The Tiny World of Nanoscience Is a Big Thing on Campus
By Christine Palm
If ever a branch of science embodied “small but mighty,” it would have to be nanoscience. In this world, the properties of objects change so dramatically that the tinier something is, the more powerful it often becomes. And the myriad possibilities stemming from those changes makes nanoscience riveting to faculty and students at Mount Holyoke. With passion and acumen, researchers here are probing this new, invisible frontier that is already an integral part of all our lives—whether or not we know it. Within nanoscience’s tiny, mysterious world lies the key to solving everyday problems from medicine to manufacturing.
To the uninitiated, nanoscience seems ineffable; experiments and procedures are conducted at so infinitesimal a scale that it’s hard to conceive of their size, much less their importance. However, chemical, physical, and biological changes taking place at the nanoscale affect virtually every aspect of our lives, allowing us to experience everything from the smell of freshly baked cookies to the sound of the 1,000th song on our iPods.
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Plan, Plan, Then Plan Some More
Planning for reunions begins
two years in advance. For Renunion 2009, class presidents were sent a
letter this past April asking for the names of reunion chairs, who are
then invited to a planning workshop in September. Most classes do a
"save the date" mailing a year in advance; the association sends
another letter eight months in advance. Registration materials are
mailed two months before Reunion; memos are sent to planners monthly
from August through May. It helps to write everything down.
A Celebrant for the Record Books
Lots
of women of every age come back for their reunions. In 2006 we welcomed
1,156 alums, along with 319 of their guests and 171 children. But get
this: one year, an alumna returned for her eightieth reunion. Now
that's enthusiasm! Th fiftieth class usually has a best attendance, in
the last five years averaging between 45 and 52 percent of the class.
The fortieth class comes in secon, with a five-year percent of class
members returning.
Basic Grooming Encouraged
Between six
and ten dorms with a total of about 600 beds are reserved for reunion
weekends. Classes often plead to stay in a particular dorm; those
requests are honored if the numbers of returnees match the dining hall
capacity and room availability. Loyalty classes (alumnae celebrating a
65th or later reunion) are housed in scenic Willits-Hallowell. Students
and staff housekeepers do a serious amount of schlepping and sweeping,
and make the beds, mop the floors, and brush the window screens in all
the dorms. No chocolates are left on guest pillows, but a small bar of
soap and towels are offered for basic grooming.
Grass, Trash, and a Fleet of Canoes
Mike
Buckley, Facilities Management’s superintendent of general services,
has his hands full leading up to reunion. His crews repair winter
damage along the road edges by tilling and reseeding. Two hundred white
stakes are then put into the ground and strung with twine to protect
the newly seeded areas. Those come down a day or two before Reunion I.
New sod is laid in the amphitheater for the annual meeting. Lawns are
mowed continuously so the campus grass is at attention when alumnae
arrive. A fleet of canoes is hauled from Upper to Lower Lake and fitted
with festive lanterns for the canoe sing.
Students Love Working Reunion
Guaranteed
hours, good wages, and a desire to make some fast cash before vacation
this year resulted in 270 applicants for 145 jobs at Reunions I and II.
Students make $7.75 an hour—student supervisors get $8.50—and they do a
lot of the heavy lifting. Job titles include luggage helper, loyalty
class assistant, van driver, housekeeper, custodian, grounds crew,
waitress, dishwasher, usher, child caregiver, lifeguard, ticket
salesperson, and registration assistant.
Speech, Speech
President
Joanne Creighton is on duty both weekends and will deliver at least six
speeches. She speaks on Friday night of Reunion I to the fiftieth
reunion class. She delivers a speech at Baccalaureate. She speaks at
the “Luncheon with the President” on both weekends. Finally, she speaks
at Commencement.
Reunion’s ‘Holy Book’
This will be the
fourth year that Joni Haas Zubi, associate director of classes and
reunions, has coordinated Reunion at MHC. She has worked for the
association since 1986. During both weekends, she carries around with
her what she loosely refers to as “the bible.” But instead of the
Lord’s instructions to Moses, it contains more mundane directions, like
when chairs should be delivered to Chapin Auditorium if it rains, and
the timetable for getting electrical service to Mary Lyon’s grave.
And Finally, a Funny Story
Okay,
there are lots of juicy stories that Joni won’t let us tell you. For
example, it’s safe to say that some serious imbibing of spirits goes on
each Reunion evening, and we’re talking bottled spirits. A papier-mâché
class sphinx became the object of actual genuflection by one spirited
reunion class. But interesting sober moments abound, too, such as the
alum who recycled items she found in the trash by using them to
decorate her Reunion weekend dorm room. Finally, lots of folks seem to
lock themselves out of their rooms when they take showers. One alum
simply made the best of it and walked around nude. I mean, we’ve seen
it all, yes?
—M.H.B.
Program Bridges Classroom to World
Interdisciplinary inquiry at MHC received a significant shot in the arm this spring thanks to a $2.5 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation supporting the creation of a new certificate program.
Designed to draw students further into the confluence of learning and engagement with the world, the new Nexus Program certificates will be affiliated with each of MHC’s four interdisciplinary centers: the Weissman Center for Leadership and the Liberal Arts, the Center for the Environment, the McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives, and the Science Center.
All students will have the opportunity to elect a Nexus concentration in their sophomore year. Students who do so will complete a traditional major and pursue a Nexus certificate minor that will include either an internship or a sustained research experience as well as a capstone senior project or thesis.
Winning Poet
Sarah Twombly FP’08 and Emma Gorenberg of Amherst College shared first place honors in this year’s Kathryn Irene Glascock ’22 Intercollegiate Poetry Competition. First held in 1923 as a memorial to Glascock, a promising young poet who died shortly after her graduation, the competition brings top student poets from around the country to compete before a three judge panel of distinguished poets. Sylvia Plath and James Merrill are past winners.
Sport Shorts
Groth ’07 Named AA Scholar-Athlete Volleyball player Emily Groth ’07 was honored with this year’s Alumnae Association Scholar-Athlete Award. A studio art major and sport studies minor, Groth was a four-time Academic All-Conference honoree and COSIDA/ESPN the Magazine Academic All-District second team member in 2006. As a two-time captain, Groth earned the all-conference honors twice. She leaves MHC with the most career kills (1,139), and the second-highest hitting percentage (.201) in college history.
Correction: In the last issue, Grace Zeigler ’08 was inadvertently listed as Grace Bauer in indoor track and field. We regret the error.
What first strikes you about Getrude Chimhungwe ’08 and Mufaro Kanyangarara ’07 is their gracious manner and utter lack of self-aggrandizement. Celebrated by the college, the Alumnae Association, and their peers for winning a $10,000 grant in spring to improve the health care of Zimbabwean girls orphaned by HIV/AIDS, Getrude and Mufaro are nevertheless visibly unmoved by all the attention, except for a little squirming in their chairs.
“I don’t like being in the limelight,” admits Mufaro, a statistics major, brushing a hand across her face. Being accepted into Harvard’s School of Public Health this fall hasn’t exactly helped to deflect the attention. Getrude is enrolled in the dual-degree engineering program with the University of Massachusetts. While these two friends are quick to point out that MHC has given them previously unimaginable opportunities and opened their eyes to their own potential, the style they share is quiet, steady, and absolutely focused on accumulating knowledge and skills to help alleviate Zimbabwe’s stunning social and economic problems.
On hearing of the Davis Foundation’s generous offer to fund motivated young people with ideas for peace, Getrude and Mufaro got together and brainstormed ideas. Rather than offering food or school materials to some of their country’s many orphans—the adult HIV/AIDS prevalence rate is 25 percent and sadly took both of Mufaro’s parents—they settled instead on an income-generating business plan to provide long-term, sustainable help.
They first thought about a mushroom farm and a water-hole-boring business before landing on a chicken and egg farm. “We realized that [it] was a manageable thing to do,” says Getrude, whose uncle is currently in the business. Given their relative affordability in a nation facing a 1,500 percent inflation rate, eggs are in high demand. By aligning the business with a nonprofit organization—Tsungirirai, which cares for orphans’ basic needs and runs a health clinic—they figure both the children and the customers will realize some measure of physical, mental, and spiritual health.
In June, Getrude and Mufaro began overseeing construction of the chicken runs, the purchasing of the first 250 baby chicks, and the hiring of project managers and security guards. They anticipate the project’s estimated annual income of $18,000 will give 700 orphans the care they need to begin to thrive.
Despite the chaotic economy and political instability of their country—many young Zimbabwe professionals would love to emigrate, they admit—Getrude and Mufaro say their exposure to America’s plenty has made them even more committed to bringing even a percentage of that lifestyle to the orphans.
“For me it’s a desire to make the world a better place,” says Getrude. “Some people helped me to be where I am … so I want to make someone else’s life better.”—M.H.B.
Photo by Paul Schnaittacher
Calculus isn’t for everyone, the mathematics department readily admits, but as the primary language of science and the social sciences it is required for a good number of majors. Harriet Pollatsek, Julia and Sarah Ann Adams Professor of Mathematics, has tried various strategies to advance her students’ grasp of data, functions, and their graphs, and finds that short writing exercises are particularly helpful.
“Mathematics uses its own special language, and translating it into ordinary English deepens a student’s understanding,” says Pollatsek, a member of the faculty since 1970 and one of two winners of the 2007 Mount Holyoke College Faculty Prize for Teaching. She was happy to report that by spring term those enrolled in her yearlong Enriched Calculus class were boldly moving on to “embrace the unfamiliar.”
Professor of Politics Christopher Pyle, the other recipient of the prize for teaching, was honored not just for his provocative teaching in classes on constitutional law and American political thought but also for teaching that “transcends the confines of the college and whose very purposeful engagement with the world serves as a model for our students and all of us,” according to the award citation. Pyle has taught classes in Northern Ireland, at Plimoth Plantation, and on the high seas aboard the HMS Bounty.
For Stephen Jones, professor of Russian studies and chair of European studies, the Republic of Georgia provides a focus and all manner of research possibilities. Widely published and fluent in Georgian, he is at work on a book about contemporary Georgia that he says is much like “the biography of a political adventurer confronting adversity, trauma, and finally, liberation.”
A winner of the 2007 Meribeth E. Cameron Faculty Prize for Scholarship, Jones, who trained as a political scientist, often is consulted by the U.S. government for his expert understanding of the post-communist societies of the Caucasus.
Bettina Bergmann, whose research has focused on ancient Roman art and archaeology, is fascinated by many elements of excavated sites around the Bay of Naples, which were buried in 79 AD by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Currently at work on an essay about the area’s ancient gardens, she shares the spectacular fact that because of cavities left by tree roots in the lava, archaeologists have been able to reconstruct what the ancient gardens looked like, which plants and trees grew where, and how vines were tended and perfumes made.
Bergmann is Helene Phillips Herzig ’49 Professor of Art History and the second winner of this year’s Faculty Prize for Scholarship.
This is the eighth year that professors have been honored with teaching and scholarship awards. Nominated by their peers and alumnae and selected by committee, the winners receive cash awards of $3,000.—M.H.B.
Photo by Paul Schnaittacher
Found Art: Museum a Hidden Treasure
Manicures, facials, and a lecture on the history of costume and extreme fashion—coupled with an assortment of eclectic period clothing to try on—were the highlights of the third annual Spa Night at the MHC Museum of Art, organized by the esoterically named Society of Art Goddesses and enjoyed by more than 160 students.
It may seem an unlikely event at an art museum rich with an exceptional collection, including Albert Bierstadt’s Hetch Hetchy Canyon and the significant Classical Greek sculpture Statuette of a Youth. But embracing visitors in unusual ways is part of the museum’s long-term plan to interest students studying in a variety of academic fields, not just art history. The museum also aims to entice patrons from Boston and New York—and even neighboring Granby—who are unaware of the extraordinary art offerings in the shadow of the Connecticut River.
The effort is beginning to pay off. Since Marianne Doezema became director of the museum twelve years ago, student participation has quadrupled and museum membership blossomed. Students interested in museum work may now apply for internships, and a paid fellowship is awarded annually to a young alumna ready for curatorial and management training. “It’s all about getting our name out,” says Doezema, who has also helped organize several nationally celebrated touring exhibitions, including a retrospective of the photographer Diane Arbus.
Perhaps her most ambitious collaborative effort to date has been Museums10, a partnership of ten museums in the region that is about to embark on its second mutual programming effort to promote cultural tourism in the Pioneer Valley. The group’s first effort—GoDutch!— increased museum attendance collectively by fifteen percent last year. Its latest offering, BookMarks: A Celebration of the Art of the Book, is slated to run from September 2007 though January 2008 and has received a $75,000 grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council to support national advertising.
“We are a well-kept secret,” Doezema explains, noting that the kickoff event for BookMarks will feature the words and pictures of English professor Brad Leithauser and his brother Mark. “Lots of New Yorkers go to [the Berkshires] for Jacob’s Pillow, and that’s the nut we’re trying to crack.”
Nora Lambert ’07, chair of the Art Goddesses, sums it up this way: “Art is for everyone, not just curators and artists. It’s funny, because it’s not as if there is this … perception that you have to be a musician in order to go to a concert, or buy a CD, or that you have to be an actor to go to a play.” Indeed, the art museum’s doors are wide open and everybody is welcome.
—M.H.B.
It’s hard to have meaningful engagement with another culture if you can’t speak the language at least moderately well. Global communication took another step forward this academic year, as intermediate French-language students at MHC conversed over video links with intermediate English-language students at the Université de Haute Alsace in France.
Donning headsets at computer terminals displaying live images of both students, the participants spoke ten minutes in one person’s native tongue, and then switched languages. Every twenty minutes, new teams of French and English students took their seats in each of the four “chat rooms,” language learning center workstations topped by spherical video cameras.
The conversation topics during the getting-to-know-you phase may not have been profound (“The campus is awesome.” … “I love U2, you know, with Bono?” … “Help me with my grammar here …”), but the experimental practice has become a valuable addition to campus language-teaching techniques. “The students are ‘swimming’ in French now,” said Catherine Bloom, visiting instructor in French, with each student speaking for far longer at a stretch than is common in group discussions.
MHC language students usually gather in small groups once a week and take turns conversing with a language assistant who’s a native speaker. These video discussions, says professor of French Nicole Vaget, are “a better alternative because it’s a one-on-one conversation of several minutes, so the pressure is on.” Sarah Reusché ’10 didn’t seem to feel pressured, though. In fact, she said speaking with another student “reduced the embarrassment factor that’s there when you’re speaking with someone who’s fluent in French when you’re not.”
Each duo spoke online three times during spring semester, supplemented by e-mails between video sessions. By April, Sarah and video-conversation partner Ludovic Jost had moved from simple questions to discussing subjects as complex as the political platforms of the French presidential candidates. “Conversing in French with a native really helps make concrete what verb tenses to use where,” Sarah said. “Ludovic assured me that even the French get the complicated verb tenses confused!”
Nana-Yaa Appenteng ’08 said she liked the video conversations because “we learn things that you won’t find in textbooks.” She spoke with her video partner about differences between the French and
U.S. educational systems, and where each had traveled. This twenty-first-century version of writing to a foreign pen pal, she says, also “helps build my confidence.”
—E.H.W.
I hesitate before jumping to conclusions over a secondary source. But it seems that Lowell Gudmundson’s grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities has led to a too-easy extrapolation (spring Quarterly). I’m referring to the application of his experiences, principally in Guatemala and Nicaragua, to a far broader territory.
One can no more generalize about Latin America than one can about Europe or Asia. Each country has a specific template, hammered over time by a unique set of forces. These, in Latin America, include geography; climate; indigenous cultures and their region-specific history; the types and origins of Iberians that conquered; the miscegenation that followed; the country-specific needs and works of an earlier Roman Catholic church; the slave trade from West Africa, brought in to help out or replace the subjugated natives; more miscegenation; centuries of political fireworks; and waves of immigrants, especially from the mid-nineteenth century on, mostly from Western Europe.
I defy Lowell Gudmundson to find Latin Americans who are unaware of the full spectrum of racial components in their country. It is a subject that is covered with no taboos in grade-school curriculums that are non-politicized, for the most part. In the meantime, I question enlightening “the natives” by applying the racial baggage of a very separate reality, meaning that of North America (Mexico excluded). I question using North America as a tether to justify racial psychology further south. And I question transferring “otherized” theories to regions where racial profiling has been neither as divisive nor as caustic as it has been in the history of the United States.
Cross-pollinating certain ideas can provoke interesting exchanges, when they aren’t intended to polarize. But are the effects an accurate depiction of reality, when grant dollars and publishing possibilities are primary motivators?
Sydney Hedderich ’74
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Lowell Gudmundson replies:
The views expressed above are shared by many students who take Afro-Latin America Since 1800. They continue to be held by many upon completing the course, with passionate and eloquent debates such as those suggested by Ms. Hederrich, enriching our semester together. However, the idea that these issues amount to a misguided pursuit of North American or US racial concerns in Latin America is an unfortunate misperception. Several generations of Latin American scholars and Afro-Latin American communities have built the foundations for the course, its issues, and an abundant literature. They are best reflected, perhaps, by the Colombian journal América Negra, now in its second decade of publication. For the English-language reader, the broadest introduction might be found in George Reid Andrews, Afro-Latin America, 1800–2000 (Oxford University Press, 2004); while our own goals for Central America are set out in greater detail on the project Web site, at:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/latam/africania.html.
I envied Anne Sibley O’Brien’s chance (spring Quarterly) to relive student life at MHC— especially in the fall! But the historian in me is compelled to note that M&Cs referred to Milk and Crackers in the 1970s, not Milk and Cookies.
Grace Palladino ’75
Bethesda, Maryland
Costa Rica’s lush tropical life, balmy weather, and miles of gorgeous coastline attract spring-breaker students and tourists from around the world. But their visits typically do little to boost the quality of life for the nearly 35 percent of Costa Ricans who live in extreme poverty and substandard shanty towns.
However, three alumnae, seven MHC students, and two staffers chose to spend spring break week challenging their minds and bodies on the first Janet Tuttle Alumnae and Student Service Trip. Anita Magovern, director of the campus community-service organization CAUSE, worked with Maya D’Costa, associate director of campus programs at the Alumnae Association, making arrangements with Habitat for Humanity’s Global Village Program.
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Empowering women of the rural Marma tribe in Bangladesh through peer-centered human rights awareness, mentoring, and networking programs is the thrust of a summer project undertaken by Bidita Jawher Tithi ’07, who was awarded the 2007 Mary E. Woolley Fellowship. She will receive $7,500 to initiate the project. Tithi will team up with a local organization to help the women, wracked by poverty, illiteracy, and gender discrimination, form a network of their peers to improve their economic standing, deepen their understanding of common diseases and how to prevent them, and deter violence. Tithi, who double majored in economics and physics, is a native Bangladeshi who plans on pursuing a doctorate in economics.
Photo by Sasha Goss
Here’s hoping that the process of comprehensive curriculum reform—so ambitiously spelled out in Section I of The Plan for Mount Holyoke 2010—is proceeding! This gargantuan undertaking was covered in the winter 2004 Quarterly article “What Does an Educated Woman Need to Know?”
Why is rethinking the curriculum important, when the College is doing well as reflected in record applications, large grants from prestigious foundations, and successful capital campaigns? It would maximize use of college assets—its fine faculty, unique global culture, strong physical plant (the campus), and productive administration—and create another one: a rigorous curriculum focused on preparing women to excel.
It would define what knowledge and capabilities MHC grads would have. Targeted outcomes would be made measurable. The college would be more accountable to all constituents: students, parents, faculty members, administrators, trustees, alumnae, and donors. Participants better able to identify what they support would be more willing to commit resources. It is also an opportunity for Mount Holyoke to lead in reform and distinguish itself from competitors.
More ominously, an era of increased measurement and accountability for public and private colleges is dawning. The bipartisan Commission on the Future of Higher Education, organized by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, is working on requiring regional accreditation agencies to require colleges to adopt measures of academic proficiency, and compare data from similar colleges. Competition to attract top students may evolve into competition among colleges to demonstrate results.
Developing hardheaded proposals for what capacities graduates should have is exciting but terribly difficult. Harvard, with its enormous intellectual resources, has been struggling with undergraduate curriculum reform since 2002. And what happens when agreed-upon goals require different academic configurations from what exist now?
Implementing major curriculum reform would take years and would be painful. However, ten to twenty years from now, saying “trust us, you’ll get a fine education at Mount Holyoke,” may no longer suffice.
Laura Nixdorf Bernstein ’65
Lincoln, Massachusetts
We are writing in response to “When She Graduates as He,” published in The Boston Globe Magazine, and featuring Kevin Murphy, a Mount Holyoke student who has undergone gender reassignment surgery to become a male.
Mr. Murphy insists that people respect his lifestyle choices, and he is entitled to that respect. Similarly, all of the women, past and present, who have chosen to attend women’s colleges deserve the same respect for which Mr. Murphy clamors. It is hypocritical to demand respect for a lifestyle choice one has made while refusing to show respect for others’ choices. Simply put, Mr. Murphy and other men do not belong at Mount Holyoke College.
Part of Mount Holyoke’s mission is a “commitment to educating a diverse residential community of women at the highest level of academic excellence ...” This mission does not seek to promote the aims of men, nor should it. Mount Holyoke’s dedication to educating women is now being derailed by the efforts of those men seeking to take advantage of Mount Holyoke’s liberal and accepting atmosphere.
Students at women’s colleges seek to be educated in an environment that caters exclusively to the educational needs of women. Those students who undergo gender reassignment or self-identify as men must realize that once they decided to become men, they agree to forgo opportunities that they had as women. Becoming a man and remaining at a women’s college is analogous to renouncing your citizenship, yet expecting to maintain the benefits of citizenship.
There is a limit to tolerance and acceptance; there is a point at which Mount Holyoke must demand that its mission be respected. We are saddened by Mount Holyoke’s lack of conviction; but as long as Mount Holyoke continues to passively go coed, we will refrain from providing financial support to our alma mater.
Suzanne Corriell ’00
Iowa City, Iowa
Regis Ahern ’01
Orlando, Florida
Suzan-Lori Parks ’85 Traces Her Journey From Theatrical Underdog to Topdog
By Leanna James Blackwell
Suzan-Lori Parks ’85 knew she had arrived well before she got to Broadway. Go back about 20 years to the late 1980s—before the Pulitzer Prize for Topdog/Underdog, before the MacArthur “genius grant,” before the Obie for best new play. Leave the Times Square theatres, the lights and the crowds,
behind. Look instead for a grimy little neighborhood bar that was formerly a gas station, a place you’d never hear about unless you happen to live around the block. Walk into the bar and that’s where you’ll find Parks, sitting on a stool behind a makeshift curtain. It’s opening night of her first play and there are five people in the audience.
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Faith Meets Science for Katie Alton ’05
By Emily Harrison Weir
Prelude
The road that led Katie Alton ’05 (above, wearing purple) to spend forty days and forty nights in a Midwestern abbey started at a bioethics conference in Washington, D.C. A month after hearing about a case discussed there, the aspiring physician was still troubled. Doctors couldn’t cure a seriously ill infant, but easing the baby’s pain was possible. However, the baby’s parents declined medical intervention, believing that by watching their child suffer, they were showing faith in God. “I saw this kind of case as a potential problem for me and my future patients,” Alton says. A request like that “would make me angry, because that kind of deep faith didn’t resonate with me at all.”
The neuroscience major’s job at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics exposed her to many cases involving conflict between patients with a strong religious faith and healthcare providers with a strong faith in science. So when the opportunity arose to audition for a Learning Channel reality show—The Monastery—that brought five women to Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey in Iowa, Alton applied. “I wanted to study monastic life from the perspective of a scientist confused about how people could hold onto what I saw as antiquated religious beliefs in the light of amazing scientific discoveries,” she explains.
Alton was the youngest of five participants who spent January and February 2006 with the abbey’s thirty sisters. Practically nothing about the experience was as Alton anticipated, and it changed her life profoundly.
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