In this issue…

Volume 2   •   16 May 2007  •   Issue 5  

	Welcome from the Executive Director Spring fever at MHC		Reunion 2007 Countdown to the celebration
	Welcome to the Class of 2007 MHC’s newest alums get connected		Cori’s Career Corner Changes in the workplace: no more 9-5
	Upcoming Events Women lighting the way		Making News MHC alumnae in the media
	I-Witness An alumna in Afghanistan		Online Class Notes Read the latest news from your sister alumnae

Welcome from the Executive Director

he snow is gone at last and the campus has burst into brilliant spring color just in time for Reunion 2007. (You’d almost think we arranged it.) As always, the Alumnae Association is working around the clock to prepare for the yearly celebration—but we still have time for a little fun along the way. Strawberries and Champagne, our annual event for graduating seniors on the last day of classes, was a smashing success again this year. The sun shone and the champagne fizzed as a festive crowd of more than 600 raised a toast to our newest alumnae, the Class of 2007.

The sun also cooperated for our annual spring Alumnae in Action event in honor of Earth Day, held this year on Saturday, May 5. A dedicated group of local alums, staff, and MHC students lent a hand (literally) preparing garden beds for Gardening the Community, an urban community gardening group in Springfield. There’s nothing like spending a day in the dirt—especially when a quarter-acre of it is weeded, watered, and planted with organic flower and vegetable seeds when you leave. See the results here.

I hope the weather is glorious wherever you are—and that you’re getting outside to enjoy it. After my inspiring interview at MHC last weekend with Good Morning America sports anchor Robin Roberts, who spoke with passion about the importance of sports in the lives of young girls and women, I’ve vowed to get started on those power walks around Lower Lake. Look for me in my MHC sweatshirt first thing in the morning (wait: make that second or third thing in the morning).

If this is your reunion year, I look forward to seeing you back on campus in just a few weeks. For those of you not coming back, remember you can join the celebration at any time online. We’ll be posting photos and updates throughout the weekend and we invite you visit often.

Best wishes for a wonderful spring,

W. Rochelle Calhoun ’83
Executive Director, Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College

Reunion 2007

eunion is only two weeks away, and the Alumnae Association staff is in high gear. We’re greatly looking forward to welcoming alumnae and guests back to campus. We’re also excited about several new programs we’re offering alongside the traditional favorites. Alumnae Association career consultant Cori Ashworth will facilitate Pizza, Beer, and Business Cards, a new event that gives seniors and alumnae a chance to network with alums in various fields. Interim choral director Kimberly Dunn will direct the Alumnae Choir in a reunion concert of new and old music, and the architects designing MHC’s new residence hall will give a presentation on this exciting new campus development. For more information about the weekend schedule and events, or to view photos of Reunion 2006, please visit our Web site.

Welcome to the Class of 2007

he Alumnae Association is proud to welcome the Class of 2007. With Commencement just over a week away, the newest class of alumnae now has access to MHConnect, available exclusively to Mount Holyoke alumnae.

Are You Connected?

MHConnect is password-protected, which ensures your privacy and confidentiality. Registration is an easy, four-step process that takes just a few minutes. Simply register once, and choose a username and password that is easy for you to remember. Once you are registered, take advantage of all that MHConnect offers:

Find An Alum
You can find contact information for Mount Holyoke alumnae through our online directory. Use My Page as a starting point—you can bookmark directory listings as an easy reference for future visits, view the latest online class notes, and see who has recently updated her listing. Use LifeNet to contact alumnae for professional, social, or academic networking, or set up your own profile.

Update Your Info
This is where to go to update the Association, the College, and your classmates with your updated information. Update the online directory with your basic contact information, and update your LifeNet profile to join the vibrant professional, social, and academic network of Mount Holyoke alumnae. With online class notes, you can update your fellow alumnae about that job promotion, a move to a new city, your nuptials, or brand-new baby—and post photos, too.

Discussion Groups
Connect with sister alumnae online with our discussion groups. Join a current group, or propose your own discussion group. Current groups include Alumnae in Journalism, Career Discussions, Housing, and Young Alumnae. Newly created groups include Careers for Women in Thoroughbred Horse Racing, and Golf Students of Bob Bontempo. Join the discussion today!

Online Career Resources
Many online resources are available on our site to help you successfully make your career transition while maintaining balance among all the aspects of your life. In addition to public areas of our Web site that include self-assessment materials, Web sites and databases, and graduate school links, we offer job postings and résumé postings. In addition, Yellow Pages allow you to find an alumnae-run business or advertise your own company.

Cori’s Career Corner

or decades, the standard workday in the United States was generally considered to be 9 am to 5 pm—but for some years now that standard has been changing. With the advent of technology that blurs the limits of home and work, more and more people are working nonstandard hours both in and out of the office. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only about 30 percent of the population works a standard eight-hour day. Increasing numbers of employers accommodate alternative work schedules; the supply of skilled workers in some fields is shrinking (leading to greater options for employees); and overseas organizations conduct their business on an international clock, which can mean unconventional work hours for employees based in the U.S.

With more employees working out of the office, companies can save on office space—an appealing option for many administrators. In order to manage remote workers effectively, many companies are now creating new, more flexible systems of supervision. This trend can be very helpful for job-seekers interested in negotiating a non-standard work schedule. Insider research may be very helpful in shaping your points for negotiation, so plan for that if you can!

New Job Checklist

If you are starting a new job soon, here are a few things to remember for success in your new endeavor: More…

Upcoming Events

Making News

Shoshana Walter ’07, an American Studies major, is one of 32 students and 16 journalists nationwide to win a spot at the Poynter Institute’s 2007 summer fellowship for young journalists. The prestigious six-week program begins in June in St. Petersburg, Florida. Students will take classes with some of the best in the journalism field, while writing their own articles on deadline to be published on the institute’s Web site. The program is known as “journalism boot camp.” More…

Schlesinger Library Honors MHC Alumna
Barbara Ketcham Wheaton ’53, author and culinary historian, was recently feted on her 75th birthday with a symposium on culinary history, gender, and food hosted by the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at the Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University. Wheaton also recently received an award from the Culinary Historians of New York for her contributions to the field of culinary history. More…

I-Witness

reated to feature personal alumnae perspectives on breaking news around the world, this month’s “I-Witness” features an article by Chrysanthe A. Courniotes ’04, project manager for an Afghanistan medical reconstruction project at the Center for Disaster and Humanitarian Assistance Medicine (CDHAM) in Bethesda, Maryland.

Courniotes holds a Masters in Science in international health management, economics, and policy from the Scuola di Direzione Aziendale (SDA) Bucconi in Milan, Italy. Her story begins in Kabul in March 2007, when she traveled to the war-zone of Afghanistan as the only female on a two-week medical site survey team.

As we were landing in Kabul on a clear crisp day, the sight of the snow-covered mountain ranges made me feel as though we were landing in a ski resort area and not in a country devastated by more than 30 years of war. Walking away from the runway into the “airport,” I was brought back to reality when I saw a sign that read “Welcome to Kabul” in English and Dari. The arrival area of the airport was a bombed-out shell and the scene was pure chaos. In one corner of the room an Afghan police officer attempted to stamp visas; in the other corner Afghan citizens, U.S. contractors, and citizens from other countries formed three haphazard lines to get their passports stamped and documented by the Afghan National Police. After having our luggage thrown into piles, we exited the airport to find the U.S. military convoys waiting to escort us to the military base where we would be living for the next two weeks.

“You have to wear your armor and helmet,” a lieutenant instructed me as I was about to enter the vehicle. At that moment I realized that my vision of immersing myself into Afghanistan’s culture and truly connecting with the people in the streets was lost. Why was I given the choice to wear this protection while the children playing in the mud on the side were not? I did not want to be a victim of circumstance, but I felt like a hypocrite as I wore my helmet.

The drive to the nearby military base should have been short, but the number of cars on the roads and the circular design of the roadways made the trip a longer adventure, complete with a “shooter” holding a weapon in the event of an attack (a standard feature in every U.S. military vehicle). This was not the scenario I envisioned when thinking about my first fieldwork experience. After we arrived and settled into our quarters, we were briefed on our agenda, which involved meeting with several Afghan government leaders and their deputies; touring the National Military Hospital in Kabul and a Provincial Military Hospital in Gardez, the National Police Hospital in Kabul, and five of fifteen civilian health facilities in Kabul and one civilian facility in Gardez; and coordinating with both U.S. government (USG) civilian agencies and non-government organizations (NGOs) who are in Afghanistan. When I went to bed that night, I was anxious to get started on our assignment and see for myself what foreign aid projects in Afghanistan have accomplished and what remains to be done. More…

Online Class Notes

o read more online class notes, or post your own notes and photos, please visit our Web site.

Roseann Stickel Thompson ’85 writes, “My friends and I were visiting a small Nature Conservancy bed & breakfast in Silver City, New Mexico. Deborah Franz ’61 and her husband Peter came by to see our horses. Within 5 minutes we found out that we had both attended Mount Holyoke!…”

Anne Jardine Footer ’87 and Derek Footer are proud to announce the adoption of a boy, William Lee Footer. William was born on December 1, 2005 in Sovietsk ( Kaliningrad), Russia. William was adopted at the age of 12 months. Lee joined our family this past December after nearly a year and a half of endless paperwork and two trips to Russia…

Christine Ray ’88 writes, “Wow! Has it really been almost twenty years since I felt Mount Holyoke? I feel as if I have lived several life times since graduation. After two years in the Boston area, I moved to Philadelphia in 1990. Since then, I received my MSW at the University of Pennsylvania, gotten married, had two daughters, lost my mother to cancer, gotten divorced, had half my thyroid removed and met the love of my life all before deciding at 40 that I really wanted to be a starving artist when I grew up…”

Jodi Dohmen Rinard ’90 and Eric Rinard are proud to announce the birth of a baby girl, Danica Charlotte. She was born on February 1, 2007 in Thornton, Colorado, and weighed 7 lb., 3 oz.. We are announcing the birth of our second daughter, and our first (Zoe Carol) since I didn’t know about this cool website when the first was born.  

Catherine Horn Fey ’91 writes, “After graduation, I stayed in the area and weathered the recession by working two part-time jobs -- one selling shoes in the mall, the other working at the Holyoke Girls Club, which led to my whole career! I eventually became the Program Director there, and then at the Lowell Girls Incorporated affiliate, where I continued my non-profit work with school-age girls’ programming until just this year…”

Jennifer Richards Geiger ’99 and Josef Geiger are happy to announce their marriage on May 5, 2007 in Milwaukee, WI. They will reside in Brookfield, WI until Jennifer begins her clinical internship at Massachusetts General Hospital in July. Michelle Avritt Barkley ’00 and Carrie Tangenberg ’99 were both in attendance.  

Cherri Shaw Brown FP ’01 writes, Finishing up the MBA; hope to start the PhD late December, and with just a bit of luck I can maybe finish all this study and get busy with life! *Big smile*  

Natascha Nen ’05 recently accepted a position at Meltwater Group located in Philadelphia, PA as Key Account Manager. Natascha was recently employed at The Agnes Irwin School as French/Spanish Teacher. “I’ve been transitioning from teaching at a private school to working for a Norwegian market intelligence firm. Long hours, work on weekends, and a lot of pressure—but I’m surviving and hope to soon be loving it!”  

Melissa Gray ’06 writes, “I recently accepted a place in a history PhD program beginning next fall at the College of William & Mary. It looks like my address will be Williamsburg, Virginia for the forseeable future. In the mean time I’ll be finishing up my MA also at William & Mary and helping to teach an archaeological fieldschool at Colonial Williamsburg.”