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"State of the faculty" report released--The nation's college and university professors are less likely to see Western culture as the bedrock of a college curriculum than they were six years ago, more likely to teach and do research concerning race and gender than they were in the late 1980s, and more likely to use cooperative learning in their classes now than in 1989.
These are just some of the findings of a national survey of nearly 34,000 professors at 384 institutions, conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California at Davis and published in the September 13 Chronicle of Higher Education. MHC professors did not take part in the survey, according to director of institutional research Janice Gifford.
As a group, the professors surveyed are giving fewer lectures and relying more "on small-group learning, group projects, and computer-aided instruction," according to the Chronicle article. Survey questions also charted important personal and professional goals and perceptions of diversity issues on their campuses.
Objective: superwoman--The September issue of the German fashion and culture magazine marie claire features a multipage, glossy profile of women's colleges in the U.S. and focuses on Mount Holyoke College as well as Smith and Wellesley. Under the heading "Lernziel: Superwoman," or "Learning Objective: Superwoman," is the message that prestigious women's colleges are turning out leaders. Multiple photos of our campus and students are shown, along with a picture of Mary Lyon and her famous dictum to go where no one else will go, do what no one else will do. The article includes photos of Deborah Wild '97 at work at WMHC and Anna Morawiec '96, now on a Fulbright in Cracow, Poland.
"Ants" on the television--Mount Holyoke alumna and poet Virginia Hamilton Adair '33 was interviewed on Newshour with Jim Lehrer on September 4. The eighty-three-year-old-poet and winner of the Glascock Poetry Prize while a student here more than half a century ago has just had her first collection of verse, Ants on the Melon, published to rave reviews and four printings--a phenomenal run for a poetry publication, especially for an unknown. Adair, now blind, recounted in the lengthy interview that writing poetry has become a way of life for her, "the journal that [she] never kept."
Taking on the world--The July issue of premier horse magazine Dressage Today reports on three Mount Holyoke equestrians who ventured to Bonn, Germany, this past April to represent the U.S. in a competition including show jumping and dressage. The students were Wynatte Chu '99, Meredith Martin '98, and Amy Spatz '96. The team of three placed fifth in the combined jumping and dressage competition, while Spatz, at sixth place, was the top American in dressage.