August
27,
2004
MHC
Newsmakers
Open Season The
2004 U.S. Women’s
Open golf championship resulted in a significant amount of favorable
publicity for the College. Both ESPN and NBC, which broadcast the
four-day event to a worldwide audience, presented their audiences
with mini-portraits of Mount Holyoke as well as great shots of
the campus and the surrounding area. And, coverage by major newspapers
and wire services, including Associated Press, resulted in hundreds
of mentions of the College in print across the United States and
around the world. Among articles of special interest were a column
by Washington Post writer Leonard Shapiro on the “wonderfully
symbolic venue” The Orchards provided for the Open, and Associated
Press writer Doug Ferguson’s description of the “quiet
charm” of the 2004 Open and
The Orchards, “a course built for a woman and owned by female-only
Mount Holyoke College.” After the event,
David Fay, executive director of the United States Golf Association,
told Boston Globe writer Jim McCabe that The Orchards
would get “serious
consideration” for a future Open, adding, “unless we
don’t want to go to places where you have the most crowds
ever and players thinking [it is] an exceptional golf course.”
The media was lavish in its praise for course, College, and town. For example,
the lead editorial in the July 3 edition of the Republican newspaper
congratulated the College, the USGA, and the town of South Hadley on the success
of the Open: “Mount
Holyoke College has been a wonderful hostess. The staff at The Orchards has the
course in immaculate condition. And the town of South Hadley
has gone out of its way to make it possible to stage an event of this size in
a town of just over 17,000. No easy task. Congratulations are due to all.”
Prescription for Change Writing for the Washington Post in July, John Fox,
visiting lecturer in complex organizations, mapped out a radical plan for making
health care affordable to all. “Helping uninsured Americans acquire basic
health coverage is an important presidential campaign issue. Not only are there
an estimated 43 million uninsured, but premiums for those who do have insurance
are rising at double-digit rates, employers are shifting an increasing share
of the costs onto employees, and many people who used to work for companies
that paid part of their insurance are now self-employed and have to foot the
whole bill themselves,” Fox wrote in a piece titled “The Tax Breaks
That Corporate Execs Don’t Need.” “So both President Bush
and Sen. John Kerry are promising to make coverage more affordable for the
uninsured. But I bet you’re wondering just where Congress is going to
find the money to make this possible. Without the money, the candidates’ promises
are, let’s face it, empty.
“Bush proposes to spend $90 billion over the next 10 years to extend coverage
to about 5 percent of the uninsured, but he has yet to tell us where the funds
will come from. Kerry proposes to spend at least $650 billion over the same period
to help about 60 percent of the uninsured, and expects to pay for it by rolling
back the Bush tax breaks for the top 2 percent of taxpayers, an unlikely event
if the Republicans retain control of Congress.
“So let’s get real. Want to know how to cover all of Bush’s
plan
or make a significant down payment on Kerry’s? Here’s how: Congress
could eliminate a tax break that for the last 50 years has irresponsibly subsidized
deluxe health insurance policies, mostly for corporate
management.”
For the full text of Fox’s piece, go to www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/comm/oped/Break.shtml
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