East Meets West The inaugural issue of JJ Bis, a Japanese magazine geared toward women in their teens, included a six-page photo feature on Mount Holyoke and three other United States colleges. Among the MHC students pictured in the June issue were Lauren Sinatra '04, Liz Griffin '04, Rachel Stephenson '04, Stephanie Heaney '04, and Katherine Axt '01. Also pictured were the interiors of Abbey Chapel and the library's reading room, the lobby of the equestrian center, several members of the equestrian team, and a student's room in Mead Hall. The magazine called Mount Holyoke "the blessed campus with historic buildings and high-tech facilities.” A reporter, photographer, and translator from the magazine visited the College in early May. JJ Bis is a spinoff of JJ, a fashion-oriented magazine with a circulation of 750,000 in Japan.

Good Sports An article by Martha Ackmann, MHC lecturer in women's studies and director of Community-Based Learning, appeared in the sports section of the New York Times July 1. The piece focused on the benefits of a sports program at Girls Incorporated, an after-school education and recreation organization for girls in Holyoke. Ackmann is a member of the Girls Inc. board and has "watched girls transformed by sports.” In the article, Ackmann described efforts by the program to start a track squad and several girls' experiences during a road race that serves as fundraiser for the group. Ackmann wrote, "A staff of seventeen women serves more than 100 girls—ages six to seventeen-80 percent of whom are Puerto Rican-a heaping portion of self-respect, homework help, positive role models, math and technology training, sports, and spaghetti. Dinner is not just a convivial occasion at the end of a day. In this city where nearly three-quarters of the children under twelve live in poverty and where broken banisters and worn-out mothers show just how hard it is to make ends meet,the Girls Inc. meal is a blessing.” Statistics suggest that girls who participate in sports are less likely to become teen mothers, are more likely to go to college, and are less prone to adult diseases. In her article, Ackmann quotes Virginia Dillon, executive director of Girls Inc. of Holyoke, who said, "Physical activity at a young age results in lasting lessons about life, hard work, health and the power of being a girl."

News from Anchorage An article about the effects of volcanic ash on airplane engines and visibility during travel on North Pacific air routes, which appeared in Alaska's Anchorage Daily News July 7, made mention of the research of Al Werner, associate professor of geology. Illustrating the piece was a photo of Werner and Bethany Dennison '03 pounding PVC core tube into the bed of Little Campbell Lake, located a stone's throw from the main runway of the Anchorage airport. Small lake basins are considered good repositories of past volcanic eruptions, and cores recovered from these basins can be used to reconstruct the history of ashfall events. Werner, Dennison, and Juliette Hancock '02 spent July recovering sediment cores from four lake basins in the Anchorage area. When the threesome returned to campus in August, they were joined in the lab by sophomores Paula Carpentier and Jennifer Loomer and began splitting the cores and examining the sediment record of environmental change and volcanic ashfall. They described and photographed the core stratigraphy, measured the magnetic properties of the sediment, and sampled the cores for organic matter content, bulk density, and sediment size. Ultimately the group will examine the cores for organic matter that can be radiocarbon age-dated. The purpose is to test the hypothesis that reconstructed ashfall records from multiple lake basins around Anchorage can be used to reconstruct the timing and magnitude of volcanic eruptions that took place during the Holocene period (the geologic epoch of the last 10,000 years). The Alaska research group also appeared on an Anchorage television station.

SAT Webcast On July 13, Sam Donaldson@abcnews.com featured a package of stories regarding SAT-related issues, for which Jane Brown, MHC's vice-president for enrollment and College relations, discussed the reasons Mount Holyoke went SAT-optional. Brown went head to head with Gaston Caperton, president of the College Board, who defended the test. View the online video clips at http://abcnews.go.com/webcasts/samdonaldsonnew/sam_Miscellaneous_archive.html.