March
22, 2002
Front-Page
News
On the Globe's Menu MHC's kosher/halal dining hall is
featured in "Building Bridges over Dinner at the Dorm,"
an article in the March 13 edition of the Boston Globe. Interviewing
students and staff, writer T. Susan Chang found that Wilder Hall
is "not merely the sum of assorted dietary prohibitions"
from the Jewish and Muslim faiths, "but a place to explore
what [students] had in common." She notes that on the night
of its consecration, two days after the terrorist attacks in New
York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, "the dining hall
opened not merely to hungry students but to a sense of hope, prayer,
and spiritual revolution." Chang concludes, "For the
majority of Mount Holyoke students, Wilder is viewed as a refuge
at a time when the intermingling of religious groups across the
globe is marked by conflict. Here, says one student, 'It's
no big deal.'"
German Alive and Well An article on the healthy enrollment
figures in German language classes that appeared in the February
20 issue of the Dallas Morning News quoted MHC Senior Lecturer
and Chair of German Studies Donna Van Handle, president of the
American Association of Teachers of German. "The numbers
are increasing," Van Handle says in the piece. "There
are some areas of the country where they can't find German teachers."
Just Say No Michael Robinson, MHC professor and chair
of economics, commented on the current decline of the male labor
force participation rate (the percentage of men sixteen years
or older who are working or are looking for a job) in a February
22 USA Today article titled "More Men Just Say No to Working."
According to the article, the rate fell to the lowest level on
record in January at 73.6 percent. While the comparable rate for
women also declined slightly in January, that rate was up nearly
two percentage points from ten years ago and up almost twenty-five
percentage points from fifty years earlier. According to reporter
Barbara Hagenbaugh, economists attribute most of the drop in the
number of male workers to gains in the work force by women, the
rise in technology, early retirement by men, and the decline of
jobs that require "heavy muscle work."
Hagenbaugh writes that "while the decline in men's worker
participation rates has not yet had a big impact on the economy
as a whole, it could cause problems if more men leave the workforce
than women come in. A significant decrease in the workforce would
lead to less tax revenue and income for federal programs, such
as Social Security, economists say." Comments Robinson in
the article, "That's something to be concerned about with
baby boomers" of the generation that is approaching retirement
age. "If the labor force participation rate gets too low,
there won't be enough money to pay those funds," he said.
Presenting Arms A pro-gun rights student organization,
the Mount Holyoke chapter of the Second Amendment Sisters, has
been garnering significant media interest lately. On March 8,
for example, New York Times op-ed writer Nicholas Kristof focused
attention on the new group, which represents the first collegiate
chapter for the Second Amendment Sisters. On March 12, CNN's Paula
Zahn conducted a lengthy interview with Christie Caywood '03,
organizer of the campus chapter. The Mount Holyoke group has also
drawn stories or columns from the Baltimore Sun, the Wall Street
Journal, and other outlets.
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