The theme of this year’s Trailblazers of Color Leadership Conference was “Looking Back to Look Forward.” According to Mount Holyoke College’s events calendar, the conference aimed to “[mark] a decade of commitment to empowering gender-diverse individuals of color across the Five Colleges, Western Massachusetts, and beyond.”
Students, staff and community members gathered outside of College Hall at Smith College in Northampton. Flowers were laid out across the entryway at the front of the campus. Large camping tents were pitched just behind the gates. A banner reading “DIVEST FROM WAR INVEST IN PEACE” hung from a window of College Hall. Students inside peered out from the windows.
“This business is proud to say we don’t care about women,” declared a sticker bearing the colors of the transgender flag. This sticker, along with several transgender flags placed into toilets, was found in one of the bathrooms inside Blanchard Hall on March 31, International Transgender Day of Visibility.
Mount Holyoke College Senate held its weekly meeting this past Tuesday, April 2, 2024. To start the meeting, the Mount Holyoke College Land Acknowledgement was read aloud to the senate board, giving the attendees time to reflect on the land they inhabit.
After the land acknowledgment, the E-Board shared updates regarding laundry and the Ways and Means Guidelines for the 2024-2025 school year.
“Have you ever gotten food poisoning from Blanch before?” This question was written in dry-erase marker on the top of the popular Information Commons message board on the fourth floor of Williston Memorial Library.
In a tallied poll below the question, six students voted that they had, while 10 expressed experience with milder bowel illness, such as diarrhea. Several students commented on their concern with dining hall food overall. One comment asked, “When do you not get food poisoning from Blanch?”
The U.S. Supreme Court has begun deliberations over the case that will determine accessibility to the most commonly used abortion medication in the country, mifepristone. The Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine began oral arguments on Tuesday, March 26, and a decision is expected by the summer, according to The Washington Post.
In 2023, mifepristone became the most commonly used abortion treatment in the United States, accounting for over 60% of abortion treatments, the Post reported. It has become a more accessible abortion treatment, particularly for Americans living in rural areas where there are few clinics and for those living in states with strict abortion laws.
On Wednesday, Feb. 28, Mount Holyoke students and community members gathered in Hooker Auditorium to attend a McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives panel. The event, titled “Democracy’s Global Test: Reflections on the Year of Elections,” aimed to explore threats to democracy, important elections and their international impact in the “biggest election year in history.”
On Feb. 7, 2024, 16-year-old Indigenous nonbinary student Nex Benedict went to use the bathroom at an Oklahoma high school. Teen Vogue reported that because of anti-transgender laws in the state, requiring students to use the bathroom that correlated with the gender they were assigned at birth, Benedict was required to use the women’s restroom.
Throughout February, Mount Holyoke College and the Association of Pan-African Unity has hosted several events in celebration of Black History Month. This array of events has ranged from keynote speakers to galas to movie nights. During the week of Feb. 18, the College held several events, including an open mic night and a Black History Month gala.
