Mount Holyoke News – October 28, 2022

MHC COVID Safety Now protests new COVID guidelines

BY PAIGE COMEAU ’26 & TARA MON ASTESSE ’25 STAFF WRITER | NEWS EDITOR

In response to Mount Holyoke’s administrative decision to make mask-wearing optional in all indoor campus spaces as of Oct. 14, a group of students, identifying themselves as MHC COVID Safety Now, has initiated a protest effort to invoke change in the College’s approach to their COVID-19 policy. Through cam pus disruptions, such as hosting a sit-in outside administrative offices in Mary Lyon Hall and posting their demands throughout academic and residential buildings, the collective has strived to push administration toward more vigorous COVID-19 safety precautions. While the Col lege has yet to make any change to its current “masks welcome” policy, announced in an Oct. 5 letter to the community, administrators have for mally acknowledged the presence of the student group and have sought to reinforce the reasoning behind their decisions. At the time of publication, several of the group’s demands have been met by adjustments to campus policy — however, the protest is still ongoing as the current masking pol icy has yet to be altered or recalled.

Origins of the movement

“When we saw that the mask [mandate] was going to be removed, [we were] really upset be cause it’s an easy way to keep people safe,” Soli Guzman ’24, a member of MHC COVID Safety Now, said in an interview with Mount Holyoke News. “If you don’t see what you want in the world, you have to [be] it.”

Starting in September, Guzman and others took action against the College in the name of COVID-19 safety. As previously reported by Mount Holyoke News, a group of stu dents created a petition on change. org to ask that the College revise its approach to COVID-19 protocol, which currently has over 500 sig natures. The students behind this petition would eventually launch a coordinated protest effort to nego tiate with administrators after the indoor mask mandate was made op tional. Guzman explained that they had seen the success of previous petitions on the platform and hoped for the same sort of support, but it did not take off. It was not until the collective realized that the mask mandate was going to be dropped that they chose to mobilize. “That is

when people started to freak out. … We got a flood of people starting to ask us [about it], and that’s when we decided to organize.”

This effort would evolve into MHC COVID Safety Now, a group that seeks to bring a safer, more inclusive COVID-19 climate to cam pus. Their goals include making the campus a better environment for disabled and immunocompromised individuals through a more proac tive COVID-19 policy.

“I’m fighting so hard because my livelihood and my existence matters more than [the] comfort [of] other people,” Guzman said. Like most members of MHC COVID Safety Now, Guzman is disabled.

In order to ignite action behind their words, the group decided that they needed to form some sort of protest. The group eventually set tled on a sit-in, “We [were thinking], what is the best possible option if we do a protest? If it’s outside, people are going to [remove] their masks,” Guzman said. “That could be a su per spreader — we can’t have that. Then [we] came to the final deci sion, which is a sit-in, because it is something that can be done safely. … When you occupy space, they can’t ignore you.”

On Oct. 19, at 5:30 p.m., MHC COVID Safety Now began their sit-in at Mary Lyon Hall, a protest still on

going at the time of publication.

“A lot of us would like it to end sooner rather than later, but I’m also ready to see if this will take us two to three weeks,” Guzman said. “We’re ready. We’re planning. Realistically, we’re planning to be there as long as we physically have to.”

The group has provided a list of demands, accessible on their vari ous social media platforms and in flyers distributed across campus. Initially containing eight demands, the list was revised and narrowed to seven following feedback from fellow students on the group’s stat ed goals. Among these are the calls to reinstate PCR testing twice a week, provide a transparent, public COVID-19 dashboard of positive cas es on campus while bringing back contact tracing and provide isolation housing and support for those with COVID-19, according to their Insta gram, @mhccovidsafety. To ensure student representation when mak ing decisions on campus COVID-19 safety, another goal revolves around creating transparency in the COVID policy decision-making process by allowing at least two or more student representatives at each health and safety committee meeting and rein stating mask mandates in classes, lectures and large gatherings.

Other students have expressed a range of reactions to these de

mands.“I believe while it would be nice to have required testing back on campus, administration is not likely to conform to them due to pricing and staffing. However, I do believe handing out a quota of rapid tests per student can help bridge the gap between proper testing,” an anony mous student from the class of 2025, who is unaffiliated with the group, wrote in an email interview with Mount Holyoke News.

“As for reinstatement of the mask mandates in classes, I believe that should be a given as we should be securing everyone’s right to an education, including immunocom promised students that are unable to attend classes where people are unmasked,” the student continued.

“Isolation housing for those with roommates is the absolute bare min imum that the administration could provide, and it’s [absurd] that it wasn’t happening at the start of the semester.”

Current College policy states that individuals may receive mask ing accommodations in their classes through Health Services. Guzman explained that these accomodations can be incredibly difficult to obtain because they require documentation from licensed medical providers.

“There are disabled students that want those accommodations, but are in the process of being diag

nosed with their disability.” Guzman said, “Because … it takes a while to get diagnosed with a disability, it can take … years.” Additionally, out-of-state students face additional obstacles when attempting to obtain doctor’s notes.

Guzman explained that the rea soning behind many of their larg est demands was to safeguard the health of disabled and immunocom promised individuals.

The organization’s decision to revise their demands, made after heavy deliberation, came as a re sponse to student dialogue and in ternal restructuring of the group’s priorities. One of the major revisions was shifting the initial demand from maintaining the mask mandate in definitely to reinstating the mask mandate in classes, lectures and large gatherings.

“Our [Residential Advisors] and our [Residential Fellows] [were] expected to enforce [masking] any time someone doesn’t wear a mask in their hallways, … and we’re very against that. We do not support students policing other students,” Guzman said. “In the dining hall, we’re all eating there [in] the first place, we’re removing our masks and eating there. No matter what, [COVID-19] will be spread there, even if it’s when people are walking around, [COVID-19] will be spread. So that’s something we also consid ered and realized.”

Administrative response to

stu dent demands

On Oct. 21, Interim President Beverly Daniel Tatum acknowl edged the group’s sit-in and policy demands in an email to the College community..

“As you may be aware, a group of students has come together as the MHC COVID Safety Now Collec tive to express concerns about the College’s current [COVID-19] poli cies,” Tatum wrote. “Consequently, I thought it would be useful to re state what our current policies are, and what modifications we expect to make. Though members of our community do not currently agree on what the best course of action is, I recognize that we all share a deep concern for everyone’s well-being.”

Tatum introduced two changes in policy that would be undertaken in response to the student protests. The first, beginning in November,

Counseling Services introduces ProjectConnect, builds community

BY ANOUSHKA KUSWAHA ’24 NEWS EDITOR

Approximately half of all col lege students assessed in a National College Health Assessment study meet the criteria for loneliness, Er ica Weathers, clinician and outreach coordinator at Mount Holyoke Col lege’s Counseling Service, explained in an interview with Mount Holyoke News. Recognizing this data point, Weathers sought to find a way to al leviate an experience of chronic lone liness on the College’s campus. This search led her to ProjectConnect, a program created by the former as sociate director of the Counseling Center at Amherst College, Jessi ca Gifford. Through the program, students are organized into groups where they can socialize with others through thought-provoking ques tions, activities and trips to local restaurants, as per the weekly Word Out email sent on Oct. 9.

Weathers, along with Dade Sco lardi, a post-graduate clinician at Counseling Service, has spearhead ed the ProjectConnect program at Mount Holyoke.

The program is designed to last over the course of five weekly ses sions, with participants divided into groups of four to six people and led by student leaders in their communi ties. At Mount Holyoke, that group of students includes peer health facili tators as well as students interest ed in a job that fosters connections with members of the community on a wider, more diverse level than cur rently available to students, as per

peer facilitators of ProjectConnect Tracy Wen ’24 and Meghna Karm acharya’25 expressed in interviews with Mount Holyoke News.

ProjectConnect’s pilot session began the week of Oct. 17 and will run for five weeks. The Project has seen impressive sign-ups, with many students indicating an interest in participating in the program and the formation of a waitlist for the second session before the first session had even concluded, according to Weath ers.

The Project was advertised using the College’s weekly Word Out emails and through posters displayed around campus, promot ing the building of Mount Holy oke’s community and the foster ing of deeper connections that could be gained through being a part of the program.

The desire to foster deeper con nections on campus was mutual be tween both participants and their fellow student facilitators, “[It] can be very hard to build a stable com munity. … So I was looking to foster more of that,” Kyla Core ’24, one of the peer facilitators, explained in an interview with Mount Holyoke News.

The need to establish a program like ProjectConnect was echoed by Weathers, who explained that at Counseling Services, she and her colleagues frequently meet stu

dents struggling with feelings of loneliness and a lack of belonging. Weathers explained that in light of this seemingly urgent need, which to her appeared to be exacerbated by the pandemic, a program like Pro jectConnect could be “beneficial” for the wider community of the College in general.

Furthermore, Weathers enthu siastically expressed how the pro gram’s goals aligned with those of Be Well, one of the College’s primary wellness programs, stating that in order for there to be a healthy com munity on Mount Holyoke’s campus, all of the commu nity members must feel a sense of belonging and connectedness to those around them.

Weathers cit ed a NCHA sta tistic that reports that loneliness rates have been growing steadily over the past few years. For Project Connect’s student facilitators, build ing community and finding new con nections was also a concern — not only for the students they were aim ing to assist, but for themselves as well. The student facilitators experi enced the realities of these statistics firsthand.

For Karmacharya, there was a particular surprise in the range of class years present in her assigned cohort, expressing that it was “[sur prising] that most of my participants were not first-years. … There were

juniors, there were sophomores and there was a first-year. I was sur prised by the fact that people [who have] passed their first year still take the time to be a part of Project Connect.” Continuing on, she out lined that she had expected a larger number of first-year students, as “that’s when you expect people are looking for new friends and looking for the most support. But it goes to show that even people in their ju nior year need that support, and are still craving communities that they couldn’t [have] the past year be cause of [COVID-19].”

In other cases, the student facili tators found it particularly impactful to hear a group of people, more so their peers, state outright that they have been feeling lonely, in the case of Kore. Kore described the feeling of hearing her cohort members open up about their feelings surrounding friendship and connection on cam pus as “powerful.”

Kore went on to observe how this initial display of vulnerability made it possible for others in the cohort to be vulnera ble about their feelings as well, say ing that this display of vulnerability marked the possibility of “having real conversations.”

Among the peer facilitators in terviewed, there was also a shared sense that it is difficult to make con nections with people across academ ic interests, and a renewed sense of optimism, that through this project, not only could they gain new per spectives, but also new friendships. Wen, a neuroscience major, joined ProjectConnect to have a job on cam

pus that assisted her in both commu nity relationships and getting some hands-on experience with her aca demic interests. She described her current situation as “barely [know ing] people from other majors or other class years, [but] through this program, I am [expecting] to know more friends who have different ma jors than I do.”

Weathers further hopes that the project can serve as a way to improve the College community’s overall mental health by giving stu dents the resources to connect with themselves, then one another and hopefully the wider community.

“Healthy community is one … where students are engaged,” she said. “One [where] they feel like they have solid relationships with other students, [and where] they feel a sense of purpose, meaning and belonging.”

Photo courtesy of Erica Weathers ProjectConnect aims to build community and foster connection between students on campus.

Photo by Rosemary Geib ’23 Students have been protesting the removal of the mask mandate since earlier this fall but the protest has been manifesting physically as of October.

[It] can be very hard to build a stable community. … So I was looking to foster more of that.

– Kyla Core

Rebecca Kilroy ’23 begins new literary magazine about death

BY REBECCA GAGNON ’23 STAFF WRITER

The cold hand of death sends chills down your spine as it reaches for you, and then, in an instant, it’s gone …

“Thanatos,” a new exclusively online literary magazine started by Rebecca Kilroy ’23 and Hampshire student Arden Young, published its debut issue on Oct. 15, 2022. Accord ing to the magazine’s website, the goal of “Thanatos” “is to encourage conversations about death through literature and art. Many people are hesitant to talk about death and dy ing, but that doesn’t have to be the case! Conversations about death still cause fear, anxiety and discom fort for many. We want to encour age creators and readers to think more broadly about death through different perspectives and cultures, to remove stigmas surrounding the subject and to invite healthy and respectful conversations about the fears and curiosities regarding our inevitable fate.”

“Our mission aligns with what’s called the Death Positive Movement, which is something that was start ed … by an activist named Caitlin Doughty, who is also a mortician,” Kilroy explained. “The goal of the movement is just to educate people about death and dying and burial options and funeral rituals … and to make those conversations less frightening and more accessible for people.”

Experts believe this movement originally began with the Hospice Movement, which was inspired by similar actions performed in the U.K., according to The Order of the Good Death, which Doughty found ed. The movement then spread to the United States with the first hos pice opening in 1974. The goal of this establishment was to provide more humane care for people dying of ter minal illnesses while reducing the costs of such assistance. This move ment is now credited, by experts such as Doughty, with the opening of more hospices and with helping the Death Positive movement spread throughout America.

“The Death Positive movement … doesn’t mean to accept death,” Young stated in an interview with Mount Holyoke News. “It means to understand it and be more aware of it, and [to] have that information … be more accessible and more talked

about for everyone and anyone who wants to talk about it.”

In the spring of 2020, the idea for a literary magazine that discussed death and dying began to develop in Kilroy’s mind after taking an anthro pology course titled, “Approaching Death: Culture, Health and Science,” taught by Five College assistant professor of anthropology Felicity Aulino. However, it wasn’t until she began searching for websites and magazines to publish her own works with themes of death embedded that she realized there was not an estab lished platform for the topic.

“I couldn’t find any [magazines] and I was so surprised. … I got to thinking about it,” Kilroy said.

The idea continued to simmer in Kilroy’s mind until it boiled over and was nearly all she could talk about.

“I was talking about it constant ly to my friends,” Kilroy recalled. “I kept saying, ‘Well, someone should do this, but it shouldn’t be me be cause I really have enough to do and I’m not qualified, but someone should do this.’ And then one day, I was like, ‘I’m just going to reach out to [Aulino] and see what she thinks, and maybe if she knows someone [and] my friends were like, ‘Yep, that means you’re gonna do it.’”

With that, “Thanatos” was no longer an idea but a conversation with the possibility of transforming into a legitimate literary magazine.

After Kilroy emailed her, Auli no reached out to the students reg istered in her “Approaching Death” course to see if anyone would be

interested in assisting with Kilroy’s idea. Young contacted Kilroy to ex press her fascination and interest in the subject.

“Death is my biggest fear,” Young admitted. “So, I took the class, initially, to conquer that fear. Rebecca’s pitch for the magazine just sounded like a really good outlet to explore that. So, I reached back out to her and we started meeting up once a week for … a few months before we put out the call for submis sions.”

From their first meeting, Young and Kilroy began fleshing out the idea of the new literary maga zine. Both took on the roles of edi tor-in-chief and created social media pages where they posted a request for volunteers to read any submis sions they may receive in the future. In the end, they obtained 18 people who gave their time and dedication to reading poems, short stories and more over the next few months.

“Surprisingly, [volunteers came] from all over the world. We have a reader in Switzerland, Puerto Rico [and] Spain,” Kilroy said. “We did not expect that kind of reach, but they all read our submissions and gave feedback on them and helped us decide what ended up in the final [copy].”

Young emphasized that she was also amazed by the response, espe cially since both she and Kilroy are college students who were strug gling to begin a literary magazine. However, both were pleasantly sur prised at the amount of support giv

en.

Along with having readers from various corners of the world, the people who submitted work for the first issue were also from a va riety of career fields and expertise. One submitter is a well-established, published author who donated their time to helping Kilroy and Young build the foundation of the first is sue. In addition, some authors work in the medical field, such as hospice nurses, palliative care doctors and even one who runs a palliative care hospital in Texas. All of these writ ers submitted work that fit in the theme for the first publication.

For the first issue of “Thanatos,” Young and Kilroy asked broadly for anything about death, especially if it fell under the realm of the Death Positive Movement. As the submis sion period met its end, the maga zine received a total of about 65 sub missions. In reviewing these works, the theme evolved into addressing one’s own mortality.

“One of my favorite pieces from this issue is called ‘An Ongoing Con versation’ [by Carlin Wednesday] and it’s about … the speaker and their mother talking about what they want to have happen with their bodies when they die, and the mother wants to turn into a bamboo plant,” Kilroy described. “Those are the kinds of conversations that peo ple should be having more of with their loved ones.”

“Thanatos” also received a lot of submissions about grief and griev ing. Kilroy admitted that, although they fit the broad theme, these were not the works that they wanted to use in their first issue, since it was the launching point of the magazine. Instead, they wanted to focus on the idea of death positivity.

“It was really hard to draft those rejection emails because you just want to include them all, but some of them either didn’t fit the theme or were inappropriate for the theme itself or [the] content,” Young ex plained.

However, one of Young and Kil roy’s main goals with the magazine is to feature voices that desire to discuss all aspects of death. With this aspiration at the forefront of their minds, the two editors-in-chief decided that their next issue will fea ture these types of stories.

“We’re planning shortly, proba bly in the next month, to announce [a] submission window for a spring

special issue on grief and grieving which we already have some of the pieces for. … Hopefully that issue would come out in March or April,” Kilroy said.

Although it was not without its challenges, Kilroy and Young are excited about the journal’s future and are proud of the work they have contributed. They described it as a rewarding experience and one that they are excited to expand upon and continue to grow.

“To share these voices,” Young commented, “I think that was the most rewarding part because [of] all the hard work we put into it, the planning [of] the website design, reading all the submissions, rank ing them, choosing them. All of that hard work leading up to an actual issue is just amazing.”

“I think, for me, the most excit ing and rewarding part has been the community that we’ve built through our readers,” Kilroy added. “And [through] contributors and social media because it’s so widespread and there are so many incredibly tal ented people who are part of it.”

Kilroy and Young hope to ex pand this community that they have begun to build in the future by add ing more people to their staff, includ ing people to help coordinate their social media accounts, like their In stagram @thanatos_review, or their website www.thanatosreview.com. In addition, they hope to obtain more volunteers to read submissions. This will assist them in making their lit erary magazine run more smoothly and become a biannual publication, publishing in the spring and fall.

Both writers encourage anyone who is hoping to get their work pub lished or start a literary magazine as well to simply take the first step.

“I would say don’t be afraid of rejection and just put yourself out there because, for every rejection you get, you will get [an approval],” Young recommended. “It will hap pen, you’ve just got to keep putting yourself out there. Keep working on it. I would encourage anyone to do it, [especially] if it’s something you’re really passionate [about].”

“Even though there are a lot [of literary magazines] out there, if you have an idea that you don’t see rep resented, then go for it,” Kilroy con cluded. “If you see kind of a niche that’s not being filled, … you will probably find people who want to help you fill it.”

Williston Observatory acquires new telescope, Unistellar eVscope

BY NORAH TAFURI ’25 STAFF WRITER

Why we are as we are, and ev erything else. The departments of astronomy and physics prompt stu dents to ask deeper questions about the nature of the universe, and look toward resolving some of the most miraculous and challenging mys teries facing humankind. They push profound thought forward at Mount Holyoke College, and invite all those tempted to understand the nature of the universe to join them. On Oct. 21 the John Payson Williston Observa tory opened its doors for students and guests to bear witness to the oldest-functioning academic build ing on campus.

According to the Mount Holyoke Historical Atlas, primary donor A. Lyman Williston named the observa tory after his eldest son, who died at the age of 14 in 1879. Its construction was an effort to expand the potential of the College’s scientific endeavors, assuring Mount Holyoke’s ascension as an esteemed institution.

One of the notable elements of the observatory is its eight-inch refractor, which was “the last tele scope made by Alvan Clark, one of the most prominent telescope-mak ers of the 19th century,” according to the Historical Atlas. It stands at an enormous length, rotating on cannon balls in a dimly lit, round ed room. As visitors filed in, some paced cautiously around the tele scope with awe, quietly chattering among themselves in remark of its size and in estimation of its age.

Outside, new pieces of equipment were met with similar enthusiasm.

Observers awaited turns at the eye piece of the astronomy department’s newly purchased Unistellar eVscope 2.

As noted by High Point Scien tific, the Unistellar eVscope 2s are simple to use and produce clear images. The device’s Autonomous Field Detection tracking system makes for quick and extremely ac

curate alignment. The once difficult and long process of setting up the former telescopes used at the obser vatory has been eliminated entirely. Control of the eVscope 2 is managed through an app available on all iOS and Android smart devices, working to diminish the barrier of knowl edge between curious observers and skilled astronomists. This new piece of equipment has made the observa tory a more accessible experience than ever before.

The observatory currently has two of the telescopes in its posses sion. “We’ve been letting students, after a little training, go out with the telescopes, and [they] can take high quality images of the sky very simply. … We could never do [that] before,” Visiting Lecturer of Astron omy Thomas Burbine said.

He hopes that the new technolo gy will encourage more students to engage with the world of astronomy and physics. “We want the observa tory being used,” Burbine stated.

The same air of welcome and encouragement is seen in people such as Elijah Jacobs-Marques ’25, a teacher’s assistant in the course “The Sky,” who wants to share their passion and experience. Ja cobs-Marques finds great motivation to continue these studies led by the joy of helping guide students who may be looking critically at the sky for the very first time.

“Thinking about the things that are so out there, like ridiculously out of our grasp [and] … the fact that we get to observe and learn about them is just awesome. … I feel like astron omy is just a really good communi ty,” Jacobs-Marques said. “It’s just really cool people interested in cool things.”

Midge Hartshorn FP ’24, astron omy liaison for the Society of Phys ics Students, spoke about the ways astronomy and physics students find kinship at Mount Holyoke College. “The Society of Physics Students is open to physics and astronomy ma jors,” they explained. “It’s a national

organization, [and] we have [a] local chapter. They organize events for physics students and foster a sense of community.” This organization has been incredibly successful at this effort as they exchange their skills, their enthusiasm and their meditations about the vastness of space.

MJ Khan ’24 is the president of the Society of Physics Students. Khan’s fascination with physics be gan in the eighth grade. They said that, “the study of astrophysics [is a] more humbling experience. … [You realize] you’re not at the center of the universe. There’s something much bigger around you. Your mis takes aren’t that big.”

The Society of Physics Students seeks to actively bring the communi ty together and encourage a diverse, accountable and positive environ ment for Mount Holyoke’s astrono my and physics students. “[I want to make sure] everyone has a de-stress ing and bonding experience, and [that] … all of my board members feel like they can have a voice and share their opinions,” Khan said.

Khan emphasized that the phys ics and astronomy departments con sider kindness an important feature in their academic community. There is a tradition of care that continues strongly between colleagues. As intimidating as the field of science might appear, Khan also made assur ances of interclass support. “Most of my upperclassmen have helped me so much through ups and downs and given me such great advice,” Khan said.

Khan described the network of support between faculty members and students, explaining that facul ty members treasure the process of learning and are flexible in meeting the needs of students who are engag ing with this complex material. They put action to this sentiment most ap parently in their shared community spaces. The physics lounge in Kend ade 206 is open to all and has become a place for both faculty and students

to find rest and study alongside one another. It is a great opportunity for majors and non-majors alike to con vene in appreciation of these studies and become up-to-date on all ongo ing events.

Burbine emphasized the varied applications of astronomy and phys ics. The universe is wide and as hu man beings continue to explore their own limitations and push towards the highest understanding of our existence, there will be numerous paths to explore in managing the connection between us and space.

“You could be a biology major in astronomy, you could be a geolo gy major, you can be a physics ma jor. … It’s uplifting. … It’s a positive experience,” Burbine said. “If you were just trying to get a treaty on the moon, or even [figure out] what [to] do if an asteroid was coming on collision course, how do you coordi nate [that]? There’s different ways — I think you can do astronomy with anything. You want to be a writer? You can write science fiction things or make movies.” Burbine asserts that the major or minor is a fine ad dition for anyone curious in looking up and out the sky.

Particularly among a population which grows increasingly distant

from its stars due to light pollution, Hartshorn reasserts the necessity of observations. They spoke of the beauty of astronomy and physics in a call to remind students to gaze and wonder. They argued that through the study of physics and astronomy, it becomes clear that fragile human existence on this small blue dot be comes not a source of aimless exis tentialism, but instead deep appreci ation for the human side of life.

“[Life is] such a rare and very beautiful thing,” Hartshorn said. “And it’s here, right? [Right] now. And this is the only place that we know of right now with life and that’s so big and exciting and so meaning ful. It’s so precious that we get to ex perience being here now.”

As the astronomy and physics students packed up for the evening after the open houses, storing the sweets and hot cocoa and walking out into a star-filled night, the space they have created reveals itself clearly.

It is one of care and curiosity. They leave a warm invitation to lean into the unfamiliar — to prompt Mount Holyoke students to shift their line of sight and look onwards, and to join a community prepared and eager to grow.

Photo by Norah Tafuri ’25 The College’s new Unisteller eVscope 2 pictured outside the John Payson Williston Observatory.

Graphic by Sunny Wei ’23

Skinner Museum 75 presents ‘vanessa german — THE RAREST BLACK WOMAN ON THE PLANET EARTH’

JOHNSON

In cultivating “THE RAREST BLACK WOMAN ON THE PLANET EARTH,” artist and activist vanessa german set out to make something living. A branch of Skinner Museum 75 — Mount Holyoke College Art Museum’s commemoration of the Jo seph Allen Skinner Museum’s 1946 bequest to the College — german’s exhibition explores decolonization by means of intellectual and spiritu al emancipation. “vanessa german — THE RAREST BLACK WOMAN ON THE PLANET EARTH,” debuts one year after artist Lenka Clayton’s MHCAM solo exhibition, “Comedy and Tragedy,” the first installation in the series. german’s Patricia and Edward Falkenberg Lecture, “Art ist Talk: The Concert with vanessa german THE RAREST,” took place on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022, in Chapin Auditorium.

The echoing drums of the Five College West African Music Ensem ble, planted in the foyer of Mary Woolley Hall, rang throughout the packed house. Following a land ac knowledgment, speaker Kimberly Shawn FP ’16 addressed the Mount Holyoke community, christening german’s body of work as a “per fumed embrace” in Black artistic expression. Her exhibition video, “vanessa german is THE RAREST BLACK WOMAN ON THE PLANET EARTH” (2022) enveloped the audi torium, featuring a rapping german clad in a flowing pink dress, a salm on beanie and chunky gold hoops. In the film, german journeyed through out Skinner Museum, narrating her movement through the space as she ventured to touch each of its curios ities — ranging from a 1763 antique gun to pyrite to meticulously-pre served literature. In doing so, ger man became the first person in his tory to touch each of the nearly 7,000 objects in the collection.

As a Fat, Black, queer woman, german’s life force — her rarity — is precious, but precarious. In her exhibition, she claims a form of ownership. “[It] began as a bid to be clever — the concept to decolonize this old, strange place, to recontex tualize its current narrative as a force that could change the statisti cal realities of my fate,” german said in “vanessa german is THE RAREST BLACK WOMAN ON THE PLANET EARTH.” She continued, “As a Fat, Black, queer woman in these United States, the numbers don’t look good for health, wealth, education, love or even keeping a body like mine safe.”

german interacted with each of the museum’s items, and began to wrestle with the possibility of decol onizing a collection — chiefly, she asked, to whom does this respon sibility fall? As she endeavored to touch each object, she noticed, each one touched her back. Her work evolved into a radical, emancipatory process through which objects are not merely repurposed, but their histories are rewritten. german mor phed into a living artifact, and born from her feat is her MHCAM-termed “MUSEUM OF EMANCIPATORY OBJECTS,” on display at the College until May 28, 2023.

Upon the Sept. 2 opening of “vanessa german — THE RAREST BLACK WOMAN ON THE PLAN ET EARTH,” assistant professor of

dance Shakia Barron, who teaches “Black Dance Culture,” offered her students a challenge. Each individu al would create a piece of art — rang ing from dance, to visual art and po etry — in response to german’s body of work. In her speech, Kayla Sam uel ’23, a dance department liaison and student of Barron’s, introduced a sequence of these interpretative responses from a student’s short film screening to a poetry reading inspired by german’s work. The eve ning grew into a flowing succession of dynamic movement and expres sion as a legion of Barron’s students rose from within the audience to make their way onstage. In tandem, the troupe got down to the likeness of Missy Elliot and Ms. Lauryn Hill. “The event showed how inte grated into the campus community the project and the exhibition has become,” Aaron Miller, Mount Holy oke College Art Museum associate curator of visual and material cul ture and Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act coordinator, stated in an interview with Mount Holyoke News. “So many people put so much into the evening and I felt like their amazing contri butions and the turnout reflected the [campus’] reception of the show.”

As the music slowed, the house lights flashed on, illuminating ger man’s careful promenade through out the audience. Following a mo ment of pause, german joined in with meditated movement and made her way onstage as the drums cre scendoed. Unconfined, she began to clutch her chest, swing her dress side to side and stomp. She yelled a repeated, but erratic sequence of “hello!”s. Pulling her dress over her head, she resigned to the floor, throwing rose petals around her place of rest. Following an exchange of “I love you”s with her stagemate, german frolicked about the platform, inviting audience members to ap proach the apron and be showered with flower petals.

german’s objective is not to per form decolonization. This, she shared during the talk, is the job of the col onizer. Her true aim in reimagining the Skinner Museum collection is to perform emancipation. “I’m not re ally the ‘RAREST BLACK WOMAN ON THE PLANET EARTH,’” german

confessed onstage. She supposed that decolonization doesn’t require her to become a novelty. Instead, it mandates she unabashedly take up space. In an interview with Mount Holyoke News, german detailed her resolution to “make something that is … alive.”

Following an impromptu poetry recitation for one patron’s broken heart, Jean Klurfeld ’24, a Skinner Museum employee, audience mem ber and the first among few to raise their hand, ventured alone to the edge of the stage to pose a question. “My mind went totally blank stand ing there at the mic. I didn’t know what she was going to say or do at all, I just knew that one of my favor ite artists was right in front of me,” she said.

At Klurfeld’s request, german shared with the audience the first piece of artwork she ever made — her “heartbeat out of her mother’s womb.” She spontaneously took on the role of the inquirer, begging questions of Klurfeld and the audi ence like, “Is it hard to be white in public?” Compounding her momen tum, she told Klurfeld she wanted the very sweater off of her back, to which she readily complied. german strutted about the audience with her newly-coveted garment fashioned around her neck.

“I hope [the audience] could feel the connection [german] had with me,” Klurfeld said. “After the show at the reception, she came up to me and said, ‘Forever and ever, you in a bra and jeans and me in anything,’ and hugged me. I told her she had to keep the sweater. There were no two ways about it.”

Maeve Kydd ’24, an art studio major, visited german’s exhibition in her “Advanced Studio” course this September. Like many who have en countered her work, Kydd reckoned with the gravity of german’s re-cre ation. “[german’s] exhibit and artist talk were really interesting [in that I saw] how she repurposed and used elements of the Skinner collection to form her own artworks,” Kydd said. “Her presence as an artist was so powerful and inspiring in her work.”

Miller hopes “vanessa german — THE RAREST BLACK WOMAN ON THE PLANET EARTH,” will continue to catalyze meaningful discourse and derivative works. “I hope that visitors to the Museum, and students in particular, will take away with them the feeling of heal ing and collaboration that vanessa intended,” Miller said. “I think that [german’s] project is going to have a lasting connection with this cam pus and the Museum and I hope that some of the work will become part of the permanent collection.”

german’s words remain boldly inscribed in the Harriet L. And Paul M. Weissman Gallery of MHCAM.

“THE RAREST BLACK WOMAN ON THE PLANET EARTH was born in this space, in the quaking, emer gent space between de/colonization and emancipation to be both IN the knowing of it and UNDONE from the continual breaking of it, simultane ously — to be released into the ex pansive agency of one’s own human ity,” the walls read.

“I’m so happy I had [this] experi ence,” Klurfeld said. “It was surreal and ethereal and just full of joy. … Thank you to everyone who made it possible — and thanks to vanessa.”

My Chemical Romance returns to the stage

BY N. CIEPRISZ ’26 STAFF WRITER

Rock band My Chemical Ro mance dropped “The Foundations of Decay,” their first single since their 2013 breakup, with no warning on a Thursday night in May. In the five months since, the band has wrapped up their 2022 touring schedule. Here is a look back on what this comeback means both to fans and in the con text of the band’s career.

The band first announced their reunion on Oct. 31, 2019, in a tweet that read “Like Phantoms Forever … ” — the title of the band’s first EP — with a link to buy tickets to a show that December in Los Angeles. In the days leading up to this announce ment, all members changed their profile pictures on social media to a singular candle, a reflection of the band’s steadfast dedication to their

image. Such a small detail spoke vol umes, as the band members had held their position that My Chemical Ro mance would not reunite throughout their entire six-year hiatus. While they all remained friends, in its final years, the band had taken a toll on its members’ mental health as well as the fact that, according to lead singer Gerard Way, “It wasn’t fun to make stuff anymore.”

After their first reunion show, a very cryptic tour announcement and a two-year-long postponement of said tour due to the pandemic, the band released “The Foundations of Decay” four days before the tour kicked off in the United Kingdom.

The song begins with the lyrics, “See the man who stands upon the hill / He dreams of all the battles won,” looking back on the band’s career

‘The Sweet Science of Bruising’’s talented cast and crew pull no punches

BY OAKLEY MARTON ’25 STAFF WRITER

Last weekend, between the fall festivities, a group of students, fami ly, friends and community members gathered to see a play that prom ised to transport them across time to the underground world of Victo rian women’s boxing. “I really en joyed watching it — I went back for a second time,” Karuna Prasad ’24 shared with Mount Holyoke News, surrounded by the noise of students, cast and their families. Joy Wilkin son’s “The Sweet Science of Bruis ing” is the first play of the 2022-2023 season at Rooke Theater. Though the spectacle of boxing draws peo ple into the show, “Boxing evolves throughout the show,” Nicole Tripp ’23, a fight choreographer said. “[In] the beginning, … there’s one winner, every woman for herself. By the end, they find a way — even if not within the ring — to win together. Then at least they have that solidarity.”

“The Sweet Science of Bruising” follows the lives of four women from different social classes in Victorian England who take up boxing to take control of their lives. The audience is introduced to their stories first by Professor Charlie Sharp, played by Mads Nicholson ’23. Nicholson easily switches between telling the audience, with serious melancholy, the professor’s own story of being unable to box due to childhood tu berculosis, to bouncing up as if a cir cus ringleader to passionately share the stories of the four women and place bets on the next female boxing champion of the world. Gina Pasciu to ’23, whose performance brings grit, heart and authenticity, plays Polly Stokes, an orphan who has had to be a fighter in all senses of the word. Polly grew up boxing with her brother and has always wanted to be champion of the ring.

Another boxer, Violet Hunter, was played by Sarah Rixham ’24, who skillfully portrays Violet’s ambi tion as a nurse who uses money from boxing to save up for her dream of becoming a doctor, and her frustra tion and struggle at the obstacles in her way. Matilda “Matty” Blackwell, an Irish woman who uses boxing to escape survival sex work, was played in a compelling, emotional perfor mance by Hannah Itzkowitz ’23. The final main boxer is Anna Lamb — played in a stunning and heart wrenching performance by Linyi Yin ’23 — an upper class woman who re alizes she must box to defend herself against her husband, whose prim and proper misogynistic villainy is played expertly by Syd Hart ’25. “It’s a true company performance of peo ple,” Professor Noah Tuleja, director of “The Sweet Science of Bruising,” said. “I like a good fight, probably more than the next person, but that isn’t the thing that most people are coming up to me about. … It’s really the performances. People are very impressed with not just individual performances, but the evenness of the performances across and how in sync they are with each other.”

Pasciuto, who worked with Tripp as a co-fight choreographer, said “One thing I do love about this particular piece is that it is such a fantastic ensemble piece. There’s no one weak link in the cast. Everyone’s working together so collaborative ly. It’s a small ensemble — it’s like 10 people — but we’re all building something together. … Mount Holy oke, historically, has done a lot of smaller plays, so it’s nice to see stuff that really focuses on that ensem ble cast.” “This ensemble is truly the best,” Yin agreed. “Everyone is so talented, supportive and under standing. … Everyone involved cre ated a safe, fun and supportive en vironment, which made me at ease to deal with the difficult subjects in the play. Onstage, when I saw my castmates take their moments and shine, it pushed me to match their energy and give my best. [Tuleja], the director, also told us to take our individual moment and show the au dience. [He’d say] ‘It’s my time, my story now,’ … I think that’s what the ensemble did, and that’s what made ‘The Sweet Science of Bruising’ a powerhouse production.” Audience members like Prashad agree, too. “It was an amazing production from the set design, to the lighting, to the costumes and you can just really see how much hard work and how much talent this cast had,” Prashad raved

after the show.

Secondary characters shine, like Violet’s stern but loving suffragette aunt George, played powerfully by Sarah Purvis ’24, and Mira Thai ’23, who moves seamlessly between very different roles as Anna’s concerned maid and Violet’s upper class novel ist suffragette friend who provides comic relief. Liz Almonte ’23 and Glynnis Goff ’25 also play their com plicated roles with talent as two men in Violet and Polly’s lives who wish to marry them but have no template for what a relationship looks like without patriarchal control.

As a play that deals with themes such as domestic abuse, it was im portant for the ensemble to receive direction from an intimacy coordina tor, someone “who is hired to coor dinate or choreograph any intimate scene on stage determined by what the production thinks needs to be done,” according to Tuleja. “This is sort of a field that allows people to feel … safe in doing what they have to do. It’s not so much about … how [you’re] going to portray this phys ical action accurately, but it’s how [you can] portray it accurately and feel safe in it.”

Working with an intimacy co ordinator was suggested to Tuleja by Assistant Director Piper Kilgore ’23, who, in conversation with visit ing lecturer in Film Media Theater Jensen Glick, connected Tuleja with Jeanine Thompson, his former pro fessor of theater at Ohio State Uni versity. According to Tuleja, Thomp son was one of the first intimacy coordinators to come on the scene. Thompson’s website reads, “In the atre, you can get certified in stage combat, but no one trains or pre pares actors or directors to stage the intimate action that is called for in some plays. Jeanine has developed methods for preparing actors to per form the intimacy and for choreo graphing the intimate action.” Pas cuito, who worked with Thompson, said “[working with an intimacy co ordinator was] something I’d never done before, so it was really good to get a sense of how it worked, even if they were over Zoom. It’s something that really goes hand in hand with fighting. They’re both just different kinds of touch, so learning how to do it safely, with consent, … figuring everything out as a team and learn ing each other’s boundaries with ev erything was … a really cool experi ence.” Yin, whose character is at the heart of the domestic abuse storyline in the show, said, “Knowing someone is there for me on intimacy-specif ic issues is already a huge support. Jeanine worked with us through Zoom this time, [but] no matter which form, the very existence of an intimacy coordinator — especially in a play like this — ensured that as an actor, my boundaries are respected and protected, [that] me as an actor, is taken care of. I’m very thankful that we had Jeanine.”

“I was very, very surprised by what she was able to do in a pretty short period of time,” Tuleja said. “I think it gave [the actors] the permis sion to be able to deal with some of this material and feel safe enough within that environment.”

The environment the intimacy

Photo courtesy of Laura Shea vanessa german, above, recites a poem with an audience member’s sweater around her neck.

Photo courtesy of Tom Kelleher Pictured above: Sarah Purvis ’24, portrays suffragette Aunt George in Rooke Theater.

Russian Club hosts lecture on Russian and Ukrainian art President Tatum responds to ongoing protests in Iran

pecially relevant when considering how the legacy of famous artists who have ties to Ukraine and Russia will be carried on, he shared.

Brooks concluded with a list of self-assigned tasks, asking how he, as a Russian scholar, can “critically interrogate the kind of ‘Russianness’ … in which [his] texts partake” and “seek out complementary voices” to add to our collective understanding of colonization and Ukrainian histo ry.

BY SOPHIE FRANK ’26 STAFF WRITER

On Thursday, Oct. 20, the Mount Holyoke College Russian Club hosted a talk entitled “The Black Square Goes Where?: (Re)locating Ukrainian Artists in the Russo-Sovi et Avant-Garde.” The lecturer, Pro fessor Daniel Brooks, is a visiting lecturer in Russian and Eurasian Studies at Mount Holyoke, and a Russian language and literature ex pert. His talk discussed Russian and Ukrainian art throughout history, grounding art in location, historical context, culture and language.

Brooks began with one of the aims of the talk, which is to com municate a need to “[seek] out Ukrainian voices for better under standing of context,” he said. He pointed to the fact that none of the Five Colleges employ what could be called a Ukrainian specialist, but ac knowledged that we have students from Ukraine and faculty who are experts on Eastern European histo ry.

From here, Brooks discussed etymology, particularly the way language can hold onto a history of imperialism. This can be seen in the way we talk about Ukraine — calling the country “the Ukraine” as opposed to simply Ukraine “re flects [Russia’s] imperial stance on Ukrainian sovereignty,” according to his presentation. Language — and with it, “myths, memories, symbols and values” — affects how we dis cuss art, culture and the process of “[decolonizing] Ukrainian geograph ical and cultural space,” he said.

The talk then moved to individ ual artists, such as Ilya Repin and Kazimir Malevich, and art move ments, such as the Russian avant garde movement. Brooks examined how an artist’s cultural and artistic ties to Russia and Ukraine evolve as relations between both countries do. What does it mean to say these art ists are from Ukraine or from Rus sia? How have shifting geographical borders and cultural art movements changed the way we view an individ ual’s work? These questions are es

The Russian Club, which works closely with the Department of Rus sian and Eurasian Studies, hosts a wide variety of events, from Russian movie screenings to talks by faculty members. Emma Pope McCright ’23 said, “What we’ve been trying to do with the Russian Club is … show that there is a lot [of] nuance and diversity in the history of the Rus sian, Eastern Europe, Central Asia area, and how it’s all very connected and very relevant.” Natalie O’Neil ’23 agreed, saying, “It’s important to … break away from the Russian-cen tric” approach we often use when looking at these subjects.

When looking to the future, Brooks said, “Our program is called the [Department of Russian and Eur asian Studies]. I would be very much invested in the Eurasian part being taken seriously, not only for the pur pose of having a richer understand ing of a large portion of the world that has been touched by Russian history [and the] Russian empire, but also so that we can have a more nuanced understanding of … the cul tures and people that get swallowed up into Russianness.”

Overall, the event took a nu anced approach to complex ideas, looking into the past for context as we consider what we can do better in the future.

BY SARAH BELL ’25 STAFF WRITER

On Oct. 11, 2022, Interim Pres ident Beverly Daniel Tatum and a collective of presidents from Bar nard, Smith, Vassar, Bryn Mawr and Wellesley Colleges released a state ment regarding the ongoing protests for civil rights, particularly women’s rights, in Iran.

The protests in Iran — which began after the death of Mahsa Ami ni on Sept. 16, 2022 — have sparked worldwide support. Within the country, many protests have been women-led and involved chanting anti-government sayings. A video of Iranian school girls smashing a framed photo of the current and past Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Ayatollah Ruhol lah Khomeini, went viral after being shared online.

Outside of the country, solidarity protests are happening worldwide, particularly in the United States and Europe. In Berlin, Germany, a huge

protest of the Iranian diaspora and allies stormed the streets chanting the need of more support and inter ference to the Iranian government from the West.

President Tatum and associates stated their support, explaining that as college leaders, they express sol idarity with those who are impacted by the current situation in Iran, re instating that the most basic funda mental rights of women are at stake, globally, and world leaders should be held accountable. Towards the end of the letter, the college pres idents highlighted the need for ef forts by colleges within the United States to better educate students on gender equity, academic freedom and voting.

At the end of the statement, a statistic from a recent U.N. report stated that it estimated that the world would take another 300 years to achieve gender equity at its cur rent pace. To close, the presidents asserted that “We can and must do better.”

Social media spreads awareness and misinformation about Iran protests

BY SOPHIE GLASCO ’26 STAFF WRITER

Since September, women’s rights protests have erupted throughout Iran following the death of 22-yearold Mahsa Amini. Amini was, by eyewitness account, detained by the Iranian government, killed in police custody after her arrest by Iran’s morality police for “allegedly wearing her headscarf too loosely,” Times reported.

Three days after the police ar rested Amini, she was dead. Police claimed the death to be a result of a heart failure, but Amini’s family believes her death was the result of physical violence at the hands of the police, according to the source. Ami ni’s death has sparked women-led protests across the country, many arguing her death was unjustifiable, and fighting against the Islamic dress and behavior rules that were

implemented after the 1979 revolu tion in Iran.

To spread awareness of the movement abroad, social media posts have surged, attempting to educate people on Amini’s death and the ensuing protests by show ing footage and photos from the scene. As social media has become a platform for spreading awareness of current events, young people are increasingly leaning towards these apps to receive global news.

When asked where they get their global news from, Cora McKown ’26 said, “usually from social media, like stories from friends” as well as “famous people or influencers that I follow.” Erin Larson ’26 said now that she can’t watch news on cable TV, she relies on “The New York Times Instagram account, [or] Instagram accounts from news sources.”

The protests in Iran have fol lowed this trend, with hashtags like

While social media allows those with platforms to spread awareness easily, it also allows misinformation to spread rapidly. Jessica Chastian’s Instagram posts about the women’s rights protests in Iran, for example, featured a warning added by Insta gram on her Sept. 25 that claimed, “fact-checkers say at least one photo

or video in this post contains partly false information.”

Although they both receive glob al news from social media apps, Lar son and McKown acknowledge that with the increase of social media as a news source, warnings like those suggest that it’s a source riddled with misinformation. Larson noticed that posts, like the ones about wom en’s rights in Iran, are not always accurate.

Instagram posts “sometimes … [oversimplify] things,” Larson said, referencing infographics in particu lar. McKown expanded upon the mis information spread between peers on social media, saying, “Sometimes, I’ll be going through my friends’ sto ries, and they’re all sharing infor mation, but then some people have conflicting points. It’s confusing, be cause anybody can make a post. You don’t really know if it’s completely true or fact-checked.”

My Chemical Romance releases new music after a six-year hiatus, cont’d

with fresh eyes instead of simply continuing from where they left off. The motif of decay, such as in the lyr ics “And as the vermin crawls / We lay in the foundations of decay,” ac knowledges the “death” of the band, and the ending fade-out “Yes, it com forts me much more / To lay in the foundations of decay” emphasizes how it may be easy to let the band es sentially stay buried and not give it a second chance, before defying ex pectations lyrically and vocally with Way screaming “Get up, coward!” to show, emphatically, that the band is coming back.

The European leg of the tour started strong, beginning every show with “The Foundations of De cay.” But what truly made the tour special was the abundance of deep cuts played. The first night featured “Make Room!!!!” and “Surrender the Night,” the latter making its live de but from the band’s scrapped fifth album “Conventional Weapons.”

The next few nights saw the live debuts of many rarely-played songs from the early years, B-sides, and bonus tracks, among them “Mastas of Ravenkroft” off of their then-un released on streaming services “The Mad Gear and Missile Kid EP” (2010).

Numerous artists have spoken out about the pressure the music indus try has placed on them to be mar

ketable, especially in the era where apps like TikTok can make or break an artist’s career. Playing their least commercially successful songs is a bold move in an era where music is designed to be marketable to the masses and go viral on TikTok. My Chemical Romance’s focus was not on their earnings but their fans.

Having completed a suc cessful run in Europe, the band seemed emboldened to break even more boundaries during their North American tour. Beyond adding many new songs to the setlist, including the deeply emotional “Desert Song” and “Demolition Lovers,” Way brought his outfits to the next level. While in Europe, he had performed onstage in several costumes, including a white suit with fake blood, a clown costume and a cloak. Yet, a fan-favorite outfit was from their Nashville, Tennessee, performance when Way came on stage in a bright green cheerleader dress emblazoned with a “W.” My Chemical Romance is well known for having a large queer fanbase, likely due to the band’s rejection of mascu linity in the New Jersey punk scene of their youth, lyrics about non-con formity and sporting of androgy nous fashion. In particular, Way, who uses both he/him and they/them pronouns, has often been hailed as an icon of the LGBTQ+ community for their openness about gender ex perimentation. Mars Drake ’26 re calls how “reading about Gerard’s

way of seeing their own gender and expressing it was what got me to look into being trans/non-binary as a 13-year-old. … I remember seeking out anything related to that and eat ing that … up and thinking, ‘I wanna experience gender in that way.’”

Aside from speaking about pronouns, Way has not labeled his gender. Either way, their gender nonconformity onstage is a powerful image. For the most part, the media and even fans tend not to use Way’s they/them pronouns, so seeing them express gender-nonconformity in a way they have not done so visibly before is a cathartic moment for the band’s queer audience. When My Chemical Romance played in Florida, recently the site of much anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, fans hand ed Way a transgender pride flag that they waved onstage during the band’s set. It also cannot be ignored that gender-nonconformity is often seen as something for young peo ple, so seeing a 45-year-old person onstage presenting androgynously shows young queer fans that they have a future.

This tour has been extremely impactful to the band’s queer fans for a multitude of reasons, giving queer fans the representation and visibility that they crave. Drake also highlighted the aspects of perfor mance and costume in the singer’s expression of gender: “Seeing him be so costume-y with different ar

ticles of clothing, both ‘men’s’ and ‘women’s,’ really influenced my style as well. I felt like it was how I viewed gender, … just very performative and theatrical and fun. Getting to see Gerard really get into the per formance of it and all the different costumes and stuff in person was really gratifying.” Maya Levy ’24 echoed this sentiment, saying that “As a gender non-conforming person who has always found solace in Ge rard’s expression and art, I felt em powered and invigorated. They have definitely inspired me to feel confi dent and badass while expressing myself through my clothing. I think it was just the thing I needed to be like, “Oh, wait. I can do that! I don’t need to be palatable to the mass public! Fake blood is a fashion ac cessory!” Julia Pickel ’26 added, “It’s incredibly powerful seeing Gerard as an older [gender non-conforming] public figure, doing what they love, supported by those close to them, twirling and grinning and putting on some of the best vocal performances of his career.”

My Chemical Romance’s tour brought together fans in a way pre viously unheard of, in part due to the prevalence of social media. Before the tour, fans had been circulating the same photos of the band, includ ing heavily pixelated shots of the early shows, for years. Faced with an influx of new content, many fans’ first instinct was to share it with

one another. Fans created accounts dedicated to cataloging set times, parking information and, after the fact, setlists and photos. Concertgo ers live-streamed shows night after night, often in their entirety, just for those who could not attend, and fans spread posts online with information about who was streaming so that ev eryone could experience it togeth er. Pickel said that “The feeling of community throughout this tour has been incredible to witness. In online spaces, there are so many people making beautiful art and writing fas cinating [analyses]. … The tour has inspired me artistically, it’s allowed me to connect with some very love ly and cool people, and it’s also just been unbelievably fun.”

For Levy, these connections could even be felt in the Mount Holy oke community: “For every show on their tour — including the ones I did not go to — I would wake up the next day to find out what went on the night before. …Gerard wore fan tastic and wild outfits and costumes almost every night, and it was hilar ious to have my friends at MHC and beyond spamming me with ‘DID YOU SEE WHAT GERARD WORE?!’” My Chemical Romance has always had a deeply devoted fanbase, and that connection not only with the band but with each other was able to reach around the world for this tour.

Photo courtesy of Matt Hrkac via Flickr

Above, women in Melbourne, Australia, protest in solidarity with women’s rights advocates in Iran.

Photo by Emma Quirk ’26

A Russian Club event focused on highlighting Ukrainian voices in discussions of Eastern Europe.

“#MahsaAmini” replacing head lines, and posts from influencers with millions of followers becoming reporters, The Spinoff reported. When asked where they learned of the situation in Iran, Larson re called specific posts from model Bel la Hadid, as well as actress Jessica Chastain.

Photo courtesy of Matt Hrkac via Wikimedia Commons Social media users have spread both true and false information about the social movement in Iran.

New website provides sexual and reproductive health resources

en’s health in 2018 due to insufficient financial resources. That same year, Our Bodies Ourselves partnered with Suffolk University’s Center for Women’s Health and Human Rights. Most recently, in 2022, the two groups launched a joint website called “Our Bodies Ourselves To day” aimed at providing accessible resources covering extensive health topics for women and gender-expan sive individuals.

tion on their bodies and sexualities now more than ever. “Our work is grounded in the feminist human rights principle that all people have a right to the highest attainable stan dards of physical, mental and sexual health. As educators, we know that knowledge can be revolutionary — because we see it every day. We want this site to be a north star in this period of disinformation and in security,” the letter stated.

anti-LGBTQ+ violence are the ones who need these resources the most. Information, she claims, is a power ful tool. “It’s the reason why some politicians are trying to ban books — they know that educated people are powerful people,” Ghanoui said.

BY SHIRA SADEH ’25 SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT EDITOR

From its inception, Our Bodies Ourselves has been a resource for women and gender expansive indi viduals to gain information regard ing their physical health. Originally created in the late 1960s due to a lack of knowledge on cisgender women’s bodies, it’s now more relevant than ever in the fight for control over re productive and sexual choices.

In May 1969, a group of women formed the Doctor’s Group in Bos ton, which later became the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective following a workshop titled “Women and Their Bodies,” the Our Bodies Ourselves Today website explains.

The group arose out of a discussion about the workshop attendees’ ex periences with doctors and limited knowledge of the functions of their own bodies. In 1970 they published a course book titled “Women and Their Bodies,” which was eventually renamed “Our Bodies, Ourselves” in 1971 to express the group’s agency over their bodies.

According to the organization’s website, the book cost 30 cents a copy after the 1971 rebrand and sold 225,000 copies by word of mouth. The most recent and updated version was published in 2011 after 40 years of regular revisions. The website goes on to explain that the group shifted into a volunteer-led advocacy initiative for social justice and wom

In an interview with Mount Holy oke News, Saniya Lee Ghanoui, Ph.D, Program Director for OBOS Today, shared that the website is aimed at meeting the current political mo ment. “We want people to come to the site when they may have any questions about their health, body or sexuality, and be greeted with a plethora of resources for them to explore. I have said that I want Our Bodies Ourselves Today to be a com fortable place in an uncomfortable world,” she said.

This message was further rein forced in an open letter written by Ghanoui and Amy Agigian, the Ex ecutive Director of OBOS Today and professor of sociology and criminal justice at Suffolk University, posted on the website on Sept. 9, 2022. The letter listed issues such as the over turning of Roe v. Wade, widespread book bans on subjects such as rac ism, LGBTQ+ rights and reproduc tive health and policies targeting racial minorities, members of the LGBTQ+ community and women. This political climate, the letter ex plains, means that individuals need access to free and accurate informa

The letter explained that the OBOS Today contains nine catego ries of information: Abortion and Contraception, Gender-based Vio lence, Growing Older, Heart Health, Menstruation through Menopause, Mental Health, Pregnancy and Childbirth and Sexual Anatomy and Sexuality. Each section is staffed by a handful of content experts, who de vote their time to curating accurate and relevant information.

Additionally, the website ex plains that the original OBOS book was translated in 1970 into multiple global languages and adjusted to fit local contexts. In keeping with this tradition, as of September 2022 the resources from OBOS have been translated into 34 languages and partners in Brazil and many more countries have all published new books aimed at addressing local communities.

Ghanoui explained that of the biggest challenges facing OBOS Today, spreading the information they have to reach vulnerable pop ulations is one they are prioritizing. Often, she explained, the people most affected by anti-abortion and

The OBOS Today website also describes the advocacy the group is involved in to engage in political struggles currently affecting the U.S. Their current efforts include in creasing access to abortion and mid wifery care, breast implant safety, advancing health and reproductive justice, empowering teen voices and advancing vulvovaginal education and care.

Ghanoui stated that the main goal for the future of OBOS Today is to spread the word and grow its audi ence. For the long-term development of the site, she explained that they are in the process of creating new projects that can further support their mission of providing accessible and accurate information. Currently, they are in the early stages of devel oping a mobile app and a podcast, as well as adding an advice column to the website. main goal for the future of OBOS Today is to spread the word and grow its audience.

For the long-term development of the site, she explained that they are in the process of creating new projects that can further support their mission of providing accessible and accurate information. Currently, they are in the early stages of devel oping a mobile app and a podcast, as well as adding an advice column to the website.

Alaskan crabbing season cancelled due to extreme population decline

BY LILY BENN ’24 STAFF WRITER

October to January is generally the optimal season for fishing and harvesting all crab species for food, a Southern Living Magazine article stated. This is when most individual crabs are at their largest and when populations are at their peak. A ma jor crabbing industry is centralized in the Bering Sea in Alaska. Its snow crab harvest in particular brings in approximately 132 million dollars each year, according to a Time arti cle. This October, however, the Alas ka Department of Fish and Game determined that the number of crabs in the Bering Sea this season was too low to open the fishery.

According to the 2022 National Marine Fisheries Service trawl sur vey, Bering Sea snow crabs showed a significant decline in population numbers. A Time article reported that the snow crab population had dropped by 87 percent since 2018 — its count in 2018 was estimated to be eight billion, while in 2021, it was es timated to be one billion. The count

this year, 2022, was low enough for their harvesting season to be can celed completely.

This decision impacts many local Alaskan crab fishermen and communities that depend on this industry for their income, an article from The Guardian explained. Jamie Goen, executive director for Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers, explained in an interview with the Guardian that many crab fishing families are likely to go out of business during the peri od of time that is needed to help crab populations recover.

According to CNN, the reason for this large drop in snow crab num bers is due to overfishing, a practice that has harmed many industries and ecosystems in the past. Howev er, as explained by Michael Litzow, the Kodiak lab director for the Na tional Oceanic and Atmospheric Ad ministration, the term “overfishing” is only used because of the size of the population decline. In an inter view with CNN, Litzow explained how the collapse of the population was not due to overfishing, but to human-caused climate change.

He explained how the snow crab is a species that lives in water, usual ly less than two degrees Celsius, or 35.6 degrees Fahrenheit. This means that the snow crab population can not survive in the warming waters of the Bering Sea. According to CNN, temperatures in Alaska and around the Arctic have warmed up four times faster than ocean tempera tures around the rest of the world.

In a Time article, Wes Jones, the Fisheries, Research and Develop ment Director of the Norton Sound Economic Development Corpora tion, explained that this change in climate is also causing the snow crabs to change their behavior in order to survive. Crabs are pushed into smaller pockets of colder water to avoid the warm water where they cannot survive. According to Jones, this leaves the crabs more open to obstacles such as predation, disease and, in this case, cannibalization. With limited food available, some crabs have begun to eat each other, Jones explained.

The ADF&G reported that while information from crab industry

stakeholders is crucial to their deci sion-making process, the crab popu lation is not large enough to sustain a crabbing season.

In response to this decrease in

population and resulting econom ic decline, the ADFG reported that their focus was now on conserving and rebuilding the snow crab popu lation for future harvesting seasons.

New bivalent COVID booster receives less attention than previous vaccines

BY SARAH GRINNELL ’26 STAFF WRITER

As we approach nearly three years of social distancing, mask mandates and Zoom meetings, Americans appear more than ready to leave COVID-19 in the past, an MSN article reported. But the ar ticle’s documentation of the low numbers of those receiving the new booster and the concerns these sta tistics could pose for another surge suggest that the danger of COVID-19 may not be gone from the United States.

According to an MSN news arti cle, over six weeks have passed since the CDC authorized its new bivalent COVID-19 booster, yet only 14.8 mil lion people have been vaccinated. That’s fewer than 5 percent of those eligible, the arti cle said.

According to MSN, bivalent boosters are up dated versions of Pfizer’s and Mod erna’s vaccines and have been proven to provide more effective protection against novel and increas ingly contagious Omicron variants.

it is dropping. Meanwhile, around 2,000 people die from COVID-19 ev ery week in the U.S., according to the CDC.

Thomas Russo, M.D., an in fectious disease expert at the Uni versity of Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, hypothesized in a recent MSN article that these statistics could be linked in part to the overwhelming desire for the pandemic to finally be over.

“People are now tuned out, trying to forget it and move on with their lives. They don’t want to hear about [COVID-19] anymore,” he explained.

Laura Sacktor ’26 expressed a similar perspective in an interview with Mount Holyoke News. “I think people are tired of [COVID-19]. They’re tired of wearing masks ev ery day,” she said.

– Kristina Busby

The vaccine does this by targeting both the original COVID-19 strain and the sub-variants BA.4 and BA.5, which have recently been breaking out across the country. Despite the safety and effectiveness of the vac cine, the number of people getting

This pub lic disinterest in COVID-19 has only been exacer bated by a recent 60 Minutes inter view with Presi dent Joe Biden, in which the presi dent was quoted saying the pan demic was over. Yale Medicine infectious disease specialist Dr. Scott Roberts said in an NBC article that Biden’s words have sent a “huge mixed message” to those consider ing the booster, making it “harder to convince those at risk who are on the fence” to get it.

Another factor contributing to

low vaccination rates has been gen eral confusion over access to the vaccine. While many eligible Amer icans want to get the booster, they may be unaware of how to do so.

This is because “communications [about the new boosters] have not been sufficient,” William Schaffner, M.D., professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Cen ter, said in an MSN article. In fact, a report from the KFF, a health policy non-profit, showed that “a substan tial proportion of people didn’t even know an updated booster was avail able and recommended,” according to the source.

Kristina Busby ’26 expressed this frustration in an interview with MHN, stating that one of her reasons for not getting the booster was be cause “I just didn’t know there was

one and there hasn’t been much in fo[rmation].” She continued, “I want to get it but it’s super under the ra dar.”

Accessibility offers another bar rier. Although the University of Mas sachusetts Amherst vaccine clinic is open to all ages 12 and older on Thursdays from 12-4 p.m. and Fridays from 10 a.m.-2 p.m., Mount Holyoke students have cited transportation and time restraints as barriers to getting the vaccine. “It’s been hard to find time to take multiple buses to a location where I can get it,” Busby explained. “Public transportation is not the best out here, which makes sense because it’s a rural area, but it also means that it’s not very acces sible or dependable,” she continued, pointing out that it is especially dif ficult for college students who have stringent time constraints.

According to an NBC article, these various factors have raised widespread concern within the health care community due to de creasing mask guidelines. This has led scientists to predict a particu larly bad cold and flu season around Thanksgiving, exacerbated by a potential surge in COVID-19 cases. Despite this data, Laura Sacktor ’26 pointed out that many Americans “believe that if they’ve already had [COVID-19] before they are now im mune and don’t need the new boost er.” Shaffner took a similar stance in an MSN article, which acknowl edged that this “‘natural immunity’ … eventually wanes.”

Additionally, Busby pointed out that “Long [COVID-19 is definitely a thing.” In Busby’s view, “getting the new booster is like getting the yearly flu shot: it’s going to lower your risk of getting the disease, lower your reaction to it and lower your ability to spread it to a bunch of potentially immunocompromised people.” Sack tor added that “even if you’ve had [COVID-19] before, you’re still sus ceptible to new strains and versions of [COVID-19]. Even if you’re not at risk, people around you are and you could be a potential asymptomatic person and spread it to other people who are at high risk.”

Currently, roughly 68 percent of the U.S. population is considered fully vaccinated by the CDC, an NBC article says. As the article describes, the U.S. has shipped more than 25 million doses of the bivalent boost er to thousands of sites across the nation to increase the availability of the bivalent booster as well.

Photo courtesy of Our Bodies Ourselves OBOS Today provides accessible sexual and reproductive health resources in multiple languages.

Graphic by Jieru Ye ’23

Photo courtesy of Asian Development Bank via Flickr

Fewer than five percent of those eligible to receive the bivalent COVID booster have gotten one.

Even if you’re not at risk, people around you are and you could be a potential asymptomatic person and spread it to other people who are at high risk.

Mount Holyoke needs to better incorporate hybrid models of instruction into the classroom experience

Mount Holyoke College returned to a fully residential experience in Fall 2021 for the first time since the campus began remote learning in March 2020. In an email to students from March 2021, former College president Sonya Stephens addressed the Mount Holyoke community about plans for Fall 2021 and beyond. Stephens stated, “Faculty and stu dents will be engaged in our campus learning environment together, and we will make any adjustments need ed to continue to protect health and safety.”

As outlined in the email, the Col lege settled back into its residential program for students, akin to the system followed before the COVID-19 pandemic altered the college experi ence. Students again began attend ing in-person classes and continue to do so in Fall 2022. However, this return to in-person instruction has made little effort to acknowledge the continued need for hybrid models to support instruction — this decision has instead been left to the discre tion of professors alone.

Mount Holyoke’s administration needs to do better in instituting and supporting the delivery of hybrid models of instruction alongside syn chronous classes. Failure to adapt to these models of instruction and a lack of support from College high er-ups for professors in implement ing a working hybrid system has the potential to hinder student per formance in the classroom. There is an urgent need for the institution to support alternate modes of instruc tion on campus and a need for an ac tive push from the administration to accommodate faculty and students on a campus where COVID-19 is still a reality.

In 2020, education systems na tionwide were forced to adapt to the growing threat of COVID-19, with most of them shifting from physical classrooms to online spaces. Ac cording to a 2021 study published by The Brookings Institution, the aca demic year of 2020-2021 marked the widespread inclusion of the hybrid system in primary and secondary schools as they incorporated ele ments of synchronous and asynchro nous activities to slowly reintroduce an almost-normal way of learning. The University of Edinburgh’s ex planation of their hybrid instruction on their website echoes systems followed by educational institutions worldwide. Hybrid teaching, as per The University of Edinburgh, con sists of a “mixture of digital and on-campus activities, where stu dents may be able to attend on-cam pus sessions, digital sessions in the same time zone or digital sessions in a different time zone.”

Mount Holyoke announced its hybrid learning model — the mod ule system — in 2020, following a message from former Vice Presi dent for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty Jon Western on May 14, 2020. This academic system would divide the regular 16-credit semes ter into two seven and a half week halves and was designed specifically for the 2020-2021 academic year. As per Western’s message, students were allowed to take two four-credit courses per module with an option to take a full semester two-credit course or independent study. Mount Holyoke’s hybrid-module classes were delivered primarily for remote learning systems, commonly em ploying synchronous zoom sessions and often access to its recordings, asynchronous discussions forum posts and more.

While introduced primarily for remote learning, aspects of the module system are still relevant to the national classroom experiences during in person instruction in 2022. The current situation of COVID-19 in the U.S. supports the idea of main taining hybrid modes of instruction made familiar to students during re mote learning.

According to NPR, on Sept. 16, 2022, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, is para phrased as saying, “[COVID-19] is still killing hundreds of people every day, which means more than 125,000 additional [COVID-19] deaths could occur over the next 12 months if deaths continue at that pace.” More over, in the same month, the Centers

for Disease Control and Prevention discussed the post-COVID-19 condi tions as people have been experienc ing symptoms after infection. Symp toms ranging from respiratory and heart problems to issues with the digestive system allude to the gen eral interference of COVID-19 even months after infection.

However, Mount Holyoke has conversely been working toward eas ing COVID-19 restrictions, especially now, during the Fall 2022 semester. Interim President Beverly Daniel Tatum shared plans for the semester in a Letter to the Community on July 28, 2022, on how the College would continue moving toward pre-pan demic operations as, according to Tatum, “strategies are shifting, lo cally, nationally and internationally, toward policies that help us live with COVID-19 as an ever-present part of our daily lives.”

As of this Fall 2022 semester, the College no longer requires biweekly testing. However, in an Oct. 21, 2022 email, President Tatum responded to a student-led group, MHC COVID Safety Now Collective, on their con cerns for isolation housing for stu dents who test positive for COVID-19, announcing that process this will re commence in November. On Oct. 14, 2022, Mount Holyoke lifted the mask mandate as a result of limited cases on campus. However, these nation al statistics regarding the ongoing effects of COVID-19 must push the institution to address the prevalence of a global health crisis and the risk it still poses on some level to stu dents and faculty academically.

COVID-19 is still present on cam pus. This means that contracting COVID-19 or being a close contact to someone who has tested positive are still realities. In grappling with this, students must navigate how they balance out academic commitments and attend class. Hannah Watt ’25 spoke on the need for the school to come up with hybrid modes of in struction as a way to help students balance out class attendance and their health, noting the unclear poli cies followed by most of her classes. She said, “I think some of my classes can do a better job of incorporating these asynchronous options into the course for peo ple who cannot attend a certain day.”

Watt em phasized how essential it is for the school to ac commodate stu dents who miss out on classes, even for reasons that go beyond COVID-19 infec tions, and said, “I have had days where I simply have too much going on in my life and need to regroup and rest so that I can keep going in the long run. Having asynchronous options allows me to still keep up with my coursework when some thing comes up so that I can still ac commodate my mental and physical health while also keeping up with my classes.”

I have had days where I simply have too much going on in my life and need to regroup and rest so that I can keep going in the long run. Having asynchronous options allows me to still keep up with my coursework when something comes up so that I can still accommodate my mental and physical health while also keeping up with my classes.

tion noted that the module system additionally aids students living across time zones because students were expected to manage a compar atively easier course load with max imum engagement as professors planned five-day week schedules. The article also acknowledged how the latter characteristic benefited in addressing alienation experienced in students once online interactions with students and professors were increased during the module system. Moreover, some long term possi bilities were touched upon briefly in the article when it proposed that due to the rapid evolution of the glob al health crisis, institutions were pushed to entertain two key ques tions. With the module system forc ing institutions to condense their academic content, professors were being made to question what really mattered in terms of what was be ing taught and what the importance was for revising these learning out comes. While these two concerns re quire much eval uation, it benefits us in entertain ing the idea of how the pandem ic has perhaps pushed us to question the preCOVID-19 style of teaching.

[education]. There is a need to revise the language and texts that we draw upon in classes and not replicate the voices that we have heard far too of ten. This is something that I strive for in all of my classes.”

On the other hand, professors at Mount Holyoke are making an active effort to address the situation of in cluding hybrid modes of instruction on their own. Mount Holyoke Fel low and Visiting Lecturer Bianka Ballina of the Department of Film Media Theater commented on how she is working on making in-person instruction work, especially for stu dents who miss out on classes due to issues with health. Ballina said, “In the past, I have had students Zoom into lectures when they cannot at tend in person due to COVID-19. This semester I have opted out of that and instead offer to meet separately with students who must miss class due to COVID-19 or other health reasons. My understanding is that resum ing full in-person instruction is the goal.”

who might be in isolation. “I think it is irresponsible not to have an option for students who are isolating, espe cially when it is as simple as having Zoom open on a laptop so they can hear what is happening.”

Pitcher further discussed how there is a difference in her classroom experiences across courses, with some more attuned to COVID-19 and needs for asynchronous modes of assessment and instruction while others have little to no regard for it. “I have only seen a few teachers use Moodle to the fullest extent it can be used. In one of my classes, my professor is using the feature that allows students to essentially create their own Wikipedia pages within the class Moodle so we can look at each other’s work. Given how much money we pay to use Moodle, it feels like a missed opportunity not to use it more,” Pitcher continued.

– Hannah Watt

Serin Hous ton, associate professor of ge ography and in ternational rela tions, echoed the need for rethink ing and revising classroom teach ing and learn ing. She said, “The pandemic allowed me to rethink my courses and review the way we set our learning outcomes, goals and purpose and how we repli cate dominant and oppressive struc tures of higher education.”

Ajay Sinha, professor of art his tory and architectural studies, has been teaching at Mount Holyoke since before the COVID-19 pandem ic, through the College’s remote instruction and since our return to in person instruction. Sinha high lighted the success of incorporating different modes of instructions for a successful classroom experience that still considers the presence of the COVID-19 pandemic as a real ity on the Mount Holyoke campus. Sinha’s art history courses are discussion-heavy and require syn chronous, in-person classes as the primary method of delivery, but he understands how COVID-19 still impedes attendance. He noted how quite a few of his students, especially during the first half of this semester, were unable to attend classes due to health concerns largely related to COVID-19.

Watt echoed this point raised by Pitcher about the inept and insuffi cient use of and access to technology and said, “I believe the College also needs to do a better job in providing professors with the resources to of fer hybrid options, as in some of my classes last year we simply did not have the technology to do so. In some cases the classroom computers did not have a camera or there was no microphone to pick up audio from the class. The Wi-Fi also presented several connection issues that still pose challenges to conducting work in class [and] even in regular life.”

What Watt’s quote successful ly manages to highlight is not just the rising and existing threat of COVID-19, but also the way in which the pandemic has presented us with the opportunity to revise the way we conduct classes and go about academic assessment. This was par tially done at Mount Holyoke in the 2020-2021 academic year with the adoption of the module system.

Herein, the need for modes of instruction outside of the synchro nous in-person classroom becomes increasingly important, and the module system previously followed by Mount Holyoke, or additional modes of asynchronous instruction, provides one such solution. This module system was not unique to Mount Holyoke’s 2020-2021 academic plan alone. The Chronicle of Higher Education mentioned in 2021 that liberal arts schools across the coun try deemed the module system and the division of the semester into two halves to be “logistically and intel lectually easier for students than juggling four [classes] at once.”

The Chronicle of Higher Educa

She went on by commenting on why there is an urgency to revolu tionize the way we operate in a high er education system because of the factors that have influenced it into its current being. She said, “I’ve recent ly been reading this book, “The New College Classroom” by Christina Katopodis and Cathy Davidson, that talks about the influence of industri alization in the Western higher ed ucation system that works towards producing a global managerial class — something that still holds rele vance. I am personally committed to the transformative possibilities of higher [education] and I push myself to rethink the standard metrics that make the system inaccessible and exclusive and push it towards a con solidation of elite power.”

However, all is not lost as Hous ton listens to the way she has been tackling the challenge of the higher education system. She said, “As I opt for an active learning pedagogy in my classes that prioritizes learning opportunities for students as they get to build and believe in their capa bilities, I hope that we can challenge the traditional systems and struc tures of power that dominate higher

“The first half of the semester, I had at least one student on Zoom in all of the classes I have been teach ing,” Sinha explained. Sinha makes efforts to invite students who may be unable to participate in in-person in struction to join classes virtually. He discusses how the classroom envi ronment is essential to learning and cannot be made up simply through office hours or asynchronously. “There is so much that comes out of discussion [that] cannot be repli cated.” He therefore highlights the importance of having a system that acknowledges COVID-19, quarantin ing and staying true to the Mount Holyoke academic experience.

Professor Sinha’s classes are one successful example at Mount Holyoke, but there are students and professors who may require more assistance and guidance on why and how to conduct hybrid modes of in struction. Not all professors may know why and how to implement hybrid models in the classroom, and a framework from the administra tion to support this becomes vital. Student experiences show it is clear not all classes make enough efforts to acknowledge COVID-19 concerns.

Liv Pitcher ’23, while happy to be back to in-person classes, expressed her disappointment over the lack of provisions to accommodate students

For a hybrid system to function, the College needs to actively work on creating and maintaining an in frastructure that supports the usage of technology and the internet to fa cilitate remote and asynchronous in struction. The lack of initiative taken by administrators grossly assumes that faculty members are proficient at using the necessary technology to conduct hybrid modes of instruction and abandons them, and students, to take on new ways of teaching and learning by themselves.

Without a clear chain of com mand in terms of who has access to what kind of resources and who pro fessors and students can turn to in need for advice on alternate modes of instruction, students and profes sors might experience isolation from the institution.

This can prove to be detrimental to the relationship these groups of people have to the College, endan gering school-made promises made regarding the welfare of its faculty and students and encouraging and ensuring academic rigor.

Students and professors have been navigating COVID-19 in the classroom on their own, and the Col lege administration must do better in mandating some degree of a hy brid model for professors to follow to ease student concerns and support professors.

With the currently limited resources and support through COVID-19 policies from the Mount Holyoke administration, the support offered to students in classes may be more limited, thereby affecting their involvement and engagement with course material. There is a need for the College to deliver on their re sponsibility to students’ classroom experience.

Photo by Ella Shelton ’26 Hybrid classes provide a combination of in-person and digital classroom activities which allow students to learn in a way that best suits their needs.

Spooky reads for the Halloween season

BY JOSEFA FALKNER

STAFF WRITER

With fall upon us and Halloween quickly approaching, it is the perfect time to enjoy some spooky reads. Don’t know what books to pick be sides the classics? Worry not. The following list contain stories that are suspenseful, gothic or horror — and occasionally all three.

‘The Once and Future Witches’ by Alix E. Harrow Set in an alternative historical Salem, Massachusetts, “The Once and Future Witches” is a historical fantasy that follows the three East wood sisters as they struggle to re pair their relationships with each other and reclaim their power while dark forces rise. The three witches become intertwined with the Unit ed States women’s suffrage move ment of the 1890s. The book features queer characters and contemplates intersectionality in the movement.

Per Jessica Wick of NPR, “you’ll be fascinated by this alternate Amer ica, by the vibrant characters, the twisty plot.” The Eastwood sisters and allies use elements of folk magic to advance their causes. Alix E. Har row is a Hugo-award winning former academic turned science fiction and fantasy novelist. “The Once and Fu ture Witches” is her second novel following “The Ten Thousand Doors of January.”

‘The Gathering Dark: An Anthol ogy of Folk Horror’ by various au thors and edited by Tori Bovalino

“The Gathering Dark: An An thology of Folk Horror” is a collec tion of 13 short horror stories writ ten by various authors. “The Tallest Poppy,” a short story by Chloe Gong, the author of the popular Romeo and Juliet retelling “These Violent Delights,” is described by Nerd Dai ly as “a classically unnerving horror story” featuring haunted houses, creepy dolls and mysterious illness es. Another story in the collection,

“It

‘The Hacienda’ by Isabel Cañas “The Hacienda” is set in 1820s post-revolutionary Mexico and fol lows Beatriz, a young woman of mixed racial ancestry, who is deter mined to save herself and her moth er from poverty by marrying into wealth. However, when she moves to her new husband’s hacienda a supernatural presence makes itself known. The story’s point of view is split between Beatriz and Padre An drés, a young catholic priest with su pernatural powers whom she enlists to help battle this darkness. “The Hacienda” is dubbed by Goodreads as a “supernatural suspense novel” but could also be categorized as hor ror. It is described as “Rebecca meets Mexican Gothic,” by Goodreads user Nilufer Ozmekik. An article in The Harvard Crimson states, “The Ha cienda” explores the impact of colo nialism, Catholicism and the racial caste system on her characters and Mexico as a whole.

Jennette McCurdy explores family struggles in new heartfelt memoir

BY AMELIA POTTER ’26 STAFF WRITER

Content warning: This article dis cusses eating disorders and paren tal abuse, including emotional and sexual abuse.

“My life purpose has always been to make Mom happy, to be who she wants me to be. So without Mom, who am I supposed to be now?” writes Jennette McCurdy in her memoir “I’m Glad My Mom Died.” Best known for her performance as Sam Puckett in the children’s television series “iCarly,” McCurdy published her controversially-titled memoir on Aug. 9, 2022. Above all, “I’m Glad My Mom Died” is a med itation on an unhealthy parent-child dynamic.

The writing is blunt, and Mc Curdy’s humor shines through the pages as she reckons with an array of issues from the absurdity of child stardom to an intense eating disor der. McCurdy emphasizes the im portance of autonomy and identity, without simplifying or villainizing her mother in the process. Follow ing McCurdy from early childhood to young adulthood, the book is un flinchingly vulnerable and compel ling from start to finish.

McCurdy masterfully utilizes dark humor throughout the book as she recounts the trials and tribula tions of being a child actress. Despite being the youngest of her siblings, McCurdy quickly became the main breadwinner for her “white trash” family through her acting success.

McCurdy depicts the complex and often demoralizing industry of child acting. She describes many of her earliest roles as being tragic or downright uncomfortable to por tray at such a young age. She recalls being forced to pretend to slowly suffocate to death in a gas chamber and being made to make homopho bic jokes. She also hilariously re counts her horrible audition for the role of an 11-year-old homeless girl while suffering from a bad case of

the flu. She writes that her mother forced cough drops and gatorade down her throat, and, after learning that McCurdy had booked the role, screamed in delight: “My baby’s homeless! My baby’s got edge! My baby’s homeless!”

McCurdy reveals that she never wanted to act. It made her feel inse cure, “fake” and “uncomfortable.” She poignantly parallels her acting career with the curated performance she was forced to carry out to keep her mother placated. The key nar rative of the memoir is McCurdy’s volatile relationship with her mom and the ways in which she could not recognize her own abuse because it was all she knew.

It was her mother’s decision to push McCurdy into acting at a very young age, and her mother who in fluenced McCurdy to develop the eating disorder which would hinder her life for the next decade. She was only 11 when her mother first sug gested calorie restriction. Despite the many years of manipulation and trauma she writes about, McCurdy rejects any black and white portray al of her mother. Instead she paints a

picture of the complicated bond they shared with great sophistication.

Both within her acting career and in her relationship with her mother, McCurdy lacked privacy and autonomy. In her professional life, producers directed her outfits, her words and her behavior down to minute facial gestures. At home, her mother subjected McCurdy to bodi ly exams and verbal criticism and bathed her into her late teens. Most damaging of all was the effect of these influences on McCurdy’s body image, which triggered her battle with anorexia and bulimia.

The content is at times difficult to read and may be triggering for some. McCurdy does not shy away from showing just how unglamor ous her seemingly perfect life was. McCurdy contrasts this former lack of control with the privacy and pow er she now enjoys when writing her own words. She sums it up by saying, “Writing is the opposite of performing to me. Performing feels inherently fake. Writing feels inher ently real.” Writing is a solidly au tonomous outlet for McCurdy amid a world at times characterized by chaos and helplessness.

When her mother died of cancer, McCurdy plunged into a deep grief. She writes, “I have no idea how to go about life without doing it in the shadow of my mother, without my every move being dictated by her wants, her needs, her approval.”

With therapy, McCurdy begins to grapple with the harm of her up bringing. McCurdy admits to her past tendency to defend her moth er’s emotional abuse and physical in vasiveness but ultimately rejects the romanticization of her dead mother.

McCurdy tells the readers how she learned to have grace with her self, to not let shame dictate her eat ing habits and most importantly to not let her mother’s legacy continue to consume her identity.

The ending notes are ones of

Rowing places 29th at Head of the Charles regatta, reflects on team spirit

BY LAUREN LEESE ’23 STAFF WRITER

Mount Holyoke Rowing compet ed at the Head of the Charles regat ta in the Women’s Collegiate Eights category on Sunday, Oct. 23. The first varsity eight took 29th place out of 36 boats with a time of 14:55.151. The competition wrapped up Rowing’s fall season.

“It was a tough go out there,” Head Rowing Coach Seth Hussey said. “I think we’re always hoping to finish with our best race and when that doesn’t happen it’s hard not to be disappointed. In a lot of ways suc cess at the Charles always requires a bit of luck, and we couldn’t quite find any out there. … That’s just how it goes sometimes.”

Despite his disappointment at the result, Hussey expressed grat

itude for the team’s cohesion. “I’m proud of all the effort and commit ment that has gone into making this group a team,” Hussey said. “As time passes, the sting of under-perform ing will subside, and instead we’ll recall fond memories of teammates and time spent racing together.”

Seat 6 rower Bea Rodriguez ’24 described the challenge of racing the Head of the Charles and echoed Hussey’s comments about the Lyons’ team spirit in the competition.

“It’s overwhelming in the best way possible,” Rodriguez said.

“You’re hyped up, there’s a strong sense of pride, and a whole lot of motivation. But … Charles is an ex haustingly tough regatta.”

“There was not a moment in that race where I doubted how hard the team was pushing,” Rodriguez said. “You could feel 100 percent from

everyone, and there’s absolutely nothing else I can ask for. … I just wanted to appreciate the camarade rie and focus of the team. Waiting at the starting line, we’re hyping each other up, laughing at terrible rowing puns and wishing good luck to the crews around us. A split second lat er we’re called to attention and you can feel how serious and focused our crew got.”

Looking ahead to Rowing’s spring season, Rodriguez spoke about their hope for what comes next. “I think when we meet again on Feb. 20, we’re going to see a team full of strength and power, ready to give Smith a run for their money during the spring sprints,” Rodriguez said.

Rowing’s next competition is scheduled for March 16, 2023 at Lake Hartwell in Clemson, South Caroli na.

New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference honors 25th anniversary

conference, according to the NEW MAC. With this development, the NEW 8 became the NEWMAC and annexed two additional institutions: Springfield College and the United States Coast Guard Academy. On July 1, 2013, Emerson College joined the league as well.

“This process was built on ten ants of diversity, equity and inclu sion and expanded its opportunities in sports programs through the years. We tried to focus on the suc cess of our student-athletes, both academically and athletically,” Pat rick B. Summers, the executive di rector of the NEWMAC, said of the conference’s evolution over the past few decades, in a video posted to the NEWMAC Instagram page on Oct. 6, 2022.

“As a conference, we embody ex cellence in the fact that every institu tion has a commitment to providing a high level, competitive experience for its student-athletes,” Dr. G. An thony Grant, the director of athletics at MIT, said in the video. “We [have] had [athletes compete at] national championships, … elite eights, final fours [and we have had] numerous academic and [College Sports In formation Directors of America] All-Americans. We push one anoth er to be better in order to realize our ultimate goal of being the preemi nent conference in Division III.”

The director of athletics & rec reation at Smith College, Kristin Hughes, also commented on the in tegrity of the conference.

that’s about the competitive experi ence or supporting their academic endeavors.”

Dr. Mary Beth A. Cooper, the president of Springfield College, spoke about respect.

“The word respect means a num ber of things to me, especially as it is demonstrated in the NEWMAC league. We have a great respect for our students, a great respect for our colleagues, and it’s demonstrat ed in all of our not only preseason play, [but also our] season play and post-season play,” Cooper said in the video. “To have that respect for each other, on the field, on the ice, wher ever they may be playing, for me, is paramount.”

BY EMILY TARINELLI ’25 SPORTS EDITOR

The New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference began its 25th anniversary celebrations at the beginning of the 2022-2023 academ ic year. The festivities will continue throughout the year.

According to the conference’s website, the NEWMAC originated from the New England Women’s 6 Conference. The NEW 6 began competing from 1985 to 1986 and in cluded members from Babson Col

lege, Brandeis University, the Mas sachusetts Institute of Technology, Smith College, Wellesley College and Wheaton College. When Mount Holyoke College and Worcester Poly technic Institute joined the league in 1988, the NEW 6 was renamed to the NEW 8 Conference. After the 19941995 academic year, Clark University replaced Brandeis University in the NEW 8, when Brandeis switched to a different conference.

In 1998, the NEW 8 voted to in troduce competitive opportunities for men’s athletic programs in the

Currently, the NEWMAC’s com petitive field is spread throughout Massachusetts and Connecticut. On July 1, 2023, Salve Regina Universi ty will join the conference and the NEWMAC’s territory will expand to Rhode Island. Salve Regina’s annex ation will also conclude the NEW MAC’s anniversary celebrations.

That same video posted to Ins tagram also highlighted the NEW MAC’s core values in honor of its 25-year anniversary: excellence, in tegrity and respect.

“I’m a very proud member of the NEWMAC conference, and so when I think about the word integ rity, [I] think about how that word really was a founding principal for the new wave [of the conference] and how that has continued on as we welcomed men into the conference [and] expanded the NEWMAC,” Hughes said in the NEWMAC video. “It’s really, again, something that drives this conference and drives most of the decisions that we make.

… All decisions are based on what is best for a student-athlete, whether

Dana L. Harmon, the director of physical education, recreation & ath letics at Worcester Polytechnic Insti tute, concluded the video by empha sizing the importance of teamwork within and beyond the NEWMAC.

“It’s really not about the individ ual institution and what they need and how they reach their accom plishments,” Harmon said in the video.

“It’s really about all of us col lectively making each other better, [and coming] together as a group to really do an excellent job for our stu dent-athletes, our coaches, our fami lies and our institutions.”

Photo courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard Academy via Flickr U.S. Coast Guard Academy and Springfield College joined the league in 1998 to form NEWMAC.

Stays With You” by Aden Poly doros, a new take on the Bloody Mary myth, discusses overcoming one’s traumas. It contains a diverse range of stories from classic ghost stories to urban legends and allegor ical social commentary, with a story for everyone. Ultimately, the collec tion offers more than enough to give you your fill of horror for Halloween.

Graphic by Mari Al Tayb ’26

Photo courtesy of Mount Holyoke Athletics Mount Holyoke Rowing was 29th out of 36 teams in the Head of the Charles on Sunday, Oct. 23.

Graphic by Natasha Nagarajan

My Chemical Romance returns, cont’d

Of course, seeing the band is a completely different experience from watching it streamed — both Pickel and Levy used the word “surreal” to describe their respective concerts, emphasizing the exhilaration of hearing live the songs they had been listening to for years alongside oth er people who felt the same way. For Pickel, the experience of seeing the band live was hard to believe. “My friend who I saw it with was the one who got me into the band in the first place, and we kept having to squeeze each other’s hands to remind our selves that it was actually happen ing. … [To experience] these songs that have accompanied me through hundreds of hours of car rides and art projects and late nights, to be able to sing those words alongside a room full of people who love them as much as I do — it was magic, I think.” Levy expressed, “Screaming my lungs out to the songs that saved my coordinator, cast and crew were able to create shone through to fans.“I really enjoyed the one scene with the Irish woman,” audience member Nikki Hollis ’25 said in ref erence to Matilda’s monologue about survival sex work. “It was just very powerful in the way that she was act ing, like you could feel the tension when she was going through her emotions. … It was enough to see the stage makeup [of a bruise] on Matil da’s leg. You can get the gist of what’s happening behind the scenes with out seeing the violence right there. The tension is still there, we can in terpret it correctly without having to see it explicitly.” Another patron, Adjoa Baidoo ’24, saw the show every night to support their friends. “The show made me reflect on the things the women in my family have had

life alongside the people who wrote them was a genuinely life-changing experience. Not only that but to be in a room with thousands of people of all ages and walks of life, know ing that most of them have also held onto MCR’s music as a lifeline or as a vehicle for youthful rage, passion and self-expression was jarring and beautiful. There was a sense of com fort, belonging, solidarity and a col lective feeling of cathartic sorrow and euphoria.” Hearing these stu dents talking about their experience, one can see the deep resonance My Chemical Romance and their return has had on many fans.

The North American tour ended Monday, Oct. 17, after five nights at Los Angeles’ Kia Forum, according to AV Club.

There was much speculation among fans about what songs would be played, considering the band’s track record of playing less er-known, often fan-favorite songs. After “The Foundations of Decay,”

Setlist reported, the band went right into a performance of “Sister to Sleep,” performed live just once in 2003 and never released on any al bums — such a deep cut that some in the audience may have assumed it was a new song. The band’s encore included “The Kids from Yesterday” off of their last album — the band’s “mutual favorite,” according to bass ist Mikey Way, for its nostalgic sense of looking back on their career — and the never-before played “Fake Your Death,” the only previously-un heard song from their post-breakup compilation album, “May Death Nev er Stop You.”

The inclusion of “Fake Your Death” feels almost comedic, as now that My Chemical Romance is back together it seems like they re ally did “fake their death,” but given the way the band and its fans have grown over the last nine years, this moment feels less like a resurrection and more of a rebirth out of the foun dations of decay.

Sweet Science of Bruising’ sells out Rooke Theater on Saturday night, cont’d

to go through, … and the amount of nonsense that women especially have to endure and process and just [having] to keep constantly fighting through to stay alive,” Baidoo said.

Pascuito and Yin echoed this when discussing how they connected with their characters. “A big draw from me for [playing] Polly is just that she’s such a fighter,” Pascuito said.

“Her whole thing is survival.” Yin said in doing research for the show, she learned about domestic abuse. After supportive conversations from the cast and crew, she focused on Anna’s fight. “I think the strength and survival instincts in Anna are universal.” Yin told MHN. “If I can center everything around that, then the character may become believ able.”

Baidoo reflected: “There’s some thing about the performances in this show that make you really look at

these women who make mistakes, who sometimes aren’t nice, who are rowdy and rough around the edges and hurt and bruised and sometimes sexual, and grieving and happy and joking and so on, and just bask in that truth that women do not have to be perfect to deserve life.”

“The Sweet Science of Bruis ing” was so popular tickets were completely sold out Saturday night. “This is the first show I’ve directed live here [in] three years,” Tuleja said. “It was so nice to see on open ing night how just excited people were — and not just people who came to see the show, but also the cast and the crew and everybody in volved. So I just hope that that con tinues, that sort of excitement and desire to come to the theater and see work. Whether it’s challenging work, or comedic work or whatever it is — it comes back.”

Mount Holyoke News

Editor-in-Chief Sophie Soloway ’23

Managing Editor of Content Emma Watkins ’23

Managing Editor of Layout Jesse Hausknecht-Brown ’25

Copy Chief Lenox Johnson ’24

Executive Board

Publisher Ali Meizels ’23

Managing Editor of Web Zoe Tang ’24

Business Manager Katie Goss ’23 Human Resources Hannah Raykher ’23

Student group protests new COVID-19 guidelines, cont’d

u CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

to move to campus isolation space. The second change was a commitment to working with the Student Government Association to add a student representative to the College’s Health and Safety Commit tee in the future. The current policy regarding masking in indoor spaces, however, was maintained.

“We are and will remain a ‘masks welcome’ community,” Tatum wrote.

In response to this, MHC Covid Safety Now issued a press release that evening expressing dissatisfac tion with the email’s stated compro mise.

“President Tatum’s message was misleading and meant to placate popular opinion about their (lack of) [COVID-19] policies by throwing us the bone of isolation housing and a single student representative,” the release reads. “Furthermore, while isolation housing is certainly a sig nificant demand, it is only one of seven demands that we have. … Our demands are far from being realized, and we will remain in Mary Lyon Hall until the administration pro vides substantial proof of actionable steps they will take to meet them, to be checked on periodically.”

On Oct. 24, MHC Covid Safety Now held a town hall meeting for community members to engage in dialogue with the students organiz ing the protest effort. The location of this town hall was kept confi dential until 15 minutes prior to its beginning, according to their Twit ter. This attempt at obfuscation oc curred in the wake of unanticipated Public Safety and Service presence following a public announcement of the time and location of a previous consensus meeting on social me dia. The group discussed this con flict in a press release issued Oct. 23, writing that “campus police and members of the Division of Student Life attempted to prevent us from holding a meeting with the Mount Holyoke community, standing at all the entrances of Mary Lyon Hall and intimidating us. … The very attempt to dictate the grounds in which we conduct our business is directly an tagonistic to our efforts — this is a student-run action and we have the right to assemble and organize as we see fit.”

The town hall included discus sions of previous interactions with administration and ways in which the group can engage more effective ly with the community.

In an effort to reach a level of un derstanding with the student body regarding the College’s COVID-19 policy, Dr. Cheryl A. Flynn, medical director of Health Services, attended the Oct. 25 SGA Senate meeting to answer questions about COVID-19, both those previously submitted by students through a Google Form and those asked by students attending the meeting.

Flynn noted that concerns about disability justice were a common theme among students, estimating that approximately 27-30 percent of the questions submitted in advance inquired about it. “Students have access to accommodations related to compromised immune systems,” Flynn said during Senate. “Students who are eligible for accommodations can register and require that the classes they are in are fully masked, … every member of the class, includ ing the professor.”

the beginning of the fall semester. When asked why this information was no longer available to the public through the now-defunct COVID-19 Dashboard, Flynn indicated that cur rent case counts can now be found in the weekly email newsletter Mount Holyoke This Week.

After the conclusion of the Sen ate meeting, an email issued by SGA Chair of Committees Shanthini Ragoonaden ’24 to the community announced that positions for two student representatives within the Health and Safety Committee would be open for application until Nov. 1, following “popular demands from students.”

Current

campus COVID-19 policies

At the time of publication, the indoor mask policy remains “masks welcome.” The College’s official COVID-19 Health and Safety page, last updated Oct. 14, notes that masking is not required indoors unless a person has tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 10 days, has been exposed to someone known to have COVID-19 or is experienc ing potential COVID-19 symptoms but has not yet received a negative test. Additionally, those entering the Health Center and the athletic training room within the Kendall Sports and Dance Complex are still required to wear a mask.

In an Oct. 5 letter, Tatum an nounced the Oct. 14 end of the Col legewide indoor mask mandate and the administrative reasoning behind it.

“As discussed in previous com munications, the widespread avail ability of vaccines, boosters and medications have taken us to a new phase of dealing with COVID-19. Ac cording to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with the new tools available to us for reduc ing COVID-19 severity, there is sig nificantly less risk of severe illness, hospitalization and death compared to earlier in the pandemic.” Tatum wrote. “As we shift from a pandemic to an endemic phase, we also need to shift from institutional responsi bility for COVID-19 protections to individual responsibility and make our own decisions about whether to remain masked in public spaces or not, both on campus and off.”

Vaccination requirements have remained unchanged. Both staff and students are required, per CDC advisory, to have received a prima ry COVID-19 vaccination series, as well as one booster; they are also encouraged to “stay up to date” and “receive further boosters when and if necessary,” according to the COVID-19 Health and Safety page.

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Flynn also provided data regard ing the rate of infection since the beginning of the semester, explain ing that nearly 220 students had tested positive for COVID-19 since

There is no required COVID-19 testing on campus, although regu lar testing is encouraged. Students exposed to COVID-19 and experi encing symptoms may make testing appointments via College Health Services. Those who test positive should report their results through the Positive COVID-19 test report form on Embark, found on the Health Services webpage. Students who are asymptomatic and wish to test may obtain one on their own or, as described in the Sept. 30 edition of the Dean’s Corner, pick up a free rap id COVID-19 test via the Division for Student Life in Blanchard Hall, room 205. Additionally, overnight guests staying on campus must either be vaccinated or have received a neg ative test result. Disabled students seeking accommodations should contact Disability Services, while other questions are directed to the dean of students, according to the COVID-19 Health and Safety page.

Jennette McCurdy releases new candid memoir, cont’d

u CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7

years of self-deprivation, refus inghope: the joy of eating a cookie after years of self-deprivation, re fusing involvement in an “iCarly” re boot and, perhaps most significantly of all, deciding to no longer visit her mother’s grave. The title of the mem oir, “I’m Glad My Mom Died,” is not simply a shocking grab for attention, but a thoughtful and sincere state ment. McCurdy’s story is constantly surprising, and it provides the read er with a narratively distinct and highly personal insight into the lack luster underbelly of the celebrity ex perience. Lauren Hough, bestselling

author of “Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing,” wrote in her cover review that “McCurdy brings readers deep into the milieu so often hidden from outsiders. This is a beautifully craft ed coming-of-age story as fearless as its author.”

For further reading, those who liked McCurdy’s “I’m Glad My Mom Died” might also be interested in checking out the recently penned memoir by Tom Felton of “Harry Potter.” On Oct. 18, 2022, Felton pub lished “Beyond the Wand,” which of fers a similarly vulnerable retelling of a child actor’s story of the behindthe-scenes of a popular movie fran chise.

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

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