New & Notable

Who needs a blizzard?--As a way to give back to the community for National Girls and Women in Sports Day on February 6, the physical education and athletics department treated thirty girls from Girls Inc. of Holyoke to face-painting, a Mount Holyoke vs. Williams basketball game, and a basketball clinic during halftime. Running the day's events were head tennis coach Aldo Santiago, assistant athletics director Lynne Wilkie, and student sports announcers Andi Overton '97 and Stephanie Sullivan '98. Players from the professional women's basketball team the New England Blizzard were also slated to appear for the event, but were unable to attend.

By the end of the experience, the Girls Inc. crew was so enthralled by our own players that several were asked for autographs following the game. Channel 40 television covered the event, interviewing Wilkie and five MHC students. Crew coach Jeanne Friedman, chair of the athletics department's community service committee, organized the event.

Mary and the missionaries--Suddenly, Mary Lyon's name is everywhere: all over campus, in the New York Times, and now in a forthcoming book written by alumna Amanda Porterfield '69. Mary Lyon and the Mount Holyoke Missionaries is scheduled for publication in May by Oxford University Press. Porterfield, who is a professor of religious studies and director of women's studies at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis, is also the author of three previous books on American religious history.

Of her forthcoming work, Porterfield says, "I was interested in Mary Lyon's role as a leader in the revitalization of religion in early nineteenth-century New England. I focus on her belief in scientific and historical study as means of glorifying God, her concept of Mount Holyoke as a religious community, and her emphasis on missionary zeal as a marker of Christian virtue." She discusses Lyon's efforts to inculcate a missionary spirit in her students, and follows several of them who ventured into non-Western cultures to convert women to Protestant Christianity.

She also examines the impact of Lyon's students in Persia, western India, and southeast Africa. "As you might imagine, this impact was shaped by different cultural patterns and historical events in each of the three non-Western regions," Porterfield explains, "but common threads do emerge. Emphasis on women's education and its moral justification had a revolutionary impact in all three places. And the missionaries' failure to treat their converts with the same spirit of sisterhood they enjoyed with one another led to resentment and to charges of hypocrisy and imperialism."

MHC archives librarian Patricia Albright says Porterfield's book "is the first scholarly, modern study of the work of early alumnae missionaries, and I think it's going to change a lot of ideas about those intrepid women, who are often dismissed as mere do-gooders."

Afternoons of Mirth--Interest in turn-of-the-century literary powerhouse Edith Wharton (author of The Custom of the Country, The House of Mirth, and The Age of Innocence) is taking root on campus under the leadership of Frances Perkins scholar Genet Cunningham. The Edith Wharton Society, which she organized, holds weekly teas Thursdays at 4 pm in the Piano Room of Abbey Hall and has put together an impressive film and lecture series. It will be capped by an April 10 lecture by preeminent Wharton and Henry James scholar R. W. B. Lewis. Let's hope the society's efforts become a "custom of the campus."

Up close and personnel-- New hire: Kevin C. Hightower, supervisor, post office and mailing services. Departures: Marianna Savoca, career development center; Rebecca Meleski, financial services; Marilyn A. Dunn, library; Lynda L. Constantilos, buildings and grounds; Cynthia Hutton, biological sciences; Richard J. Boccetti, dining services; Raymond A. Duval, public safety; Peter M. McAvoy, major gifts; and Sandra Hindle, dean of faculty and provost.

What's new with you?--Send news for "New & Notable" to Emily Weir, Office of Communications, or email eweir@mtholyoke.edu.