The South Asian community at Mount Holyoke College illuminated Chapin Auditorium with the vibrant celebration of Diwali, the Festival of Lights, on Saturday, Nov. 23. Organized by AWAZ, the South Asian Association on campus, and co-sponsored by the Weissman Center for Leadership and the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, the event brought together students, faculty and visitors for an unforgettable evening of cultural immersion.
With Halloween having passed by on campus, the Mount Holyoke community has reflected on how they spent their spooky weekend. While many students attended student-run parties both on and off campus, Mount Holyoke News interviewed students who preferred alternative festivities, including the beloved Monsters Ball.
Asexuality is a sexual orientation that describes someone who experiences little to no sexual attraction to others or has a low or absent interest in sexual activity. Asexual people are often referred to as “ace” for short. Asexuality is a spectrum with sub-identities, often called micro-labels. Since asexuality is a spectrum, some people choose to use these micro-labels as another way to express themselves and as an additional way to find community in the broader asexual community.
Students enjoyed a silent disco, light-up games, Batch ice cream and more at Nightfest: Celebration Edition. Hosted on Sept. 7 by the Office of Student Involvement, students could participate in a dance party in Chapin Auditorium or a silent disco on the Abbey/Buck Green. Besides the music, there was a photo booth for taking pictures with friends and bags of kettle corn to snack on. Outside, there were LED ping pong tables and mini golf, as well as two food trucks, where students could choose between five flavors of Batch ice cream and three styles of grilled cheese sandwiches.
How well do we all know the residence halls on campus? There are 18 dorms at Mount Holyoke College. All of them were gradually added to campus following the fire that burned down the original Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in 1896. A colorful bunch, the dorms each have distinct quirks and drawbacks. Your personal taste may affect how you see each one, but they all have something to offer that truly makes a resident’s experience unique. This past week, I visited Porter Hall, Safford Hall and Brigham Hall: the first dorms, all built within the first year after the Seminary fire. With these three dorms, Mount Holyoke’s expansion and evolution were truly catapulted into motion.
Built in 1897, Pearsons Hall is right across the street from Williston Memorial Library and a stone’s throw from the Village Commons and the Gaylord Memorial Library. It is a large brown brick building with yellow trim above the windows and its construction year carved prominently into the entrance facade. While built immediately after the Seminary fire of 1896, Pearsons Hall is distinctly separate from its three compatriots (stay tuned).
How well do we all know the residence halls on campus? There are 18 dorms at Mount Holyoke College. All of them were gradually added to campus following the fire that burned down the original Mount Holyoke seminary building in 1896. A colorful bunch, the dorms each have distinct quirks and drawbacks. Your personal taste may affect how you see each one, but they all have something to offer that truly makes a resident’s experience unique. This past week, I visited Rockefeller Hall, Mandelle Hall and Dickinson Hall, respectively two party dorms and the black sheep of Mount Holyoke’s student residences.
How well do we all know the residence halls on campus? There are 18 dorms at Mount Holyoke College at the time of this article’s publication, gradually built following the fire that burned down the College’s original Seminary building in 1896. A colorful bunch, each has their own distinct quirks and drawbacks. Your personal taste may affect how you see each one, but they all have something to offer that truly makes their residents’ experience unique. This past week, I visited three dorms that stand out in their modernity.
Growing Vines, a student-led collective at Mount Holyoke College, has been gaining traction since its formation in 2020. The group was founded by students driven by a shared passion for environmental justice and food sovereignty. Initially, the group focused on creating a collective, but as the pandemic began, they took a pause to revitalize and strategize.
Karla Biery ’23, a critical social thought major and Spanish minor, is always thinking about “how our communities are built … and the ways that they’re split up.” Throughout her three years at Mount Holyoke, Biery has taken a combination of dance, art, religion and Spanish courses, eventually deciding to major in CST with a focus on how people connect with one another, as well as what divides them.
The Five College Film Festival returned for the first time in person since 2019, featuring screenings of films made by students and recent graduates of the Five Colleges on April 1, 2023, at Amherst College. An awards ceremony was subsequently held, in which two Mount Holyoke students were awarded prizes. Ayu Suryawan ’23 won Best Documentary Prize for their film “Loving, Moving Boy” and Olive Rowell ’24 won Best in College for Mount Holyoke with their film “Photo Album.”
On Friday, April 7, students, faculty and staff gathered in Hooker Auditorium to listen to Mei Lum ’12, the keynote speaker for Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage Month. While AANHPI Heritage Month is usually celebrated in May, Mount Holyoke celebrates it in April while students are still on campus. This year’s theme is “Rewriting the Narrative.” The goal is to fight against Asian hate and emphasize the achievements, resilience and joy of the AANHPI community.
Over the last 100 years, the Mount Holyoke College English department has invited college-aged poets and professional poet judges to the College to participate in the Glascock poetry contest. This year the judges — poets Hoa Ngyuen, Eileen Myles and Evie Shockley — split the prize and awarded it to Dartmouth College senior Tom Bosworth and Pratt Institute senior Portlyn Houghton-Harjo.
On March 29, the department of film, media and theater hosted a screening of the film “Where the Pavement Ends,” followed by a student-moderated discussion with filmmakers Jane Gillooly and Khary Saeed Jones. “Beginning with a 1960s roadblock that divided then-white Ferguson from black Kinloch, the film depicts a micro-history of race relations in America.”
As a part of Building On Our Momentum Community Day, on March 28, 2023, Gaye Theresa Johnson gave the inaugural lecture for the critical race and political economy department. Johnson is the author of multiple books and an associate professor at UCLA, teaching courses in the departments of African American studies and Chicana/o studies. She specializes in topics of cultural history, spatial politics, race, racism and political economy.
Newbury, a senior at Suffolk who is majoring in English with a creative writing concentration and a minor in philosophy, says that he has been interested in poetry since the age of thirteen thanks to Savannah Brown, who posted her poetry on Youtube when Newbury came across it. Poetry with a “tragic element” also inspires Newbury, who cites Plath and Keats as other inspirations for the way he writes his poetry.
Chandler wasn’t aware of the contest before coming to the College and learned about it in one of their classes. “One of my professors brought it up and [it was] one of those moments where something just clicked, it was like, ‘Oh shit, I have this work and I think it’s ready, I’ve been working on it [and] putting it together and let’s just see,” Chandler said. “That’s kind of what guided me to submit and I feel really, for lack of a better word, blessed and excited that I was picked as the contestant and [am] super excited to be performing.”
