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From 01075 to 90210--Actress Samantha Lemole '93 made a guest appearance on the popular television show Beverly Hills, 90210, playing the role of a Canadian camper in the April 3 episode. According to the alumna's hometown newspaper, the Doylestown (PA) Record, the part was her first big break. Lemole majored in English and minored in theatre arts at Mount Holyoke, and then did graduate work at the British American Drama Academy in London. She currently lives in West Hollywood.
Math kudos--The Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science is prominently featured in Models That Work: Case Studies in Effective Undergraduate Mathematics Programs, a 1995 report published by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA). The report commends the department for "the level of curricular reform and experimentation being carried out by a very active faculty." Mount Holyoke is applauded for its tradition in predoctoral training and producing "the most female Ph.D.s in science in the twentieth century." In a separate article devoted to MHC, the mathematics program is acclaimed as a successful model "having many features that could be emulated elsewhere."
Professorial poetry--"Which of Us Two," a poem by Russian history professor Peter Viereck, won first prize in the poetry category of the first annual Arts Contest sponsored by Northampton's Optimist newspaper in May. The contest, open to professional and amateur artists in the paper's distribution area, spanned eighteen categories--from traditional painting and sculpture to crafts and World Wide Web pages. Viereck read his winning poem at an awards ceremony at the Northampton Center for the Arts, and the poem was reprinted in the Optimist. The poem is from Tide and Continuities, Last and First Poems 1995-1938, a collection of Viereck's work. Viereck will donate the prize money, as well as royalties from the book, to the Clio-Melpomene Prize, a fund that he endowed in 1994 for MHC students of history or poetry to pursue graduate work. Tide was reviewed in the magazine Humanitas in late 1995. In his review, "Dignity in Old Age: The Poetical Meditations of Peter Viereck," Michael A. Weinstein calls Viereck "a formidable philosophical poet" and analyzes a number of poems, including "Bewildered Dignity," "Rogue" (which Weinstein calls "the greatest of Viereck's philosophical poems"), and "Persephone and Old Poet."
Cooler auditoriums--Air-conditioning was recently installed in Chapin and Hooker Auditoriums. According to Paul Breen, project engineer in buildings and grounds, the College added air conditioning to attract outside groups who rent the two auditoriums during the summer. (Groups are increasingly asking for cooled spaces.) Numerous groups, including the United Church of Christ, the American Mathematical Society, and USA Gymnastic Training Centers, hold conferences and operate camps at MHC during the summer.
Setting the historical record straight--According to archivist Peter Carini, artifacts uncovered while installing campus signs could not have been remnants of an 1896 campus fire. In a June 7 CSJ article, workers had speculated that charcoal, brick fragments, and a decorative hair comb might have been buried during the fire that destroyed the Mount Holyoke Seminary building. But these items were found while digging at the corner of Route 116 and Morgan Street, too far away from the fire's location to have been part of that conflagration. Mary Lyon Hall today occupies the seminary building's former site.
Black belt--In January, Barbara Arrighi, assistant director of public safety, acquired a fifth-degree black belt and shihan (master instructor) rank in Shito-Ryu, an ancient Japanese karate style. She is the only woman in the Shito-Ryu Nippon Karatedo Kai history to receive both. Arrighi will visit Japan in late July to train at the organization's headquarters, and will host the organization on campus next summer. Arrighi already holds a fifth-degree black belt and master instructor license in the American style Gosoko Ryu. She shares her karate expertise by teaching self-defense classes on campus.
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