MHC TOPS IN SPORTS Sports Illustrated for Women's September/ October issue featured the publication's guide to top colleges for women athletes, and Mount Holyoke was rated number one in the category of women's schools. The magazine's editors considered a variety of factors when ranking the top schools, including the number of national titles and Sears Directors' Cup points (awarded to schools in each division with successful varsity programs); varsity, club, and intramural opportunities; graduation rates; financial aid; and fan support. Sports-related curricula, traditions, and attitudes were also taken into account. YOU CAN GO HOME AGAIN MHC English professor Corinne Demas's new memoir, Eleven Stories High: Growing Up in Stuyvesant Town, 1948-1968 (State University of New York Press) was published September 1, and she launched the book locally with a reading at the Odyssey Bookshop September 20. On September 13, Demas journeyed to New York to appear on the NPR show New York & Co. and gave a reading at Borders that evening. In October, she gave a reading in Stuyvesant Town. PROMISING TEACHERS Eight MHC students were awarded scholarships from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics Teacher Education Collaborative (STEMTEC). The criteria for selection were a strong academic background and an interest in teaching as a potential career choice. The winners were Elizabeth Burrows '02, Sarah Cutler '03 (Distinguished Teaching Scholar) Jamie Schefiliti '01, Patricia Smith FP, Meghan Spellacy '03, Anna Truoiolo '03, Christine Vaughn '01, and Lindsey Von Holtz '02. Students with an interest in teaching at the elementary through high school levels with an academic emphasis in math or science can apply to the NSF/STEMTEC Teaching Scholars Program. GLOBAL REDISCOVERY A lengthy story on Lois Brown's rediscovery of the first African American biography appeared in the September 17 edition of the Boston Globe. Through the efforts of Brown, assistant professor of English at MHC, the story of James Jackson Jr., a nineteenth-century free black child living in Boston, was reissued by Harvard University Press. Titled The Memoir of James Jackson, the Attentive and Obedient Scholar, Who Died in Boston, October 31, 1833, Aged Six Years and Eleven Months, the new edition was edited by Brown, who also wrote its introduction. AN EQUESTRIAN HIGH POINT MHC equestrian team member Jesse Smith '04 earned the title of champion high-point rider at the Smith Intercollegiate Show September 30.

Biggest Gift Ever: $10 Million Supports "Green" Complex

At fall convocation, President Joanne Creighton announced that MHC had received a $10-million gift from an anonymous alumna, the largest gift in the College's history. The gift provided key funding for the nexus of the new unified science center, which will be called Kendade Hall. The College and the donor agreed that the new center will conform to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards established by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC). To receive a "green" building designation, the science complex project is being designed and built to meet high standards for a wide variety of measures in the areas of sustainable technologies and practices. The USGBC is an international organization that includes wide representation from leading construction, environmental, architectural, financial, and manufacturing firms. The group seeks to speed adoption of "green" building practices, technologies, policies, and standards. The unified science center is a fundraising priority of The Campaign for Mount Holyoke.

Cross-Cultural Dance Performed

Rose and Charles Flachs.

The MHC dance department, in collaboration with Jin-Wen Yu, presented "Interlink," a cross-cultural and multimedia dance concert with flavors of tai chi, Chinese opera, dance, ballet, video, and contemporary dance September 15. The concert featured choreography by Sean Curran, Jan Erkert, and Jin-Wen Yu, assistant professor of dance at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the work of videographers Claude Heintz and Ting-Yi Lin. The program included Jin-Wen Yu's new ballet, Bolero Azul, created for Mount Holyoke dance faculty members Rose and Charles Flachs, and a contemporary duet by Yu, performed by Marielle Amrhein '03 and Christiana Axelsen '03.

$1 Million Howard Hughes Medical Institute Grant Awarded to MHC

September saw the announcement that the College had been awarded a four-year $1-million grant for undergraduate biological sciences education by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). The HHMI grant is enabling MHC to continue its Hughes Scholars program of summer laboratory research for first-year students; to appoint a new tenure-track faculty member in biomechanics or computational biology; and to incorporate a new focus on quantitative analysis, biomechanics, and mathematical modeling into the biology curriculum. The College will equip several biology labs to support quantitative investigations, digital imaging, and computer visualization and will renovate two labs to accommodate more inquiry-based teaching and learning. In addition, MHC's SummerMath for Teachers Program will launch a new project with middle and high school teachers to enable them to use inquiry-based pedagogy. MHC was one of fifty-three colleges and universities in twenty-two states and Puerto Rico to receive a total of $50.3 million in HHMI awards. HHMI is the nation's largest private supporter of science education, from elementary school through postdoctoral studies.

Campus Planning Dialogue Continued

Landscape architect Stacey Bridge-Denzak gave a presentation at the campus master planning workshop September 11.

On September 11, landscape architects from the firm of Carol R. Johnson Associates (CRJA) and the Mount Holyoke College Master Planning Committee hosted a campus landscape brainstorming session for students, faculty, and staff. The event was a continuation of a campus-planning dialogue launched in March of last year, when President Joanne Creighton organized a community forum. At the September event, Jennifer Jones and Stacey Bridge-Denzak, landscape architects with CRJA, presented the firm's initial site inventory and analysis of MHC's campus. Their report included a discussion of existing vehicular and pedestrian circulations, parking, vegetation, open space, views and vistas, gathering spaces, and environmental resources. A number of campus planning and construction forums took place during 2000-2001.

Angela Davis Discussed Women and Justice

Internationally known activist, scholar, writer, and teacher Angela Davis spoke at MHC September 22. Her lecture on women and the criminal justice system was titled "Jailing Democracy: Women, Civic Participation, and the Prison Industrial Complex." The lecture was sponsored by the Mount Holyoke College Program in African and African American Studies, the Purrington and Mary Lyon Lecture Funds, and the Harriet L. and Paul M. Weissman Center for Leadership.

New Orientation Initiatives Implemented

lauren Ruffin '03 with a friend at the Dakin Animal Shelter.

Two new initiatives were incorporated into the 2000-2001 orientation program. Over the summer, all incoming students were sent a copy of Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place (Pantheon, 1991), a memoir by award-winning writer and environmental advocate Terry Tempest Williams. During orientation, the book was the subject of discussion among students and faculty. The entire MHC community was encouraged to read the memoir, which was the focus of campuswide dialogues during the first semester. Williams was on campus to lead an October 24 discussion. This fall, new students will read and discuss How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, by Julia Alvarez (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1991). Alvarez will be on campus September 7 to give a reading.

Another new orientation program, Second*Saturday, was developed to link students to the Pioneer Valley Community. During the second Saturday of the fall semester, more than 300 incoming students were introduced to fellow students, faculty, staff, alumnae, and community members, and to a wide variety of activities and locales in the Pioneer Valley. Traditional students, foreign fellows, and Frances Perkins Scholars did everything from canoeing with members of the South Hadley Police Department and hiking in the Arcadia Wildlife Sanctuary, to working in after-school programs and soup kitchens, exercising dogs at the Dakin Animal Shelter in Leverett, and visiting the Leverett Peace Pagoda.

Leadership: From Vision to Action

Leadership: From Vision to Action, the second annual MHC student leadership conference, took place September 23. The conference provided students with an opportunity to learn the skills necessary for taking action and working with others to bring about positive change. President Joanne Creighton delivered the introductory address, and the event's keynote address was given by Naomi M. Barry '96, an equal-opportunity specialist at the United States Department of Labor. The conference was sponsored by the Harriet L. and Paul M. Weissman Center for Leadership, the Office of Student Programs, the Student Government Association, the Office of Health Education, and the Office of Diversity and Inclusion.

Weissman Center American Democracy Series Launched

As election 2000 loomed, the Weissman Center for Leadership created a College-wide dialogue on whether the American political system is a vigorous democracy--where competing ideas flourish and public debate thrives--or a victim of big money, voter apathy, and the manipulation of special interests. American Democracy in Crisis? Money, Politics, & Civic Participation, a four-event fall series devoted to this topic, was launched September 28 with a panel discussion titled "Money in American Politics." Moderated by Dan Clawson, professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, the panel discussion featured Maine state senator Susan Longley '78, Washington Post political reporter Thomas Edsall, and Ira Glasser, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Gore's Roundtable

Erica Spector '04 participated, along with a small group of eighteen- to twenty-five-year-olds, in a roundtable in New York City with Vice President Al Gore and his daughter Karenna Gore Schiff September 14. The group discussed issues affecting young people, including health care and how to get youth more involved in politics.

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