ASTEROIDS
Associate Professor of Astronomy Darby Dyer and Ronald Zissel, the longtime astronomy lab director, now retired, have had asteroids named after them. 7272 Darbydyar and 6949 Zissel orbit between Mars and Jupiter. Read more
STUDY IN COSTA RICA
Sustainable development in a community setting is a goal of a new MHC study-abroad program outside Costa Rica’s Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, beginning in 2009. Read more
GENOCIDE PREVENTION
Gerald Caplan, a leading Canadian authority on genocide and genocide prevention, was this year’s scholar-in-residence at the McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives. Read more
Notes from the Alumnae and Students of Color Conference
If there was one thing that Mount Holyoke students took away from November’s Alumnae and Students of Color Conference, it was that our older sisters went through a great deal for us to enjoy the safe space we have today.
The first-of-its-kind conference brought together a diverse group of nearly 150 alumnae and students. Keynote speakers included Ninotchka Rosca, founder of GABRIELA, the women’s-rights organization of the Philippines; and Debra Martin Chase ’77 (above), Emmy nominated motion picture and television producer.
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Mini-reunions are hot.
From on-campus visits to Las Vegas blowouts, classmates are gathering in ever more diverse locations and vowing to continue the tradition the following year. Organizers know that in between official reunion years, mini-reunions are a great way to stay connected with classmates who are dispersed geographically and professionally but remain united emotionally.
Women from the 1940s and 1950s are most active in organizing mini-reunions, says Joni Haas Zubi, associate director of classes and reunions. Their generally flexible schedules allow them to meet on campus, midweek, and during the school year to drop in on classes with current students, considered a particular pleasure. Overnight stays are usually spent at Willits-Hallowell Center, and meals are scheduled to include talks by faculty or staff members.
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The art of procrastination is as old as Mount Holyoke. In the early years, students listened to the radio or chatted with their neighbors instead of starting a paper. Today we also have all the dangers of procrastination that come with the World Wide Web. Among the most lethal is YouTube.
A popular Web site that allows users to share videos for free, YouTube engages viewers with activism, tutorials, television shows, political debates, music, and home videos. You simply type a few keywords into the search engine and wait for it to retrieve relevant videos.
The site includes both commercial productions, like clips from the television show “So You Think You Can Dance,” and independent films and home videos. You can listen to music for free online before buying it. You can also find entire episodes of television shows on YouTube.
For students, it’s a great way to keep track of what’s going on outside the Mount Holyoke academic bubble as well as an inexpensive way to access different forms of entertainment. It’s common to find a group of students clustered around a computer taking turns showing their friends their latest YouTube finds.
YouTube has MHC-specific applications, as well. For example, if you search “Mount Holyoke College” on YouTube, you will find videos of the Laurel Parade from different years, and a clip of the trees near Lower Lake in full bloom. YouTube is also a great way to learn something practical, such as honing your skills in tai chi or learning to play a musical instrument. And there’s even a program that helps nonprofits spread word of their organizations’ goals and activities.
As we push into this age of new media, Web sites like YouTube are becoming more relevant—and prevalent—in day-to-day life. YouTube’s popularity and use have skyrocketed since my first year at MHC. It makes me wonder what tools of procrastination will be available to the class of 2020.—Anindita Dasgupta ’08
Innovation in its many guises ran through the European alumnae symposium in Geneva this past fall.
Organized by Christine Gora Bruno ’98, Carolyn Geisler Hornfeld ’63, Bernice Timm Dorig ’63, Jessica Zerges ’03, and Alix Bishko ’00, with the input of Alumnae Association President Mary Graham Davis ’65, it began with our hotel—a high-tech high-rise where glass elevators whisked us up and down to our rooms and offered a view of trains gliding noiselessly into the Geneva train station.
The official city welcome to attendees came from Monica Bonfanti, Geneva’s chief of police, whose department the next day guided a mass demonstration for Burma through the city’s streets.
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Club Members Master the Arts of Fabric and Needle
Needleworkers adept at or interested in learning the arts and crafts of fabric and thread are getting together in several MHC clubs in Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Whether their interest is sewing a Raggedy Ann doll for their grandchildren, piecing together a quilt for their own bed, or knitting a sweater to block winter’s rage, alumnae are needleworking with a passion—and having a good time doing it together.
Every month, up to fifteen members of the quilting group of the Mount Holyoke Club of Franklin County, Massachusetts, meet to plan, design, and piece together quilts, pillows, cushions, and dolls. Overseeing their work is Patricia Spees FP’03 (right), club copresident, longtime quilter, and director of MHC’s costume shop.
The women meet at a local church to savor its monthly pancake breakfast, then get to work on their projects. They also make sewing kits to give to firsties who choose for their Second Saturday volunteer option to make quilts for at-risk babies in Springfield.
“It’s a great way of making connections with alums in the area,” says Spees. Karen E. Rose ’92 agrees. She organized a knitting group for people of all skill levels in October in Hartford, Connecticut. “I find that knitting is a great way to express yourself and be creative, and knitting groups are a fabulous way to meet some really cool women,” she said.—M.H.B.
Photo by Mieke H. Bomann
In Search of Board and Committee Members
Are you interested in volunteering for an Alumnae Association committee? Do you know of someone who might be just right for one? The Nominating Committee is always eager to hear from and about potential volunteers. Recommendations should be sent to Jill Brethauer ’70, Nominating Committee chair, at hb@fyi.net or 724-443-6575 or to W. Rochelle Calhoun ’83, association executive director, at rcalhoun@mtholyoke.edu, or 413-538-2300.
By President Joanne V. Creighton
At Women’s Christian College in Madras (Chennai), India, principal Ridling Margaret Waller is flanked by MHC President Joanne V. Creighton and husband Tom. MHC’s connection with this ”sister college” is reflected in the name of the student residence shown here.
Over the years, alumnae have asked me about our “sister” college in Madras (Chennai), India, Women’s Christian College (WCC). The institutional connection goes back to 1921 when each of the “Seven Sisters” adopted an Asian “sister.” But we heard little from our sister in recent years until WCC’s principal, Dr. Ridling Margaret Waller, visited Mount Holyoke last spring and invited me to her campus for an international conference in August. I’m pleased to report that our Asian sister—now ninety-two years old—is a thriving, selective, well respected liberal arts women’s college of some 2,000 students that shares our dedication to intellectual rigor and purposeful engagement in the world. My husband, Tom, and I were thoroughly impressed with the engaging spirit and warm hospitality of everyone we met.
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N o n f i c t i o n
I Got the Idear: My Love Affair With Maine Language
By Marion Kingston Stocking ’43 (Maine Folklife Center)
Marion Kingston Stocking began a love affair with the numerous Maine dialects while teaching English at the University of Maine in the 1950s. In this small book, she outlines her personal journey with the Yankee lingo, the problem of class distinction in language, and offers a collection of the peculiar spellings used by her Maine students from “the days before we all sounded the same.”
After a long career as a Romantics scholar, Marion Kingston Stocking is writing memoirs. She also is an editor of the Beloit Poetry Journal.
Big Moose Lake in the Adirondacks: The Story of the Lake, the Land, and the People
Annette Jones Lux ’47, contributor (Midwest Book Review)
Travel back to the 1870s with Big Moose Lake in the Adirondacks: The Story of the Lake, the Land, and the People. This well-documented story describes the growth of the lakeside community made famous by the incident that inspired Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy. The book includes black-andwhite photographs that paint a revealing picture of humble daily life across the span of a century.
Annette Jones Lux spent nine years working on this book. She lives near Big Moose Lake five months each year.
The Intersection of International Law, Agricultural Biotechnology, and Infectious Disease
By Meredith Mariani ’98 (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Brill)
Mariani examines current global and regional legal frameoff works for infectious disease and genetically modified organisms. She weighs the positive and negative effects of using biotechnology from a public-health perspective and then analyzes the related legal issues.
Meredith Mariani has written articles on stemcell legislation for the University of Notre Dame Journal of Legislation and the International Center for Technology Assessment. She lives in Northern Virginia.
Women, Religion, & Space: Global Perspectives on Gender and Faith
Edited by Karen M. Morin and Jeanne Kay Mountain Guelke ’71 (Syracuse University Press)
Women, Religion, & Space offers various perspectives on women who practice or interact with the gender norms and spaces of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The writers include observations based on fieldwork in Jerusalem, Istanbul, Pakistan, and Los Angeles. In the sixth chapter on missionary women in early America, Guelke references the religious focus of Mount Holyoke in its early years.
Jeanne Kay Guelke recently retired as professor of geography at University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. Her articles have been published in The Professional Geographer, the Journal of Historical Geography, and Environmental Ethics.
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No More Shame
I found the fall Quarterly both relevant and engaging, and especially appreciated “My Struggle with Panic Disorder,” by Kara C. Baskin ’00. I, too, lived a life crippled by panic disorder starting from a very early age.
For me, the breaking point came on Christmas night 1999 when I found myself pregnant, and trapped in a too-small house with too many family members and a feeling of total and complete helplessness. I had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, and no way to talk myself out of accepting the disease that I had spent years shrugging off.
After four of the longest and most sleepless days and nights of my life— when the very effort of living seemed more than I could bear—I sought the help of a psychiatric professional. And after many, many sessions of therapy, and the blessed introduction of Zoloft, I learned to live with my anxiety.
Was it easy? No. Was it worth it? Yes. Am I ashamed to admit that I need a chemical to survive? Never. I would be more ashamed if I continued to let my disease affect the people I love and who love me.
In fact, less than a year after I began my own therapy, I found myself bringing our then five-year-old son to his own behavioral therapy, something I might not have realized was so important had I not finally addressed my own issues. After three years of therapy for obsessive-compulsive/ anxiety disorder, we felt comfortable adding Zoloft to his mix of therapies. Now, at age thirteen, he is an incredibly wonderful and happy young man.
It is never too late, too early, or too shameful to seek the therapy, and yes, perhaps, the medication, that you need to live a life free of fear and anxiety.
Mary Nelligan Robbins ’87
Northborough, Massachusetts
Be a Government Watchdog
I was encouraged to learn that incoming students read a book on climate change, Elizabeth Kolbert’s Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change. This is an important topic about which everyone should be educated.
It is important to learn the science behind climate change, including its causes and effects. However, I wanted to remind [people] that it is also important to follow what the government is doing to remedy the problem. Environmental issues are largely affected by government funding, and without money to fund research (for alternate sources of energy, for example) or legislators to write laws to modify the way things are currently done, it is much less likely that we can alter the course that scientists are predicting.
Please write to your senators and representatives to support climate change issues.
Sharon Sigethy Coughlin ’90
Boonton Township, New Jersey
Safety of Nanomaterials
We are proud that MHC women are leading the way in nanotechnology research, but we share concern with environmental health advocates that nanoparticles may pose substantial risk. Currently the commercial use of nanomaterials far outpaces research on their potential dangers. In 2006, only 4 percent of the approximately $1 billion federal budget for nanotechnology research was allocated to examine their health and environmental effects.
Scientific studies show that the small size of nanoparticles permits greater access to body tissues and organs where they could cause harm. Studies in animals indicate that some inhaled nanomaterials pass easily from the nose to the brain and from lungs into the bloodstream. Alarmingly, these particles are already found in many everyday consumer products like cosmetics and food storage containers, but their safety is still in question.
Unfortunately, the U.S. government has a poor history of regulating potentially harmful technologies and allows many toxic materials—including asbestos—to be used in consumer products. This new generation of nanotechnology requires a precautionary regulatory framework instead of outdated laws that allow harm to our health. New regulations on consumer products containing silver nanoparticles, passed in 2006, are a good first step, but we should not stop there.
We are proud that MHC women are leading the way, but we will be more proud to hear that they are assessing the safety of this new technology before celebrating it. We agree that nanotechnology has exciting implications for medical and scientific advances, but believe that the risks of this new technology must be investigated.
Let the scholars and faculty at MHC take the lead on researching the safety of nanomaterials and making sure that we learn from the tragic history of asbestos, rather than repeating it.
Leise Jones ’01
Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts
Margaret Byrne ’04
Northampton, Massachusetts
Danielle Connor FP’06
Danvers, Massachusetts
The authors are current and former staff members of Clean Water Action, an environmental organization working to protect people from harm caused by toxic chemicals.
Don’t Tell, Don’t Talk?
I thought I’d share a (possibly) unanticipated reaction to the “Bulletin Board” story [fall] on the Jolene Fund for students whose lesbian orientation becomes known to their parents, who as a result cut them off. The following appeared on my husband’s Internet site www.thebirdman.org: “… Maybe the Jolenes would have found it cheaper to provide students with some tips on keeping their mouths shut. But then they wouldn’t want to encourage unnatural behavior, now would they?—Birdman”
My own reaction: If a young woman knows her parents won’t be able to handle the news after sounding them out on similar issues, then she can either remain quiet about it (after all, she might change her orientation later, even though it doesn’t feel like that at the time) or make a big deal of it. To make a big deal of it in that case makes it almost certain her funds will be cut off. (It is possible that her parents will want to provide her with an alternative education somewhere else, where she will be less “under the influence.” Maybe it would be only fair to give them a chance. And maybe a young woman who has reached this point is asking for help by the act of telling them.)
In any case, if things end up “exploding,” she is relying on the college (or rather, its benefactors) to bail her out. She is putting the college in the position of advocating freedom of sexual expression. There are some who would say that if the college is going to do that they should make sure the student knows “both sides” (much like the Darwin vs. creationist controversy). Maybe there should be a kind of “family values” curriculum depicting the various (real) dilemmas we encounter out here in the world, and the difference it makes which paths we take.
Lenora Castles Bryant ’64
South Pasadena, Florida
Corrections
In “Doing Well by Doing Good” in the fall Quarterly, Sheila Lirio Marcelo ’93 was incorrectly identified. She was entrepreneur-in-residence at Matrix Partners, a venture capital firm, when she developed Care.com and from which she secured funding. Before that, she was vice president and general manager at TheLadders. com.
Due to a typographical error, an incorrect date was given for the MHC tenure of Marjorie Kaufman. She was an English professor here from 1954 to the 1987–88 academic year.
English Garden Treasures: Featuring the Chelsea Garden Show
May 10–21, 2008
Accompanied by Eugenia Herbert, professor emeritus of history
The walled gardens, splendid estates, and extraordinary plantings of Bath, Exeter, and Cornwall highlight this fabulous journey through a history of garden design. Savor the magnificent Kensington Gardens in London, and finish your horticultural extravaganza with a visit to the Chelsea Flower Show, the world’s supreme floral event.
Danube River and Habsburg Empire
May 31–June 10, 2008
Accompanied by Penny Gill, Mary Lyon Professor of Humanities and Professor of Politics
Experience a unique river and rail journey through the heart of Central Europe. You will explore the “crown jewels” of this fascinating region, including lively Budapest, imperial Vienna, majestic Prague, and medieval Krakow. Your deluxe travel arrangements mirror the glory years of the Habsburg Empire.
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Take the Lead! SummerAction
Do you know an action-oriented young woman in high school? Encourage her to apply to Take the Lead! SummerAction, a two-week residential leadership program sponsored by Mount Holyoke June 29–July 12, 2008. Building on the success of the four-day Take the Lead, this expanded program gives students the opportunity to join a diverse network of eighty young women who are passionate about important issues. Students will develop leadership skills, design action projects, and become effective agents of positive change. Selection is competitive, and space is limited. Apply online. The program fee is $2,950, with a limited number of need-based scholarships. To learn more, call 413-538-3500 or e-mail summeraction-l@mtholyoke.edu.
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My Struggle With Panic Disorder
By Kara C. Baskin ’00
Photo by Scott Suchman
I’m twenty eight years old, recently married, happily employed and, for two months last fall, I was terrified to leave my house. Things should’ve been peachy, really. I had a book deal in the works. Brian and I had just gotten married. My life was hectic, Type A, and organized just the way I liked it. But suddenly my fancy “happy hours” gave way to TV Land reruns; my posh dinners with media clients were replaced with yogurt and bananas; and my “for better or for worse” marriage vows were being put to the test before my wedding gown even came back from the dry cleaner’s.
I have panic disorder. An acute, debilitating form of anxiety, it affects six million Americans. Women are twice as likely as men to suffer from it, and the attacks usually begin in one’s twenties. Sufferers tend to be overachieving, highly creative, and dare I say it?—a little neurotic. Trembling, sweating, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, choking, chest tightness, and intense nausea are a few of the lovely symptoms that come on like an impromptu acid bath.
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Opening the Door to Ethical Capitalism
by Mieke H. Bomann
Sheila Lirio Marcelo ’93 needed help. An entrepreneur-in-residence at Matrix Partners, a venture-capital firm, she was busy trying to get her own Internet start-up off the ground. But first on her to-do list was finding a nanny for her two boys, one of whom also needed a tutor, and personal care for her father, who had undergone heart surgery. Her two dogs also demanded some regular exercise. The convergence of those personal needs, combined with a desire to find work she was passionate about, helped her to formulate Care.com, a Web-based service company aimed at people who need outside help for some of life’s most important tasks, but who don’t have the time or the information resources to get it. “I really wanted to focus on [building] a for-profit company that had a social mission,” she explains. “So I started looking at families and children.”
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MHC Fellowships Help Fund Alumnae Dreams
By Susan Bushey '96
How many people can get money back from their alma maters? Mount Holyoke alumnae can.
The Alumnae Association and the college both fund fellowships annually, awarding nearly $50,000--this year the total was $47,425--to chosen alumnae. Some ninety to 130 apply for the thirteen to twenty awards given in a typical year, a low percentage of the 30,000-alumnae body.
Of the seven awards available, one--the Mary E. Woolley--is supported by the Alumnae Association's Founder's Fund and it is the largest, $7,500. The other awards average $1,500 per recipient.
Past fellowship recipients have used the funds to continue their education, teach in other countries, study women's education, and write a book, to name just a few. Alumnae from any class may apply, and the requirements are not stringent about what will be funded or how the money will be used. The only thing that these diverse recipients have in common is their ultimate goal--to pursue a dream.
Following, we highlight how four women have chosen to be lifelong learners with the financial help of the association and the college. If you'd like to join them, see the How to Apply section.
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By Vincent A. Ferraro
Globalization is one of those words that is often used, but rarely defined. It is a fudge word, like “security” or “power,” that reflects the user’s bias. For some, globalization is the promised land; for others, it is a circle in Dante’s hell.
The first thing we should know about globalization is that it is a highly politicized idea, and that the only productive way to discuss it is to make explicit one’s own definition. Thomas L. Friedman’s accessible book on globalization, The World is Flat, is a good starting point for understanding the term’s possible meanings. For this essay, I define globalization as the process by which all human activities on every part of the planet are increasingly interconnected and interdependent.
The second thing we should know about globalization is that it is an old process. The human species has proven very adept at expansion. Whether its beginning was in the Garden of Eden or Tanzania’s Olduvai Gorge, humanity has now inhabited virtually every land area on the planet, even those, like Antarctica, that are largely uninhabitable. Similarly, the political history of the species is one of expansion (and decline). Every empire has had the same goal: the subjugation of others to a presumptively universal political authority within the largest geographical framework possible.
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