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Will Lake trade DC for MHC?--Anthony Lake's decision on March 17 to withdraw his name as nominee to direct the CIA has Mount Holyoke friends and colleagues of President Clinton's former national security adviser wondering--will he return here? Lake has been professor of international relations here since 1984 and has been on leave since January 1993 to serve in the White House. On March 18, President Joanne Creighton told the media, through a prepared statement, that "Our assumption and hope is that Mr. Lake will return to our faculty and, of course, the College will accommodate whatever time frame and plans Mr. Lake has in this regard." College officials have not yet received word of Lake's plans.

Lake called the confirmation process "a political circus," and concluded after three days of hearings that "Washington has gone haywire." An Associated Press report quoted Lake as saying, "I have believed all my life in public service. I still do. But Washington has gone haywire. I hope that sooner, rather than later, people of all political views beyond our city limits will demand that Washington give priority to policy over partisanship, to governing over 'gotcha.'" Lake's longtime colleague, professor of international relations Vincent Ferraro, also assailed the Senate confirmation process, saying, "This is a victory for really stupid, shameless people."

JVC on the BBC--President Creighton was interviewed on British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Radio 4 last week, according to senior major gifts officer Susan Anderson, who heard the president's interview while driving through the Cotswolds region of England on development office work. Creighton "did an excellent job," according to Anderson, and spoke on "The Women's Hour" radio program about Mount Holyoke and single-sex education along with women from St. Hilda's College, Oxford University's only women's college. Creighton stopped off in England en route to a conference for MHC's European alumnae held in Amsterdam.

Creighton's comments on the BBC program were especially timely because St. Hilda's College is currently in the throes of a heated debate over a proposal to allow male faculty members for the first time. Students voted 2-1 to oppose college plans, partly on the grounds that it would eventually lead to making the student body coeducational too. Creighton was able to address the issue of a single-sex college serving women's educational interests well with male and female professors.