With dust storms swirling above, explosives dropping
in the evenings, and the Army rolling in, Air Force Major Kimberly Calcutt
McQueen ’99 sat atop Saddam Hussein’s former private terminal at the Baghdad
airport in the summer of 2007, maintaining the communications network for Air
Force personnel deployed there and preparing to set up communications services
for a newly arrived Army battalion. In the next four months she would connect
the Iraqi police force with U.S. forces and expand General Petraeus’s communications
network.
Despite the danger and pressure of the
assignment, McQueen relished the opportunity to use her skills. “The military
places a high value on knowledge and advanced education,” says McQueen, “but we
spend so much time training that sometimes it’s nice to actually get out there
and do the job.”
Despite the training, McQueen admits
that she never expected to find herself dodging mortars at the Baghdad Airport,
or taking shelter from falling bombs in a bunker before continuing her communications
networking tasks.
A young
alumna’s discovery in Yellowstone National Park is
causing a stir far beyond its gates and has sobering implications for the
future of the planet.
For nearly five years, Sarah McMenamin
’04 has been conducting research on a subspecies of tiger salamander, called Ambystoma
tigrinum, as part of her doctoral thesis at Stanford University. The
salamanders are robust little creatures that have flourished for thousands of
years in vernal pools and kettle ponds formed by glaciers.
Sarah McMenamin ’04 surveying a pond in Yellowstone National Park for frogs and salamanders. Photo: Yu-Jun Lee
President Creighton during the laurel parade Photo: Paul Schnaittacher
The Quarterly invited alumnae to submit questions for
President Joanne V. Creighton to answer. You sent many, and she chose which to
answer here. Others will feed into a farewell article planned for the end of
Creighton’s presidency next spring.
Q. I was a student on the committee of faculty, staff and students you formed in
1996 to develop the Plan for 2003. We spent a lot of time working on the
college mission that year. Knowing what you know now, how would that mission
statement be different? Elizabeth O'Donoghue '97
A. I’m proud that we were able to boil down the College’s mission into
a single sentence: it warms my heart as an English professor! The key elements in
that sentence—academic excellence, diverse residential community of women,
liberal arts, and purposeful engagement in the world—are still the touchstones
of Mount Holyoke today. I wouldn’t change a word.
Q. What is the biggest challenge facing the College today and what’s
being done about it? Melinda A. Mann ’79
Ten-year celebrations included a talk by journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault (left), student presentations (center), and (right) a meeting between student grant recipients and Center founder Harriet Levine Weissman ’58 (right).
Photos by Paul Schnaittacher (right); Fred LeBlanc
As the
Harriet L. and Paul M. Weissman Center for Leadership and the Liberal Arts
celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, its impact as a vibrant hive for teaching,
learning, and social action at Mount Holyoke continues to grow. Operating out
of a few offices in Porter Hall, the center has insinuated itself into many
aspects of academic life on campus, has established bonds with the surrounding
community, and promises to be a source of new approaches to creative pedagogy
in higher education nationally.
“Our idea was to get our tentacles into
as many classrooms, as many faculty gatherings, as many student gatherings as
possible, and to really encourage and shape campus conversations,” said Christopher
Benfey in a recent interview. Benfey, a respected literary critic and author
who is also Mellon Professor of English, codirected the Weissman Center from
2000 to 2004.
Note: This article is part of "What Everyone
Should Know About...", a Quarterly series by MHC professors.
By
Sam Mitchell
Almost the earliest pieces of writing we possess speculate
and argue about the infinite. Greek philosopher Zeno's paradoxes are probably
the earliest. One of them (written in the fifth century BC) concerns Achilles, fleetest
of foot of all the Greeks, who is to run a race with a tortoise. He gives the
tortoise a ten-meter start. He runs ten times as fast as the tortoise, but
cannot ever overtake him. Why not?
By the time Achilles reaches the point
where the tortoise began, the tortoise is ahead, by one meter.
By the time Achilles reaches the end of
that one meter, the tortoise is still ahead, by ten centimeters.
By the time Achilles reaches the ten
centimeters, the tortoise is still ahead, by one centimeter.
Ireland’s President Tells Grads, “Do Good, Humanly Uplifting Things”
It is no accident that the peace and reconciliation that eluded Ireland during its decades-long “troubles” finally came to pass in a new era “where women’s talents are flooding every aspect of life as never before,” said Ireland President Mary McAleese in her commencement address to the class of 2009, which was broadcast live via the Internet.
“For centuries, the world has tried to fly on one wing, and it has not been a pretty sight as it struggled with the downstream consequences of wasting the talent and potential of that other wing, the women of the world,” she emphasized to the 566 women receiving degrees on May 24.
The challenges for women, of the developing world especially, remain daunting, McAleese went on, and all who were awarded MHC degrees—including thirty-six Frances Perkins scholars, one master’s degree recipient, twenty-four international students earning certificates, and three post-baccalaureate degree students—should “go and do good, humanly uplifting things that will not be done unless you do them.”
Inspiration to work hard and long and with indomitable spirit was provided by Luora Webb FP’09, who received her degree this year at the age of eighty-two and is believed to be the oldest person to graduate from MHC. The first African-American to be hired in the Springfield, Massachusetts, public school system, she received a standing ovation and roar of appreciation from the audience.
Also receiving honorary degrees at MHC’s 172nd commencement were Princess Loulwa al-Faisal al Saud, founder of Effat University, the first private university for women in Saudi Arabia; and Clare Waterman ’89, chief of the Laboratory of Cell and Tissue Morphodynamics at the National Institutes of Health’s Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
When the news first hit that Michelle Obama was starting an organic
vegetable garden, I became obsessed, reading everything about it. As a
passionate locavore and organic foodie, I can’t begin to describe the thrill I
felt about her garden. As a black woman, my first thought went to the ancestors
who built the White House, imagining their pride and joy in watching one of
their daughters as she reminded the world of their legacy in ways they could
only dream about.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not “post-racial,” but I didn’t have any of
the racial anxieties that numerous brilliant black women bloggers and academics
have written about in relation to the First Lady’s garden. Instead, I
immediately wanted to know the veggies Michelle Obama was planting, who was
helping her, and whether this was her first garden. I wanted to know what
Michelle Obama’s favorite veggies were; if like me, she loved collard greens
and Brussels sprouts. I even wanted to know what books and resources she used
to learn about gardening so that I could read them too. It’s no secret that the
First Lady was really the Obama I wanted to vote for last November, but Barack
is all right too. (More)
Current Issue
Welcome to the “blogazine” (blog+magazine = blogazine) version of the Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly. You’ll find the same articles as in the printed magazine; however, here we also post extras, and you may also comment on any article. Click the “comments” link to the right of the article title to read comments from others or to post your own. If you can’t find something, use the search tool, browse the categories below, or browse the archives.
With dust storms swirling above, explosives dropping
in the evenings, and the Army rolling in, Air Force Major Kimberly Calcutt
McQueen ’99 sat atop Saddam Hussein’s former private terminal at the Baghdad
airport in the summer of 2007, maintaining the communications network for Air
Force personnel deployed there and preparing to set up communications services
for a newly arrived Army battalion. In the next four months she would connect
the Iraqi police force with U.S. forces and expand General Petraeus’s communications
network.
