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The subject is Mountain Day--Mountain Day just got better known, thanks to the work of Nancy Birkrem, Cataloguing and Special Collections Librarian. Her suggestion to add "Mountain Day" to the official Library of Congress subject headings list was recently accepted, and that term now joins tens of thousands of others used by librarians and library-users worldwide. "It's a first for our library to have a heading accepted," she says. "Most of them are produced by the Library of Congress itself or by a selected group of major libraries." According to Birkrem's research, only Smith and Williams join Mount Holyoke in celebrating Mountain Day, but the new designation may turn up additional references.

And more about Mountain Day--Sharon Domier, Japanese cataloguer for LITS, brought the CSJ this poem by Yosano Akiko, an early Japanese feminist. She wasn't writing specifically about our Mountain Day, but we think you'll see the relevance of the poem to the MHC community.

The Day the Mountains Move

The day the mountains move has come.
I speak, but no one believes me.
For a time the mountains have been asleep.
But long ago they all danced with fire.
It doesn't matter if you believe this,
My friends, as long as you believe:
All the sleeping women
Are now awake and moving.

"Hope" paying off--Fourteen MHC employees have agreed to be team leaders for the October 26 Rays of Hope Walk, which will raise money toward finding a cure for breast cancer. According to campus cocaptains Ellen Ortyl and Sharon Crow, 214 walkers from MHC have already registered, a number that "really impressed the walk's organizers." For more information, to sponsor a walker, or to sign up, contact the cocaptains or any of the other team leaders: Charlene Elvers, Debra Masera, Ellen Perrella, Holly Sharac, Karen Jacobus, Linda Cavanaugh, Linda Young, Marc Boucher, Michele Rosenthal, Susan Rusiecki, Sally Lemaire, and Taryn San Martino.

Bringing home the issue of domestic violence to Japan--On September 27, the Japanese equivalent of the BBC shot footage of our campus as part of former MHC student Yoko Kato's story of domestic violence. Kato, a member of the MHC campus community from 1976 to 1979, was the centerpiece of the NHK, or Japanese Broadcasting Corporation's, three-and-a-half week shoot in the Bay State. In 1993, Kato lost her daughter to domestic violence, and she herself grew up in Japan in a home that suffered from domestic violence. Through the NHK program about her, Kato says, "the Japanese people will learn about this 'unspeakable issue.' Japan is like the U.S. was thirty years ago on the topic." Following her daughter's death, Kato set up a fund for victims of domestic violence and began lecturing widely in Massachusetts to educate others. The Japanese television crew filmed her in the ER department of Methuen's Holy Hospital, where she discussed how to identify and respond to domestic violence. NHK also filmed scenes involving other facets of the issue, including a 9-1-1 response call, a district attorney's office, the Men's Resource Center of Amherst, and a women's shelter.

While at Mount Holyoke, Kato worked 300 hours a year in the theatre department making costumes in exchange for tuition. Her advisors and friends in the theatre department encouraged her work, leading her to accept a job as a designer in New York state. At this job, she picked up the production skills needed to start her own dressmaking business, which she launched in Northampton in 1980. Her creations have been seen at such top-tier events as the Nobel Peace Prize ceremonies at the Hague and the Academy Awards.

In memoriam--Susan Ross Huston '69 died September 19 after a long battle with brain cancer. After completing her BA in French at Mount Holyoke, Huston earned a master's degree in French at the University of Wisconsin and a PhD at the University of Michigan. Her interest in languages led her to teach French in the United States and English in Paris and to translate a number of important works, including Birth of an Ideology: Myths and Symbols of Nation in Late Medieval France by Colette Beaune. Upon returning to the Amherst area in 1982, Huston served on several occasions as visiting assistant professor in the French department at Mount Holyoke. A true pedagogue, Huston was as enthusiastic about working with the students who plodded as with those who soared. Her commitment to the teaching of language, literature, and culture was exemplary.