Mount Holyoke News — Sept. 24, 2020

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Former professor Hachiyanagi held without bail since 2019

BY KATE TURNER ’21 NEWS EDITOR

Former Mount Holyoke Professor of Art and Studio Art Chair Rie Hachiyanagi has been in custody since December 2019.

She will continue to be held without bail until her trial, which is scheduled for November 2020.

Hachiyanagi was charged with multiple counts, including attempted murder, following her alleged assault on a fellow Mount Holyoke faculty member some time between Dec. 23 and Dec. 24, 2019.

She has pleaded not guilty on all charges.

At her Feb. 19 dangerousness hearing, Judge Mark D. Mason in Franklin Superior Court ruled that there was “no condition of release” prior to Hachiyanagi’s trial that would satisfy public safety. Following a dangerousness hearing, which is requested by the Commonwealth in case of use, attempted use or threat of physical force, a defendant may legally be held in custody without bail for up to 180 days.

Hachiyanagi was originally due back in court on April 22, with a pretrial hearing scheduled for June 3, as previously reported by the Mount Holyoke News. However, as COVID-19 swept the East Coast, the normal operation of Massachusetts courts has been disrupted.

According to the Massachusetts Legislature, “the courts are currently open for business but courthouses are closed to the public for in-person hearings except to address certain emergency matters.” Though hearings continue to be conducted, they are held virtually “where feasible and consistent with constitutional rights.” As of Thursday, Sept. 17, jury trials have been postponed entirely until at least Oct. 23.

The effect of COVID on the entire legal system has been dramatic. “It has ground things to a halt,” said Hachiyanagi’s defense attorney, Thomas Kokonowski. “And made things very difficult for everyone involved, especially people who are held in jail; it is not conducive to constitutional rights.”

“My job is to confront people who are accusing my clients of things, and that’s impossible to do on the telephone,” Kokonowski added. “It is very frustrating and very difficult to try to litigate by tele-

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phone and by Zoom.”

Meanwhile, as court proceedings have been slowed to allow for social distancing, inside Massachusetts prisons and jails, distancing is nearly impossible.

According to WBUR, “the DOC [Massachusetts Department of Corrections], which holds about half of all prisoners in Massachusetts, said that 72 percent of prisoners sleep within 6 feet of each other; 70 percent eat meals within 6 feet of other inmates and are generally able to pass within 6 feet of each other during recreational periods.”

“Correctional facilities, where physical distancing and vigilant hygiene are impossible, can be petri dishes for the rapid spread of infectious disease,” wrote the Committee for Public Counsel Services and the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense lawyers in an emergency petition to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

Nationally, this prediction has held true: “Incarcerated people are infected by the coronavirus at a rate more than five times higher than the nation’s overall rate,” according to the Equal Justice Initiative. The death rate of inmates and incarcerated people is also higher than the national death rate.

And these numbers may be conservative ones. There are “huge differences in how many people are being tested in prisons for the virus,” according to the Marshall Project and The Associated Press.

In Massachusetts, as of Sept. 18, there have been at least 420 cases of COVID-19 reported among prisoners, a rate 228 percent higher than in Massachusetts overall, according to the Marshall Project.

There is also no current data available on the number of tests administered, and these reported tests have only accounted for sentenced prisoners, not pretrial detainees, who are also held in close quarters where distancing is impossible — like Hachiyanagi.

According to WBUR, in early April, the SJC ruled that, though they could not reverse previously determined sentencing, certain pretrial detainees could be eligible for release. WBUR later reported that between April and May, the state

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Photo by Kate Turner ’21 Judge Mark Mason in Franklin Superior Court ruled that there was “no condition of release” for Hachiyanagi.

Mount Holyoke unveils new Chosen-Name Policy

BY KATIE GOSS ’23 STAFF WRITER

In August 2020, the College implemented a new Chosen-Name Policy, allowing Mount Holyoke community members to administratively change their names from their given name to their chosen name. This new policy is an effort to introduce more gender-inclusive policies that support transgender and gender-nonconforming community members at the College.

Before this policy, transgender students could still change their deadname — their birth or former name — to their preferred name or “nickname,” by contacting the Office of the Registrar. However, if not completed before the beginning of a semester, not every document would automatically change, such as professors’ rosters.

“The policy was added to ensure that we have policies and practices that align with who we are as a women’s college that is gender diverse,” Vice President for Equity and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer Kijua Sanders-McMurtry said. “The motivation

8 GLOBAL: Crises in Greek refugee camps

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was to provide more gender affirming policies recognizing the importance of demonstrating our support for trans and gender-nonconforming members of our campus community.”

Starting in 2018, the two-year project included a combined effort mainly by the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Library and Information Technology Services and students, specifically Percy Child ’21 and Kai Chuckas ’20.

“I worked with teams of people including students, a multitude of LITS staff and the senior leadership to get the policy approved. This was not a solo project, it was a collective effort,” Sanders-McMurtry said.

The end goal of this project was to have one place where a community member could change their name to their preferred name, and it would automatically change on all systems across campus, such as professor roster sheets and W-2 forms. In order to do this, LITS had to recode and reorganize their system to make it as easy as possible.

“When a trans person is deadnamed

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SPORTS: Golf program ended

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EVENTS

September 24, 2020

. Mount Holyoke News

Mount Holyoke News Mount Holyoke News is an independent student newspaper written by and for Mount Holyoke College students since 1917.

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Executive Board Editor-in-Chief Lily Reavis ’21 Managing Editor of Content Flannery Langton ’22 Managing Editor of Layout Rose Sheehan ’22

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Audrey Hogan ’21, Molly Kleinman ’21, Audrey Shannon ’22, Margaret Connor ’23 Kenna Hurtuk ’23, Zoe Latham ’23, Lauren Leese ’23, Rhitom Mishra ’23 & Kay Brown ’24

Donna Yoo has performed widely across the East Coast for over two decades and is the Director of Admissions and Alumni Affairs at the Yale School of Music. Yoo discusses her journey through music administration informed by the authority of a practitioner who understands both sides of the puzzle.

Online registration is required.

12:45 p.m. - 1:45 p.m.

2020 Election Town Hall: Climate, Justice, and Migration

Health & Science

Arts & Entertainment

Saman Bhat ’22 & Sophie Soloway ’23

Thursday, Sept. 24

Sonic Vanguard: Administering Music with French Horn player and educator Donna Yoo.

Monday, Sept. 28

News

Casey Roepke ’21, Kate Turner ’21 & Liz Lewis ’22 Sabryna Coppola ’22

Event Highlights

Maggie Donovan ’23 & Zoe Tang ’24

Web Assistants

Georgia Fish ’23, Shloka Gidwani ’22 Audrey Hogan ’21 & Aarushi Sharma ’23

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Join us for an Election 2020 Town Hall event where we will hear perspectives from an artist, an activist and policymakers on how this year’s election will impact Climate, Justice, and Migration.

Registration is required through the Miller Worley Center for the Environment.

5:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.

Tuesday, Sept. 29

A Reading with Sejal Shah This Is One Way to Dance: A Reading by Sejal Shah Sponsored by the English department at Mount Holyoke College and the Odyssey Bookshop Join online through the link in the events calendar.

4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Biological Sciences Seminar: Jason Andras

Please join Jason Andras, Ph. D, Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences for a discussion about “Rewilding the small stuff: The effect of ecological restoration on microbial communities of peatland soils.”

Zoom ID: 948 2799 3485 4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Latinx in the Nonprofit World

As part of Latinx Heritage Month, a panel of Latinx professionals will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of working in today’s non-profit world as Latinx. Get an idea of the challenges faced and how they can be overcome.

Registration is required through Community and Inclusion.

4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

September 24, 2020

NEWS

. Mount Holyoke News

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Students launch MHC Votes! campaign to increase turnout

BY ANNABELLE SHEA ’23 STAFF WRITER

According to a Tufts University study from the National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement, 94.6 percent of eligible Mount Holyoke students registered to vote in the 2016 election, but only 73.2 percent of that group actually voted. Members of MHC Votes!, a new student initiative hoping to increase voter participation on campus, seek to address this disparity.

MHC Votes! was officially launched in June but started recruiting new students during the fall 2020 semester. The group gained momentum after two of its co-founders, Kate Murray ’22 and Jaxzia Perez ’22, participated in a student internship program with the nonpartisan organization Massachusetts Public Interest Research Groups.

Throughout the summer, Murray and Perez were joined by five other Mount Holyoke students to form the group MHC Votes! The mission of the organization, according to MHC Votes! co-founder and president of the Mount Holyoke Democrats Maggie Micklo ’21, is to achieve 100 percent eligible voter participation. “We want to both increase voter registration and close the gap between registration and voter turnout,” she said.

Despite Micklo’s involvement, MHC Votes! remains a nonpartisan organization. “The whole point was always to stay nonpartisan. We wanted to make sure we weren’t dividing Mount Holyoke based on political parties,” Perez said.

MHC Votes! also works to increase political awareness among students ineligible to vote. “Regardless of whether or not you can vote, it’s really important for you to know either the politics of South Hadley or the politics of the United States as a whole,” Perez said.

Because of this, MHC Votes! is also considering the experiences of international students and others eligible to vote.

“U.S. political decisions have a global impact,” Murray said. “While we make youth voter mobilization a priority, providing a platform to amplify student voices, regardless of their voter eligibility, is a key part of what we do.”

There are currently over 40 students and 15 staff and faculty involved with MHC Votes! The task force is divided into three “cohorts”: “Regional Research and Voter Awareness,” “Get Out the Vote” and “Social Media and Events.”

Micklo works alongside co-founder Emma Watkins ’23 as a coordinator of the “Regional Research and Voter Awareness” cohort. This cohort is re-

sponsible for compiling information such as the different questions and initiatives listed on ballots from all 50 states.

Describing her duties as a regional cohort coordinator, Watkins said the organization has students “, “working to gather information about everything that will be on the ballot in each state.

So essentially we divided the U.S. into four regions, and students have been becoming experts in the states they have chosen to work with.”

The “Get Out the Vote” cohort, led by co-founders Murray, Perez and Lily James ’21, is responsible for informing students of logistical information such as voting deadlines and how to register.

The cohort also holds voting workshops for student organizations and has challenged student groups to pledge 100 percent voter participation. The group has attended Community M&Cs and the College’s Interfaith Lunches to reach a wider audience. This commitment of MHC Votes! leaders to reach various student organizations stems from the philosophy of coordinator James, who believes that “We need to meet students where they’re at.”

For James, the remote setup of the fall semester presented unexpected challenges. Reflecting on the 2018 election, James said, “We did a lot of tabling,

Graphic by Trinity Kendrick ’21

which is obviously not possible now. In 2018, we tabled for over 22 hours in one month. We had a thousand stamps, a thousand envelopes and we printed out voter registration and absentee ballot forms.”

Many of the events and available resources MHC Votes! leaders had planned for the fall, such as setting up information tables in the Dining Commons and distributing printed absentee ballot requests and posting voting information in the dorms, are now impossible due to the remote semester.

Instead, students have facilitated Zoom workshops for student organizations and first-year seminars.

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“[It] can be lifesaving,” student says on new chosen name procedure CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

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[referred to by birth name] or misgendered it does real harm. It can trigger sadness, it can trigger pain. It can trigger a lot of very negative emotions associated with gender dysphoria,” Chuckas said, as quoted on the Mount Holyoke website.

“Deadnaming can be a huge setback for those who’ve gone by their chosen name for a long time, and for those who are just starting out with their chosen names and testing the waters,” added Wolfe Chen ’23. “Those who are unsupportive of name changes or unwilling to adapt could use their deadnames and cause major dysphoria.”

Chen changed their name on campus before the policy went into effect.

Because they changed it mid-semester, it did not change the name on professor rosters, and they had to tell professors and students their preferred name in the middle of the semester. The only place their deadname showed up was on insurance and medical documents,

but even then, Chen said the staff at the Health Center respected their chosen name and used it.

“Because of the chosen name policy, and the way Mount Holyoke has put my chosen name into their system, I can avoid that awkward phase and avoid deadnaming entirely from day one of each course,” Chen said. “I would say the policy can be lifesaving, even, for those who identify as trans/ gender-nonconforming, because Mount Holyoke may be the only space I can hear my chosen name truly being used without malice, confusion or disrespect.

For those who live in unsupportive environments, having this policy at Mount Holyoke really helps affirm our identities and help us navigate them as they fluidly develop and change too.”

Lauren Hirth ’21 brought up the difficulty surrounding changing your name on campus to the Student Government Association last fall. Although she was not a part of the group responsible for drafting this policy, nor is she looking to change her name, she brought it to the senate floor after speaking to students

in the Renegades org.

“I was senator of Renegades at the time, and one of my friends in the club was complaining about how often he received mail under his dead name.

We got talking, and it came up just how difficult it was to change one’s name on campus,” Hirth said. She explained that there was no information on the College’s website at that time, and the process to change your name was more time-consuming and difficult. “I asked around Renegades, and all of the trans students I spoke to expressed similar annoyance and confusion,” she added.

Transgender and gender-nonconforming members are not the only ones who may benefit from this policy, however. Those who wish to change their name for cultural reasons will also be able to do so.

“One thing I wasn’t expecting when I brought this issue to the floor was hearing from students who wanted to change their names for cultural reasons. I spoke to one girl who had gone by an anglicized version of her name for years and really wanted to start going

by her cultural name,” Hirth said.

An issue students in the Mount Holyoke community may run into is how to change their name on certain documents or in specific places at Mount Holyoke, such as the Williston Library or professors’ roster sheets, when they still go by another name at home for a specific reason. Though this specific situation may be a case-by-case scenario, there is nothing clarified in the policy specifically to this issue.

The Mount Holyoke website describes the new policy and walks students through the steps on how to change their name, along with the difference between changing to their preferred name and their legal name.

“Other gender-diverse women’s colleges do look to Mount Holyoke for guidance on how to roll out policies like this and I do hope that us doing this will lead to other institutions following suit,” Child said, as quoted on the Mount Holyoke website. “I would definitely say that this is a step in the right direction and does reveal a commitment to moving forward.”

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NEWS

September 24, 2020

. Mount Holyoke News

Jail time extended due to COVID-19, cont’d Voting initiative, cont’d u

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released nearly 1,000 prisoners, though it is not clear how many of those releases were prescheduled and how many were due to COVID-19.

“That was taking place a lot in the beginning,” said Kokonowski. “Now, there are specific protocols [for release]. If there are people who have particularly compromised immune systems — you have to show a court that a person is particularly susceptible to getting COVID. Or if there is COVID in any particular facility.”

“It is certainly not a situation where they let everybody out because of COVID,” he added. “You have very specific dots to connect in order for a court to let somebody out because of COVID.” According to the Daily Hampshire Gazette, the SJC’s ruling also does not apply to “those who are being held without bail under the state’s dangerousness statute or those who have been charged with a violent or serious offense.” Hachiyanagi falls under both categories.

For these detainees, their time in jail could actually be extended due to the pandemic. In June, the SJC held in Commonwealth v. Lougee that “its orders delaying trials due to COVID-19 allow the Commonwealth to hold defendants pre-trial beyond time limits set by statute,” defense attorney David Duncan wrote on

the Boston Lawyer Blog.

It is this ruling that means Hachiyanagi will be held before trial for at least another six months past the 180-day limit, likely longer.

“Maddening,” said Kokonowski.

“That ruling is absolutely maddening.”

He explained that, under the Commonwealth v. Lougee ruling, none of the jail time under COVID “counts” toward the limits normally imposed on detainment, meaning detainment could theoretically be extended as long as the pandemic lasts. “It’s draconian,” he added.

In fact, there are no clearly established limits to these extensions, and the SJC rejected a due process argument that pointed out the pandemic could last months, if not years, past the summer, thus delaying trials to an unreasonable extent. According to Duncan, in June, “the Court decided that argument was premature, and might not need to be addressed if trials resume in September.”

Now that trials have been delayed until at least Oct. 23, Duncan believes it is likely that the argument will reach the SJC a second time.

According to the Vera Institute of Justice, as of 2019, approximately two-thirds of all those held in jails across the country are such pretrial detainees. Research conducted and compiled by the Institute also suggests that pretrial detention is dispro-

portionately harmful to defendants. In a study on the effects of pretrial detention, researchers Léon Digard and Elizabeth Swavola wrote, “even short periods of detention may make people more likely to become involved with the criminal justice system again in the future.” They added that detainees are also “more likely to be convicted and to receive harsher sentences.”

It is unclear if or how the lasting effects of detainment are worsened by COVID-19, but its spread alone is a large enough concern for many attorneys and local activists.

Though Kokonowski declined to comment on the specifics of Hachiyanagi’s case, he said, “I’m concerned about everybody who’s in jail.”

When asked for comment, Mount Holyoke Director of News and Media Relations Christian Feuerstein said, “The College has no comment on this situation except to say that we are cooperating fully with law enforcement agencies in support of their ongoing investigations. Rie Hachiyanagi has been placed on administrative leave from Mount Holyoke College and is not permitted on our campus.”

Meanwhile, it appears likely that Hachiyanagi will remain in jail, at least until her next scheduled court appearance in November. By that time, she will have been incarcerated nearly a full year.

College updates community on financial status

Photo by Ali Meizels ’23 The College updated its financial status on Sept. 17

BY CASEY ROEPKE ’21 NEWS EDITOR

On Thursday, Sept. 17, the College provided an update on the financial situation and announced permanent structural changes. In a statement by College President Sonya Stephens and Vice President for Finance and Administration and Treasurer Shannon Gurek, it was announced that “the pandemic has created both short-term and longer-term challenges to our op-

erations, negatively impacting the College’s financial outlook.” This letter was a follow-up response to an Aug. 19 statement in which Stephens and Gurek announced furloughs and budget reductions.

The first section of the statement was devoted to an update on the current state of staff furloughs. Twenty-four staff who were on full furlough and 10 on partial furloughs over the summer will have their furloughs extended through Dec. 31. Additionally, the College has furloughed 119 staff (92 full and 27 partial furloughs) through the end of the calendar year. According to the statement, a majority of furloughs were in Dining, Facilities Management, Student Life, the Willits-Hallowell Center and Event Services. Stephens and Gurek wrote that the College is developing “an Employee Safety Net Fund to support employees experiencing financial hardship and will share more information about that in October.”

The update also provided information on changes in College structure and programs. The College is consolidating Dining Services with the Willits-Hallowell Center, Events Services and

Auxiliary Services into one department led by Rich Perna with the support of Imad Zubi. In the statement, Stephens and Gurek wrote that they anticipate “this consolidation will, over time, also generate cost savings as a result of the streamlining of operations.”

The Advancement and Communications offices are also being consolidated into a new College Relations division.

Kassandra Jolley will transition from vice president for advancement and acting vice president for communications and marketing into a new role as vice president for College Relations.

In the update, the College also announced that golf will be discontinued as an intercollegiate sport. The College will be undergoing a review process of the Equestrian Center and the physical education program.

Stephens and Gurek finished the letter by thanking the Library, Information and Technology Services employees for their support in remote learning. “We are grateful to all faculty and staff for all that you do to support our students,” Stephens and Gurek wrote, “and to advance the work and mission of Mount Holyoke College.”

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But such remote efforts have their limits. “The way to activate nonparticipants, the way to ‘get out the vote,’ is face-to-face canvassing,” Assistant Professor of Politics Adam Hilton said.

Nonetheless, Hilton believes that MHC Votes!’s efforts can still have a significant impact.

Hilton believes that the MHC Votes! student workshops in both student groups and first-year seminars may help reach nonparticipants.“They could hook people early,” he said.

In an attempt to address a more apolitical audience, MHC Votes! student leaders have reached out to the Mount Holyoke Alumnae Association as well as the College administration and leadership centers. “We really wanted to think beyond the typical outreach for these efforts. People who would attend a[n] MHC Democrats meeting or follow us on Instagram are probably already going to vote,” Micklo said.

The “Social Media and Events” cohort, led by coordinators Madeleine DesFosses ’21 and Sydney Williams ’23, also seeks to expand the audience of MHC Votes! Recalling her role in mobilizing students during the 2018 midterm elections, DesFosses said, “We’re doing more social media [engagement] for this election than the 2018 midterm because that’s the major way we’re communicating with students right now.”

When asked about the future of MHC Votes! following the upcoming presidential election, Perez said, “I don’t want MHC Votes! to stop [after the 2020 election]. I want voting to be internalized into our institution as much as our traditions are. I want, in two years, when we have midterm elections, that students still have these resources available to them and that it’s still accessible.”

For Hilton, the mobilization of student voters through MHC Votes! is an indicator of greater growth for the group in the future. “The roots MHC Votes! is putting down now will pay off enormously when we are back physically on campus,” he said.

“The research is pretty clear that getting into habits of civic engagement and voting early usually lasts a lifetime,” Hilton added.

Students interested in learning more about MHC Votes! can visit the organization’s student page or send an email to MHCvotes@gmail.com.

September 24, 2020

. Mount Holyoke News

OPINION/EDITORIAL

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Mount Holyoke pandemic policies favor domestic students

BY JAHNAVI PRADEEP ’23 STAFF WRITER

Earlier in August, on a breezy Friday evening, I got on a call with my college friend from Bombay, discussing Daal from the Dining Commons, Target hauls, Creighton Hall luxuries and our recently booked flight tickets back to the world of Mount Holyoke. After months of speculation, the international flights from India had finally opened up, and we had hurriedly talked to travel agents and finalized our not-so-cheap flight arrangements. To our great disappointment, just a couple hours later, College President Sonya Stephens’ email flashed on students’ screens across the globe, dis-inviting us from living on campus and instead moving to a completely remote system.

While Mount Holyoke’s decision to move to an online forum prioritizes health and safety in the face of the growing pandemic, I found that this decision had added more challenges for international students than domestic students.

The last-minute decision to close campus left many of us with a mess in regards to flight bookings and other expenses. I remember calling my friends back later that evening, asking them what they would do with their recently booked flight tickets. A cancellation would mean a 10 percent fee, which adds up for an international flight. The 48-hour deadline to apply for extenuating circumstances did not give me time to consult with my parents on taking another new decision, and so we, like numerous other international students, resorted to doing my semester from home.

Soon, my friends and I began frantically calling travel agents, storage units and domestic relatives who had sent out boxes already While perhaps many domestic students have gone through flight cancellations and shipping reversals as well, the situation has been a lot more confusing and costly for international students, the flight expenses being an example of this.

The online module has also not been an easy feat

Graphic by Anjali Rao-Herel ’22

for international students. The classes are structured mainly around Eastern Standard Time. This leaves several of us international students having to take classes at extremely odd hours. I dread having to stay up for my classes from 12 a.m. to 6 a.m. during Module 2. This module, my professors have personally been understanding of time differences, but there is nothing that can make them eradicate synchronous classes and stay true to the College’s academic commitment.

Sohini Bhatia ’23, also residing internationally for this semester, echoed this concern. While acknowledging the sincere efforts of the professors, Bhatia expressed how “trying to attend synchronous classes and getting all your quizzes and assignments on time” can be harder for the international student to do, especially while at the same time “juggling social lives and family time.”

This is the same for clubs and organizations as well, which host meetings in the middle of the night.

Siona Ahuja ’24 said, “My only fear is that of missing out on socializing with fellow first-years because they hold their plans when I am asleep.”

Similarly, living in a modestly sized house myself, the sound of my classes carries through the house, dis-

turbing the sleep of the rest of my family. Staying up so late inevitably leads me to sleep into the mornings and not be able to pitch in to help with the morning chores.

Rameen Farrukh ’24, currently in Pakistan, has also experienced additional challenges in the household. “The power cuts and unstable internet has been one issue I recently faced. ... Every time there was a bad thunderstorm outside, I would have a class. This had given me so much stress mentally and financially because I had to arrange a heavier generator that could cope with a 12-hour power failure,” Farrukh said.

On July 31, the student employment office sent out an email in which they noted that “due to issues related to international employment law, students who are living abroad, unfortunately, may not work for the College. This is true regardless of citizenship or previous employment with MHC.” The email explained that, since employment laws vary widely from country to country, Mount Holyoke would not be able to comply with different regulations to “lawfully employ students living in various international locations.”

This revision to the employment plans prevents all of us residing abroad from taking up any offered campus jobs. What happens to those that rely on this income for work-study? Has all of this only become a perk to those residing domestically within the United States? Additionally, I watched international students from other American colleges take up college jobs and work in research labs, as teaching assistants and in writing centers. If other colleges are not necessarily following this procedure, why must Mount Holyoke?

I acknowledge that Mount Holyoke is striving to best support all of its students, including the international population that it boasts of. However, I still find there is an inevitable and additional burden on international students’ shoulders compared to domestic students on the online platform. We are compromised in the face of classes, time zones, campus jobs and other expenses.

We should recognize poor representation in media more actively

BY NINA LARBI ’22 OP-ED EDITOR

During these past six months of social distancing, I have been obsessively revisiting my favorite childhood media, going through my old bookshelves and rediscovering kids’ cartoons. Rereading my trusty favorites with a new pair of eyes made me realize how many stories I once loved are actually terribly bigoted. Had I tried to read the “Narnia” series now, I would have put it down 10 pages into “The Horse and His Boy,” because I don’t want to read about the nice white boy and the bad brown people who are polytheistic.

Poor representation of marginalized groups in media isn’t just a problematic element to stories — it greatly impacts how they are consumed. Individual consumers have the right to refuse to read “1984” because of its sexism, or “To Kill a Mockingbird” because of its white savior complex, but rather than tacking on warnings telling audiences that “it was a product of its time,” we need to reconsider our literary canon and our discussions of how we approach media.

The literary classic genre is highly esteemed by a number of influential people and has been deemed to have had a significant cultural impact over time. For

example, “Catcher in the Rye” is an American classic because it was one of the first mainstream novels to discuss the problems of adolescence. The people who decide its cultural influence are those with high socioeconomic status, and thus have the means for their voices to be heard. Publications like The New York Times also have a hand in determining literary tastes, decisions that are then corroborated or rejected by the upper class.

There are other “essential” media that are not of the 50-plus-year-old literary genre that may have been constructed by a wider audience, like the graphic novel series “Watchmen.” However, they did not rise to their status in a bias-free market. Western graphic novels like “Watchmen” have a very white and male audience, and the novel’s success was predicated on their tastes and prejudices. There are popular works that have held their own for a handful of years, enough for socially distanced people like me to have gone back and revisited, but none have existed for long enough to determine their relevance over time.

The lack of diversity in the bodies of individuals who decide the cultural value of books is why book lists are populated by a homogeneous group of au-

thors, save for the occasional Maya Angelou. The authors of popular books my classmates picked up outside of class were also overwhelmingly white and male, except for the occasional white female author.

Understanding that classical literature is not neutral is key to deconstructing it. But we also have to reexamine our own feelings towards the specific classical works that we like. Do I like this because it’s nostalgic? Or do I think the message is poignant? If you enjoy reading “1984,” you can still like it, but you have to recognize and accept its sexism and understand that others may not want to read it because of that.

Because of the multiple factors that go into what we consider classical, for both ourselves and for society at large, what I consider to be good but problematic might not be worth it for someone else to read.

Additionally, there are other books out there! Librarians have been rewriting book lists to replace classics containing prejudiced language with books that are written by a more diverse range of authors. Ultimately, it’s not bad to like “To Kill a Mockingbird,” but recognizing a work’s faults and why others may not like it is crucial to understanding its place in society.

6

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT Changing Tides

September 24, 2020

. Mount Holyoke News

BTS makes history with single ‘Dynamite’

BY SABRYNA COPPOLA ’22 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR

“No River”

by Esmé Patterson

“Nos Veremos”

by Y La Bamab

“Alright”

by Asiatica

“My Day Will Come”

by James Francies, Yebba

“Weekend”

by Upstate

“How to Love You Today”

by Son of Cloud

“Pin-Up Daddy”

by Rett Madison

“For Sondra (It Means the World to Me)”

by Passion Pit

“Sometimes”

by be steadwell

“Put Your Records On”

by Corinne Bailey Rae

Photo courtesy of Flickr The popular K-pop group BTS recently dropped their first song entirely in English. “Dynamite” focuses on spreading positive vibes and energy.

BY ANIKA SINGH ’24 STAFF WRITER

Sept. 5, 2020, was a historic day in the world of music as BTS’ new all-English single “Dynamite” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, the first South Korean act to do so. This was BTS’ first song entirely in English, made to bring a little bit more “funk and soul,” as the song says, to these dark times. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected everything that was considered the norm, including BTS’ world tour that was to take place this summer. Its cancellation sent a wave of disappointment to not only the band’s fans, but the members themselves.

“Dynamite” aims to spread positivity far and wide in order to uplift the spirits of BTS and their ARMY, as member RM points out in their interview with USA Today. “The goal of ‘Dynamite’ is really simple ... to explore the world with positive vibes and energy,” he said. “We’ve been through all the sadness and desperation but with this song and performance we just hope the world gets more positive and [can] be happy.” He is true to his word as “Dynamite” is an upbeat anthem with catchy lyrics — the band sings the chorus, “So watch me bring the fire and set the night alight/Shining through the city with a little funk and soul/So I’ma light it up like dynamite.” This disco pop tune will get you dancing to the beat in no time.

This is not the first time BTS has been on the Billboard charts. Their hit song “Mic Drop” debuted at No. 28 on Dec. 16, 2017, and their latest album’s single “ON” debuted at No. 4 back in March. “Dynamite” outranks all of BTS’ previous singles as the 43rd single in history to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.

BTS has gained a lot of popularity over the past few years and has amassed a fanbase called the ARMY. BTS debuted back in 2013 as Bangtan Sonyeondan (방탄소년단), also known as the Bangtan Boys, and consisting of seven members, all of whom remain active in the band today: RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook. Since then, they have continued to grow in popularity.

BTS did not have the backing of the “Big Three,” the three companies that have a huge role in the Ko-

rean entertainment industry — JYP, YG and SM Entertainment — yet they succeeded in breaking records nonetheless. BTS is signed under Big Hit Entertainment, a small company that has now expanded exponentially due to the international recognition of BTS and their other groups, TXT, GFRIEND, SEVENTEEN and more.

What sets BTS’ music apart from other boybands is its genre versatility, with releases ranging from hiphop to pop to rhythm and blues. Each album follows a theme, including a series of subunits and solos from members to showcase their talent and musicality, but it does not stop there. Along with their ability to sing and rap, each of the members also masters complex choreographies that are performed live as well as showcased in their music videos.

BTS has helped popularize K-pop on a global scale.

With growing numbers of chart-topping hits and consistently sold-out stadiums, they appear to be growing in popularity by the second. Their latest album “Map Of The Soul: 7” debuted at No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart with 422,000 album-equivalent units (including 347,000 sales) earned in its first week.

BTS itself seems to be riding the K-pop wave originally started by their predecessors, Big Bang.

Along with dominating award shows on both national and global scales, they have been giving back to charity and spreading their message of self-love not only through their music, but also through their UNICEF campaign “Love Myself,” which aims to empower youth and combat violence toward teens and children. They are considered an important part of South Korean culture and are regarded as the leaders of today’s youth, as they shared empowering messages regarding their inner struggles and how they rose above them for South Korea’s Youth Day, held on Sept. 19. On Sept. 23, they addressed the U.N. General Assembly for the second time, speaking on the mental hardships that quarantine and the pandemic had brought them.

In July, it was confirmed that BTS will be releasing their first self-produced album. So, keep an eye out for that, and stream “Dynamite.”

September 24, 2020

FEATURES

. Mount Holyoke News

The mod system receives mixed responses

Graphic by Anjali Rao-Herel ’22

BY ANSLEY KEANE ‘23 STAFF WRITER

For students around the globe, this academic year is proving to be one like no other. For Mount Holyoke students, not only are all classes online this fall, but the entire academic structure has been reimagined.

As previously reported by the Mount Holyoke News, on May 14, 2020, former Dean of Faculty Jon Western shared a letter to the Mount Holyoke community outlining the seven-and-a-half-week semester system now used today. This model is known as Flexible Immersive Teaching or, more informally, the module system. According to the Academics page of the College’s Opening the Gates website, “The goal [of FIT] is to be flexible enough so that all students may participate, while preserving the immersive and rigorous academic experience of being in a Mount Holyoke class.”

However, after completing just about half of Module 1, some students are feeling challenged by the switch to the module system.

The Academic Planning Group decided to recommend that classes be delivered via shorter, more intensive seven-and-a-half-week modules rather than the traditional 15-week semester for a number of reasons. Dean of Studies Amber Douglas noted that “students were struggling to manage multiple courses” when the College shifted to an emergency remote model in the spring of 2020. “It seemed like we were hearing consistently from students that the volume of courses and switching back and forth was really challenging,” Douglas said. By instituting the module system, students would only need to focus on two classes at a time, rather than the usual four or five, which could alleviate the problem of students feeling overwhelmed by the amount of courses they had to manage at the end of the spring.

Director of Teaching and Learning Initiatives Elizabeth Markovits said, “In the science and research around online learning, four courses at a time is not recommended.” Douglas noted that, when the Academic Planning Group decided on the module system, they were “taking into consideration all of our students” and that “we wanted to make sure we would have something flexible enough for students who were remote.” Markovits also mentioned the challenges faced by students in different time zones, asking, “With a 12-hour time difference, how do you take four classes at a time?”

Preserving the essence of a Mount Holyoke class-

room environment was also a priority of members of the Academic Planning Group. Douglas explained that the committee “felt like the intensive approach was really going to replicate what happens in our classrooms more readily.” Markovits also mentioned that the module system offers some logistical advantages during the pandemic. “We knew from a study out of Cornell that if you’re taking two classes at a time, those are two networks,” Markovits said. Were students on campus and attending in-person classes this fall, the module system would have allowed for easier contact tracing because the average student would only be interacting with two groups, rather than four. Despite the necessity of meeting these numerous goals, Douglas summarized that “it’s really important just to underscore how much we were focused on students.”

While the module system was designed, in part, to make learning during a pandemic less overwhelming for students, it is not without flaws. Chisato Kimura ’22 shared that she has been rushing to get all her work done. “Missing one class is such a huge deal because everything is moving at such a fast pace,” Kimura said.

Liv Pitcher ’23 echoed that sentiment. When asked whether the module system improved her remote learning experience this semester, Pitcher replied, “It has made my learning experience significantly worse.

I feel constantly stressed because there is always something new.”

Julia Wolf ’23 shared that “all of my classes are STEM which has made the module system not work for me.” Wolf also noted that “I feel that meeting 4 to 5 days a week is not helpful because I never get a break to absorb the material.” The amount of information students are being asked to learn in such a short time is tiring, but, as Kimura put it, “it’s not just the fault of the [module] system. There is a lot going on outside of school.”

Tasha Elizarde ’22, who is currently taking a class at Amherst College and a class at Hampshire College through the Five College Consortium, as well as one class at Mount Holyoke, shared, “I’ve found that both my classes in the [Five College] Consortium are less stressful than my module course. For those classes, I only have to attend class once or twice a week, and I feel like we’re able to build up our big assignments over time. While I think my professor did a great job at trying to build up to our final assignments, I still feel rushed to accomplish more than even a job would require me to do.”

Elizarde also noted that her Mount Holyoke professor has been considerate of how difficult the module system is for some students. “My Mount Holyoke course started out with a lot of work, but our professor was wonderful enough to change our workload after the midway course survey,” Elizarde said. Additionally, Elizarde mentioned that “all my professors, this and last semester, have been incredibly supportive during the pandemic and they are able to change my immediate learning environments.”

Markovits herself mentioned how difficult the module system can be and that faculty are also dealing with these challenges. “Everyone I know is exhausted, CONTINUED ON PAGE 13

u

7

Graphic by Anjali Rao-Herel ’22

BY WOODLIEF MCCABE ’23 STAFF WRITER

Lists You might be finding that certain assignments or tasks are slipping through the cracks. With less visual and sensory variety, we have fewer unique cues in our memories to help us remember that our World Politics professor assigned an essay or that we need to change our car’s oil. Having a notebook or digital checklist is a great way to organize your thoughts. And it’s not just for assignments! Make a list of things you want to buy, long-term goals or skills you want to learn. Checking something off a list is a hell of a release and can become its own motivator. When you make a list, include a few simple things that you can do right away to get your productivity flowing. For a particularly long task or something with multiple parts, use multiple checkboxes so you can get that sweet, sweet crossing-off feeling throughout the task. Really, it’s all about maximizing the number of times you get to use a nice pen and cross something off.

Free Time Planning out your day is a good way to stay on task. Calendar apps let you designate time for your hobbies and errands. Prioritize having free time during the day by putting it in your calendar.

Don’t let other people eat into your time for yourself. Get comfortable with the idea of time when you have nothing planned. As soon as 2:30 hits, you do whatever you want. Video games? Art? Goose-spotting? Just don’t make a hard-and-fast plan. It’s also important to forgive yourself if you go a little over into your free time zone or if you forget. Don’t throw away your whole system if you can’t get it right away.

Date Night Whether or not you have a significant other, “date nights” are always on the table. We all have a person or a group of people we miss. When meeting in person isn’t possible, it’s quite easy to turn to online conferencing. Zoom and Discord both allow screen sharing, which makes it possible to watch YouTube and Netflix (via the Netflix Party extension). Watch something scary or romantic, or grab a drink (of water if you’re under 21!) and watch a telenovela. Get on Steam and find some games you can play together. There are also plenty of online alternatives to card or board games like Cards Against Humanity (online as Pretend You’re Xyzzy), Uno, Scrabble, and more. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, but that you’re with someone else and enjoying their company. Sometimes when we become isolated, we forget how much we really do need company, and it’s an excellent excuse to watch the movie or TV show you’ve been putting off.

8

GLOBAL

September 24, 2020

. Mount Holyoke News

US cuts aid, worsens Yemeni crisis Refugee camp burns down in Greece; who’s to blame?

ADITI PARASHAR ’22 STAFF WRITER

Photo courtesy of Flickr (left), photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons (right) A declaration of normalized relations between the U.S., Israel, the UAE and Bahrain may exacerbate tensions in the Middle East, affecting Yemen.

BY SOPHIE SOLOWAY ’23 & CORRINE CELUPICA-LIU ’23 GLOBAL EDITOR & STAFF WRITER

The Yemeni Civil War, which began in 2015, has created one of the world’s most dire humanitarian crises. According to CNN, 80 percent of the Yemeni population is dependent on aid. Despite the fact that the need for humanitarian aid has become increasingly important as the war drags on, this year has created an even more dramatic need, as funding cuts have left substantial gaps in the budget.

According to the United Nations, key agencies in Yemen have only received 30 percent of the $3.4 billion they need in order to serve the country’s population.

Since the beginning of the civil war, Yemen has faced drastic food insecurity and a lack of medical supplies and access to hospitals, all of which is being worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic. Without this aid, many Yemenis face the threat of famine and death.

The United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, all of which are important donors to Yemen, have drastically cut their aid to the country this year, citing concerns that Houthi rebels — the movement opposing the UAE and Yemeni forces in the civil war — were interfering with humanitarian efforts. Despite these worries, these drastic cuts to humanitarian funding have left a $2.4 billion deficit in needed aid and exacerbated an already dire situation for the people of Yemen.

The United Nations’ Humanitarian Chief Mark Lowcock told CNN that though Houthi obstruction was an important issue to address, the funding crisis has a much bigger impact on Yemeni lives, which brings up questions about what concerns should be prioritized as the Yemeni Civil War continues to perpetuate instability in the country.

“I believe aid is really important for countries that depend on it like Yemen, with 80 percent of the population now relying on it,” international relations major Paola Granados Jamarillo ’22 explained.

Mount Holyoke Visiting Lecturer in Politics Susanne Mueller-Redwood also noted that it is “not clear if the funding cuts are the right response here, since these cuts most likely impact some of the neediest people and those in urgent need of health care.”

While the Yemeni Civil War has continued throughout the region, a recent U.S. declaration of normalized relations between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain may exacerbate tensions. On

Sept. 15, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed agreements with United Arab Emirates’ Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Bahrain’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani at a U.S.-brokered event.

This normalization agreement stated that the UAE and Bahrain would officially make ties with Israel, cementing a relationship that has existed unofficially for years. According to Reuters, Israeli Foreign Ministry official Dana Benvenisti-Gabay attended a Bahrain security meeting in 2019, signifying growing ties between the two countries. Despite this preexisting relationship, the U.S.-backed declaration of allyship will likely have immense impacts on diplomatic relations in the Middle East.

This announcement effectively doubled the allyship that Israel finds within the Middle East, allowing the UAE and Bahrain to join ranks with Egypt and Jordan. This added support could mean additional arms ownership within the region, therefore perpetuating the already drawn-out Yemeni Civil War. According to Mueller-Redwood, “the United States is obviously one of Israel’s key allies. Israel also has its own strategic interests in Yemen and, like the UAE, has supported the Southern Transitional Council.”

“The continued humanitarian crisis in Yemen can therefore be understood to be the result of larger regional dynamics and rivalries in the Middle East,” Mueller-Redwood added.

Both Bahrain and the UAE, which are, as Mueller-Redwood explained, each intrinsically linked to the Yemeni Civil War “through their mutual concern over Iran’s involvement in the conflict,” stand to gain increased access to weapons deals with both Israel and the United States. According to NBC News, the alliance will give both nations access to high-tech air defense systems. As participants in the war against Yemen, it is likely that these weapons may be used against the Yemeni people.

While the ramifications of President Donald Trump’s newly established relations in the Middle East have yet to be seen, as time passes, more and more Yemenis face preventable life-or-death situations.

According to Mueller-Redwood, Mount Holyoke community members “should engage with this topic most importantly because of the enormous scale of human suffering in Yemen, and because the United States has played a role in the continuation of this crisis.”

“Addressing the conflict starts with becoming informed about it, and that is something we can do here at MHC,” Mueller-Redwood concluded.

A large blaze on Sept. 8 destroyed the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, leaving over 12,000 of its residents with nowhere to go. There were no casualties reported.

According to The New York Times, aid workers, activists and officials claimed the fire was started intentionally, following protests over prolonged lockdown measures after 35 residents tested positive for coronavirus. Four unnamed migrant men have been formally charged with arson.

However, many have also blamed the Greek government and the European Union for the disaster.

As Eva Cossé, lead researcher in Greece for Human Rights Watch, told The New York Times, “This fire was expected. It’s a testament to the European Union’s negligence and Greece’s negligence.” According to German media outlet Deutsche Welle, the Moria camp was housing four times more migrants than its intended maximum capacity. Human Rights Watch reported that refugees were living in cramped conditions in overcrowded tents with limited food, water, sanitation and health care resources.

Moria was established in 2015 in order to address the refugee crisis after 850,000 refugees and migrants hoping to travel to safety in northern Europe made their way from Turkey by boat. These refugees passed through the camps quickly when the European attitude toward refugees was more tolerant, reported The New York Times. However, since those initial days, the island of Lesbos has hosted an additional 300,000 refugees.

The refugees have gone through traumatic experiences, fleeing persecution and war-torn countries.

They now live in squalid conditions for long stretches of time, sometimes for as long as two years. In this time, they must often go through bureaucratic asylum formalities before either being sent home or allowed to move on to seek permanent asylum in northern Europe.

“Before, I thought that Greece would be one of the best places to live,” Mr. Ashrafi, a 34-year old Afghan refugee with three daughters, told The New York Times. “Now I feel it would have been better to drown while crossing the sea.”

Some say the increased time spent in these camps is due to Europe’s inability to reach any long-term solutions to the crisis. European countries have continued to block borders, and leaders have continued to disagree on the number of refugees each country should take while providing Greece with funds to care for the refugee population. “Moria has been considered an emblem of Europe’s hardening approach to migrants in the aftermath of the 2015 crisis,” The New York Times reported.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 9

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September 24, 2020

GLOBAL

. Mount Holyoke News

9

Heightened tensions surround the India-China border issue AMELIA LUO ’23 STAFF WRITER

India and China, two nuclear-armed countries, have been fighting over the disputed border in the Himalayan region, the McMahon Line, since 1914. The McMahon Line is an ill-defined border constituted by rivers, lakes and snowcaps, according to the BBC. The instability of the bodies of water causes the border to shift year to year and has led to several armed confrontations between India and China, including one this year.

On June 15, heightened tensions triggered a clash between the two countries, leaving 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese soldiers dead.

This was the first fatal clash between India and China since 1975, according to the BBC. The details of the clash are unclear. India accused China of “provocative military movements” near the border, while China denied these charges, claiming that it was India’s troops that engaged in “open provocation and caused the border situation to become tense,” according to The Guardian.

After the 1962 war, both sides engaged in a competition of building infrastructure such as roads, telephone lines and airstrips. This infrastructure formed what is now called the Line of Actual Control. The LAC was intended to create a demarcation line in the hopes of easing tensions between the two countries.

In 1996, China and India signed a treaty barring firearms and other explosives along the LAC. Senior Colonel Zhang Shuili, a spokesperson for the People’s Liberation Army, stated that India’s move “seriously violated related agreements reached by both sides, stirred up tensions in the region ... and is very vile in nature,” according to the BBC. In rebuttal, India’s government released a statement claiming that although the Indian army is “committed to maintaining peace,” they were also “determined to protect [their] national integrity and sovereignty at all costs.”

In 2019, India completed construction of the new Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldi Road to a high altitude airbase in the Ladakh region near the LAC. This road has enhanced India’s ability to move armies and organize support more quickly in the event of a conflict.

China was strongly opposed to this project, as they believed that the road was harmful to the country’s economic corridor to Pakistan and Central Asia, according to Al-Jazeera.

It is unlikely either of the countries will be willing to back down. Nevertheless, the standoff could escalate tensions further if neither side gives way.

Wei Chao ’23, an international relations major, shared her theory on the Chinese government’s strategy while engaging in these conflicts. “I think the Chinese government deliberately sent off troops to test [India’s] bottom line in the border issue,” Chao said.

On Sept. 10, foreign ministers S. Jaishankar of India and Wang Yi of China reached a fivepoint plan in Moscow, aiming to ease tensions and resolve the crisis. That being said, this period of conflict could be the turning point of the India-China relationship.

China is one of India’s biggest trading partners; however, India has a trade deficit of 48.66 billion, which also contributes to the political tension between the two countries. With China and India’s relationship becoming more volatile, the Indian government is calling to reduce trade and economic ties with China. It recently banned more than 150 China-linked apps such as the popular video-sharing social media app, Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons TikTok, citing security reasons. It also intro- On June 15, Chinese and Indian soldiers clashed over the McMahon Line boder. duced restrictive measures on Chinese foreign direct investment. connected with the reality of everyday life.”

Lasya Priya Rao Jarugumilli ’23, a double major Looking at the future of the two countries’ relain politics and physics, shed some light on why India tionship, it is very likely that the tension might de-esmight view China as such a big threat to the country’s calate after the diplomacy engagement in Moscow, yet sovereignty. “India is very diverse in every sense. The the tension could easily trigger a security dilemma only thing that is keeping Indians together is this to- with 50,000 troops on both sides of the LAC. getherness,” Jarugumilli said. “Every piece of land is Seeing the potential increase in India’s military important to the whole country. … [It] is part of the expenditure, Chao suggested that “it could be possible soul.” that the Chinese government wants to use the border Jarugumilli believes the aggressive response also conflict to force India to spend more on ground forces ties back to colonialism. “[It has] not been a very long instead of the navy.” Suspicion like this exists on both time since independence. The freedom struggle is sides of the conflict, potentially leading to a future not that far,” Jarugumilli said. “People my age, their harsh hit on the economic engagement between the grandparents were freedom fighters, so it is still very two countries.

Refugee camp burns down in Greece; who’s to blame? cont’d u

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 8

Mickiyah Pope ’23, a politics major at Mount Holyoke, said, “For politicians to continue to behave in such an unplanned manner in the face of a humanitarian crisis — which is no way new — is truly disheartening. Politicians have the ability to do great good if they come together and truly understand the suffering of these refugees, instead of trying to pass the sole responsibility to their neighbor.”

While the European Union continues to figure out the way forward for the stranded migrants, Human Rights Watch reported that 406 unaccompanied children have been flown to mainland Greece to be

relocated to other EU countries or placed in long-term shelter facilities in Greece. Countries like Germany, France and the Netherlands have also agreed to take in some number of unaccompanied children. Additionally, on Sept. 15, Germany said it plans to relocate another 1,553 refugees from Greece.

Middle Eastern news network Al-Jazeera reported that many refugees have been moved to a temporary facility at Kara Tepe with the goal of all 12,000 being housed there by Sept. 20. However, according to Refugee Support Aegean, a local nonprofit organization, conditions in Kara Tepe fail to meet the minimum standards of dignified living under Greek and international laws.

The Indian publication The Hindu reported the

discontent among the residents of Moria on being moved to new refugee facilities. Many protested before being moved to the new facility with chants of “freedom” and “no camp,” along with signs saying “We don’t want to go to a hell like Moria again” and “Can you hear us Mrs. Merkel?” Numerous refugees see the new housing situation as continued neglect, reported Al-Jazeera.

Rehat Thussu ’23, an international relations major at Mount Holyoke, stated, “The crisis is an issue that isn’t going away anytime soon. If countries consistently fail to respond to this crisis, that too in accordance with international human rights law, we will soon face another crisis: the loss of our humanity and our morals.”

10

ENVIRONMENTAL

September 24, 2020

. Mount Holyoke News

California wildfires suggest a future of climate migration

BY CATELYN FITZGERALD ’23 STAFF WRITER

As climate change increasingly disrupts the environment as we know it, people across the world have had to flee to safer land. This process, referred to as climate migration, occurs when people must leave their homes as a result of rising sea levels, extreme weather events, droughts and other climate change effects. In California, the hundreds of thousands of residents evacuated to escape wildfires are indicative of a more permanent migration that may need to occur in the near future. It is estimated that up to 13 million people in the United States could be driven from their homes by the end of the century due to climate change.

Coastal communities are at the highest risk of displacement, and some state and local governments are preparing to evacuate residents of these areas before it is too late. One of these regions is New York City, which is investing $10 billion into adaptation measures such as building seawalls and constructing sand dunes to extend lower Manhattan into the East River.

Not only do at-risk towns and cities need to prepare for the impact of climate change, but “safe zones,” regions that are less vulnerable to climate change, must be identified and prepared for incoming migrants.

This is not the first time the U.S. has seen a sig-

nificant population movement due to climate-induced events. In the 1930s, prairies in the United States experienced a period of severe dust storms known as the Dust Bowl. This event caused a mass exodus of refugees from southern states to the West Coast, all of whom had to look for work after the storms left them economically devastated. The difference between the Dust Bowl and climate migration is that the events driving current and future movements of people are not isolated — they will only worsen as the effects of climate change accumulate.

However, not everyone in the U.S. has the option to migrate to avoid future climate disasters. As fires rage though the West Coast, farm workers continue to labor in evacuation zones amid unsafe air conditions.

A large portion of these workers are non-English speaking migrants, and a lack of emergency information in other languages makes it difficult for them to know the status of fires and evacuation orders in their areas. Even in evacuation zones or areas with unsafe working conditions, many farm workers are given the option to continue working, leaving them with an impossible choice between paying their bills and staying safe.

In a Washington town, farm workers were forced to evacuate unexpectedly, and many had to sleep outside in a city park until they could be placed in emer-

Environmental impacts of life in quarantine

BY DNYANESHWARI HAWARE ’24 STAFF WRITER

In March, when most of the world effectively shut down their industries and economies in response to the global pandemic, there was a sense of panic along with a sense of hope as pollution levels across the globe decreased. Many publications and researchers predicted an improvement in air quality, and videos of aquatic life thriving in the canals of Venice, Italy, went viral, alluding to possible cleaner water. However, upon closer observation, these positive environmental effects are more complex than they initially appear.

A modern person’s lifestyle has been designed for consumption. Consumerism has become an integral part of our lifestyles, festivals, celebrations, sorrows and all other displays of emotion. We have personified things to represent factors like class, comfort and luxury. As a species, humans have limited needs.

However, under extreme circumstances like the current pandemic, our needs have increased, swallowing some of our previous wants. According to the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, 42 percent of the U.S. labor force was working full-time from home at the end of June, making internet access and other such amenities a necessity. Because of this, the average consumption of electricity has increased. Commercial and industrial sectors were both found to have experienced decreases of 11 percent and 9 percent, respectively. The consumer electronics industry in particular has major environmental implications as electronic waste is often shipped to developing and less developed countries where limited environmental safety regulations are in place for disposal. Although a growth of about 4 percent was predicted from 2019 through 2020, a report found that COVID-19 has hampered the market and slowed consumerism in this sector.

Consumption isn’t just restricted to the final goods we consume, but also includes waste generated in the production process. As a result of the pandemic, most of the goods people use are now being delivered, and takeout-only options have increased waste products.

Environmental consciousness has largely been sidelined in the decision-making process as many prioritize safety, convenience and affordability.

Katherine Schmeiser, associate professor of economics at Mount Holyoke, shared her experience of having to choose between the environment and her personal safety. She highlighted that, before the pandemic, many businesses had tried to establish a way of reducing waste by placing recycling bins in their stores. Now, as in-store populations have drastically reduced, most of them have established delivery services in which they are left with no option but to use more packaging, especially for frozen items. There are still some efforts being made on a small scale in many communities to find effective solutions to this problem. Schmeiser mentioned an organization with local Facebook groups called “Buy Nothing” where people collect leftover packaging as one of the few environmentally friendly options left. Apart from this, a few e-commerce businesses are choosing biodegradable or plant-based packaging, but that makes up a very small percentage of the entire industry.

This increase in the consumption of electricity, protective gear and essential items is further burdening an already sensitive ecosystem. Large corporations partaking in the encouragement and supply of this consumerism — as well as the lack of enforcement when it comes to policies regarding the conservation and preservation of the environment — are also to blame for the changes climate scientists are beginning to observe.

Photo courtesy of Youth Voices Firefighters attempt to control fires that have displaced California residents, creating a new wave of climate migration in the western U.S.

gency housing. While most of these workers were soon placed in alternative company-provided housing, the COVID-19 pandemic caused difficulties in housing the workers safely. Without home insurance, workers whose homes were burned or damaged by the wildfires were left financially devastated. This serves as an example of what the future of climate migration may look like for those who cannot afford to leave their work or travel to find new housing. Efforts must be made to plan for the safe evacuation of low-income and undocumented people from at-risk areas.

Weekly Climate News September 24, 2020 China recently announced a plan to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.

Forest clearance in Indonesia has spiked during the global pandemic as travel restrictions have stopped environmental law enforcement.

Arctic sea ice reaches second-lowest ice coverage ever recorded, higher only than measurements from 2012.

Some U.S. cities are planning “green recoveries” after COVID-19.

A newly released book on climate titled “All We can Save” highlights women climate leaders as well as offering solutions and encouragement.

BP and other European oil companies have invested billions in the renewable energy sector, while many U.S. companies like Exxon and Chevron commit to fossil fuels.

September 24, 2020

. Mount Holyoke News

ENVIRONMENTAL

11

The Sierra Club recognizes its racist roots in founder John Muir

BY ABBY WESTER ’22 STAFF WRITER

This summer saw a widespread racial reckoning across the United States in the wake of protests sparked by the police murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and countless other Black Americans. Systemic racism became a prominent topic of conversation in many industries, causing companies, organizations and movements to evaluate their own past and present contributions to upholding racism. This reckoning and reflection was not absent in the environmental movement. The Sierra Club, an America-based environmental organization, was the most noteworthy group to recognize the racism of their founder and “Father of National Parks” John Muir.

Muir was a Scottish-American conservationist who lived from 1838-1914. He spent years traveling the

world and studying the environment, writing articles about his findings, which eventually garnered a following. He played an instrumental role in establishing many of the first national parks, such as Yosemite National Park, Sequoia and Mount Rainier. In 1892, Muir and some of his followers founded the Sierra Club with the goal of encouraging Americans to explore and protect nature.

However, like many of conservationists of the time, Muir spewed racism and anti-Indigenous comments in his writings and upheld a white supremacist view of the United States. While he worshipped nature and all of the creatures around him, he still considered Native Americans “subhuman” and often referred to them derogatorily. Muir was closely associated with advocates for the eugenics movement, such as Henry Fairfield Osborn, Joseph LeConte and David Starr Jordan.

On July 22, 2020, executive director of the Sierra

Club Michael Brune posted an article to the organization’s website titled “Pulling Down Our Monuments.”

In this article, he discussed the racist rhetoric of Muir and other initial members, acknowledged the historic exclusion of people who were not upper or middle class and white, and made a commitment to be more inclusive of BIPOC. He stated that the organization was “redesigning [its] leadership structure” to allow more organizational decisions to be made by BIPOC, as well as investing $5 million in staff of color and their efforts to tackle environmental and racial justice issues. The Sierra Club has also stated they will spend the next year analyzing their history as well as determining which monuments need to be renamed or taken down entirely.

This apology was the first step in recognizing the exclusivity that has characterized the Sierra Club since its origins.

Climate education is changing, but lacks uniformity and breadth

Graphic by Trinity Kendrick ’21

BY HELEN GLOEGE ’23 STAFF WRITER

Between rampant fires up and down the West Coast and record-breaking heat across the Northern Hemisphere, the disastrous effects of climate change have been becoming more obvious. A poll by NPR confirmed that 80 percent of U.S. parents and 86 percent of U.S. teachers think climate change should be taught in schools, showing a quantifiably large portion of the population acknowledging the importance of climate change. However, many teachers don’t talk about climate change in classrooms and few parents or guardians discuss it with their children at home.

Teachers face a multitude of obstacles when it comes to teaching about climate change in classrooms, including possible lack of resources, funding, connection to the subject they teach and support from their school districts. In the United States, it is up to individual schools, school districts and teachers to determine whether they will teach about human caused climate change. These issues, compounded with concerns about the reactions of parents and the political jargon that often surrounds climate change, dissuade other teachers from discussing it in their classrooms.

In addition, many teachers themselves may not have learned about climate change when they were in school and may feel ill-equipped to talk about it in their own classrooms.

Despite the struggles that teachers are facing,

there have been several attempts to mandate and strengthen human-caused climate change programs.

Since 2013, 19 states and the District of Columbia have adopted the Next Generation Science Standards that strengthen the science education students receive, including teaching human-caused climate change starting in middle school. The Next Generation Science Standards aim to build a comprehensive understanding of science over time and enable educators to create future generations of scientifically literate students.

Some individual states have gone beyond science education with a focus on specifically climate change based programs. In Washington, a multimillion dollar budget for K-12 science education with an emphasis on climate science was passed in 2017. The result was ClimeTime, which funds training for teachers as well as projects and events that connect public school teachers with environmental organizations in their communities. Within the first year of implementation, about 10 percent of public school teachers in Washington took advantage of the program. The teachers who attended these seminars and trainings said they felt better equipped to teach their students about the topic. This year, the National Center for Science Education compiled 18 pieces of legislation across 10 states focused on climate change education. The bills would increase the amount of climate change, sustainability and environmental science concepts taught in public schools. So far, nine of the 18 bills have died while most others are pending.

Outside of the U.S. education system, other countries are also beginning to tackle climate change education in the classroom setting. Cambodia is leading climate change education in Asia. Cambodian schools are allowing students to become part of the effort to find solutions to climate change. In New Zealand, starting this year, every student will have access to materials about climate change written by the country’s leading science agencies. The program will be offered to all schools that teach 11- to 15-year-old students but won’t be compulsory. On June 17, 2020, a Mexican senator, Clemente Castañeda Hoeflich, presented an initiative that proposes strengthening education on environmental protection and climate change in schools.

It encourages students to change their attitudes and

behaviors towards protecting natural resources. The Italian government announced that, starting this year, they will become the world’s first country to institute a mandatory course on climate change and sustainable development in all public schools.

In the international framework, the One U.N. Climate Change Learning Partnership (also known as U.N. CC:Learn) is a collaborative learning platform launched by the United Nations with the involvement of 36 multilateral organizations. Its aim is to help countries achieve climate action through climate literacy and applied skills development. The e-learning platform is the single largest dedicated platform on climate change, with a specific focus on developing countries’ needs. The programs are aligned with nationally determined contributions and the National Adaptation Plan, both of which are part of the Paris Agreement.

Students currently at Mount Holyoke are at the age where the climate crisis was taught as “global warming” throughout K-12 education, if taught at all.

With or without a formal classroom education on the topic, students can still imagine what climate change education could look like.

Acadia Ferrero-Lampron ’23 suggests a more science-based approach with projects and experiments that might highlight concepts or through visuals like documentaries. “[It could be] incorporated into a government class and discussion[s] about laws and polic[ies] that should be made,” said Samantha Pittman ’23. “Once you know what’s happening you can … contact your representatives.”

Many students have learned about climate change through environmental studies classes or specific Advanced Placement courses. “Environmental science felt like one of the most relevant courses that I took in high school,” said Ellen Switchenko ’23. “Everything we learned was so pertinent as to what’s happening in the real world.”

Teaching climate change in schools is essential to prepare students for their future of reversing climate change. While we may not know what climate change education looks like at the moment, there is a movement to make sure that students know that climate change exists.

12

HEALTH & SCIENCE

September 24, 2020

. Mount Holyoke News

Physicians of color spotlighted for medical contributions

BY ANOUSHKA KUSWAHA ’24 STAFF WRITER

In a recent panel hosted by the American Medical Association, physicians discussed how the COVID-19 pandemic has not only pulled back the curtain on how racism and economic status affect patients worldwide, but also how it continues to affect BIPOC scientists and clinicians in the medical field.

Given the relevance of broader discussion about racial disparities in the healthcare system, the Mount Holyoke News Health and Science section is spotlighting the legacy of medical advancements made by the BIPOC scientists and clinicians of the distant and nearly forgotten past.

It is well documented that doctors experience racial barriers in medical practice. While African Americans make up 13 percent of the U.S. population, only 5 percent of physicians are Black, according to the United States Census and Association of American Colleges’ U.S. Physician Workforce data.

In 1837, after American universities denied him a medical degree due to racist admissions policies, James McCune

Photo courtesy of WikiMedia Commons Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte is widely regarded as the first Native American to receive a medical degree in the U.S. She is memorialized by a historical hospital and visitor center in her name, located in Walthill, Nebraska.

Smith graduated from the University of Glasgow in Scotland and became the first African American man to receive a medical degree. Howard University became the first school with a medical program for African Americans when it opened a medical department in 1867.

Before 1892, when racist practices forbade Black physicians from joining medical professional organizations like the AMA, Black medical professionals formed new organizations. The physi-

cian Robert Boyd founded the National Medical Association in 1895, of which he became the first president. The NMA would become the oldest and largest national organization representing African American physicians. The NMA worked to combat racism in medicine by establishing the National Hospital Association in 1923 to assess the quality of Black patient care, commissioning studies of diseases impacting minorities and fighting to desegregate nursing and medical

schools during the civil rights movement.

In spite of societal condemnation for being a woman seeking a medical degree in India, Dr. Anandi Gopal Joshi stood by her goals to provide better medical care to Indian women. In 1886, she became the first Indian woman to receive a degree in Western medicine from the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. Less than a year after graduating, she died of tuberculosis at age 21.

Joshi graduated within four years of other pioneers, such as Keiko Okami (the first Japanese physician to receive a degree in Western medicine from a Western university in 1889), Sabat Islambouli (the first Syrian female physician of Jewish descent to receive a degree in Western medicine from a Western university in 1890), and Susan La Flesche Picotte (the first Native American woman to become a physician in the United States, who graduated in 1889 and went on to represent her Omaha reservation’s interests in campaigning for public health education on issues such as tuberculosis and temperance). All of these people fought against the odds for themselves, their communities and the advancement of science and medicine.

Researchers say hallucinating may be COVID-19 symptom

Graphic courtesy of NeuroscienceNews.com

BY NANCY JIANG ’23 STAFF WRITER

Content Warning: This article contains mention of suicide.

As of Sept. 22, there are 7.4 million active COVID-19 cases worldwide, with 2.5 million confirmed in the United States.

In addition to symptoms of COVID-19 such as fever, headache and respiratory issues, neurologists have discovered that

the virus can seriously impact patients’ mental health.

Neurologists wondered what impact, if any, the virus had on brains. Apart from the drastic increase in the appearance of stress-driven psychological disorders during quarantine, life-threatening neurological symptoms have also emerged for COVID-19 patients. A case study published in the journal Psychosomatics reported a patient who experienced command suicidal hallucination, driven to drink bleach from the kitchen. (This was before President Donald Trump suggested drinking bleach as a potential cure for COVID-19.)

According to the patient, he was compelled by a loud and forceful command from an unrecognizable voice, not suicidal intentions. This patient had no prior history of medical or psychiatric illnesses. However, after being saved from ingesting bleach, he remained uncooperative toward the medical team and did not admit to having auditory hallucinations until his 12th day in the hospital.

Moreover, his COVID-19 infection developed soon after. Neurologists considered his auditory hallucination to be the first symptom of the virus.

Other patients have also developed the journal of JAMA Neurology at the delirium (similar to hallucination, pa- start of 2020, out of 214 people, 36.4 pertients develop confused thinking and cent had experienced neurological sympreduced awareness toward their sur- toms. roundings) and other neurological manAccording to a study design pubifestations after their coronavirus infec- lished in the journal Neurocritical Care, tions. evidence suggests that the SARS-CoV-2 In another case study published in virus can affect the human brain, possithe British Journal of Psychiatry Open, bly by passing through the brain-blood two days after barrier (part of the a patient was neuroimmune syshospitalized tem that prevents for COVID-19, foreign solutes Evidence suggests that the SARSshe started to in the blood — in CoV-2 virus can affect the human become overly this case, the virus brain. alert toward her from entering the su r r o u n d i n g s central nervous and manifested system) and furmultiple signs ther cause neuroof hallucination, saying that the nurses psychiatric problems. and staff were trying to kill her and reAlthough not as common as the regarding her cat as a lion. She behaved ab- spiratory symptoms, the neuropsychinormally, constantly washing her phone atric impact of COVID-19 has become a in the sink or brushing her teeth with new point of study for some medical prosoap and water. Deficiency in fluency and fessionals, and something to be aware memory was recorded 10 days after she of for those monitoring symptoms. The was hospitalized. She recovered after 52 National Institute of Neurological Disordays with no more ongoing symptoms. ders and Stroke is providing funding for Looking back at one of the first case continued research into the neurological series from Wuhan, China, published in symptoms of COVID-19.

September 24, 2020

COMMUNITY

. Mount Holyoke News

13

Remembering Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

burg changed the ways of life for American women and LGBTQ+ individuals. She worked tirelessly for 60 years to undo the restraints placed on women in the home, in the workplace and in the courts. In 1972, Ginsburg co-founded the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project and quickly convinced the Supreme Court to further consider laws which discriminated on the basis of sex.

She pioneered same-sex marriage legislation in the Supreme Court, directly leading to its federal legalization in 2015. As a society now left without Ginsburg’s voice, we must recognize both her failures and her successes, holding in remembrance the rights and achievements she worked to give the American people.

Ginsburg’s death will inevitably spark a torrid and polarized political debate, as it opened a seat on the Supreme Court just 46 days before the upcoming election. Her dying wish, we are told, was that her replacement would not be selected “until a new president is installed.” As we watch the next few months unfold, Ginsburg’s words regarding gender equality and representation remain. When will there be enough women on the Supreme Court? “When there are nine.”

BY LILY REAVIS ’21 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

As this edition of Mount Holyoke News is released on Sept. 24, 2020, the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lies in repose at the Supreme Court. Late Friday night, Ginsburg died at age 87 late due to complications from metastatic pancreas cancer. From Ginsburg’s early legal career and through her 27 years as the second woman to ever serve on the Supreme Court, she was a true champion for women’s and reproductive rights. The last decade of her life was marked by fame, as she became a cultural, legal and liberal feminist icon and her prominence on the Court expanded.

While Ginsburg’s sharp focus on the advancement of women’s rights was profound and notorious, it is crucial to remember her mixed and, at times, problematic treatment of incarcerated individuals and people of color. Her legacy as a liberal icon will remain — with it, her silence on this year’s Black Lives Matter campaign, her dismissal of Indigenous rights and her disengagement with prison reform.

Still, a fact remains: Ruth Bader Gins-

Graphic by Anjali Rao-Herel ’22

Mount Holyoke Athletics eliminates golf team

Photo courtesy of Mount Holyoke athletics department Lahela Delaney ’21 was one of five students on the 2019-20 golf team.

BY GIGI PICARD ’22 SPORTS EDITOR

On Sept. 10, Director of Athletics Lori Hendricks announced the elimination of the Mount Holyoke Golf varsity team in a statement published on the Mount Holyoke athletics department website.

Hendricks cited the decision as coming “after an extensive review of many factors, including student interest, indoor practice needs, competitive season, coaching support and conference alignment.” According to her, “This decision will allow the Department of Physical Education and Athletics to reallocate the resources from the program to support the broader-reaching priorities of the departmental strategic plan, enhancing the overall student-athlete experience at Mount Holyoke.”

In its 2019-2020 season, the golf team competed in

five tournaments between September and October.

Their final tournament, the NYU Invitational, took place on Oct. 5, 2019, at the Forest Hill Field Club in Bloomfield, New Jersey. The Lyons placed fifth overall out of nine teams, with a finish of 690 strokes. Mount Holyoke Golf was expected to participate in more tournaments last April; however, the cancellation of Mount Holyoke varsity sports due to COVID-19 regulations prevented the team from competing.

Further in the announcement, Hendricks shared more information about the golf team’s history. “The program’s history dates back to the 1975-76 academic year and will be remembered through the student-athletes that have excelled among the nation’s top competition and multiple appearances at the NCAA Division III Championship Tournament,” Hendricks wrote.

“Mount Holyoke College will continue to honor the history of the program, its tremendous golf alums and committed coaches.”

With regard to the Mount Holyoke Golf home course, The Orchards Golf Club, Mount Holyoke students, staff and alumni will still be able to use the course even after the discontinuation of the golf team.

Hendricks sent an email regarding the decision to all members within Mount Holyoke Athletics, including student-athletes, on Sept. 17. The College also officially released the same information to the public on Sept. 17, in an announcement which alluded to the possibility of further changes in the athletic department. The statement read, “As a direct follow-up to the strategic plan for Athletics, we will also be undertaking a comprehensive review of our Equestrian Center and initiating an academic program review of physical education.”

Reviews of module system, cont’d u

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7

and I know people who don’t work at Mount Holyoke,” she said. “I want to acknowledge that the accelerated pace could be exacerbating [that].”

Kate McFadden ’24, who took a gap year prior to starting at Mount Holyoke in August, also had mixed opinions of the module system.

McFadden said, “As someone who is neurodivergent, I appreciate that the focus is only on two subjects at one time. However, because of the shortened time in the classes, we have to process a lot of information much more quickly than if we were in person. That is very difficult for me to do.”

McFadden also made the point that “I’m not even sure we [can] judge [the module system] on whether it’s a ‘good’ thing or a ‘bad’ thing. It’s a thing that happened amidst a global pandemic because students, staff and faculty were all trying to figure out a way to make a Mount Holyoke education and experience happen as best [as] they could.”

Douglas shared that “we were trying to translate [the Mount Holyoke experience] into this different environment” in creating the module system. Students are currently only halfway through the first of four modules, so there is room for adjustments throughout the rest of the academic year.