Paul Schnaittacher
• This coming September, Mount Holyoke students will have a new department to consider as they select courses, majors, and minors. The Department of Gender Studies will draw on existing faculty talent, with a combination of “rotating” faculty members who will relocate to gender studies while on temporary leave of absence from their home departments, a larger group of affiliated faculty, and senior lecturer Martha Ackmann. The plan for the new department, which emerged out of a series of faculty and student conversations following the dissolution of the former Women’s Studies Steering Committee, received unanimous endorsement from the faculty in May and approval from the Board of Trustees in October. Mary A. Renda, associate professor of gender studies and history, will serve as its first chair. • Meanwhile, educational studies, a new minor, also made its campus debut this fall. Developed by an interdisciplinary group of faculty who were part of a faculty work group funded by the President’s Innovation Fund, this eighteen-credit option offers cross-disciplinary perspectives and is intended for students who do not plan to teach. The multidisciplinary minor, which includes an independent study project, offers varied perspectives on the contexts and historical moments that shape and define knowledge, behavior, structures, and policies both in and out of classrooms. “It gives students the opportunity to study the enterprise of education, both in the United States and internationally, from a variety of disciplines,” said Sandra Lawrence, associate professor of psychology and education. • On the certificate front, the Five College Consortium launched its program
in the interdisciplinary field of Buddhist studies. The certificate can be pursued in conjunction with a major in philosophy, religious studies, anthropology, Asian studies, or another field to which Buddhist studies is directly relevant, or as a complement to other courses of study. A World Leader in Residence Gro Harlem Brundtland, who served for ten years as prime minister of Norway and five years as director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) was on campus in October as the Center for Global Initiatives global studies fellow-in-residence. During a community lecture, Brundtland spoke of the moral imperative of narrowing health-equity gaps. Access to a
[ campus currents ]
remarkable expertise of those devoted to the study of film across the five colleges into an official major. We’ve already begun to feel the major’s influence with more students from the other schools in our classes and the burgeoning of what promises to be a vital, student-driven film culture in the Valley.”
By the Numbers: Five College Interchange The Five College Consortium’s interchange program continues to be the icing on the cake of a Mount Holyoke education. During the 2004–05 academic year, when MHC students boarded the PVTA buses for classes, here’s where they were headed:
HEADING OUT
Amherst College Hampshire College Smith College UMass
190 238 238 373
The interchange appeal was mutual. Here are the stats on Five College students enrolling in classes at MHC:
HEADING OUR WAY Gro Harlem Brundtland
functioning health system, she noted, is “a basic human right and a matter of social justice. We need to invest in people. Public responsibility for all is a vital part of a functioning democracy.” During her residency, Brundtland also met with a number of classes, including the medical anthropology class taught by Lynn M. Morgan, chair of sociology and anthropology, and lunched with local high school students to discuss the issues women face in striving for leadership positions. “Having Brundtland as our fellow-inresidence was a distinct honor,” said
Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Winter 2006
Amherst College Hampshire College Smith College UMass
92 465 71 119
(+ 3 graduate students)
Eva A. Paus, director of the Center for Global Initiatives. “Last year the Financial Times named her the fourth most influential European of the past twenty-five years, behind Pope John Paul II, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Margaret Thatcher. There is nobody in the world better able to help us understand the problems, politics, and policies of global health.” 7