews’ letter (winter) about her disappointment in how Mount

entered Yale Divinity School straight out of college. I consider my time at MHC a significant part of my spiritual formation. Rev. Jennifer Creswell ’01 Millbrook, New York

Merrily We Morph Along It was with great delight that I just finished reading the fall issue of the alumnae magazine. Something important has happened. It has morphed from a cartoon disaster to a more readable, interesting, and attractive magazine. The articles were relevant, well chosen, and well written. After many

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Spring 2006

back to campus to live with the same roommate I’d had for three years, the college sent a letter to her parents asking permission for their daughter to room with a married woman. It was a different time. The student body was more homogeneous, very conservative politically and socially, and the college stood “in loco parentis.” Mary Lyon was a remarkable woman, but she was also a woman of her time, formed by and reacting to the ideas and values of her day, as are we all. I would hope that those who were

is taken up with blank space and a large cutout of her. It is clearly a promotional ad for the College. There are no condolences offered to her family, or mention of her accomplishments, or anything personal about her, not even that the trustees or College mourn her passing. In my opinion, in its endless pursuit of publicity, the College has lost its perspective and sensibility in piggybacking a college selfpromotion onto the sad and premature death of a gifted and courageous woman. Joan Bruder Garland ‘52 Boca Raton, Florida 3

[ viewpoints ]

AA Smorgasbord Stimulates Action For the first time in twentyfive years, I’m finally feeling “plugged in” to the MHC community. The retooling of the Alumnae Quarterly, virtual attendance at reunions via Global Reunion, the all-campus ID card (I could glimpse what today’s MHC student is up to), the many positive articles in the winter Quarterly (I felt there was something for everyone in this edition), Web sites galore to visit, the renewed emphasis on networking—a smorgasbord to sample at my leisure. Admittedly,

campus

currents

More than 3,050 applications came pouring in to the Mount Holyoke admission office this fall and winter, breaking the 3,000 mark for the first time. The total number of domestic and international applications for first-year admission—not including transfer or Frances Perkins applications—came to 3,053 as of February 14 and could rise slightly from there, says Diane Anci, the College’s dean of admission. This application pool is five percent higher than last year’s, and a staggering 60 percent higher than a decade ago. The numbers are a “statement of the great momentum we have now at the College,” says Anci, who attributes the

increase to the “strength and vitality” of the College itself, and also to a number of new initiatives designed to get the word out about Mount Holyoke. One addition to the recruitment effort is the Joy Mooney Jenkins Room, a large meeting space that hosts daily information sessions for visitors in the Newhall Center. The room was built with funds from an anonymous donor in honor of the late Carolyn Joy Mooney Jenkins ’53. This addition is key to the College’s higher profile, says Jane Brown, vice president for enrollment and college relations; prior to the space’s construction “we were only able to have information

sessions on the weekends or in the summer,” says Brown. There was a 26.2 percent increase in visitors last year because of this expansion, according to Anci. The increase is especially significant because, Anci says, once young women visit Mount Holyoke they often apply. Alumnae, too, have “played a tremendous role” in spreading the word about Mount Holyoke and helping with the admission process. Alumnae interview prospective students and run information sessions, among many other roles. “Alumnae are a huge part of our recruitment program,” says Brown. Anci says, “These are good days at Mount Holyoke.”

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Stijn van der Laan

Application Numbers Highest Ever

As Leslie Anne Miller ’73 enters her second year as president of the Board of Trustees of MHC, she relishes the extraordinary position of strength the institution enjoys and the opportunity she has to secure that strength in this new century. “I’ve inherited a board with a strength of leadership, staff, faculty, and student body; a balanced budget; and an endowment at an alltime high,” says Miller, whose term runs through 2010. Even as the College celebrates the achievements of the recent past, Miller says, the board must work hard to sustain the gains it’s made. “The price of the kind of education we bring to students is high, and we are challenged to maintain the level of financial and educational strength we have achieved,” she points out. “We want to ensure that MHC continues to attract a population of students that is as diverse as we see on campus today. In addition, we continue to be committed to offering competitive faculty salaries both to retain and attract the very best.” One of the primary goals of Miller’s term, she explains, will be to lead the College and the board (twenty-three of its twenty-nine members are alumnae) through another fundraising campaign, with the objective of “sustaining the momentum that we have seen over the

Global Economy Scrutinized at MHC Conference Students, alumnae, professors, administrators, scholars from around the world, and others gathered at Mount Holyoke March 3–4 for the conference, New Global Realities: Winners and Losers From Offshore Outsourcing. The conference was hosted by the Center for Global Initiatives, led by economics professor Eva Paus. The event drew over 350 attendees, about fifty of whom are alumnae, and 130 of whom are

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Spring 2006

MHC students enrolled in a companion minicourse that started in January and culminated in this conference. Conference speakers included representatives from the European Parliament, the World Bank, the United Nations, the International Labor Organization, and Accenture, a communications corporation. “The complexity of the issues really came out well,” at the conference, says Paus. It was a sign of the conference’s success, she adds, that it raised more questions than it answered on how to reduce the number of “losers” and increase the number of “winners” in the global economy. The conference started with a keynote address, “The Great Doubling: Labor in the New Global Economy,” by internationally known Harvard economist Richard Freeman. The major economic gap, he argued, is no longer between industrialized and nonindustrialized nations, but between rich and poor people within each nation. One major shift is increased competition for jobs among workers brought on after the global workforce doubled with the opening of China and the former Soviet Union, and the growing inclusion of India in the global economy. Phyllis Kodi ’07, an economics major, enjoyed the conference, concurring with other students that the variety of views represented by the speakers made for thought-provoking discussions. She took issue however, as did other students, with the exclusion of Africa from the outsourcing picture. Overall, Kodi says she learned at the conference that “outsourcing is neither inherently good nor bad.” It can be good, she notes, if there are structures in place to make sure that positive changes are not temporary or restricted to a select few. More policy ideas from the conference are available through the speakers’ papers, which are on the conference Web site at http://www.mtholyoke.edu/ acad/programs/global/conferences/conf_ 2006_readings.html. An edited version of the conference will be available on DVD in May. —Erica Winter ’92

[ campus currents ]

MHC Board Chair Looks to Future and Next Fundraising Campaign

recent years.” The board has formed a steering committee of alums and others, and this fall will announce the campaign, to be completed at the end of 2011. “Of particular importance will be increasing the Mount Holyoke endowment,” notes Miller. “We have made great strides from the last campaign and we look forward to building on that success.” It is a bold move, Miller admits, to initiate a new fundraising effort just three years after the close of the last campaign in 2003. But the continued relevance of women’s education as the new century opens, the increased networking abilities of the alumnae body to get the good word out about the College, and a growing body of financially successful alumnae make a new campaign workable, she says. Miller, who serves as the first woman general counsel for the state of Pennsylvania in the cabinet of Gov. Edward Rendell, was the first woman elected president of the Pennsylvania Bar Association and has served a host of community organizations, including the Pennsylvania Breast Cancer Coalition, the Free Library of Philadelphia, and the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. She lives in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. “A liberal-arts education is a gift we can give future generations,” Miller says. “I firmly believe that an institution committed to the education of women continues to have a strong relevance, as events going on around us prove every day. It is an honor and privilege to lead the board at this time.”

College a Top Fulbright Producer The College is once again a leader among liberal arts institutions in producing Fulbright scholarship winners. Six Mount Holyoke students won awards for 2005–06. They include grants to teach in Indonesia, Korea, and Austria, and to study philosophy in Germany, chemistry in Ghana, education in China, and Latin American studies in Brazil. Other top-producing schools were Smith, Wellesley, Kenyon, Vassar, and Wesleyan. The Fulbright program provides funding for one academic year of study or research abroad after graduation. This year, more than 1,200 students were offered grants for work in more than 100 countries.

Windmill, by Vincent van Ojen

Dutch Treats Dutch works of art from the permanent collection of the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum will be on view through July 31 as part of “GoDutch!”—a six-month celebration of Dutch art, culture, and horticulture throughout the Pioneer Valley. Participating event partners include the members of Museums10, a collective of seven college and university museums and three independent museums in the area. Seventeenth-century 6

landscapes by Jan Booth and Willem de Heusch, Old Master prints by Rembrandt van Rijn and Hendrick Goltzius, as well as the work of contemporary artist Vincent van Ojen will be among the works shown at MHC. Area bed-and-breakfasts also have planted 4,000 tulips for visitors to enjoy. For up-to-date information, go to www.museums10.org. Musicorda Shuts its Doors The Musicorda Festival, an independent classical music program that drew to campus gifted young musicians from around the country, shut its doors permanently at the end of its nineteenth season last summer, citing funding difficulties. Consisting of a training institute for gifted preprofessionals, a road company, on-campus recitals, and a children’s string workshop, the festival was housed on the MHC campus, where mini-recitals emanated from the dorms for six weeks as string musicians practiced their repertoires. Jacqueline Melnick, a recently deceased MHC professor of music, and her husband, Leopold Teraspulsky, who taught music at the University of Massachusetts, founded the festival in 1987. The nurturing, family atmosphere created by its founders and the institutes that graduates established in their hometowns were a testament to the founders’ vision and musical integrity, said Gloria Russell, a longstanding Musicorda board member. “The music was exceptional and the reviews were fantastic,” she said. A combination of factors, including financing competition from wealthier summer festivals Tanglewood and Aspen, led to Musicorda’s closing. Medieval Studies for the Modern Mind Need a little frontal lobe refreshment? Many of the College’s academic departments have created useful and fun Web sites that outline not only current course offerings but also link to fascinating Web resources. For example, if you think looking at digital facsimiles of ancient manuscripts scanned from the originals

might be fun, the medieval studies program’s Web site (www.mtholyoke. edu/acad/medst/) can link you directly to the Oxford University repository. Even more illuminating is the department’s offer to let you rearrange the face of Henry Tudor via the miracle of Java script. A visit with those expert in the Middle Ages—and many other academic areas—can open up your world.

Trisha Brown and company in “Set and Reset”

“Acts of Reconstruction” Spring Theme for Weissman Center This spring, the Weissman Center for Leadership and the Liberal Arts focused on the efforts of individuals, communities, and nations to restore or renew the social, political, artistic, cultural, and religious spheres. The series explored provocative ways in which land, history, art, and society have been transformed by those acts. The full range of reconstruction—along with implications for transforming the earth and impacting future generations—was explored. “The aftermath of natural disasters like earthquakes, hurricanes, and tsunamis; fighting in Iraq and the Sudan; and the civil rights and social justice issues in our own country make it clear that today there are communities and nations under siege. After recovery comes reconstruction,” said Lois Brown,

Left: Courtesy of William P. Carl Fine Prints; top: Chris Callis

Newsbriefs

to achieve justice and closure for families who have suffered in the wake of wrenching upheaval, destabilization, and trauma,” said Brown. “It’s my hope that this series will highlight further the work—intellectual, social, creative, political, and physical—that we can do as students, professors, thinkers, and caring people. Acts of reconstruction require bold leadership and fearlessness. They have the potential to liberate us and to teach us more about the world we inhabit.”

Chilly Students Offered Winter Garb New England winters are brutal, and students arriving from milder climates often bring little more than a light jacket. Unfortunately, getting outfitted for below-freezing temperatures can be costly. Sheila Browne, Bertha Phillips Rodger Professor of Chemistry, took this problem to heart in 2000 and asked fellow faculty members to donate coats and jackets to help international students and others who could not afford winter cloth-

[ campus currents ]

director of the center and associate professor of English, African American studies, and American studies. From a lecture, “Set and Reset,” by dancer and artist Trisha Brown, to the play Sweet Maladies by artist in residence Zakyyah Alexander, the MHC community explored the kinds of tools, agendas, and innovations needed to perform acts of reconstruction. “Stories keep cropping up in the news about the quiet, relentless work of social activists who work

Paul Schnaittacher

Primates and Performance Our series of visits to MHC courses continues with a look at Theatre 350. Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The film Planet of the Apes. Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man. If asked to identify the connection among these works, alumnae might reply: “A new course at MHC, obviously.” Interdisciplinary courses are a given here, but interspecies studies are not. Primate Dramas: Kinship and the Evolutionary Stage is new both to the College and to the larger world of theatre scholarship. Created by Erika Rundle, assistant professor of theatre, the course fuses theatre history and criticism, performance studies, primatology, and evolutionary theory into what Rundle calls “a discourse of difference.” Heady material, but the nine students in Rundle’s seminar relish the challenge. As theatre majors, they “leap right into the discourse,” she laughs. Each student also makes a formal presentation, writes two research papers, and reads five texts (as well as thirty-four essays in a course reader that weighs as much as the Boston phone directory). As the semester progresses, the thematically linked writings by anthropologists, cultural critics, playwrights, and animal behaviorists gradually lead the students into a shifting moral territory of shadow and light. In the world of Primate Dramas, the boundaries between human and nonhuman, between stage performance and social behavior, become fluid. One afternoon in the Rooke Theater’s Green Room, Rundle and her students are engrossed in a lively discussion of “species difference” after viewing a documentary about Koko, the celebrated gorilla who learned to communicate with more than 1,000 hand signs. References fly back and forth—everything from an essay on the cultural values imbedded in National Geographic videos to recent theories of language acquisition. Questions are passionately debated: What are the ethical implications Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Spring 2006

of using fictional primates to dramatize the “darker” side of human beings (think King Kong)? What does it mean when Koko learns to “speak”? And one fundamental question underlies all the others: “What does it mean to be human?” After class, animated discussion continues down the hallway and out into the lobby. “This course has blown me away,” says Marty Seeger ’06. “We have amazing discussions about the importance of language, based on the incredible texts Erika assigns and the films she shows. I was new to all this three months ago; now I’ve become obsessed with the subject!” Like Seeger, Wakana Nikai ’06 believes that the readings, intense class discussions, and trips to see museum exhibits and theatre performances—including a Wooster Group production of Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape—are radically changing her assumptions. “The course keeps reminding me that I am studying in a liberal arts college,” she says. “I see primates, people, theatre—actually, all of Western culThe boundaries between human and nonture—differently human, between stage performance and now.”—Leanna social behavior, become fluid in the theatre James Blackwell seminar taught by Erika Rundle (right).

In Session

Five Colleges Mark Fortieth Year Together Five Colleges, Inc. celebrates its longevity and legacy this year with the launch of the Five College fortieth-anniversary professorships. Professors from each of the colleges

were appointed to three-year terms; each receives an annual research allowance and undertakes a crosscampus teaching stint, with courses starting in the spring. Christopher Benfey, Mellon Professor of English at Mount Holyoke, is part of the inaugural group of six professors selected. Benfey is teaching a course at Amherst College called Gilded Age New England: At Home and Abroad. Ilan Stavans, the Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College, is at Mount Holyoke to teach The Sounds of Spanglish in the College’s Latin American studies program.

Other participating professors and their courses are Barton Byg, teaching Brecht and World Cinema at Hampshire College; Smith College’s David Newbury, teaching Ecology and Imperialism in Africa at Amherst College; Amherst’s Austin Sarat, teaching Punishment, Politics, and Culture at the University of Massachusetts; and Hampshire’s Daniel Warner, teaching a course called SoundArt at Smith. How to Be Here Now To get a sense of the everyday at MHC, every day, check out the new “Being There” feature of the College’s Web site. At mtholyoke.edu/offices/

MHC Students Teach (and Learn) Leadership at Dubai Women’s College Four Mount Holyoke students traveled to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from December 31 to January 4 to conduct student leadership training sessions at Dubai Women’s College (DWC), under the auspices of MHC’s Center for Global Initiatives and the student programs office. Molly Aplet ’06, SGA public relations officer; Emily Freeman ’07, head of the campus Model United Nations; Nicole Tuma ’07, who is on the boards of four organizations, including the Association of Pan-African Unity; and Katie Kraschel ’06, SGA president; were selected to go to Dubai to conduct the four-day training seminar. In the training sessions, Kraschel was “struck to see how excited they are” to Molly Aplet ‘06, second from right, strengthen their stuguides students at Dubai Women’s dent government, she College through the finer points of democracy and student leadership. says. Because the students at DWC see student government as a new privilege, they were “very energetic, very motivated,” Kraschel says.

Student Edge

The Emerati women were most interested in women and leadership, says Aplet, and those discussions were the liveliest. At one point, a DWC student said, ‘I want to know how to lead men!’ and the Mount Holyoke students responded, ‘So would I!’ The DWC students “had so many ideas regarding the system they wanted for both student government and their country,” says Freeman, who led the seminar on democracy in the United States. The DWC students understood democracy as well as many Americans do, says Freeman. Tuma taught a workshop on communication skills, both within organizations and between groups and college administrations. The DWC students were “just as bold and outspoken as I would like to be,” she says. Though in Dubai for only a short while, Tuma says she sensed that Emeratis conduct their lives at a more methodical and easy pace than people in the United States. There are many high-achieving women at Mount Holyoke, says Tuma, “but they lose touch with time, the value of one day, the value of one-on-one connection,” she reflects. In the desire to do things both well and fast, Mount Holyoke students might “lose the value of the experience,” she says. In Dubai, “I learned as much as I taught,” Tuma says; “probably more.” —Erica Winter ’92 WEB EXTRA: An expanded version of this story is online at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/go/dubai

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Beth Gibney Boulden

[ campus currents ]

ing. Browne’s program got a big boost when the Mount Holyoke Club of Hartford, Connecticut, became involved. Members decided to collect not only winter coats but also professional clothing that students could wear for job and graduate school interviews. Browne made the donated coats and career clothing available to students at the end of J-Term this year.

Tidbits: a collection of brief takes from around campus • Professor of Politics Christopher Pyle, a former intelligence officer, in 1970 disclosed the military surveillance of civilians. With reports of the current administration’s domestic spying activities surfacing, Pyle is in demand for his expertise. To date, he has done more than fifty radio and newspaper interviews …

[ campus currents ]

comm/news/being_there.shtml you’ll find tiny snippets of quotidian life on campus, including cars waiting patiently for Canada geese to cross Lower Lake Road, a finals-week freak-out, and a canine David-and-Goliath tale.

A Murmur in the Trees Trees. They’re inspiring, the source of the oxygen we breathe, and a challenge to every child with a yen for a better view. At MHC, you can’t go far before you run into one, and in spring, they put on a spectacular show. Ellen Shukis, director of the Botanic Garden, provided these campus tree facts. Next time you’re on campus, take a few minutes to examine some of these spectacular specimens. Total number of trees on main campus: approx. 2,000 Number of campus trees that are now extinct in the wild: 1 The last confirmed observation of Franklinia (Franklinia alatamaha) in the wild was in 1790 in southeastern Georgia. A young Franklinia was planted in the Drue Mathews Garden (between the greenhouse and the Art Museum) in 2005 to replace an older specimen that died in the mid-1990s. Species of tree with the greatest number of individuals: sugar maple (Acer saccharum): 164 Tree with largest flowers: Ashe’s magnolia (Magnolia ashei) This, the rarest of native American magnolias, has flowers that can be a foot or more across! It is 1998’s class tree, and despite its Floridian origins, is growing happily in the Virginia “Tim” Craig ’31 Rhododendron Garden (on the north side of the Art Building). Number of trees planted on campus in 2005: 58 Tree with the largest leaves: Kentucky coffee tree (Gymnocladus dioicus)

“Jeff the Chef” Sadowski, manager of Blanchard Café, taught survival cooking skills to students during J-Term.

• Mount Holyoke’s Center for Global Initiatives recently received a $100,000 grant to examine how all MHC students might have a meaningful learning experience abroad …

Fred LeBlanc

• J-Term revived its popular Passport to Reality series this winter, which offered helpful strategies and information for life in the “real world” including cooking (above), budgeting, and personal finance … • Don’t sleep much at night? You’re in very good company, according to the airline magazine Attaché. Light sleepers have included the likes of Albert Schweitzer, Florence Nightingale, and Mary Lyon—who apparently slept but four hours nightly ...

The compound leaves of this rugged member of the pea family can reach two feet wide and up to three feet long! As its name suggests, it was once used (by early settlers) as a coffee substitute. Although students these days go to Rao’s in the library for their espresso, hundreds pass our Kentucky coffee tree every day on their way to Kendall. Most celebrated tree: copper beech (Fagus sylvatica Atropurpurea group) at Dwight Hall At 73.8 inches, it is also gets “tree with the greatest diameter” honors. Trees with interesting bark: paperbark maple (Acer griseum) has cinnamon colored, smooth bark that peels off in curls; paper birch (Betula papyrifera) has chalk-white bark that peels off in curled strips; and Japanese Stewartia (Stewartia pseudocamellia) has bark that flakes off in patches, revealing shades of pink, brown, and cream Tree with the best fall color: Bowhill red maple (Acer rubrum “Bowhill”) Tallest tree on campus: The sugar maple north of Mary Lyon’s grave is 111 feet high.

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Spring 2006

When we want to put a nail into a wall, we reach for the hammer. But, when people turn their attention to the job of explaining something, what tools do they reach for? And why do they choose those specific tools? These are some of the research questions being posed by assistant professor Araceli Valle, who joined the psychology department this fall. “I’m interested in the origins of scientific thinking,” says Valle, who is examining her belief that children’s attitudes toward logic and scientific reasoning are influenced by conversations with parents. “Schools teach science, but the ways in which parents explore questions with their children give messages regarding the value of reason and science in knowing things,” says Valle. In Valle’s research, “scientific thinking” means making decisions based on reason and objectively verifiable evidence. In contrast, a person not using scientific thinking might make decisions or explain phenomena based on personal experience or societal beliefs and norms. “People usually rely on both” scientific reasoning and personal experience in making decisions and explaining things, says Valle. For example, she looked at how parents in California explained earthquake safety to their kids. Valle found that explanations of what types of buildings are more likely to fall down varied based on the science backgrounds of the parents. Most parents reached for the scientific reasoning tool, such as discussing the relative pliancy of brick versus wood. Most also brought up relevant personal experiences in recent earthquakes, such as telling the child about a brick chimney that fell down even when the wooden house itself remained standing. People with science training, however, were more likely to rely only on scientific reasoning than those who were not trained in scientific fields. This was “surprising to me,” says Valle; it was interesting for Valle to see that, even with other perfectly workable tools available, people develop “habitual ways of reasoning” that they rely on when faced with a question. More recently, Valle found that the degree to which parents emphasized scientific over other types of reasoning in a problem-solving task related to how well their children did on an abstract logical reasoning test. Valle continues to look at what children learn about scientific thinking from conversations with parents and how any patterns she finds in the research outcomes relate to parents’ educational backgrounds. —Erica Winter ’92

Brainstorms

Free Web Resources Help You Learn Unusual Languages If you hanker to hear Hungarian or want to speak Wolof or any of seventeen other less commonly taught languages, you’re in luck. The Five College Center for the Study of World Languages offers free online resources for independent language study at langmedia.fivecolleges.edu. The site includes short videos of everyday conversations—on topics such as taking a taxi, shopping, mosque etiquette, and telling time—in authentic cultural context. For example, you can listen to Arabic as it’s spoken in Jordan, Swahili in Tanzania, Serbian in Serbia, and Twi in Ghana. There are also video clips of interviews and conversations from other countries, and self-study course guides. The center’s director, UMass Professor of Italian Elizabeth H.D. Mazzocco, says few institutions offer such a range of free online language materials.

Sports Shorts College Plans for Two New Athletics Facilities In an effort to remain competitive with peer institutions and better serve the entire MHC community, the College is in the early planning stages for a new artificial turf field with lights and an eight-lane synthetic track. An artificial turf field would allow the field hockey team to practice and compete on the sport’s preferred playing surface, on which 75 percent of the team’s away contests are now played. (At publication time, the location had yet to be decided.) A new, lighted field also will provide a place for varsity teams including field hockey, lacrosse, and soccer, and club sports and intramurals to compete at night, limiting conflicts with academics and other extracurricular activities. An eight-lane oval www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Paul Schnaittacher

Scientifically Speaking, and Thinking

• Professor of history Joseph Ellis spent January on a national book tour for his best-selling biography, His Excellency: George Washington.

Winter Sports Roundup The winter sports teams achieved great success as the first semester drew to a close. The basketball team had its best season (23–6) in MHC history, winning the Seven Sisters Championship for the fourth straight year and capturing the ECAC Division III New England Women’s basketball championship. Swimming and diving went undefeated (4-0) in dual-meet competition and earned

eleven first-place ribbons at the Pioneer Valley Invitational on December 3, where diver Lauren Griffin ’09 qualified provisionally for nationals in the one-meter event. She is only the second MHC diver ever to qualify. Squash evened its record to 3-3, and firstyear Pam Anckermann went undefeated at the number one position, including a fourset win December 4 over a nationally ranked player from Bowdoin. Anna Zimmerman ’09 Indoor track and field started its season well, earning several top performances at Wesleyan on December 3, including a regional qualifying time in the 400m by Valerie Shepard ’06 and a first-place finish in the 5k by Anna Zimmerman ’09. The riding team also competed December 3 at the Holiday Tournament of Champions—the two Lyons teams placed second and third out of twenty-eight squads and senior Kyla Makhloghi earned Grand Champion Rider honors.

[ campus currents ]

and ten-lane straightaway synthetic track would enable the track-andfield team to host a home meet for the first time in more than ten years. The current six-lane track, installed in 1984, is literally peeling away from its foundation, coaches say, and collegiate competition now requires eight lanes and a steeplechase area. (The women’s steeplechase event consists of a 3k run over 30” barriers and a water jump.) Both new facilities would attract prospective student-athletes in all sports and further the success of MHC athletics, as well as provide much-needed space for recreational programs. A committee of athletics administrators, coaches, students, and facilities management personnel has been formed to explore possible design options for these new facilities.

Modern Memories Remember Andy Warhol’s strange lifestyle? What about the French “New Wave” films of the 1960s or Jimmy Carter’s cardigan? First-year students don’t. These defining characteristics of time periods near and dear to many of us are so not relevant to the class of 2009, for whom • Bill Gates has always been a billionaire • Cut and paste has never involved scissors • Television news and entertainment are synonymous • The Starship Enterprise never seemed cutting edge • Salman Rushdie has always been watching over his shoulder • Airports have always had boutiques and edible food • Voice mail has always existed • Men named George Bush have been president half their young lives

Below: Stacey Watts; John Risley

• Jackie Gleason has always been dead Source: Adapted from the Beloit College “Mindset List”

MHC won the ECAC title in its first-ever post-season basketball championship.

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Spring 2006

Rethinking Retirement Retired (But Not Retiring) Alumnae

Ben English, Jr.

Jane B. English â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;64

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Maryann

Teale

Snell

’86

Last spring, Linda Ocker Mashburn ’63 retired from her full-time job. This spring, she’s spending time in federal prison. In November the sixty-four-year-old scaled a barbed-wire fence at a military base in Georgia and was arrested for trespassing. She and others were protesting the role of the U.S. Army’s Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation in training Latin American militaries, and the history of human-rights abuses associated with its graduates. Mashburn has demonstrated and been arrested three times before, but not until retirement did she feel “free” to up the ante and go to prison to support her beliefs.

Mashburn may not be your typical Mount Holyoke retiree; most of her contemporaries would opt for a bit less drama in their sunset years. But what they all have in common is this: they are the ﬁrst generation of women retirees to have worked, in signiﬁcant numbers, outside the home. That means they are blazing their own trail, based not on how they experienced their mother’s or father’s retire-

ment, but on how they’ve envisioned it for themselves.

Not Your Parents’ Retirement Retirement always seemed like “some far-off time beyond the incredibly old age of sixty-five,” observes Sandra Klamkin Schocket ’58. “I knew I didn’t want my parents’ version. They moved to an ‘over-fifty-five’ development

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Spring 2006

in Florida and spent most of their time playing cards, sitting by the pool, and going to dances, plays, and dinners.” Judy Shepherd DeBrandt ’66, whose mother “continues to manage her household and do what interests her,” is eager to do something more “to ‘contribute’ in some way,” she says. “I have traveled, volunteered, raised children,

“I’ve always followed my own inner direction, with work and play hardly distinguishable”— which means … “I have nothing to retire from!” Jane B. English ’64 worked, and pursued hobbies for many years. I’d like to think of this next stage as one of renewal rather than retirement.” “My father said he’d like to die at his desk,” recalls Frances Carpenter Betteridge ’42. And the women in her family were busy at volunteer work, if not paid jobs. “Retirement, to all of us, seemed to mean giving up, sitting back, and waiting for the inevitable.” Sarah Fisher Liebschutz ’56 says her father retired at fifty-six, after a stroke, and died at sixty-two. “My mother, who hadn’t worked for the twenty-six years they were married, returned to work at fifty-two and continued until she was seventy-two.” Liebschutz knows her own retirement options are “far broader” than those of her mother’s generation, in part because she feels financially secure. Having observed her father seclude himself in retirement, Marilyn Coburn Kincaid ’69 says, “I knew how I didn’t want to retire.” She also knew that, although she enjoyed her career, she was “not going to be one of those

people who worked into her seventies, eighties, and nineties”—because there are “too many other interesting things to do.” “I never thought of my parents as ‘retired,’” says Barbara Bowman Prairie ’61. “But I realize now I’m doing exactly what they did: They moved from a city to a rural area, and then to a college town. My mother, who’d always been a housewife, audited courses at the university, and my father, an engineer who grew up on a farm, kept busy gardening.”

Re-Viewing the ‘R-Word’ While some alumnae made mental notes about how retirement could be, based on the type enjoyed (or not) by their parents, a good crop of MHCers seem not to have given it much thought until it crept up to their back door. Sue Hershner Chehrenegar ’73 had “only the vaguest perception of what it could be” (her father died at fifty-nine, and her mother worked only briefly). But early retirement, due to a disability affecting Chehrenegar’s eyesight, has allowed the former biomedical researcher to do what she’d only dreamed about before: “sit and write.” She now contributes a weekly article to her local newspaper and is taking a writing course. Her views on retirement didn’t start to gel until she was in her mid-fifties, says Liz Hottel Barrett ’61, who’d gone back to full-time work after a divorce. “I realized I didn’t want to play all the time; I wanted my life to mean something.” A computer programmer, she retired early and founded the multiracial All Children’s Chorus of Annapolis. A longtime professor of political science, Liebschutz didn’t think seriously about the “R-word” until a year before she retired at sixty-two. “It seemed synonymous with slowing down,” and she couldn’t imagine leaving her field completely. So Liebschutz, describing herself as “neither retiring nor retired,” has redirected her energies toward several consulting projects and an adjunct teaching position.

When Anne Wagner Raphael ’62 sold the travel agency she’d started in 1981, she imagined she’d have time to do all the “virtuous” tasks she’d put off: organizing papers, reading books, brushing up on other languages, practicing violin. But with her own children grown, she’s now hosting foreignexchange students—which means, says Raphael, “whatever I couldn’t find time for with a full-time job, I still can’t find time for now.” She did, however, take up playing dulcimer. Elinor Miller Greenberg ’53 always considered retirement a male concept. Women who’ve gone back to work in midlife, once their children have flown the coop, may not be ready psychologically or financially (or eligible) for retirement until well past the conventional retirement age of sixtyfive, she points out. At seventy-three, Greenberg herself is “still too young to totally retire” and continues working part-time in higher education. She’s also writing a book for women, on “the third trimester of life.” Having observed her retired grandfather “perfectly happy and busy” in his woodworking shop and her retired father and mother engaged in and enjoying life, Jane B. English ’64 sensed that retirement must be “something good.” But she also heard it depicted as a time of “declining health and workaholics at loose ends.” The self-employed photographer and writer says, “I’ve always followed my own inner direction, with work and play hardly distinguishable”—which means, she adds, “I have nothing to retire from!”

Reality Check “It doesn’t feel good to be ‘retired’ because it suggests a lack of productivity,” says Judy DeBrandt. Planning to retire at ﬁfty-nine seemed daunting as she considered she had “probably thirty years ahead without deﬁnition.” Despite making short-term goals— travel, study, spend time with family, write—DeBrandt lacked long-term direction. Her twenty-year business

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Toni Marie Gonzalez, Toledo Museum of Art

career had offered routine plus financial security, she says. But now she’s come to realize that “life offers much more.” Gail Hunt Reeke ’64—who, at fifty-five, left Wall Street after nearly thirty years—was surprised at “how absolutely right retirement felt from the very beginning.” She fills her days with “right-brained” activities: playing violin in an orchestra, taking jazz piano lessons, keeping fluent in Italian, going to Pilates class, and pursuing a new interest in graphic art. “I wonder how I ever had time to work,” she says. “My life philosophy is to have my cake and eat it too,” comments Sandra Germond Pritz ’60, adding that she enjoyed her career “enough to want to continue it.” A year after retiring as a research specialist, Pritz completed her PhD in education—a “helpful credential” in the consulting work she now does from her home office. Betteridge says she never considered “retiring to the ‘good life’ of golf, bingo, and cruises.” When her youngest child was seventeen, she went to law school. Divorced, she says “it was time for a new adventure,” and she eventually became a juvenile-court judge. Whenever she had time off, she traveled the world, which primed her for a job as a tour coordinator in Mexico when she retired. Later she started an import business, supporting artisans there, and still enjoys taking tour groups to Oaxaca. Any ideas Schocket may have entertained about retirement were turned on end in 1994, with the deaths of her husband and adult son. The former human-resources consultant sold her house in New Jersey and headed for Ohio, where her remaining son had settled, and where she knew no one. But she was inspired to pursue a long-held dream of becoming a docent and now works at the Toledo Museum of Art. Liebschutz’s retirement too was affected by her husband’s death. The couple was married forty-four years and had looked forward to traveling together. Since retiring in 1997, Liebschutz has continued to do research in her field

In retirement, Sandra Klamkin Schocket ’58 fulfilled a long-held dream of working as a museum docent. Here she works with children in the Toledo Museum of Art’s galleries.

Gail Hunt Reeke ’64, who fills her days with “right-brained” activities such as playing violin in an orchestra and taking jazz piano lessons, wonders how she ever had time to work.

TAKE OUR ADVICE

• Live life with optimism. Don’t be too determined to plan it all out with exactitude or get too cerebral about it. Identify what you care about deeply, and retain that in retirement.—Sandra Pritz ’60 • Recreate the structure and sense of community you had when you were working. Have a place to go or

something to do that connects you with the world. —Sandra Schocket ’58 • Remember that you are not going to become a different person when you retire. If your self-esteem is linked primarily to your work, you may need help ﬁguring out what else can satisfy you.—Barbara Prairie ’61 • Develop interests and skills you can draw on when you’re no longer working full-time. Keep an active and open mind. Do what makes you happy. —Sarah Fisher Liebschutz ’56

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Joe Lawton

• Plan, particularly ﬁnancially. Also, you want to leave your job while they’re still saying “Oh, please stay!” rather than “When is that woman going to quit?!” —Marilyn Kincaid ’69

and published two books; she also volunteers at state and local levels. But a noticeable difference in her life, she says, “is the time I spend taking care of myself—walking, playing golf, practicing yoga.” [That’s Liebschutz on the cover.] She’s also developed “a keen interest in food and wine,” learned to play bridge, and joined a book group. Prairie “took to retirement like the proverbial ﬁsh to water,” she says. She and her husband left New England for a college town in Kentucky. Prairie pictured herself a “footloose and fancy-free traveler and craftsperson.” But when her husband was diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, she shifted into caregiver mode. Prairie’s life changed in ways she couldn’t have imagined—and not all for the worse, she says. “I’ve learned as much about myself as I’ve learned about medical things and caregiving—all of which has enriched my life.” Michael Prairie died in December.

Mashburn has demonstrated and been arrested three times before, but not until retirement did she feel “free” to up the ante and go to prison to support her beliefs.

Mike Haskey

Winding Down and Gearing Up For twenty years, magazine publisher Merja Lehtinen ’76 lived the high life, earning a six-ﬁgure salary, ﬂying to Europe, traveling by limo, staying in fancy hotels. But when several family members became ill within a short span of time, she took early retirement to become a part-time caregiver. She still does some writing, but the big change for her is tutoring immigrant children in Connecticut’s public schools. Taking a job she “never would have pursued for money has been an eye-opener,” she says. “The children have taught me what’s important.” To celebrate her sixtieth birthday, Elaine Abt

Parmett FP’86 quit her job as an academic adviser. She intended to spend more time with her husband, learn quilting and knitting, and exercise more. But another goal—to renew her “love affair” with American history—compelled her to research the life of Silas Lamson, “an eccentric nineteenth-century inventor, abolitionist, and preacher.” Now she’s giving lectures about him at local historical societies and plans to write his biography. After leaving her med-school teaching post six years ago, Marilyn Kincaid delved right into earning a master’s in Jewish studies. This is the first year she’s been outside the academic world, and she admits it feels a little “weird.” But teaching at her synagogue and tutoring a high-school student has helped fill the void. Barrett thinks of retirement as something like “revving our engines and seeing how far we can travel.” Her “all-consuming” project of directing a fifty-member children’s chorus has given her “the awesome feeling of accomplishment—making a difference in the community and being a positive influence in the lives of so many children.” After getting over her initial feeling of aimlessness, DeBrandt has unearthed “a lot of energy to explore each day, to ‘be’ part of the world rather than ‘retire’ from it.” As Merja Lehtinen reminds us: “Mount Holyoke women simply cannot be bored”—even in retirement.

Linda Ocker Mashburn ’63 says retirement freed her to pursue nonviolent resistance in the tradition of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. She is spending three months in prison for her actions.

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Spring 2006

Maryann Teale Snell ’86 is a writer and editor in Saratoga Springs, New York.

BUILD a BETTER WORLD for WOMEN Create a Support Network in Your Community This is the winning essay in this year’s Quarterly essay contest, which asked entrants to write about one thing that would make life better for women around the world today and how this might become reality. The runner-up essay, by Diana J. Huet de Guerville ’96, is online at alumnae.mtholyoke. edu/go/essay

By Julie Ginocchio Bergin ’99

There is a litany of ways in which women have a voice daily, and each is equally powerful. But something is lacking in our communities today that should be as glaringly obvious as it is sadly forgotten—a support system for women. Although some women seem to have all the choices in the world these days, many women have little of the support necessary to make informed, thoughtful, and lasting choices. The best method of spreading our knowledge and making our hopes for the future a reality is to build support networks to empower and educate women worldwide. On the grandest scale, these networks would connect women globally in an exchange of ideas. But to create a network, we need to look no

further than our own communities. The challenge is to reach out, communicate with one another, and create the support system that we all know we need. • Never see your neighbors? Plan a picnic at a local park for the women in your neighborhood. Does fear of poor attendance stall you? If you meet one woman at your event, you’ve made a connection. Do you shrug, thinking you don’t have the time? If you have the time to read this essay, you have the time to post a ﬂier in your community to advertise the event. • Ever think of mentoring a child? Approach your local schools to ask about opportunities to be a tutor. For a young www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Jim Dandy

Student. Teacher. Wife. Mother. Daughter. Sister. Mentor. Friend. Dancer. Poet. Swimmer. Lifeguard. Doctor. Scientist. Actress. Artist. Women in the world today are multitasking like never before. And these multiple roles are precisely what we can draw upon to improve our lives and those of women worldwide. Every day, every one of us has an impact on the world through our daily interactions at home, at school, at work, at the grocery store, at the post ofﬁce, and wherever our feet carry us. The most powerful thing we can do is to communicate positively and effectively within our communities. Greet our neighbors. Hug our friends. Praise a coworker’s presentation. Mentor a child. Call your mother. Vote.

girl, having a supportive woman as a mentor would be a wonderful gift of encouragement and hope. • Are you a new mom? Inquire about “mommy and me” groups at your local hospital—and if there isn’t one, start one. Support among mothers is essential for women, for children, and for the families that these women nurture. • Want to get to know your coworkers? Start a monthly lunch date with women in your ofﬁce to provide an outlet for some off-site stress release and communication. By building these networks, we can be a force for positive change in our communities and make life better for ourselves, our neighbors, and all the women whose lives will be touched by our efforts.

“the effects we have on the lives we touch daily will never be fully known to us, but will always be more far-reaching than we could ever imagine.” The cornerstone of any support system is communication. By starting small and reaching out to the women around us, we will take baby steps toward big change that will have an impact not only on the women in our local communities but also on women throughout the world. How can a picnic gathering of women neighbors in a park in Small Town, USA, affect women in Russia?

Perhaps the woman sitting next to you has family in Russia and will have an idea that translates to her kin around the globe. The best ideas sprout from active discussion among peers, and the best guidance comes from caring communication from everyday teachers. Friendships turn into business partnerships. A mentor attends her protégée’s college graduation. The effects we have on the lives we touch daily will never be fully known to us, but will always be more far-reaching than we could ever imagine. You’ve made a difference today as a woman by communicating within your community. As we widen our sphere of communication, we will empower more and more women to reach their full potential. Our small networks will grow into a global village that will help make women’s dreams a reality.

President Creighton: On Writing It probably won’t surprise anyone that writing has been central to my life, first as an English major turned professor and scholar and later as an administrator. There are few endeavors I find more challenging and satisfying than to attempt through the written word to grapple with the inchoate, to draw undeveloped ideas into a cohesive structure, to construct an argument, and finally to coax the prose into graceful lucidity and economy. We’ve all experienced this Yeatsian “fascination of what’s difficult” in some version from our earliest school days onward. Some of us—especially those of us in academic fields, but certainly many others as well—find ourselves writing all the time for our livelihood. Whether you write daily or infrequently, for business or for pleasure, alone or collaboratively, I hope that your Mount Holyoke education taught you to hone your writing skills and to value the rigors of the writing process. One of the core premises of a liberal arts education is that discourse— sometimes oral but often written—and critical thought are intertwined and inseparable. Not only does writing serve as a vehicle for our most sophisticated thinking, the process of writing allows us to explore and test the cogency of our ideas when we articulate them as words, sentences, and paragraphs. At its best, writing is an intellectual exercise that draws deeply from our understanding and humanity.

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Spring 2006

Writing is broadly infused across the curriculum at Mount Holyoke, and students can bolster their skills through our innovative Speaking, Arguing, and Writing Program. We twice used an iterative writing process to set new direction for the College, resulting in The Plan for 2003 and The Plan for 2010. Multiple public drafts helped us ﬁnd common ground about what matters to the institution and what makes the most sense for its future. But writing isn’t always so public; it serves multiple purposes: every letter to the editor, every business plan, e-mail, blog entry, or even holiday note to friends is an opportunity to capture our thoughts and feelings in words. We never know for sure the extent of the inﬂuence our writing may have. (I was reminded of this recently as we revisited the Edward R. Murrow papers in the College archives. Even Murrow’s casual and private writings paint a vivid picture of the cultural and political landscape of his time.) So with that in mind, I am delighted to see how interested alumnae have been in the Alumnae Association’s essay contest. I hope you’ll take a moment to read the winning essay, a heartfelt statement about building connections and making a difference in the world: the very essence of the College’s resonant mission. —Joanne V. Creighton

How a ‘mistake’ helped an alum scientist track movement inside cells

At age ten, Clare WatermanStorer ’89 constructed a bedroom for herself in the basement of her family’s Baltimore home, right down to framing the walls and wiring the room for electricity. “I just did it, using ‘howto’ books,” she said. This feat of ingenuity says a great deal about the scientist Waterman-Storer, now forty-two, has become. She figures out how disparate elements fit together to form complex machines—be they living cells, microscopes, bicycles, or trucks—and applies that knowledge in unexpected ways. Now an associate professor in the Department of Cell Biology at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, Waterman-Storer was one of thirteen scientists chosen to receive a 2005 Pioneer Award from the National Institutes of Health. The awards in this international competition recognize scientists of “exceptional creativity” and provide financial support for pioneering work that would not otherwise be funded. Waterman-Storer will receive $2.5 million over the next five years, a boon during an era of decreased funding for basic research. 20

“I was surprised every step of the way,” said WatermanStorer, who had received the 2002 Women in Cell Biology Career Recognition Award from the American Society for Cell Biology. For Waterman-Storer, 42, who only stopped repairing her own microscopes a year ago, the Pioneer Award provides an opportunity to do research that’s tough to get funded—what she calls the “weirdo, risky stuff”—without having to scramble so hard for resources. The award’s visibility also makes it easier to attract the best graduate students and postdocs to her tenperson lab, to find new collaborators, and to think more broadly about her work. What fascinates Waterman-Storer is the way cells move and change their shape—something she observes as they do it. Using a variety of novel approaches and microscopic techniques, she looks at the complex interplay among the protein ﬁbers that form the cytoskeleton, the internal framework that gives a cell its shape and strength. These ﬁbers, among other roles, help cells divide, move in their environment, and transport small organelles within the cell. Waterman-Storer wants to know how the proteins interact, but she focuses a lot on microtubules, hollow protein cylinders that work like little conveyor belts powered by protein motors. www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Photo Courtesy of The Scripps Research Institute

Speckle Science

Torsten Wittmann

BY AVICE A. MEEHAN

“I am trying to understand how protein dynamics mediate physical cell behaviors. For example, a physical measure might be how hard a cell is pulling against its environment,” she said. Long-term, understanding the activity of these protein fibers will help explain basic physiological processes such as how wounds heal and cancer spreads, since both involve cell movement. The research may also lead to insights into disorders such as Parkinson’s disease or muscular dystrophy. Both involve defects in other protein fibers, called intermediate filaments, that do things such as strengthen projections from nerve cells and provide mechanical strength to muscle cells. What sets Waterman-Storer apart—and what generates so much interest in her work—are the tools she has helped develop to tackle these questions. She invented a kind of microscopy that relies on fluorescent speckles to peer inside cells and see how particular structural and regulatory proteins do their work. The story of how she got there requires a little backtracking. Waterman-Storer went to a tough Baltimore high school and, after emerging as one of the top students in her year, decided that a “preppy” New England school would be her “ticket up.” But success was neither easy nor immediate at MHC. Waterman-Storer, whose interest in science never wavered, didn’t find her academic bearings until junior year. “If I had been at a big state university, who knows what would have happened to me,” said Waterman-Storer, who graduated with a major in biochemistry. “The one-on-one attention kept me from disappearing. In my junior year, I got my ass in gear and worked very hard. It re-reminded me of how satisfying it was to accomplish something.” That set the stage for a turning point in Waterman-Storer’s development as a scientist. Her plan had been to earn a master’s degree in exercise physiology at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, working part-time as a bike mechanic to pay tuition bills, just as she had at Mount Holyoke. While getting the degree, Waterman-Storer “fell in love with a scientific problem” when she looked through a microscope. “I got captivated. The cell is a most amazing machine, a little biomachine that generates physical outputs,” she said. “The power of the microscope to see living machines working was pivotal. I thought, I’ve got to learn more about this.” That interest—focused in part on trying to understand how microtubules and their motor proteins work—propelled Waterman-Storer to the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned her PhD, and then Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Spring 2006

’77

to a postdoc in Ted Salmon’s laboratory at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Waterman-Storer, like many scientists, uses fluorescent markers that make it possible to follow biochemical reactions inside a cell that are too small to be seen through a microscope. She injected a specially labeled form of tubulin—the primary building block of the microtubule—to watch how the tiny fibers were assembled and did their work inside the cell. Waterman-Storer wanted to see a uniform distribution of her special protein inside the cell. Instead, she got speckles—again and again. She thought she’d made a mistake. But then one day she realized that the speckles flickered, that they could tell her a great deal about protein dynamics within the cell, and that they weren’t a mistake after all. “It was … the kind of data you don’t want to show your boss,” she said. But she and Salmon have transformed that “mistake” into a powerful technique that uses fluorescent speckles to track the dynamic reactions inside a cell. Ever the builder, Waterman-Storer uses a metaphor to explain how this works. Imagine, she says, that you are looking at a brick wall from far enough away that you can’t differentiate one brick from another. Now imagine that the bricks are magically flying in and out of the wall. If all the bricks are the same color, you can’t see the movement. But if 5 percent of the bricks are white—and some of those white bricks are moving—you would see white blurs and realize that the bricks were moving. “That’s exactly how speckle microscopy works,” she explains. Many refinements later, and still “madly in love with speckles,” Waterman-Storer continues to refine speckle microscopy and to seek new applications that will allow her to study more complex protein interactions. To put it in construction terms, Waterman-Storer wants to go beyond the brick wall to think about an entire building. She hopes to use the technology to better visualize how interconnected protein structures work within individual cells and then within networks of cells. It’s got her thinking about physics and teaching molecular biology to a computational scientist down the hall, a new collaborator who’s developing the mathematical tools to crunch the data contained in the speckle-microscopy images. “The privilege of my career is that it’s not just my job,” she said. “It’s what I love to do. … I have found something that is unique, interesting, and significant.” Visit Waterman-Storer’s Web site at http://speckle.scripps.edu. Avice A. Meehan ’77 is vice president for communications at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. 21

BRAGGING RIGHTS

J茅r么me Studer

Unusual and Often Unsung Alumnae Talents

BY EMILY HARRISON WEIR 22

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

MOUNT HOLYOKE ALUMNAE are a modest lot by nature, but when the Quarterly asked them to brag, many revealed talents quite out of the ordinary.

DRAG RACER

René Schmauder ’84 likes to “push the limits of the

performance envelope”—she can “race a Suzuki GSXR drag bike better than practically anyone else.” Launching her 1340cc bike at full throttle from a standing start, Schmauder streaks along at 155 miles per hour, covering a quarter-mile track in 8.9 seconds “all the while looking at the competition in the next lane to see who is going to cross the finish line first.” Competing on an even basis with men—she is one of only ten women among several hundred regular competitors in the AMA/Prostar series— Schmauder finished fifth in the world in the “Super Comp” class last year. Husband Bill got her into drag racing, and their twelve-year-old, Kaliska, expects to start racing her own motorcycle later this year.

STREAMLINER

Top: Courtesy of Angela Justice; opposite: Matt Polito/www.dragbikephotos.com

Jane Zippe Putscher ’87 may be the most efﬁcient person alive. “I am really good at going into a work situation and streamlining the process to eliminate wastes of time and other resources,” she says. If you think she’s exaggerating, consider this: “Two of the three jobs I currently hold used to be full-time for my predecessors, and I work a total of about ten hours a week among the three jobs.” Putscher also has a “ridiculous ability to remember song lyrics.” She still knows every word in Jesus Christ Superstar and The Messiah, and even recalls lyrics from truly obscure works such as the soundtrack to the 1970 ﬁlm The Strawberry Statement. “I can’t remember what I had for dinner yesterday, but songs I listened to growing up still take up space on my brain’s hard drive. Maybe this will help me on Jeopardy some day,” she says. Putscher attributes this talent to listening to a wide range of music and to performing music for many years. Putscher’s daughter Carrie “has shown a similar talent since she was about two. How many other twelveyear-olds today can identify classics by Jackson Browne, Peter Gabriel, and Phil Collins?”

FINANCIAL PLANNER Eleanor Hotchkiss Blayney ’73 says twenty years of experience as a financial planner have made her “able to understand an individual’s financial picture and money personality in a single meeting.” She says, “Give me your latest tax return, your investment and retirement account statements, a conference room, and an hour or two of your time, and I will know at the end of our meeting what will be necessary in terms of resources, lifestyle changes, and changes of attitude to make you achieve your financial goals.” Blayney attributes this ability not only to experience and training, but also to “being neither a right-brain nor a left-brain thinker” and to being so statistically average that she can relate to a very wide range of clients’ financial experiences. Her prowess has also been noticed by independent sources including Worth magazine, which named her a top U.S. financial planner five times. Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Spring 2006

TEA CONNOISSEUR Tea is not just a pleasant beverage to Angela A. Justice ’02, it’s a passion. She can distinguish more than 300 types of teas by sight, smell, and taste, and is probably the youngest person in the U.S. tea trade with extensive knowledge about China teas. Working for Asian-tea importer Teance since graduation, Justice traveled to China last year, scouring small boutique farms in rural areas for their best offerings. Justice had her “aha!” career moment as an MHC sophomore. While thinking about how to turn her economics major into a postgraduation job, she was also cradling a cup of her favorite drink. And suddenly Justice thought, “Someone has to get the tea into people’s cups!”—and her career was born. Justice got a summer job with a tea importer who introduced her to tea professionals. She realized that the ﬁeld ﬁt her, well, to a T. Justice says her ultimate goal is to identify, blindfolded, each of the estimated 10,000 varieties of Chinese tea. It sounds ambitious, but she’s already well on her way. For regions she’s familiar with, Justice can distinguish the altitude at which tea leaves were grown and season they were harvested.

KEEPING PIRATES AFLOAT Jennifer Kendall Convey Reilly ’89 gets to work on the same movie set as Johnny Depp, but (believe it or not) that’s not what sets her apart. She can rig a sailing ship. That means climbing up to seventy feet above the deck and shinnying out on fifty-five-foot-long yardarms to arrange heavy ropes. “I’ve rigged ships in the rain, snow, sleet, hurricanes, at night, underwater, on the beach, upside down, and in sight of waterspouts, in two states and four countries,” she says. On the set of the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels, Reilly is one of five riggers who build, repair, and maintain the rigging of both the real ships and the “just-a set” ships used in filming. She estimates that, by the time Pirates II and III come out, she’ll have worked about at least 6,000 hours. That’s about 1,600 minutes of work for each minute seen in the finished film.

BODY OF KNOWLEDGE

FORGET SEABISCUIT

Noelle Parsons Granger ‘65

Marion E. Altieri FP’88 says she is “one of the few women in the world who

wishes her expertise weren’t so rare. “I am one of a rapidly diminishing number of faculty nationally who can teach human anatomy,” she says. “Our ranks have been decimated in recent years by retirements and the elimination of graduate programs that trained students in this discipline. As a result, medical, dental, and physical therapy programs across the country have resorted to shortening their courses, eliminating the dissection laboratories, and using computerized materials.” Granger has published on the need for dissection in anatomy education, and designs online materials for these courses (“hopefully not in lieu of dissection,” she notes).

write about thoroughbred horseracing.” She’s writing a book about Azeri, who was the fastest horse on earth in 2002 and 2003; she says this book, her ﬁrst, is “a huge, cinematic story that will make people forget Seabiscuit.”

SPIRITUAL COACH Interfaith minister Deborah Stone Roth ’77 says she is the best wedding officiant around. As a “spiritual coach,” she helps couples get past the logistics of wedding planning to create a unique, meaningful, and nontraditional ceremony that embodies what each loves about the other. In 2004, Modern Bride magazine featured Roth as the only wedding officiant among its “Top 25 Trendsetters in the Wedding Industry.” Roth is known for “incorporating numerous and varied cultural traditions into one beautifully seamless ceremony,” the magazine noted. For one wedding, she combined elements of the couple’s Greek Orthodox and Hindu spiritual heritages, emphasizing aspects where the traditions intersected. Deborah says couples comment on her calming presence and her “passion for the transformative power of rituals” that help them “cocreate a safe and sacred space” filled with personally meaningful symbols.”

WEB EXTR A To read Patty Bennett’s poem, and to learn about more unusual alumnae talents, please visit alumnae. mtholyoke.edu/go/brag.

Lisa Wlodarski Romano ‘89 says, “Laundry is what I do better than anyone else! After reading year after year in the Quarterly about my classmates’ many career accomplishments, simultaneous with growing families, I have to stake my ground as a stay-at-home mom,” she says. “I tell people I meet that I’m in ‘textile management,’ and with three kids ages two, four, and six, isn’t that the truth? You all can ﬁnd a cure for the disease of the moment at NIH, become a cabinet secretary or a CEO, but my kids’ closets are the neatest on the planet, and their clothing has no spots! I may have other talents (volunteering to teach reading at school, singing in my church choir, teaching my kids Suzuki piano, my former career in journalism), but I’m deadly with a bottle of Shout!” www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Peter Mountain

LAUNDRY LEADER

CHEER BLISS

BOGGLE CHAMP Ellen Gitelman ‘80 calls the word-search game Boggle “the one and only thing that I am completely exceptional at.” She has played the game addictively since her MHC days, displaying a “freakishly natural” aptitude. “So many people tell me that they are unbeatable, and yet I beat them time and time again.” Gitelman continually bests even those she considers “infinitely smarter” than herself because she is “unusually good at finding every single word pattern within already established formats and [because] I seek solutions to the point of exhaustion. Words just pop out at me at a rapid-fire pace, and I feverishly write them down. Things that seem obvious to me elude most people, and vice versa!” Her unusual way of looking at a situation also helps in Gitelman’s advertising and public relations work, where she’s known for coming up with creative ideas and solutions. “I just notice things that most people don’t,” she says.

WITCHCRAFT WIZARDRY As the project manager and an associate editor of Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt (forthcoming from Cambridge University Press), Margo Burns ’79 claims “to know more about the original legal documents used in the witchcraft trials of 1692 than anyone else on the planet.” The only other possible contenders for this claim would be other editorial team members, she says, “but I think I have them beaten because of the scope of what I’ve had to do with all historical, linguistic, and technical aspects of the documents, the transcription process, and the custom relational databases I’ve developed from scratch to handle the project for an international team of scholars in several disciplines from Finland to Texas.” After a decade of work, the book is months from completion; it will contain new transcriptions of the nearly 1,000 extant legal records of the witchcraft trials.

DIGITAL DEXTERITY Martha Jane Bradford ’68 says she does digital drawing better than anyone else. And the artworks on her Web site—marthavista.com—have caused more than one viewer to rub her amazed eyes in disbelief. Although created pixel by pixel with a digitizing tablet and a computer “pen,” the ﬁnished hyperrealist artworks have been mistaken for manipulated photographs. To Bradford, who spends weeks or months painstakingly drawing every square inch by hand, this assumption is tiresome. “The drawings have a million times more detail than a photo and really a quite different look—very textural as opposed to a photo’s smooth tones,” she explains. “Digital drawing is a truly revolutionary process, and people keep missing the point, which sometimes makes me feel like Cassandra. Digital drawing has the potential to change the making of two-dimensional art the way the word processor has changed the writing of books.”

FEATS OF FOLDING

RV CHEF

On the home front, Julianne Trabucchi Puckett ‘91 says she can singlehandedly fold a king-sized, fitted bed sheet into a tidy package about a foot square. “I’ve often joked about putting it on my résumé.” Puckett says her mom—who used to iron the family’s sheets—taught her to fold efficiently. “Put the corners together in a point to give the fitted sheet corners and make it ‘square’—that’s the key,” she explains. “It was easy to do a single-bed sheet, but as my beds got bigger, it got more difficult. The king-size sheet is the ultimate folding challenge.”

Anne Reynolds Purpura ’40 can’t sew. She hates crafts. But she can really cook and bake. “When we traveled with our RVs for many years, [husband] Albert called me ‘the Julia Child of the trailer park’ because people would come to me for advice,” Purpura says. From tiny RV kitchens came a cornucopia of homemade creations, including salsas, bread, pickled papaya, pineapple jam, wild strawberry marmalade (“made from handpicked Nova Scotian berries”), even peach chutney “made in a forest campground without [electrical or water] hookups.”

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Spring 2006

Patty Perreault Bennett ’72 declares herself “a cheerleader through and through, with lots of practice since 1962.” She responded to the Quarterly’s query with an original poem (see “Web Extra”) tracing her pep activities from South Hadley intermediate and high schools through MHC (there were no official cheerleaders then, so she unofficially cheered on her sister math majors), to becoming a coach for high school pep squads. “Then in 1976 I hit the jackpot of my wildest cheering dream, I made the Patriette Squad for the New England Patriots football team,” she writes. Bennett’s professional cheerleading career lasted “two terrific years”—until the Patriots instituted a height requirement that disqualified her. Since then she’s cheered on a husband, two daughters, and (as a teacher) countless “students that for math, had not a yen,” she writes. “Forty-three years of cheering makes me an expert, don’t you think? Sometimes a bona fide cheerleader; sometimes just an enthusiastic wink.”

Bennett as a “Patriette”

a sigh is just a sigh. Right? Despite the famous torch song from Casablanca, the answer is no. Kissing has many meanings—from an expression of erotic love to the social equivalent of a handshake. Kissing has a long, colorful history that moves into some unexpected terrain, such as the early Christian Church. The important and complex role kissing played in the development of early Christianity is the subject of Kissing Christians: Ritual and Community in the Late Ancient Church, by assistant professor of religion Michael Penn. In the topic’s ﬁrst full-scale scholarly investigation, published by University of Pennsylvania Press, Penn explores how and why the kiss rose to symbolic and liturgical prominence among early Christians. A KISS IS STILL A KISS,

issing

Religion Professor Studies “Kissing Christians”

My friends have their own theories for why I spent years studying kissing. The real answer is a bit anticlimactic. I wanted to help correct a bias that many have regarding religion in general and Christianity in particular. For most Americans, Christianity is all about belief. (Consider the often-quoted question, “Do you accept Jesus as your personal savior?”) Yet when one looks at religion in a broader context, it becomes clear that religion isn’t just about what one thinks, but also about what one does. I wanted to produce a work that investigated what role early rituals had in deﬁning who was and who was not Christian. As I began my research, I discovered that one of the most widely practiced and discussed early Christian rituals was the exchange of a kiss. The more I explored this ritual, the more intrigued I became. As I discovered that early Christian women and men often kissed each other, in church, on the lips, my vision of early Christianity radically changed. Tell us what kissing meant in the Greco-Roman world.

As in our own society, kissing in the ancient world had many meanings. Not 26

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Below: Paul Schnaittacher; top courtesy of University of Pennsylvania Press

What prompted you to write Kissing Christians?

surprisingly, Greco-Roman artwork and texts often depict the kiss as an erotic gesture; it appears in everything from Greek pornography to the Roman equivalent of a Harlequin novel. In other contexts kissing was seen as a familial gesture. Friends frequently kissed each other; politicians seeking ofﬁce would kiss constituents (the ancient equivalent of “kissing babies”). Individuals would kiss the hand of rulers (an early version of “kissing up”). The kiss also played a role in patronage, slavery, celebrations, magic, elections, funerary rites, contracts, departure, and reunions. It was this huge diversity of meanings that provided both the opportunity for and a challenge to the early church appropriating the kiss as a Christian ritual.

times think of this as an ancient form of “cooties.” It resulted in early Christian debates over whether one could kiss a pagan relative or a potential heretic.

gesture. All these practices have their roots in ancient Christian kissing.

One has to ask. What kind of kissing are we talking about ?

Until the last few decades, the study of early Christianity was mostly done in the context of religiously afﬁliated institutions. Those most closely associated with Protestantism often inherited a lengthy Protestant tradition of opposing what they saw as “Catholic ritualism.” The last thing they’d want to do would be to emphasize the importance of ritual in the earliest strata of Christianity.

Almost always lip to lip. The amount of passion depended on the participants. Two of my favorite second-century Christian references allude to overly enthusiastic kisses. The ﬁrst essentially says no “French kissing” in church. The other warns against those who kiss a second time because they enjoyed the

“One modern translation of the New Testament takes the apostle Paul’s

What was the meaning of kissing in the early Christian church?

Early Christians interpreted the kiss in various ways. Because ancient kissing was often seen as a familial gesture, many early Christians kissed each other to help construct themselves as a new sort of family, a family of Christ. Similarly, in the Greco-Roman world, when you kissed someone else you literally gave them part of your soul. The early church expanded on this and claimed that, when Christians kissed, they exchanged the Holy Spirit. Christians also emphasized the kiss as an indication of mutual forgiveness (it’s from here that we get the term “kiss of peace”). These different meanings influenced and were influenced by the sorts of rituals kissing became associated with. For example, because the kiss helped exchange spirit, it made perfect sense for it to become part of baptism and ordination, rituals in which you wanted the Holy Spirit to descend and enter the initiate. The flip side of the coin is that before someone was baptized you wouldn’t want to kiss them. Early Christians often believed that previous to exorcism and baptism people were inevitably demon possessed. Given that they also thought that kissing resulted in spiritual exchange, you wouldn’t want to kiss non-Christians. I some-

Why has kissing in the early church been largely ignored until now?

command for Christ’s followers to ‘greet one another with a HOLY KISS’ and changes it to ‘give one another a HEARTY HANDSHAKE.’” ﬁrst kiss too much; they’re going to hell. Starting in the third century, Christian sources began to prohibit men and women from kissing each other. Other writers tried to modify opposite-sex kissing to ensure that everything stayed under control. For example, one author suggests that women wrap their arms in cloth before men kiss their hands. How have those kissing codes from the formative centuries influenced contemporary practices?

Modern Christians still kiss. Catholics, for example, kiss the pope’s ring. Among Eastern Orthodox, it’s common to kiss holy objects or particularly reverent individuals. Among Protestants, there’s a moment in most worship services when congregation members “exchange a sign of peace,” a handshake or some other

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Spring 2006

Catholic scholars more often concentrated on early rituals, such as baptism or confession, that formed the basis for the later system of sacraments. Even as religious studies became increasingly secularized, scholars often ignored or intentionally downplayed the role of kissing in early Christianity. One modern translation of the New Testament takes the apostle Paul’s command for Christ’s followers to “greet one another with a holy kiss” and changes it to “give one another a hearty handshake.” I’m hoping that my investigation of the kiss challenges scholars to reevaluate the role of ritual in early Christianity and suggests that the exploration of other rarely studied rites may provide additional insight into the dynamics of early Christian communities.—By Kevin McCaffrey, associate director of college relations 27

alumnae

matters

UPDATES FROM THE ALUMNAE ASSOCIATION

New Alumnae Association President to Focus on Global Leadership

Mary Graham Davis ’65 is nominated to serve a three-year term as the Association’s next president.

of that too—but in families and communities, for special interests and nongovernmental organizations, and in academic research. “We need to tap into that energy and intellect and help influence the future and direction of the College,” says Davis. Mary resides with her husband, retired banker George L. Davis, in New York City. She has two grown sons and three stepsons. As she looks toward the next three years, Davis emphasizes the importance of a good sense of humor and of reaching consensus on the Association’s next steps to move ahead in its strategic plan and global initiatives. “I like to knit together people’s best thinking and come up with a hybrid solution that everybody feels they have a piece of. I like to learn from history but not to relive it. I want to envision what’s possible.” Once elected by the alumnae body at the annual meeting on May 27, Davis will succeed Susan Beers Betzer ’65 as president. www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Courtesy of Mary Graham Davis

Mary Graham Davis ’65 is oriented toward the future. Her more than thirty-year career as a management consultant has meant being open to new ideas, welcoming change, and developing a talent for getting business done. In her new role as president of the Alumnae Association, Davis hopes to translate her progressive business perspective into a tenure that fosters continued engagement with an ever-diversifying alumnae body. A special focus, she says, will be an ongoing dialogue about women’s global leadership. Davis is superbly qualified to moderate that conversation. A political science major at MHC, she went on to earn a master’s degree in international relations at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Primed for a career in the foreign service, Davis instead joined Citicorp’s Overseas Division. She then moved to Sydney, Australia, where she became a merchant banking partner with van Heyst and Company before returning to New York. She later joined Jannotta, Bray and Associates in Chicago, and later started their operations in New York. After participating in the sale of that firm to Right Management Consultants Inc., she founded her own firm, Davis Consulting Group, focused on strategy implementation and senior executive coaching. “The work that I do involves organizations that are on the global scene or trying to go global,” says Davis. That kind of strategic change in direction will be helpful in leading a newly invigorated Alumnae Association that is, among other things, working to integrate more fully the growing number of international alumnae. Davis says helping foreign students better acclimate when they first arrive on campus is key. “We have to start by building those relationships while they’re still here,” she emphasizes. “Mary is a strong collaborator who played a key role in the development and execution of the joint agreement between the College and the Alumnae Association,” says Catherine C. Burke ’78, chair of the Nominating Committee. “Moreover, she is dedicated to expanding the reach of the Association to alumnae of all lifestyles and life stages. She is committed to an increasingly inclusive Alumnae Association.” Davis is expert in forging campus relationships. A 1990 Alumnae Medal of Honor winner and a founder of the Lyons Network, she also served for two terms on the College’s board of trustees, where she came to understand that all alumnae want to make an impact in the world. “We have women who are leading in numerous ways,” Davis points out. “Not necessarily in corporate boardrooms—although there’s plenty

[ alumnae matters ]

Farewell, Wendy Wasserstein ’71

An Untimely End for an Uncommon Woman WENDY WASSERSTEIN ’71, who died January 30 at the age of fifty-five, was arguably Mount Holyoke’s bestknown alumna. Tributes filled the national press after her untimely death from cancer, lauding the public Wendy, toast of the theatre world and winner of the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Our Web site has a selection of these tributes. Here, we share the Wendy known to the Mount Holyoke community. Expanded versions of these tributes, many other memories, and much more information are at alumnae. mtholyoke.edu/go/ww Wendy on MHC “I know Mount Holyoke had a profound effect on my life. Not because I got into a better graduate school, learned to organize my time, or keep a file of facts, but because of the dignity of the women I met here and therefore the dignity that I learned to allow myself.”—[from her 1990 commencement address at MHC] MHC on Wendy She called me her “MHC sister.” We always had so many laughs about how both of us became playwrights and, then, how both of us were Pulitzer-winning playwrights—“it must be in the [Mount Holyoke] water,” she said.—Suzan-Lori Parks ’85

Right: Gino Domenico

All the energy and humor later contained in her plays were evident to some of her classmates—and many of her friends—long before she began to write seriously. —Kay Cordtz ’71 My first encounter with Wendy Wasserstein was … when she burst through the doors at Sardi’s in NYC and announced as loudly as she could, “My play won the Tony.” My sister and I rushed to her side though we barely knew who she was. The fact that we had seen The Heidi Chronicles that day, and my recent acceptance into the Frances Perkins Program, won for us an immediate audience with the playwright and invitations to a Tony party upstairs … 1971 yearbook photo; —Doris A. Rovetti FP’93 Wasserstein in 2000 Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly |Spring 2006

After Uncommon Women appeared on PBS in 1979, the college was bombarded with letters decrying “that anti-Mount Holyoke play.” Wendy was surprised and saddened by this, and when I directed it at Lab Theatre the following year she was a constant and ebullient resource … At a post-show discussion … I asked Wendy if she felt she’d written an “anti-Mount Holyoke” play. With tears in her eyes, and a warm smile, she said, “No, I love Mount Holyoke. I wrote a play about my friends.”—Jim Cavanaugh, MHC emeritus professor of theatre arts Only after watching Uncommon Women and Others on PBS did I consider applying to Mount Holyoke. In my interview with the dean of admission, I mentioned the powerfully positive impact the play had on me … After being accepted, I received a warm and encouraging note from Ms. Wasserstein. You can’t imagine how thrilling this was for a theater-loving young college-bound feminist! … My freshman year, Wendy Wasserstein spoke on campus. … I was dumbfounded when she … not only remembered me, but seemed to genuinely care how I was doing.—Alison M. Gross ’83 Perhaps because she was so conspicuously a different drummer … [Wendy] was one of the most refreshing, imaginative, capable … students I have had at Mount Holyoke.” [I wrote in her grad-school recommendation.] She is “a risk” … but she would be “one of the more interesting risks to wander into graduate school in some time.”—Charles H. Trout (MHC history professor 1969–80) Our gang was … commiserating about essays for freshman English. Someone mentioned that Wendy Wasserstein, at the next table, had written her Beowulf essay from the point of view of Grendel. That struck me as so original it made me laugh out loud … Wendy single-handedly formed my first impression of the glamorous, original women I could look forward to knowing at Mount Holyoke. —Michie Gleason ’72 29

Not all alumnae are aware of the Founder’s Fund, the Alumnae Association’s independent fund that functions as our endowment. Since you’ll be hearing more about it in the future, here’s a primer. The Founder’s Fund began in 1901 as the Income Fund. It was created to help ensure the Association’s independence and flexibility as an alumnae-centered organization, “enlarging its work and aiding the college.” It grows through gifts, investment income, market appreciation, and bequests. Currently, the fund’s assets are valued at just over $3 million, a modest amount for an organization of the Association’s size. Over the years the fund has been used for special projects that directly support alumnae endeavors and interests, keep the alumnae community strong, and provide new ways for alumnae to stay connected with one another and engaged in the world. Recently, your contributions to the Founder’s Fund have helped • fund a recent Frances Perkins scholar during her first year in law school, where she is studying public-interest law. Her dream is to become a social-service attorney working with

recent immigrants, the homeless, and runaway youth (like the runaway she once was); • assist an economics major from Slovakia in attending graduate school in Belgium, where she can gain the qualifications required to work for the European Union. She hopes to promote democracy and free-market economics in her homeland and throughout the poorer regions of Eastern Europe; • support a recent summa cum laude in critical social thought in an ambitious scholarly project: comparing North American and Dutch political paradigms. Her goal is to promote political and cultural tolerance through a published, book-length case study. An independent Alumnae Association was Mary Lyon’s model for ensuring active and committed alumnae who are fully involved in the life and work of the College. Income from the Founder’s Fund helps the Association work for the best interests of the College and its alumnae. For information on making a contribution, please see the inside back cover of this magazine.

Crew Boat Dedicated to Late Alumna Members of the classes of ’78, ’79, ’80, and ’81 gathered for the christening of Mount Holyoke’s newest crew boat, Karen, a VESPOLI V1 hull, racing eight, the newest in hull (boat) design for women. The boat is named after Karen Reininga Volgenau ’80, who died of cancer in 2003. Karen was one of the crew team’s founding members in 1976. At their 25th reunion last spring, four members of the class of ’80 approached crew coach Jeanne Friedman to ask how to have a boat named for an alumna, which they accomplished after raising a third of the funds needed to buy the new boat. Family, friends, former crewmates, and other alumnae were on campus to commemorate Karen and launch her namesake.

Make New Friends and Help Students: Become a B&B Host You can pass on a Mount Holyoke tradition by making chocolate-chip pancakes or simply by providing alumnae guests with a comfy bed, orange juice, and toast. How? Become a bed-and-breakfast host. The Alumnae Association’s bed-andbreakfast program provides alumnae travelers with comfortable, affordable (usually $30 to $80 per night), short-term accommodation and breakfast in an alumna’s home, with proceeds providing financial aid to deserving Mount Holyoke students through the Alumnae Scholar Fund. Guest rooms across the country and around the world can now be put to good use, connecting you with other alumnae on their travels, while benefiting worthy students. Accommodations in B&Bs, clubs, and hotels are also welcome. The list of current lodgings (see URL below) includes a B&B in Vermont and a private club in the heart of London, as well as lodging in private homes. To become a host, contact Krysia Villón ’96, assistant director of clubs for the Alumnae Association. Send an e-mail to kvillon@mtholyoke. edu with a description of the room, the price range you have in mind, and, if possible, digital photos of the room. Be sure to include your full name, class year, and contact information. Or phone Krysia at 413-538-2738. Follow the link alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/programs/ bb/index.php for more information, including current B&B listings. www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Below: Paul Schnaittacher

[ alumnae matters ]

Founder’s Fund 101

The Nominating Committee of the Alumnae Association is pleased to announce the following slate of directors and committee members for election at the May 27 annual meeting. All terms, unless otherwise noted, are for three years, beginning July 1. COMMITTEE CHAIRS Clubs Committee Chair Lily Klebanoff Blake ’64, New York, N.Y. Nominating Committee, (2004); president, NYC Club (2002–05); director-at-large and admission rep, NYC Club; active in admission work in Eastern Europe. President, Klebanoff International Quarterly Committee Chair Linda Giannasi Matys O’Connell ’69, Easton, Pa. Class vice president; Nominating Committee chair (2003–04); reunion cochair (1999); Quarterly Committee member (1998–01); assistant managing editor, The Morning Call, former feature, arts, and entertainment editor, The Stamford Gazette; former correspondent, The Dallas Morning News. COMMITTEE MEMBERS Nominating Committee Judith Shepherd DeBrandt ’66, Rockville, Md. Reunion program, reunion gift chair; class cornerstone chair; head class agent; Alumnae Association Programs Committee chair; Programs Ad Hoc Committee member; Washington, D.C., Club LG volunteer; Westchester County Club president; Nominating Committee member. MAT, English, Northwestern University; MBA, finance, American University. Technical writer at Fannie Mae. Kristen M. Scheyder ’92, Brooklyn, New York. New York City Club president, vice president, program chair; Seven Sisters liaison; class agent; reunion gift caller, reunion booklet chair; Philadelphia Club admission rep; Princeton-Trenton Club admission rep. MAD, public policy, University of Pennsylvania. Vice president, HSBC Community Development. Carole LaMond ’74, Wayland, Mass. Newspaper writer; former Quarterly Committee member; active in Western Suburbs Club. (two-year appointment) Alumnae Honors Research Committee Shirley Wilcher ’73, Accokeek, Md. Past AA Board director, reunion gift caller. Currently interim executive director, American Association for Affirmative Action. President, Wilcher Global, LLC. JD, Har-

vard University, master’s, urban affairs and policy analysis, New School Social Research; former executive director of Americans for a Fair Chance; former deputy assistant secretary, U.S. Department of Labor. Board member, Wider Opportunities for Women. Former board member, National Conference of Black Lawyers. Founding member, National Political Congress of Black Women; Who’s Who of American Women, 1991. Elizabeth Doherty ’81, Dover, Mass. Past vice president, class of ’81 and reunion dinner chair. PhD in politics, Princeton University. Currently director of faculty affairs, Brown University. Former assistant professor of government and dean of the first-year class, Smith College; associate dean in the faculty of arts and sciences, Harvard University. Alumnae Relations Committee Andrea Walgren ’75, South Hamilton, Mass. Class agent, reunion gift caller, cornerstone representative. Vice president, student affairs; director of admissions, director of development, School for Field Studies, Beverly, Mass. Currently development director and trustee, sitesALIVE Foundation, Gloucester, Mass. Adrienne Skinner ’77, Larchmont, N.Y. Class agent, reunion gift caller, cornerstone Rep. Business development consultant, American Express. Senior vice president, business development, Gift Certificates.com. Currently, strategic account director, Yahoo Inc., New York City. Classes Committee Cornelia Griffin Farmer ’67, Chicago, Ill. Currently head class agent; past class president; vice president; reunion chair; reunion cochair; president; newsletter/ directory editor, Pittsburgh Club. MRP, Cornell University; JD, Marquette University. Previously, attorney. Erin Ennis ’92, Washington, D.C. Currently, class president; past reunion nametag and booklet chair; reunion dinner chair. Vice president, US-China Business Council, Washington, D.C. Elizabeth Marzolf ’95, Seattle, Washington. Past class president; reunion

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly |Spring 2006

cochair; president, Colorado Club; admission rep., Fort Collins; asst. admission rep, Denver. Educational consultant, Small School Coaches Collaborative, Seattle. (two-year appointment) Clubs Committee Elizabeth Redmond ’82, Falls Church, Va. Alumnae admission representative; book awards chair; Club president, Washington, D.C; Class agent; reunion gift caller; class scribe; reunion gift committee, 25th reunion. Director in the Agency Lending Group of Wachovia Securities. Jennifer A. Durst ’95, Jackson Heights, N.Y. president, MH Club of New York; 2004 Vespers coordinator for NYC club; Advisory Council member, Women’s International Leadership Program. Director of individual giving, Community Service Society of New York. Finance Committee Jane Solso Stabler ’74, Keene, N.H. MBA, Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management,1976. Vice president and chief financial officer, The MacMillin Company Inc., Keene, N.H. Nomination of Alumnae Trustees/ Awards Committee Kathleen C. Maurer ’84, Brooklyn, N.Y. Currently, head class agent. Past class president; class agent; treasurer; directorat-large, NYC Club; NYC Legacy of Leadership Committee. Chief financial officer, Andy Warhol Foundation, New York, N.Y. Kristen A. B. Comings ’93, New York, N.Y. Currently Nomination of Alumna Trustee/Awards Committee; Ad Hoc Strategic Planning Committee, Alumnae Association; officer, NYC Club. Past young alumna trustee, Alumnae Association; head class agent; membership chair, NYC Club; NYC Legacy of Leadership Campaign; reunion gift chair. Director of strategic alliances, L’Oreal, New York, New York. (one-year appointment) Quarterly Committee Maya Kukes ’95, New York, N.Y. Class agent and reunion gift caller; admission rep, Portland. MS, journalism, Columbia University. Writer/reporter. 31

[ alumnae matters ]

Nominees for Alumnae Association Directors, Committee Members, and Committee Chairs

Clubs Corner

The Alumnae Association supports more than 100 clubs and informal groups around the world. Contact Assistant Director of Clubs Krysia Villón ‘96 at kvillon@mtholyoke.edu or 413-538-2738 with clubrelated questions, ideas, comments, and brief overviews of activities for possible inclusion in this section.

The Mount Holyoke Club of Southwest Florida hosted a social hour and luncheon with a talk given by Eva Paus, professor of economics and director of the Center for Global Initiatives at MHC. A lecture from Dr. Roger Birkell, executive director of the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, was on the club’s agenda in winter. The Mount Holyoke Club of Franklin County, MA, held a holiday gathering at the Blue Heron Restaurant in Sunderland. The music was provided by Margery Heins ’72 and a chorus, and MHC Professor of English Carolyn Collette gave a talk, “From Good Wife to Good Grief: Tales of Griselda, Medieval to Modern.” MHC Senior Lecturer in Women’s/Gender Studies Martha Ackmann discussed her book The Mercury 13: The True Story of Thirteen Women and the Dream of Space Flight in Madison with the Mount Holyoke Club of Northern New Jersey. The Mount Holyoke Club of Boston recently hosted three

events: a career/networking session with Cori Ashworth, the AA’s career consultant; an afternoon tea at the Four Seasons Hotel; and a visit to and lunch at the Peabody Essex Museum. MHC Professor of Politics Penny Gill addressed a luncheon gathering of the Mount Holyoke Club of Philadelphia. Her topic was “What My Students Have Taught Me.”

workshop with Cori Ashworth, the AA’s career consultant, in spring. The book club of the Mount Holyoke Club of Greater South Hadley will enjoy lively conversation and great books at the Odyssey Bookshop through early summer. Selections include Silas Marner, by George Eliot; Bleak House, by Charles Dickens; and The Spell, by Charlotte Bronte.

Members of the Mount Holyoke Club of Northern California were recently treated to an afternoon of food and thought when MHC Professor of History Jonathan Lipman spoke on the topic “Theory and Practice of Chinese Food: A HandsOn Education in a Great Cuisine” at an Islamic Chinese restaurant in Milpitas. In February, the club held a tea in honor of Mary Lyon’s birthday at the King George Hotel in San Francisco.

In celebration of Mary Lyon’s birthday, the Mount Holyoke Club of Portland, Oregon, held a midwinter luncheon at Mother’s Bistro in the City of Roses.

The Mount Holyoke Club of Central Ohio celebrated the holidays with a lunch at German Village in Columbus and looked forward to a career

MHC Professor of English John Lemly delivered a talk, “Jane Austen in Hollywood,” to the Mount Holyoke Club of Cape Cod in winter.

The Mount Holyoke Club of Delaware celebrated the February birthday of the College’s beloved former trustee, Deacon Porter, by eating his hat—well, a cake baked in the shape of his tall, oldfashioned hat—in Cokesbury Village, Hockessin.

The Mount Holyoke Club of Hartford, together with the Hartford Smith College Club, was a sponsor of the annual three-college luncheon in late March in West Hartford. Wellesley College alumnae were invited, too. Members of The Mount Holyoke Club of San Diego got together twice this past winter, at Epazotes and Delia’s Kitchen. Members of the Mount Holyoke Club of Britain celebrated International Women’s Day with a walk around London that focused on the haunts of women who have made their mark in the city. The walk was followed by an afternoon tea at St. Paul’s Cathedral. Alumnae Association President Suzie Beers Betzer ’65 was the guest speaker at the winter gathering of the Mount Holyoke Club of New Haven, which met at Spring Glen Church in Hamden.

Send a Friend a Free MHC E-Card If you haven’t visited our new Web site yet (www.alumnae. mtholyoke.edu), check out the e-cards we’ve included for you to send to friends and family members, as well as the screensaver we’ve devised for your computers. Access the cards—which feature campus scenes and notable alums—on the home page of our site and follow the directions to personalize and send them. The screensaver, which so many of you requested, is called “fall visions” and is on the front page, too. While you’re at it, check out our other new offerings.

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

award honors those who demMara Bonde Ricker ’91 onstrate promise or sustained (left) with Association achievement in their lives, proExecutive Director W. fessions, or communities conRochelle Calhoun ‘83 sistent with the humane values that Mary Lyon exemplified in her life and inspired in others. Ricker, who is the daughter of MHC Professor of Music Allen Bonde and his wife Maria, was recognized for her versatile accomplishments in both classical and more popular genres, and as a secure and self-assured performer. Keith Lockhart, conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, described Ricker as a “dream to work with.” Martin Pearlman, music director of Boston Baroque, has noted that she has a “full and attractive voice and good, clear musical ideas.” A national semifinalist in the 2002 Metropolitan Opera’s National Council Auditions, Ricker was in residence with An “electric stage presence” and a “sweet, the Glimmerglass Opera for two recent sumpurity of tone” are just two of the accolades mers. She was on the faculty of Boston Univerreceived over the years by Mara Bonde sity’s Tanglewood Institute in 2005, and is a Ricker ’91, a soprano whose talent has been frequent soloist with the Boston Pops. applauded by audiences across America and Ricker made her debut with the Omaha Europe. Ricker received the Alumnae Associ- Opera in 2005, singing in Benjamin Britten’s ation’s 2006 Mary Lyon Award in February at Paul Bunyan, and has also sung with the a ceremony on campus. Utah Opera. In addition, she has performed Given annually to a young alumna who has as a soloist with the Cape Cod Symphony and been out of college fifteen years or fewer, the the San Diego Symphony.

Fred LeBlanc

Alumnae Connect With Students—and Each Other— Through the Alumnae Stay Program Current students and alumnae can find free places to stay for a weekend or a summer through the Association’s Alumnae Stay Program, opening up both academic and career opportunities. Grace Kim ’07 went to Oakland, California, last summer and interned working with autistic toddlers at an early-intervention program. “I had a very fulfilling time there, both educationally and personally,” says Kim, who stayed with Jennifer Mace Armor ’85.

Kim would “absolutely not” have been able to do the internship if it weren’t for the Alumnae Stay Program, she says. “It would’ve been very difficult and costly for me to find convenient housing.” Allegra Hunt ’06 says that the generosity of her Alumnae Stay host motivated her to participate as a host after graduation. Hunt interned at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in summer 2005, and stayed with Rogina Haase Jeffries ’82. The “opportunity was extremely valuable to me, and a lot of fun,” says Hunt.

Lindsey Lyons ’06 went to San Francisco in last summer and interned with the International Museum of Women, teaching international women’s issues through art. Lyons stayed with Anne Read Chalfant ’71, outside of San Francisco. “We still keep in touch,” says Lyons. Especially when interning for a nonprofit organization in a major city, students “have to have a free place,” or they could not do it, she says. And the students are not the only ones who benefit,

[ alumnae matters ]

Talented Soprano Receives Mary Lyon Award Alumnae Association Board of Directors *President Susan Beers Betzer ’65 *Vice President Kayla R. Jackson ’86 *Clerk Sandra A. Mallalieu ’91 *Treasurer Patricia Steeves O’Neil ’85 Alumnae Quarterly Avice A. Meehan ’77 Alumnae Trustee Nancy Drake ’73 Alumnae Relations Cynthia L. Reed ’80 Classes and Reunion Maureen E. Kuhn ’78 Clubs Cerise Jalelian Keim ’81 Directors-at-Large Pamela R. Broadley ’74 Maureen McHale Hood ’87 Antoria D. Howard-Marrow ’81 Joanna MacWilliams Jones ’67 Nominating Chair Catherine C. Burke ’78 Young Alumnae Representative Lisa M. Utzinger ’02 Executive Director *W. Rochelle Calhoun ’83 ex officio without vote *Executive Committee

notes Marion Fitch Connell ’62, who has been hosting students in her Washington, D.C., home since 1978. For alumnae hosts, there is “the joy of a fresh, youthful perspective at the dinner table,” says Connell. “I’ve always felt I wanted to give something back; it’s been a great joy.” Sign up to be a host by visiting LifeNet, the Association’s networking database for students and alumnae at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/ programs/lifenet/housing.php 33

[ alumnae matters ]

Proposed Bylaw Amendments The following amendments to the Association’s bylaws will be voted upon at the annual meeting of the Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College on May 27, 2006. Article I: Introduction Section 2. Section 2. Purpose. As an independent organization, the Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College contributes to the long-term success of the College by cultivating, strengthening, and enhancing the connections of alumnae with each other and with the College. Article II MEMBERSHIP Section 1. Composition. The membership shall be composed of voting members and honorary members. 1. Voting Members. Voting members shall be all former students who have completed a certificate program or who have completed two transcripted semesters in a degree program, and any other former student who makes written application to the Alumnae Association. Article III: Officers Section 3. Duties. 2. Vice President. The Vice President shall assume the duties of President in the absence of the President; shall fill the office of President for the unexpired term in the event of a vacancy in that office; and shall perform such other duties as may be designated by the President of the Board. Article IV: Board of Directors Section 1. Membership. 1. Composition. The Board shall consist of fourteen members, including the Officers of the Association (President, Vice President, Clerk and Treasurer); the chairs of the Alumnae Relations, Classes & Reunion, Clubs, Nominating and the Alumnae Quarterly Committees; the Alumnae Trustee (in the third year of her term as Trustee); a young alumna (within ten years of graduation); and three members at-large with portfolios to be determined by the Board. The Executive Director of the Alumnae Association will serve on the board as nonvoting ex officio members. 34

Section 5. Action Without a Meeting. Any action which may be taken at any meeting of the Board may be taken without a meeting provided that directors shall submit their votes in writing or electronically, and provided that the record of such action and the result of such vote shall be filed with the minutes of the meetings of the Board. Such written vote shall be treated for all purposes as a vote at a meeting. Article V: Executive Committee Section 5. Action Without a Meeting. Any action which may be taken at any meeting of the Executive Committee may be taken without a meeting provided that all members of the Executive Committee shall submit their votes in writing or electronically, and provided further that the record of such action and the result of such vote shall be filed with the minutes of the meetings of the Executive Committee. Such written vote shall be treated for all purposes as a vote at a meeting. Article VII: Standing and Special Committees Section 1. Standing Committees. There shall be the following standing committees of the Board: Alumnae Honors Research Committee, Alumnae Quarterly Committee, Alumnae Relations Committee, Classes & Reunion Committee, Clubs Committee, Finance Committee, and Nomination of Alumnae Trustees/Awards Committee. Section 4. Composition and Responsibilities of Standing Committees. 1. Alumnae Honors Research Committee. a. Composition. The Alumnae Honors Research Committee shall include the chair and five members elected by the Alumnae Association membership. The chair of the Nomination of Alumnae Trustee/Awards Committee shall be a nonvoting ex officio member of the Alumnae Honors Research Committee.

2. Alumnae Quarterly Committee. a. Composition. The Alumnae Quarterly Committee shall include the chair; four members elected by the Alumnae Association membership; a student representative and a faculty representative, both of whom shall be selected in accordance with procedures adopted by the Board, and who shall serve without vote. The Managing Director of the Quarterly shall be an ex officio member of the Alumnae Quarterly Committee without vote. b. Responsibilities. The Alumnae Quarterly Committee shall work with the Association staff in planning and creating the major content for each issue, both print and electronic; implement the editorial policies as set by the Board in accordance with the purpose and goals of the Association, and contribute, as appropriate, to the Alumnae Association’s strategic communications program. 3. Alumnae Relations Committee. a. Composition. The Alumnae Relations Committee shall include the chair and five members elected by the Alumnae Association membership; one student representative. b. Responsibilities. The Alumnae Relations Committee shall strengthen connections with Mount Holyoke College alumnae by understanding their needs and expectations and assisting the Alumnae Association in meeting those needs. 4. Classes & Reunion Committee a. Composition. The Classes and Reunion Committee shall include the chair and six members elected by the Alumnae Association membership. No member of the committee, with the exception of the Chair, shall be a member of the same class as any other member of the committee. b. Responsibilities. The Classes and Reunions Committee shall be a resources to encourage, support and coordinate class organization of alumnae and to be responsible for reunions. 5. Clubs Committee a. Composition. The Clubs Committee shall include the chair and six

members elected by the Alumnae Association membership. The Committee shall maintain geographic diversity within its members. b. Responsibilities. The Clubs Committee shall be a resource for alumnae who organize or who wish to organize into a club based upon their geographic location and to encourage, motivate and coordinate with such clubs. 6. Finance Committee. a. Composition. The Finance Committee shall include the chair and three members elected by the Alumnae Association membership. The Treasurer shall be the chair of the Finance Committee. 6. Finance Committee. a. Composition. The Treasurer shall be the chair of the Finance Committee and three members elected by the Alumnae Association membership. b. Responsibilities. The Finance Committee shall recommend financial and accounting policy and an annual budget to the Board; shall be responsible for the supervision of the assets of the Association in accordance with the financial policies set by the Board—including the supervision of the Investment Sub-Committee; shall have authority to act on behalf of the Association with banking institutions; and shall have such other responsibilities as may be designated by the Board. 4. 7. Nomination of Alumnae Trustees/Awards Committee. a. Composition. The Nomination of Alumnae Trustees/Awards Committee shall include the chair and five members elected by the Association membership; the President or her designee as an ex officio member with vote and the Executive Director or her designee as an ex officio member without vote. No member of the Nomination of Alumnae Trustee/ Awards Committee shall be a member of the same class or from the same club area as any other member of the committee.

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Jazz your brain with a free Back to Class session during Reunion weekend.

Come Back to Class—for Free Interested in learning how to cook a classic French meal? What about mastering enough Spanish to get you through the back alleys of Madrid? Or getting an introduction to Kripalu yoga for a little stretch and relaxation? The Back to Class Program held on the Fridays of both Reunion weekends, (May 26 and June 2) offers thirty-one classes for returning alumnae and their guests. Best of all, they’re free. Sign up when you register for the weekend. Or, since space is limited, arrive Thursday night to register and ensure a seat.

Alumnae Awareness Day Students had their pictures taken with a cutout image of Mary Lyon and learned about ways to connect with alumnae on Alumnae Association Awareness Day. February 1 also marked the launch of Alumnae Association’s LifeNet service—a searchable Internet database for social and professional networking. Now students (and alumnae) can go to LifeNet to find alumnae mentors in their career fields of interest. Alumnae and students can set up personal profiles and register with LifeNet by going to www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/go/LifeNet.

Since the alumnae career services program was launched last year, I’ve discovered there are many MHC women who are approaching midlife and are planning big changes in their lives. Values often shift at this point in life and likely will heavily influence choices. It is an exciting time, full of potential and creative possibilities. In response to this alumnae need, I am developing workshop material on transitions. Some of the areas I’ll include will be dealing with change, values, lifestyle, shifts in career and status, and volunteer work. I’m excited about the project, and I am working with the reuning class of ’66 and also with some members of the NYC Mount Holyoke Club to develop the content. I hope to have the material consolidated this spring, with the hope of making it available for clubs nationwide. Meanwhile, I continue to be here for all alumnae, no matter where you are in your work and life cycle. I’m available for career coaching, résumé critiques, and a range of other career-related services. Onsite or telephone appointments can be scheduled by contacting me at cashwort@mtholyoke.edu or by calling the Career Development Office at 413-538-2080. I am in the process of arranging for onsite club programs in San Francisco/ San Jose, Washington, D.C., Dallas, Hartford, Boston, and the Philadelphia area. If your club is interested in a program, please contact me.—By Cori Ashworth

Paul Schnaittacher

In Search of Board and Committee Members Are you interested in volunteering for an Alumnae Association committee? The Nominating Committee is always eager to hear of potential volunteers. Recommendations should be sent to W. Rochelle Calhoun ’83, Association executive director, at rcalhoun@mtholyoke.edu or 413-538-2300.

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Spring 2006

[ alumnae matters ]

Cori’s Career Corner

off the

shelf

The Inland Ladies By Laurie Glazer Levy ’53 Syren Book Company Midwestern women of the 1950s and 1960s are not much examined, and it is this often-silent group that Levy turns to in her first collection of short stories. Beginning in 1949 and running through 2004, the book traces the multifaceted lives of girls from places like Omaha, Chicago, and Mason City, Iowa, who are infused with youthful dreams before moving through the victories and personal disappointments of adulthood. It is, said one reviewer, “about the women who survived the ’50s bowed but not broken.” Laurie Glazer Levy is a Chicago journalist who has published three previous books of nonfiction. Table’s Edge By Carol Colitti Levine ’75 The Hadley Printing Co. The variety and quality of restaurants in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts makes it a dining destination for all manner of visitors and residents. Levine, a former banker and San Francisco resident, long harbored a desire to open a restaurant of her own but has chosen instead to write an anecdotal history of the chefs 36

and restaurateurs of the region’s best tables. Included are interviews with the proprietors of Spoleto, Del Raye, and the Green Street Café, among others. Fifty recipes are also included in the book, whose proceeds will benefit, in part, the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts. Carol Colitti Levine and her family live in Florence, Massachusetts. Ambient Light and Shadow: Images and Poems From Five Decades of My Life By Patricia Feiser Wismer ’58 MBK Publishing Wismer has lived a creative and full life, as evidenced in this glossy compilation of her poetry and photographs from 1960 to the present day. Dedicated to Mount Holyoke mentors and classmates, the black-and-white volume touches on life’s recurring themes of love, passion, pain, and new growth in words and pictures that are sensitive and artistic. Patricia Feiser Wismer taught English for more than thirty years in California. She has since pursued her interest in photography from her summer residence in Cannon Beach, Oregon.

Paris, Paris: Journey Into the City of Light By David Downie Photographs by Alison Harris ’79 Transatlantic Press Alison Harris and husband David Downie have collaborated on their third book, Paris, Paris: Journey Into the City of Light. Harris has contributed thirty blackand-white photographs to illustrate Downie’s essays. Diane Johnson, author of Le Divorce, has written the introduction. Essays include “A Day in the Park: The Luxembourg Gardens,” and “Paris in the Spring.” Downie describes Paris as “the kind of city butterfly catchers have trouble netting, tacking down, and studying. Like

all great cities and yet unlike any other it is alive and fluttering, it changes with the light, buffeted by the Seine-basin breezes. This place called Paris is at once the City of Light that inhabits literature and film, an imagined land, a distant view through shifting, misty lenses, and a vibrant world where a kaleidoscope of millions seems bent on the grand conspiracy to enjoy life.” Alison Harris has been working as a professional photographer in Paris since 1989. She specializes in food photography and has shot a number of cookbooks. She lives with husband David Downie, and the two www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Beading for the Soul: Inspired Designs from 23 Contemporary Artists By Deborah Cannarella ’77 Interweave Press Beading can be relaxing, meditative, and even healing for some people. Beading for the Soul looks at how beading can be used as a tool for beaders and artists interested in imbuing their work with meaning. The book includes twenty-six projects, including necklaces, bracelets, wall hangings, and bags. Each artist writes about the significance of beading in his or her life and the focus and purpose of each piece. Beading for the Soul explores the parallels between beading and mindfulness, teaching the reader how beading can be a useful tool for contemplation. Step-by-step instructions are included for each project, along with color photos and illustrations. Deborah Cannarella, of Roxbury, Connecticut, has written and edited several nonfiction books for children and adults. She was formerly the editor of PieceWork, a magazine about women’s history and textile arts, also published by Interweave Press. E.T. Culture: Anthropology in Outerspaces Edited by Debbora Battaglia Duke University Publishing Anthropologists have long sought to describe foreign or “alien” societies, yet few have considered communities centered around a belief in aliens and UFO sightings and their effect on popular culture. The contributors to

E.T. Culture open up a new frontier for anthropological study by taking these communities seriously. They demonstrate that extraterrestrial forms of visitation–– including alien beings, alien technologies, and uncanny visions–engage primary concepts found in anthropological research: host and visitor, home and away, subjectivity and objectivity. Contributors to this volume show how discussions and representations of extraterrestrials express concerns about racial and ethnic differences, the anxieties and fascination associated with modern technologies, and alienation from the inner workings of government. Debbora Battaglia is professor of anthropology. She is the author of On the Bones of the Serpent: Person, Memory, and Mortality in Sabarl Island Society and the editor of Rhetorics of Self-Making. The Alaska Reader Edited by Anne Wood Hanley ’68 Fulcrum Publishing How can anyone write with authority about such a vast, mysterious, and myth-filled place as Alaska? Hanley and her coeditor have found a collection of authentic voices that do just that through poetry, fiction, nonfiction, native Alaskan languages, and oral tradition. Organized thematically, The Alaska Reader considers taking risks, Alaska as a parable for the future, and many other characteristics of the state in the words of John Muir, Jack London, and John McPhee, to name a few of the diverse group of authors represented. Anne Wood Hanley was the Alaska state writer laureate

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Spring 2006

from 2002 to 2004. She has a weekly column on Alaskan writing in the Anchorage Daily News. Campus Legends: A Handbook By Elizabeth Tucker ’70 Greenwood Press Campus legends have been a factor at colleges and universities since their founding. Students have told and retold stories of the extraordinary, bizarre, and just plain baffling events in their daily lives in often dramatic fashion. In Campus Legends the author explores the important role legends and folklore play in popular culture and offers fifty examples of the genres, including several MHC legends—the intriguing “Hatchet Man” story included. Elizabeth Tucker is associate professor of English at Binghamton University. Her work has appeared in such journals as Children’s Folklore Review and Journal of Popular Culture.

Art and Culture of the Sistine Court: Platina’s “Life of Sixtus IV” and the Frescoes of the Hospital of Santa Spirito By Eunice D. Howe ’69 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana This book examines the collaborative culture that flourished in the court of Sixtus IV, the pope who built the Sistine Chapel among other key projects in Renaissance Rome. Howe proposes that humanist and first Vatican librarian Bartolomeo Platina was instrumental in promoting the intermingling of art and scholarship that gave rise to the distinctive frescoes and architecture of Sixtus IV’s court. Eunice D. Howe is professor of art history at the University of Southern California. Her most current interests include women’s history, urbanism, and travel literature of early modern Italy.

[ off the shelf ]

have collaborated on Cooking the Roman Way and Enchanted Liguria.

[ off the shelf ]

History on the Road: The Painted Carts of Sicily By Marcella Croce ’72 and Moira F. Harris Pogo Press The painted carts of Sicily have been around for less than two centuries. Once there were many thousands of them, carrying the products of the island and participating in celebrations. The carts were fashioned from beautifully carved wood and intricately wrought metal. All visible parts were colorfully painted with religious, chivalric, historical, or other culturally symbolic designs and figures. They carried passengers, food, wine barrels, minerals, and other cargo from place to place. Described as ungainly and awkward, they were pulled over less-than-satisfactory roads by horses, mules, and

donkeys decorated in colorful harnesses and feathers. These carts are part of Sicily’s art, culture, and history on the road. Marcella Croce was born in Palermo, Sicily. She earned her PhD in Italian literature from the University of Wisconsin. She is a lecturer, Italian language teacher, and Elderhostel coordinator. She has written books and articles concerning Italian folklore, including puppets and decorated carts. Crossfire By Miyuki Miyabe, translated by Deborah Sturhl Iwabuchi and Anna Husson Isozaki ’90 Kodansha America Junko Aoki, a ‘Tokyoite’ in her mid-twenties, has the extraordinary

ability to start fires using just willpower. Furthermore, she believes it is her duty to use these powers to punish violent criminals who have evaded justice. A chance encounter one night sends Junko on a mission to rescue a young woman abducted by a vicious gang of youths. The trail of bodies she leaves across Tokyo attracts the attention of two very different groups: a secretive vigilante group, which tries to recruit her, and the arson squad of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. Crossfire takes us on a hairraising journey through the landscape of Tokyo––a journey that challenges us, along with two women whose paths gradually come together, to consider what’s right and what’s wrong in the name of justice. Anna Husson Isozaki relocated to Japan in 1992. She later earned an MA in advanced Japanese studies through England’s University of Sheffield, and currently divides her time between editing and translation, teaching, and family. Final Fore By Roberta Isleib Berkley/Penguin At the bucolic Mount Holyoke College campus, Cassie Burdette is steeling her nerves for the U.S. Women’s Open, the most prestigious––and toughest––women’s golf event in the world. She’s already rattled by the absence of Laura, her favorite caddie, and by a controversial invitation to a men’s pro tournament. But then a rival dies, and Cassie learns that in high-stakes golf, competition can truly be murder.

Roberta Isleib is a clinical psychologist and mystery writer. She researched Final Fore at Mount Holyoke last summer. Driven to Murder By Judith Skillings ’72 Harper Collins/Avon The third in Skillings’s mystery series, Driven to Murder once again follows the antics of Rebecca Moore, an investigative reporter turned car restorer and now pit crew member at the Indianapolis Speedway. The sexist taunts of her coworkers are child’s play compared to the bullet that misses her skull by a hair’s width. Then there’s that body in the cockpit. And deadly secrets—all adding up to a high-speed lap that may well be the heroine’s last. Judith Skillings and her husband own an automobile restoration shop in Pennsylvania. The Little Black Book of Hors d’Oeuvres By Karen Berman ’78 Peter Pauper Press Small in size but chock full of delectable recipes for hot and cold hors d’oeuvres, this little book is a help for everyone who needs new ideas for mini starters. Flavors from around the world are included in chapters such as “Dips and Spreads,” “Topped, Stuffed, and Wrapped,” and “Out of the Frying Pan.” Ahi tuna bites, pork tenderloinmango kabobs, and petit apple-gruyere quiches are among the fifty-one recipes included in this tasteful text. Karen Berman is a writer and editor whose work includes cookbooks and articles for Wine Enthusiast and the New York Times. She holds a certificate in cuisine from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Your life. MHC. The world. The Alumnae Association Web site offers discussion forums on a wide variety of topics. Share expertise, useful resources, and ideas about the topics listed below, or request that a new forum be created on a topic of your choice. You can post a message, and read others’ views, at any time online at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/forum.

Discuss.

Current Discussion Forums • • • • • • • • •

Adoption Autism Cancer Career Caring for Elderly Parents Children With Special Needs Chronic Illnesses Community Service Housing

• • • • • • • • •

Health Care Learning Disabilities Political Action Recovery Retirement Work-Family Balance Classes: Volunteer Networking Clubs: Volunteer Networking Hurricane Katrina

Special Pre-Reunion Forum Connect with classmates planning to return for reunion (carpooling,

anyone?) While you’re at our Web site, encourage friends to join you at reunion by sending a free e-card. Each class’s card has an image from its senior-year Llamarada.

The ﬁne print: You must register to have access to the discussion forums, but this gives you permanent access to all forums. Forums are accessible to everyone (not only alumnae), so keep this in mind when posting personal information. To request a new forum be created, send your name, class year, and category suggestion to Stacey Coleman-Litterer, scoleman@mtholyoke.edu.

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board contact

announcements

This column carries announcements of services and events sponsored by the Alumnae Association, alumnae clubs, and Collegerelated organizations for the benefit of MHC. Announcements are free, but space is limited. Club and class products, which benefit classes, clubs, and/or the Alumnae Association’s Alumnae Scholar Fund, are included each fall. Products are always viewable at www. alumnae.mtholyoke.edu, or a listing may be requested by calling 413-538-2300.

Museum Seeks Historic Clothing The MHC Art Museum is organizing an exhibition for spring 2008 titled What Can a Woman Do? Inspired by an 1893 book of that name, the exhibition will examine the variety of work and career options available to women between the Civil War and World War II, and how clothing fashions changed in response to women’s expanding activities, social role, and self-perception. The show will feature fine and popular art, along with clothing of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The museum is searching for articles of clothing worn at MHC between 1865 and 1940. Of particular interest are the “farmerette” costume (overalls, or putnees and a middy blouse) worn by the MHC “farmerettes” during World War II, items worn by suffragettes, and professional work clothing worn by alumnae between 1865 and 1940. Please send information and photographs to guest curator Lynne Z. Bassett ’83 at lynne@lynnezwoolsey.com, or 8 Juniper Hill Road, Ware, MA 01082.

To submit an announcement, contact Mieke Bomann (413-538-3159; mbomann@mtholyoke.edu).

deadlines NOTE: Material is accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. Sometimes the column is filled before the deadlines below, so submit items early. WINTER ISSUE (received in early February) November 15 SPRING ISSUE (received in early May) February 15 SUMMER ISSUE (received in early August) May 15 FALL ISSUE (received in early November) August 1

Tuition Prepayment Plan Available to Alumnae Mount Holyoke College has joined the Independent 529 Plan, which will allow alumnae and their families to prepay tuition at less than today’s price for use in the future. More than 240 private colleges have joined the consortium administered by TIAA-CREF that enables families to plan for the rising costs of private higher education. MHC alumnae family members are automatically eligible. The Independent 529 plan operates on a simple principle: in return for prepaying college costs, member colleges carry the investment risk and protect you from future tuition increases. The percentage of tuition you purchase today pays for that

same percentage of tuition in the future and is guaranteed to satisfy costs at the time your child or other family member enrolls. For example, if the college your child will eventually attend has a current tuition of $20,000 a year, and you prepay $20,000 to cover one year of tuition at today’s rate, that amount also will cover one year of tuition ten years from now—even though the projected cost is $35,817 (assuming a six percent annual tuition rate increase). By prepaying, you save $15,817 and that savings—the increase in value—is tax free. In addition, each participating institution offers a discount on today’s tuition prices, so the savings is even greater. The savings benefit you gain is proportional to the amount you prepay. However, even regular, small contributions will yield savings and help take the sting out of rising college costs. Independent 529 Plan certificates may be redeemed at any participating college as long as a student is accepted for admission and enrolls. For more information, go to www.independent529plan.org. The SummerMath Program Each July, fifty to sixty high school girls from across the country come to Mount Holyoke College for four weeks to open their minds to mathematics, computer programming, and a college environment. Do you have a daughter or friend of high school age who would like to spend a month with a diverse group of academically motivated students at Mount Holyoke? Please visit www.mtholyoke.edu/ proj/summermath to learn more, or contact the directors, Charlene and James Morrow at 413-5382608 or summermath@mtholyoke. edu The 2006 program will be held July 2–29. The SEARCH Program MHC is recruiting students for Summer Explorations and Research Collaborations for High

School Girls (SEARCH), a fourweek program on campus. We encourage girls who have a sense of curiosity and adventure about mathematics to apply. Students will explore exciting topics outside the usual high school curriculum. Do you have a daughter or friend who would like to find out what is exciting about mathematics? Please visit www.mtholyoke.edu/proj/search to learn more or contact the directors, Charlene and James Morrow at 413-538-2608 or search@mtholyoke.edu. The 2006 program will be held July 2–29. Art Exhibition—Ten Workshops The Ten Workshops exhibition at the MHC Art Museum will feature important prints emanating from the MHC Printmaking Workshop, founded in 1984 and directed by Mount Holyoke professor and printmaker Nancy Campbell. Campbell’s intent was to bring to campus respected women artists to serve as an inspiration to students and to introduce them to the collaborative aspect of printmaking. Elaine de Kooning was the first resident artist; along with her work, the exhibition features the work of Joan Snyder, Sondra Freckelton, Sue Coe, and Kiki Smith, among others. The show runs through July 30. MHC Club of Central Maine Mark your calendars, save the dates: spring luncheon and business meeting, Saturday, June 17. The annual picnic is Saturday, July 29, in Boothbay Harbor. For details, directions, and RSVP, click the “classes, clubs, and groups” link at alumnae.mtholyoke.edu and watch your mail for the club newsletter. MHC Class and Club Products Lots of MHC-related products benefiting classes and clubs are for sale. For details and photos, please visit alumnae.mtholyoke. edu/shop/alumgifts.php or phone

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Willits-Hallowell Center The Willits-Hallowell Center is a full-service conference facility for the use of the Mount Holyoke College community. With the beautiful campus as a backdrop, the center has twenty comfortably furnished hotel rooms, private dining rooms serving up to 175, meeting rooms, and an open-air courtyard, along with Internet access, cable television, and a wide variety of audiovisual services. The center hosts meetings, conferences, weddings, social events, and other special occasions. Professional coordination of meeting facilities, full-service catering, and overnight accommodations for your guests help the center meet your needs. Please call 413-538-2217 with questions and for professional assistance with menu planning, wedding and shower packages, and room reservations. We look forward to hosting your next event. Alcohol and Drug Awareness Project The Alcohol and Drug Awareness Project sponsors a network that joins recovering alumnae who provide support and serve as contacts for members of the College com-

munity exploring issues related to chemical dependency. It also brings together alumnae with professional interest in alcohol and drug abuse who act as resources for the project. If you are willing to share your recovery or professional expertise, please contact: Susan McCarthy, Alcohol and Drug Awareness Project, Room 110 College Health Center, 50 College St., South Hadley, MA 010751437, smccarth@mtholyoke.edu All information will be kept confidential. Classified Ads Now Free, on Web Due to postal regulations, the Quarterly is no longer able to publish classified ads. However, all alumnae are welcome to post free classified ads on our Web site (alumniconnections.com/olc/pub/MHO/yellowpages. html) You’re a Bib Girl Now If there’s a new baby in your life, let us know and we’ll send you a free MHC bib. Contact the Alumnae Association (413-538-2300; alu mnaeassociation@mtholyoke.edu; or 50 College Street, South Hadley, MA 01075-1486). Free E-Mail Service for College News On a regular basis during the school year, the Office of Communications sends e-mail

travel opportunities Exploring Spain’s History and Architecture MAY 20–31, 2006—with Professor of Art Michael Davis, a specialist in Gothic architecture There’s still time to book this trip to an ancient civilization with E L E aD wealth of archiCANC tecture to explore. Come see the marvels of Madrid, Toledo, Barcelona, and Bilbao, as well as prehistoric caves and Celtic settlements. Waterways of Russia JULY 26–AUGUST 7, 2006—with Professor of Russian Studies Stephen Jones, an expert on post-Soviet societies This distinctive tour follows the network of rivers, lakes, and canals that link Moscow with St. Petersburg. Golden-domed churches and quaint wooden villages dot the verdant landscape, and the gentle light of summer evenings gives an otherworldly dimension to Russia’s great “blue road” OUT of waterways. This travel program will SOLD include three full days in Moscow; six days of cruising the Volga, Svir, and Neva rivers and Lakes Rybinskoye and Beloye; and three full days in St. Petersburg. You will be aboard the comfortable ninety-fourpassenger MS Yesenin. Highlights include a visit to the Kremlin and a tour of Red

updates on news from Mount Holyoke. These e-mail reports also provide information about significant stories in the news media about Mount Holyoke and the MHC community. If you’d like to subscribe to this free service, please e-mail dwright@mtholyoke.edu. Please type the word “Subscribe” in the subject line. Moving? Don’t miss the next Quarterly. Send name and address changes as well as new job information (including work address), telephone and fax numbers, e-mail address (or, in the case of multiple e-mail addresses, your preferred one), and any other biographical updates to Alumnae Information Services, Alumnae Association of MHC, 50 College St., South Hadley, MA 01075-1486; 413-538-2303; ais@mtholyoke.edu. Lyon’s Pride Formerly known as Lesbian Alumnae Network, we now welcome all lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, intersexed, and other queer members of the MHC community. Register at our Web site, http://www.mhlyonspride.org to access our e-mail lists, newsletters, calendar of events, archives, and more.

Sponsored by the Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College

Square. Among your ports of call along the great “blue road” are Uglich, Yaroslavl, Goritsy, and Kizhi Island. Conclude in St. Petersburg, Russia’s “window to the West,” with its exquisite architecture, canals, and bridges. Village Life in the Italian Lake District SEPTEMBER 13–20, 2006—accompanied by a local, professional guide Centered at the four-star, deluxe Palace Hotel on the shores of Lake Como, this village life program will offer an in-depth cultural exploration of the Italian lakes, with talks by local experts, meetings with villagers, and guided tours of the art, architecture, and history of this extraordinary region. We will explore the town of Como, viewing wood-beamed houses, magnificent Renaissance churches, and the spectacular lakefront promenade; travel to the Borromean Islands, and visit the palazzo and gardens of Isola Bella; and tour Bellagio, one of the prettiest towns in Europe. We also will visit fashionable Milan, and witness one of the key images of the western civilization, the Cenacolo (Last Supper) by Leonardo da Vinci.

Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Spring 2006

Australia and New Zealand: From the Outback to the Glaciers OCTOBER 21–N OVEMBER 7—with Professor of Music Allen Bonde, a pianist and composer who will offer insights into the two nations’ musical history. Join us on this trip “down under” to explore a place that is quite unlike any other on earth. Our trip will begin in Melbourne with tours of the Fitzroy Gardens, the Shrine of Remembrance, the Parliament House, and the renowned nature reserve, Phillip Island. Then we fly to Alice Springs to discover the beliefs and customs of the Aboriginal people. Near Cairns, we board a high-speed catamaran to the Great Barrier Reef. In New Zealand, our first stop will be in the beautiful English-style city of Christchurch. Then we journey across New Zealand’s spectacular Southern Alps before crossing the Haast Pass to arrive in Queenstown, set on the edge of a glacial lake. The trip culminates in New Zealand’s most famous national park, Mount Cook. INTERESTED? For more information on Association-sponsored travel, please contact W. Rochelle Calhoun ’83, 50 College St., South Hadley, MA 01075-1486; 413-538-2300.

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the Alumnae Association at 413-538-2300 to request a printed copy of the information.

last

look Why Didn’t I Take a Course In …? Choosing Courses With the Benefit of Hindsight By Amy Cavanaugh ’06

Dave Cutler/Images.com

“When I was graduating, I secretly wished for another year of school so I could take all the ‘fun’ courses that had nothing to do with my major or distribution and premed requirements.” —Rubab Khan ’89 The undergraduate years are a time for self-discovery, personal growth, and finding our academic passions. Yet because students are often wary of taking courses in new disciplines, many don’t take advantage of opportunities in areas that—as alumnae—they wish they had embraced. When asked what courses they should have signed up for but didn’t, alumnae most often named courses in languages or the arts, which were usually areas far removed from their majors. How would alumnae choose differently now, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight? Caroline Foty ’80 regrets not taking French at Mount Holyoke, since she was “borderline fluent” in high school. Instead, she took German and Greek. “I wish I had done more French, so I could become truly bilingual and read French literature,” she said, “I am a big believer in language study, contrary to mainstream America, and wish I’d made a commitment to really master the language I’d already started.” Jane Zippe Putscher ’87 wishes she’d continued language study here, although she had fulfilled the College’s language requirement before she even got to Mount Holyoke. “It is one of my goals to go back to language classes and become fluent in at least one other language,” Putscher says. “I now realize how foolish it was to not take advantage of foreign language classes at Mount Holyoke––there were native speakers, language labs, and all kinds of opportunities to learn another language, and I ignored them all.” Nieves Romero-Diaz, MHC associate professor of Spanish and chair of romance languages and literatures, recognizes that alumnae may not feel compelled to know a foreign language until later in life. “It is when a person gets out of school and is introduced to real life when most people realize its importance,” Romero-Diaz says. “It is not only because some people need foreign languages to find a job or to be successful in their jobs, or because they start traveling. Knowing a foreign language opens your mind and makes you more critical and wiser.” Other alumnae whose learning priorities changed with time lament not dabbling in the arts. Karen Helmers Bain ’74 wishes she’d taken music classes, and Rubab Khan ’89 regrets the lack

of courses in interior design. They have pursued artistic interests since graduation, with piano lessons and an interior design class, respectively. Lisa Wlodarski Romano ’89 says she should have continued her high school involvement in drama. “Theater would have been a great social outlet, as well as a wonderful opportunity to build confidence and public-speaking ability,” she says. Ajay Sinha, MHC associate professor of art, believes he knows why students do not always take advantage of arts classes. “Looking at our students recently, it seems to me that the answer may have to do with the cultural pressures with which they come to MHC. More and more students think about the large sums of money spent for higher education, and their career plans are shaped by economic anxieties,” he says. “Students often become obsessed with lining up only those courses that might help them imagine a straight path to economic success after graduation. In this rush, the idea that the College is also a place for intellectual growth is compromised.” No matter what their academic interests, one quality MHC alumnae share is a hunger for knowledge that makes learning a lifelong pursuit.

www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu

Mary Lyon Dreamed Big. So Do We. For more than 100 years, the Alumnae Association has proudly continued Mary Lyon’s tradition of helping talented women realize their potential—and their biggest dreams. One way we help alumnae is through the FOUNDER’S FUND. The FOUNDER’S FUND was created, in part, to help build the resources of an independent Alumnae Association. These resources directly support alumnae endeavors around the world. Graduate study, independent projects, and educational initiatives alike are made possible by the Founder’s Fund in the form of individual alumnae grants. Dream BIG. Give to the Founder's Fund today. For more information on the FOUNDER’S FUND and how you can contribute, please see page 30, visit our Web site at www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu., or make a check out to the Alumnae Association and send it to: Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College, Mary E. Woolley Hall, 50 College Street, South Hadley, MA 01075.

a place of

our own

When my classmates and I walk into the amphitheater for commencement, we will have changed so much from the nervous, excited first-year students who gathered for the first time at convocation four years ago. Now weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re about to go into the world, and while we may not have jobs, or money, or a place to live, our time at Mount Holyoke has left us with something more importantâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the desire and courage to lead the lives we want, and the passion and dedication to achieve them.

Jim Gipe

Amy Cavanaugh â&#x20AC;&#x2122;06