Campus Currents—Summer 2009
Commencement 2009
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.
For full text of the commencement speeches and a photo gallery, go to www.mtholyoke.edu/news/channels/27/stories/5681394.
Graduation Was as 'Green' as the Emerald Isle
MHC launched “green commencement” this year. Printed materials were substantially reduced; seniors raised enough funds to purchase renewable energy certificates (RECs) for the entire weekend; compostable cutlery was used at selected events. The green commencement Web site also featured a carbon calculator for campus visitors to estimate how much carbon dioxide they emitted traveling to campus. Check it out at www.mtholyoke.edu/ce/22588.shtml.
In Session
Intellectual Indigestion: You Are What (You’re Told to) Eat
As anybody who’s taken an anthropology or gender studies class with her knows, gender studies professor Chaia Heller likes YouTube, the video Web site. That’s why, on the first day of the seminar, I wasn’t surprised that she showed a funny video clip examining the ways in which women are targeted by television ads for American yogurt.
Since then, we’ve seen everything from upsetting UNICEF clips of malnourished infants to US television ads touting the benefits (or at least minimizing the risks) of high-fructose corn syrup.
Multimedia clips, like those from YouTube, are especially helpful in a course like “Gender, Food, and Agriculture in a Global Context,” a subject largely ignored in scholarly discourse. Situated at the intersection of gender studies and anthropology, the class entails thinking critically about what exactly nourishes our bodies and why we choose the foods we do.
Chaia Heller photo by Paul Schnaittacher
As women living in America, we examined the “health and beauty” norms prevalent in mainstream media; we used international case studies and ethnographies to deconstruct gendered food practices around the world. Despite the lack of academic attention to the subject, our class never seemed to run out of things to talk about.
We examined Michael Pollan’s bestseller, The Omnivore’s Dilemma; farmers’ use of genetically modified organisms; and the intimate relationships between meal partners and sexual partners around the world. We examined American ideals of whiteness and thinness (especially among women), and Japanese mothers’ painstaking practice of making traditional obentos, the highly specialized lunchboxes for preschool-age children.
Presentations by groups of three or four students encouraged the class to discuss French philosopher Michel Foucault’s notions of patriarchal government structure one week, and international breastfeeding practices another. Heller’s lectures functioned as a jumping-off point for lively class discussions, and were always illustrated with YouTube clips.
We found that it is hard to separate ourselves from themes as pervasive in real life as food and gender, especially when they’re so inextricably linked. So we talked endlessly on, through our breaks, and after class. We sensed an opportunity to inspire change on both a personal and social level.—Hannah Clay Wareham ’09
Place-Based Studies Debut in Costa Rica
Last spring, Emma Angus ’11 researched how releasing a cheese factory’s effluent into the La Cuecha River in Costa Rica affected worms and insects downstream. For a recycling project, Kelsey Russell ’10 made a “life-changing” trip to a Costa Rican landfill, where people lived and collected recyclables for resale.
Both MHC students were participants in Global-Local Challenges to Sustainability: The Costa Rican Experience, a new fifteen-week, study-abroad program focused on sustainability and environmental science. Based at the Monteverde Institute, which hugs the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, a natural science and ecotourism hotspot, the program is cosponsored by MHC and Goucher College.
Angus and Russell enrolled in four courses, team-taught by MHC and Institute faculty. The applied-research project into tropical ecology that Angus took, and community health—which was Russell’s choice—resulted in an end-of-semester meeting with community residents to share and discuss their findings.
Lynn Morgan, professor of anthropology at MHC, was the program’s faculty director in spring. A frequent visitor to the country who has written a book about the Costa Rican healthcare system, Morgan noted in an e-mail from Monteverde that “students get plenty of hands-on attention in designing their research projects and making community contacts.”
Angus and Russell were enthusiastic about their experience. While the courses were conducted in English, they made good use of their Spanish by interviewing residents and socializing with their host families. Russell also found that a more reflective existence in a small-town in the tropics agreed with her. “I work two jobs [at MHC] and run the Environmental Club. [In Monteverde], there were no jobs or extracurriculars. That was the biggest change—not having to micromanage. I took personal time to enjoy life.”
For Angus, an upstate New York resident, the program led to a switch in majors, from environmental studies to geography, as she experienced firsthand the pressing human and social aspects of environmental sustainability.
“We learned how to facilitate meaningful interactions between humans and nature,” she said of her research class, which stressed the fact that nature was no longer pristine, anywhere. This summer, she’ll put those skills into practice as a naturalist at the Adirondack Natural History Museum.—M.H.B.
To read a blog posted by a Goucher student in the program and see lots of photos, go to http://strangecrossing.blogspot.com.
Leapin’ Lizards!
Researchers know lizards that shed their tails to avoid predators risk infection, lose valuable energy reserves, and even sex appeal. Nevertheless, in the face of death a foreshortened back end may seem a small price, as tail regeneration is swift.
But Gary Gillis, a biology professor at MHC, and his former student Lauren Bonvini ’07 wondered if there weren’t other hazards for the lizard awaiting a new tail. For example, what happens when the reptile in question tries to jump (a common transportation mode for animals living in trees)?
Turns out, distance and speed are not affected, but in-flight stability is profoundly altered. Check the video to see a comparison between landings of a green anole with and without a tail. Heartbreaking—and completely fascinating.
Gillis and Bonvini published their findings in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
Emma Angus ’11, left, and Kelsey Russell ’10 in Costa Rica.
Program in American Studies Sunsets
The changing nature of interdisciplinary studies, and shifting faculty and student interests coalesced this spring into the decision to eliminate American studies as a major at MHC.
Conceived of by the Pulitzer Prize–winning historian William McFeely, who taught at MHC for sixteen years beginning in 1970, American studies became the place for English, history, politics, and religion scholars to indulge their interdisciplinary interests, said Don Weber, professor of English and current cochair of the program.
But over the years, cultural studies became routine within the traditional departments, and the need for “crossfertilization” in a special place was no longer necessary. Too, Weber said, as scholars identified with American studies became interested in other areas, such as gender and film studies, teaching those subjects within their own departments became the norm.
“The disciplines are becoming more interdisciplinary,” he said. “There is almost no difference in courses that are housed in departments and those that are housed in American studies.”
Weber hopes that the program will eventually be reimagined by a younger group of faculty members, and that it might be called ethnic studies or transnational studies. “American studies is not dead,” he added, “but on hold.”
Few current students are affected. The three American studies majors in the class of 2009 and eight in the class of 2010 will have their majors honored. After that, interested students will create their own special major. —M.H.B.
Tidbits
Oriented Toward Inclusivity
This fall, MHC ’s preorientation program expands its focus on race and ethnicity to include white students. “Promoting Intercultural Dialogue and Creating Inclusion” will afford newbies the opportunity to join one of three affinity groups—international students, US students of color and multiracial students, and US white students—and come together in combined cross-racial/ethnic groups. Traditionally focused on helping international students and students of color adjust to a new country/predominantly white campus, the pilot program is designed to further promote an inclusive campus community.
Eight Awarded Tenure
The MHC Board of Trustees approved tenure for Renae Brodie in biological sciences, Calvin Chen in politics, Justin Crumbaugh in Spanish, Ombretta Frau in Italian, Christian Gundermann in Spanish, Amy Martin in English, Megan Núñez in chemistry, and Jessica Sidman in mathematics. All eight gained the position of associate professor.
MHC Greens Join D.C. Rally
Nika Meyers ’11, president of the Environmental Action Coalition (kneeling, center), together with a contingent of fellow MHCers, joined an estimated 12,000 young people at Powershift ’09 (www.powershift09.org) in Washington, DC, second semester.
Just visiting the capital—a first for some MHC participants—was eye-opening, especially during the first 100 days of a new administration. In addition to attending a series of panels and workshops on creative activism and environmentalism leadership, Meyers and friends were inspired by featured speaker Van Jones, founder of Green for All (www.greenforall.org), which works to help lift people out of poverty and into jobs in the growing “green” economy.
Returning to campus, Meyers, who works at an afterschool program at Holyoke High School, helped organize a symposium on climate change at MHC for a group of largely Hispanic and African-American students not yet fully tuned in to the issue.
“We think it’s important to send a message that there is a youth climate movement, “ said Meyers. “And it’s important to send a positive message, because it’s hard to change people’s habits.”—M.H.B.
Act with Feeling! 
Actor, director, and television and movie star Paul Sorvino gave a master class with selected Mount Holyoke and UMass students in spring at MHC ’s Rooke Theatre. Sorvino was in the area for the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts’ spring festival.
Working to extract authentic performances from two MHC actors, Sorvino leaned extremely close to Bryna Turner ’12 on stage, making her uncomfortable and eliciting a very real recoil. “See how much more interesting that is,” he reportedly said. “It’s always more interesting to see how people are affected by each other.”
Sorvino, a Tony-nominated character actor, was a familiar face on the television series Law and Order. His film roles include Henry Kissinger in Oliver Stone’s Nixon in 1995 and a flamboyant evangelist in Carl Reiner’s Oh, God! in 1979.
At right: Paul Sorvino leads a master class for MHC students. photo by Fred LeBlanc
Student Edge
Trauma Research Yields Surprising Results
Students from diverse fields in the arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences shared their independent research projects in spring at the annual Senior Symposium.
One participant, Marissa Sicley ’09, investigated the differences in the growth, sense of self, and coping strategies between women who had experienced individual traumas and those who had experienced group-based traumas. Her results were surprising.
A psychology and theater double major from Turners Falls, Massachusetts, Sicley’s project, “Pathways to Collective Identities: A Mixed-Method Examination of Post-Traumatic Cognitions, Group Identity, and Sense of Self,” involved forty-two female participants recruited from local Hampshire County. Each had experienced either a man-made or natural group disaster, or an interpersonal trauma such as abuse or rape. Participants completed a questionnaire they received in the mail; six of those women were randomly selected for a personal, in-depth interview.
Sicley’s expectation, based on previous research in the field, was that survivors of traumas like natural or man-made disasters would experience more connectedness, a heightened sense of belonging, and a higher collective self-esteem than survivors of traumas like rape or sexual abuse. What she found was decidedly different.
“Those who had experienced collective traumas believed that they engaged in behaviors that controlled what happened to them more than those who had not experienced collective traumas,” said Sicley. In addition, those who experienced natural or man-made disasters felt more self-blame than those whose trauma had been interpersonal. Sicley says one possible explanation for her findings is that people who believe they have control over their situations naturally blame themselves when traumatic events happen to them, regardless of the nature of the event.
“This attribution of responsibility may make the person feel more aware of how to prevent a situation in the future, even if the situation was actually beyond their control.”—M.H.B.
(Left) Marissa Sicley ’09; photo by Ben Barnhart. (Right) Emily Yates ’11; photo by Fred LeBlanc
MHC Poet Wins Glascock Prize
Mount Holyoke sophomore Emily Yates was the winner of the eighty-sixth annual Kathryn Irene Glascock ’22 Intercollegiate Poetry Competition in April. Chosen anonymously to compete by the faculty-student Glascock Committee, Yates read her work in front of a general audience and three poet-judges.
The contest was started in 1923 with a gift from the parents of Kathryn Irene Glascock ’22 as a memorial to their daughter, who died soon after graduation. Glascock had been a promising poet. Part of the appeal of the competition is to experience, at least for a moment, the life of a poet among peers, and to soak up the spirit of many renowned poets who have participated in the contest in years past.
Yates, an English major from North Carolina, says she has been writing poetry for as long as she can remember. She and half a dozen undergraduate poets were given ten minutes to read their poetry aloud. In addition to MHC, poets represented American University, Bennington College, Smith College, University of Pittsburgh, and Yale University.
The poet-judges were Erica Dawson, author of Big-Eyed Afraid; Rachel Hadas, author of River of Forgetfulness; and Baron Wormser, author of The Road Washes Out in Spring. Judges in the past have included Robert Frost, James Merrill, William Meredith, Marianne Moore, Richard Wilbur, and Louise Bogan. Sylvia Plath submitted an entry in 1955, the year she graduated from Smith. Read poems by Yates below, then share your own poetry.
WILDFIRE
By Emily Yates ’11
In that barbed-wire, wildfire pasture
we picked pocketfuls of blackened berries,
unfit for birds’ beaks,
and force-fed each other that wicked soured fruit,
painting our mouths rich as night.
We lay hidden in glass-sharp grass,
still, in spite of the wind,
and counted the chirps
of copulating crickets.
We thieved the wings of butterflies
leaving wormy, limping things,
then paraded our capture as eyelids,
the brambles blushing as we passed.
We lay back and cursed the clouds
until they pissed their heavy dissension
on every inch of our skin.
And still, and so,
we lay there,
blasphemous and biting
our own sin-tipped tongues,
tracing each other’s bloody bends
until the fire melted our grasping eyes,
until the flames made our bony frames
a part of the picture.
We lay there until the heat taught us god
had slept for years in our own speckled flesh,
until we knew we had been worshippers all along.
COCOON
By Emily Yates ’11
Bark brown cradle
Disembodied womb
taunted by the wind
like the sap-sucked leaf—
weathered—
but anchored to its tree.
Sexless shell
Quilted cave
Time-worn transformer
modestly swelling
in soupy revision,
covert in melting metamorphosis.
Wet with thunder
Warm with rain
but still, still
this spun refuge.
Breathe,
almost…
Blink,
not quite…
and then—
slowly—
a wing.
Rhyme Time
Grab your "poetic license" and share your own poems (rhyming or not) by using the "add comment" feature at the bottom of this page. Memories by poets who competed in past Glascock competitions are especially welcome. (Who judged the year you read? Did your poem win, or were you "robbed"?)
Eight Professors Retire
Eight members of the MHC faculty retired in spring. Five posed for a photo at their retirement party. They were from left, George Cobb, professor of mathematics and statistics; John Varriano, professor of art and art history; Melinda Spratlan, professor of music; Allen Bonde, professor of music; and Robert Weaver, professor of mathematics and computer science. Also retiring were Joyce Devlin, professor of theatre arts; Carolyn Collette, professor of English; and Harold Garrett-Goodyear, professor of history. To read citations presented them by President Joanne Creighton, click here.
Reflections by Retiring Faculty
The Quarterly staff sent a questionnaire to all retiring faculty this spring; below are all the memories shared by those who responded. We hope their recollections spur good memories of time you may have spent working with these professors.
Name: Allen Bonde
Title and Department: Professor of Music
Total number of years teaching at MHC? I have been at Mount Holyoke College for thirty-eight years; in the last two, I did special compositional projects.
Best classroom memory: It was the first day of classes in my Beginning Composition course. Nine Mount Holyoke students were sitting in the front row patiently waiting for class to begin, when suddenly the door opened and five male Hampshire students entered, sat behind the Mount Holyoke students and smiled puckishly. One of the Hampshire students came over to the piano and placed an apple (the delicious fruit, not the computer) on it for my musical and physical nourishment. I knew immediately that this would be the best composition class ever... and it was!
What you’ll miss most about teaching: "Planting seeds," which is at the heart of teaching, and being a student myself, reflected in my motto, “Teaching is the art of discovery."
What you’ll miss least about teaching: Department meetings
Immediate and/or long-term plans for retirement: Compose/Perform/teach/ Perform/Compose.... Always sharing the gifts that were given to me
If you’ll be continuing your academic work, what will you be working on? Teaching lifelong learning classes and performing concerts
What did you always want to say to a class but never did? If I had taught piano, I would have shared my great love for the instrument and its repertoire, both solo and chamber.
Favorite course to teach: I have taught many "favorite" classes but the two I will always treasure are most recent: "The Nine Symphonies of Beethoven: A Listing Survey," and "Music in the American Musical: the Golden Age."
Funniest thing you ever did on campus (Faculty Show, maybe?): Playing the piano in a gorilla suit during the second half of Faculty Show in 1972, my first year at MHC. Needless to say my colleagues in the music department weren't impressed! But every one else loved it!!
In retrospect, most important thing you did on campus: Composed "To Walk Beyond Dreams" which resulted in the back-lighting of the Rose Window in Abbey Memorial Chapel, and the performance in Abbey Chapel of my extensive composition, "Somersault," for women's voices, seven percussionists, and handbells at a Regional American Society of Composers Regional Conference in 1981.
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Name: Joyce Devlin
Title and Department: Professor of Theatre Arts
Total number of years teaching at MHC? Twenty-nine years
What you’ll miss most about teaching: Working with students and colleagues
Immediate and/or long-term plans for retirement: Performing as an actor/singer/bassist
Favorite course to teach: Directing productions in the Rooke Theatre
If you hadn’t been a professor, you would have worked as? Actor
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Name: Melinda K. Spratlan
Title and Department: Professor of Music
Total Number of Years Teaching at Mount Holyoke: Thirty-eight years
I do not teach classes. I teach individual singing lessons. Since all my teaching is one-on-one, the thing I will miss most is the opportunity to get to know my students and be a part of their MHC experience in a way that is not always possible for classroom teachers. I cannot think of a single thing that I will not miss about teaching. However, I will not miss meetings, committees, evaluations, and writing and/or editing letters and reports!
My fondest memory about teaching is the “aha” moment. Studying voice is often frustrating. A student may understand intellectually what I am telling her about vocal technique, but the muscles controlling her voice will take many repetitions in the practice room before it all comes together (singing students are like student athletes in that way). But the time always comes when intellect and muscle memory do come together and the student sings better than she ever has before. That “aha” moment is always magical to me, from my first student to my over seven-hundredth student.
The most important thing I have tried to do is to reinforce my students’ love of classical music, and to give them the critical ears and knowledge with which to judge it. Very few of my singing students have gone on to make a living as a professional singer: it is a notoriously difficult thing to do. My hope is that my students will be the ones who will sit in the local orchestra or community music center boards, scream (carefully, of course) when music in the schools is on the cutting block, and be a faithful concert attendee. But, most of all, I hope they will continue to have music in their lives for the joy and satisfaction and touch of humanity that music has always been able to impart to those who listen.
I guess the funniest thing I ever did was just to be me. You’ve got to have a sense of humor to teach singing since some pretty weird things can happen to your voice when you least expect it. I don’t know how many times I’ve congratulated a student on sounding good and then the very next thing out of her mouth is awful. I can also be a bit goofy. I come up with words and phrases that aren’t in any dictionary, but my students (and colleagues) usually get it, since they are used to my being nonsensical sometimes.
My performing days are over, but in retirement I will continue to play bridge and read and go to concerts, both locally and in Boston and New York City (and at Rutgers, where our youngest son will begin doctoral studies in choral conducting in January). My husband and I want to travel as much as we can, although the current financial climate has put some of our plans on hold. Our children are in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Florida, and we will spend time with them. Our first grandchild was born in December 2008, so we will be in New Jersey a lot!
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Name: Bob Weaver
Title and Department: Kennedy-Schelkunoff Professor, Department of
Mathematics and Statistics and Department of Computer Science
Total number of years
teaching at MHC? Thirty-nine years
Best classroom memory: (not in classroom, but right after a class) A
student came into my office and said “That was such a beautiful theorem you
showed us today!” Things like that make it so very worthwhile.
What you’ll miss most
about teaching: The warmth and
enthusiasm of the students and of my colleagues.
What you’ll miss least
about teaching: assigning grades
to student work
Immediate and/or
long-term plans for retirement: I
look forward to the chance to do more singing and writing of music, helping my
wife with the computers in her medical office, doing some consulting on the
computer, and learning and doing some more computer graphics.
If you’ll be continuing
your academic work, what will you be working on? I will hope to do some more graphics work and
continue a mathematical project that I’ve been working on.
Biggest change
(personal and/or professional) during your years here? For me it is the presence of the many students
from other countries as well as Frances Perkins students, all of whom add so
much to the learning experience of everyone. Also, personally, I made the shift
from being just in the mathematics department to being in computer science as
well—one of that department’s founding members.
What did you always
want to say to a class but never did?
It’s what I didn’t say enough – to tell them how much it meant to me to be able
to work with such vibrant, interesting, and wonderful people. Mount Holyoke has
always been and remains a very special place.
Favorite course to
teach: In mathematics: the calculus
sequence and lattice theory; in computer science: computer graphics
Funniest thing you ever did on campus:
- One fine day in early May, my linear algebra class told me that we were going to meet outdoors that day since it was so beautiful. I agreed, but I needed to have a board to write on (of course – this is mathematics!) So we found a green board on wheels in a biology lab and moved it out to the open area between Clapp and the Williston Library for our class. Afterward, I rolled the board back into the lab in Clapp. Unfortunately, the top of the board made contact with a ring hanging on a chain from the ceiling that triggered a very wet shower, completely soaking me and the floor around. Luckily, Marilyn Pryor was close by and knew how to turn the emergency shower off!
- Also,
Faculty Shows have been marvelous fun. I have sung while President David
Truman and a group of faculty members did a formal dance on stage; I’ve
been Ed MacMahon peddling tapes (like “Overcoming Peace of Mind” and other
similar titles); I’ve twice in the Faculty Show been Garrison Keillor;
several times I’ve done Mr. Rogers, and I wrote the words to “I am the
Very Model of a Modern College President” that Joanne sang beautifully in
her first Faculty Show as our own Modern President!
In retrospect, most
important thing you did on campus:
It’s difficult to say. I have played a part in the move to incorporate
computers in the teaching of mathematics, starting with my writing computer
software to teach calculus (first with the Apple II and then with MS Windows
computers). I have tried to be a unifying influence in my departments over the
years and, in recruiting faculty members, to adhere to the dictum: to always
hire people who are better than I. In this, we have been enormously successful.
I cannot imagine a finer group of colleagues than it has been my pleasure to
work with for these nearly four decades.
If you hadn’t been a professor, you would have worked as? Perhaps an artist or a musician or a poet. Maybe a tour guide or a church worker or a salesman or….. Who knows?
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Partnering in Hard Times
Tough economic times are leading to increased partnerships within the
Five College Consortium. Transportation alternatives, distance-learning
options, shared administrative duties, and better integrated class
schedules are all being considered by member colleges MHC, Amherst,
Hampshire, Smith, and the University of Massachusetts.
Republican Conference
The Massachusetts Alliance for College Republicans (MACR) met at Mount
Holyoke for its annual spring convention. The network of student
Republicans on college campuses in Massachusetts elected new leadership
and attended a day of presentations from Five-College professors on
political theories.
Sports
Sarah Gray ’09 Named Alumnae Association Scholar-Athlete for 2009
Rower Sarah Gray wrote, “There is no greater terror or joy than to take the whole sum of who you are and express it in four minutes.” Writhing in pain and gasping … for oxygen, the experience “may not sound like fun. It isn’t fun. It is totally fulfilling.”
Gray was honored by the Alumnae Association with this year’s Scholar-Athlete Award. A neuroscience and behavior major, Gray’s rowing achievements are many.
In 2007, her boat placed fourth in the senior open 8 at the United States Rowing National Regatta. In 2008, she won a bronze medal in the lightweight intermediate pair event at the National Regatta and stroked the winning varsity 8 at the Seven Sisters Championship. In 2009, she was selected to the NEWMAC All Conference Championship. She stroked the sixth-best Division III varsity 8 at the New England Championship Regatta.
Gray last year also received the Bernice MacLean Award for excellence in biology, and was a summer science research fellow; a member of Psi Chi (the national honor society for psychology); and a Rhodes Scholarship finalist.
“Sarah is a born leader,” said Jeanne Friedman, MHC rowing coach. “She is driven to do whatever needs to be done to be the best she can be—and her ‘can do’ spirit spreads to those around her.”
Field Hockey Nationals Set for MHC
MHC’s new outdoor track and field facility is getting noticed. The college has been selected to host the 2009 NCAA Division III field hockey national championships November 21 and 22. “Our beautiful new facility is living proof that ‘If you build it, they will come,’” said Laurie Priest, MHC director of athletics. In April, the college hosted the NEWMAC Men’s and Women’s Track and Field Championships for the first time in ten years. The state-of- the-art outdoor facility was completed last year.
Cyclist Emma Bast ’09 won the Division 2 USA Cycling Collegiate Road Nationals, which took place in Fort Collins, Colorado, in May.
Photo of Emma Bast by Andrea Smith, USA Cycling
