Life at Mount Holyoke has not been the same since COVID-19 spread across the world over a year ago. One area of the community that endured substantial change was Residential Life, constantly needing to shift the number of students allowed to live in dorms during the 2020-21 academic year. The College’s plans changed from allowing the full number of students on campus, to partial capacity, to almost no students during the fall semester and then back to partial capacity during the spring.
33-year-old New York Times bestselling author and activist Elizabeth Smart visited the Mount Holyoke community on April 29 as part of the College’s Sexual Assault Awareness Month programming. Smart is known for her role in establishing safety legislation to prevent abductions, such as the national Amber Alert system. Smart promotes the possibility of “life after tragedy.”
At Mount Holyoke, the student body includes hundreds of international students from over 70 countries, representing cultures from across the globe. The International Student Organizing Committee sought to celebrate the diversity of all the cultures and backgrounds of Mount Holyoke students through their annual Global Fest, hosted on Saturday, April 24, both on-campus and online.
Have you ever wondered what an editor does and what exactly they want from writers? Well, those are questions Andrea Lawlor, assistant professor of English at Mount Holyoke, set out to answer. On April 21, Lawlor held a panel discussion with three editors from literary journals and magazines as guest speakers.
On April 23, the Mount Holyoke Review, a literary magazine out of Mount Holyoke College, held a virtual publishing party for their second completed publication. With 51 attendees, the Zoom session featured nine of its published writers who read their work aloud. While the readers performed, the Zoom chat function was used by some to encourage and praise each other.
On May 22, 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Phexxi, making it the first non-hormonal, on-demand contraceptive that regulates vaginal pH levels. Phexxi is manufactured by Evofem Biosciences, located in San Diego. According to Phexxi’s official website, Evofem Biosciences is devoted to developing innovative healthcare solutions that put women “in control of [their] sexual and reproductive health."
The Mount Holyoke College and the Weissman Center held a town hall on March 19 with Massachusetts Representative Ayanna Pressley in conversation with Carmen Yulín Cruz, former mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and current Harriet L. Weissman and Paul M. Weissman distinguished fellow in leadership at Mount Holyoke College. This town hall was the first of many in the new series “Our Voices, Our Platforms” hosted by the Weissman Center for Leadership. The series will run at least through December 2021 and works to emphasize the power and importance of using your voice to create change.
“What does it mean to be whole,” Q. Hailey ’12 asked herself. “How do we find wholeness in this period?”
These are some of the questions Hailey contemplated when deciding what topics to discuss in her series, Womanist Worship Sunday Exploring Wholeness. Each month has a separate topic revolving around self-care. In March, Hailey will focus on wellness dealing with personal, financial, family and other struggles.
In the fall of 2020, fully remote learning and the new module system meant professors were uncertain about what challenges the semester would bring. Remote learning continued through the winter into the spring semester as we witnessed rising COVID-19 cases in the U.S. Mount Holyoke is now in its final fully remote module, and the College community is able to reflect on the remote year: the difficulties, successes and new practices that we will implement moving forward.
On Friday, Feb. 26, the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum invited residential students back into the space — the space’s first in-person visitors since March 2020. The MHCAM will continue to offer virtual programming, but residential students are now able to make reservations online to visit the museum between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. on Fridays and 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Sundays. “I’m so thrilled to have you all back,” Director of the MHCAM Tricia Y. Paik said.
Last Wednesday, Feb. 17, marked Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent. Lent continues until Easter Sunday, and for many practicing Christians and especially Catholics, sacrifices are made for these 40 days in order to represent Jesus’ sacrifice when he spent 40 days praying and fasting in the desert. This year everyone has had to sacrifice many things due to the pandemic. Students, for one, have lost multiple aspects of their social and educational lives.
For college students, discovering how to navigate library resources effectively and efficiently is a crucial skill. Mount Holyoke College’s Library, Information and Technology Services has an abundance of research databases to utilize, but it can be difficult to know where to begin. LITS has an important resource available to any confused and overwhelmed Mount Holyoke student designed to make writing essays, working on a thesis or collecting data for research papers a little easier.
On Friday, Feb. 12, Five College Dance and Mount Holyoke College’s Division of Student Life hosted the final session of RACE AND...Dance, a six-session series that began in October 2020 and was designed to teach Five College students about a variety of forms of African diasporic dance and culture. RACE AND...Dance was curated by Five College Joint Lecturer of African Diasporic Dance Shakia Barron.
