Past Presidents Letters & Statements from Biddy Martin

October 4, 2021

Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff,

I am writing with an update on the College's Anti-Racism Action Plan, originally released in August 2020. As you will see, we continue to make progress on many of the plan's elements. There is still a lot of work to do, and I have included timelines where possible to indicate when additional progress will be made. Thank you to everyone for the work they have done to get us closer to our goals.

Sincerely,

Biddy

October 20, 2021

To the Amherst College Community:

Over the past 200 years, Amherst alumni have created a multigenerational community by treating each new class of students and recent graduates as “kin and heirs,” to paraphrase novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson. Because of their generosity and the Amherst family they have created, the College has been able to provide an extraordinary education to students and to extend educational opportunity to young people from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds. 

I write today to share the news that, effective with the 2022-23 academic year, we will extend our already strong financial aid commitments and simplify the program so that prospective students and their families can easily understand what an Amherst education actually costs for particular income groups. The increase in our expenditures on financial aid to $71 million will benefit current, as well as entering students. 

September 13, 2021

Dear Students, Faculty, Staff, Alumni, and Friends of the College,

As many of you know, this is the beginning of my 11th year as president. I am writing to let you know that it will be my last year in this position.  I have never read an announcement in which outgoing presidents failed to say what a difficult decision they have made; in this case, I can certainly attest to the difficulty. I love this place, its mission, its beauty, and the people who make it so extraordinary.  I love the work. And I feel at home here. Amherst students bring me tremendous joy, whether I am interacting with ​them at a festival, guest-teaching in a class, listening to groups or individuals in office hours, attending student concerts, poster sessions, public speaking contests, athletic events, or just chatting with ​them at the top of Memorial Hill. It’s enough just to see students making their way with friends across campus and hearing them laugh. If I have one regret, it is not having had time to teach a course. I look forward to returning after a sabbatical year so I can do that.

July 22, 2021

Dear Members of the Amherst Community,

I am writing to let you know that Kevin Weinman, our Chief Financial and Administrative Officer, has accepted an offer to become the new president of Marist College, a comprehensive institution in Poughkeepsie, New York, that serves more than 5,000 undergraduate and 1,400 adult and graduate students in 47 undergraduate majors and numerous graduate programs. I could not be more excited for Kevin. His passion for his work, extraordinary talent, and vast experience have created this wonderful opportunity for him. He is well prepared to lead an institution that will benefit from his expertise. At the same time, his departure is also an enormous loss for the College and for me personally.

June 11, 2021

Via Electronic Mail (T9PublicHearing@ed.gov)

Suzanne B. Goldberg
Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights
Department of Education

Re: Written Comment: Title IX Public Hearing (Title IX Protections Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity)

Dear Acting Assistant Secretary Goldberg:

Amherst College is grateful that the Department of Education has invited public comment on Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 ("Title IX"), specifically regarding the Department’s approach to protecting against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in educational environments. Amherst welcomes this administration’s commitment to clarifying and enforcing the full scope of civil rights and protections for those who suffer discrimination and harassment because of their sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression.

April 20, 2021

Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff,

A short while ago, jurors found Derek Chauvin guilty of all three charges against him, including the most serious: second-degree unintentional murder while committing a felony. Chauvin’s conviction for the murder of George Floyd is a relief. But the verdicts that were reached today do not bring George Floyd back to life. They do not heal the pain that his family and friends have endured and will continue to bear. They cannot put an end to the anxiety and the anguish that members of our own Black community and other communities of color experience given the surge in white supremacist violence, the many deaths at the hands of police, and the resistance to criminal justice reform in Washington.  

April 17, 2021

Dear Students, Staff, and Faculty, 

Many, but perhaps not all of you, are aware of Tuesday’s BlackMindsMatter protest organized by the Black Student Union. Hundreds of students gathered to call attention to the mental health challenges that Black students face by virtue of the two pandemics of COVID-19 and the systemic racism it exposes, as well as the many deaths of Black people at the hands of police over the past year alone. Just two days ago we learned of the fatal shooting of thirteen-year-old Adam Toledo in Chicago. 

April 7, 2021

Dear Students, Faculty, Staff, and Families, 

I am writing to share our current thinking for the fall 2021 semester. As many of you know, classes will start on August 30, and we are planning a return to fully in-person teaching and learning for the 2021-2022 academic year. I look forward to this return and know that you do as well.

On the basis of what we are learning from the CDC and other sources of expertise, we anticipate that some health and safety measures may continue to be necessary for the fall. We hope these measures will be mild in comparison to this year’s protocols, but this will depend upon positive developments in the nature of the pandemic over the coming months. As always, we will follow current public health guidelines and make determinations of what we believe is best for the Amherst community to operate as safely and effectively as possible. 

January 7, 2021

Dear Amherst College Community,

Like many of you, I am sure, I was left with a range of feelings after yesterday’s horrific and deadly storming of the Capitol building in Washington. I have needed time before writing. I do so now knowing that all attempts to capture the significance of this moment and reflect on its implications are bound to be inadequate. 

What happened yesterday was not a surprise, not in the usual sense. There were signs, even warnings, that violence was possible, perhaps even probable, when Trump supporters were hailed to Washington to protest the outcome of the presidential election on the day when it was to be made official. There was encouragement of it at the highest level. And still, it is shocking. I felt the kind of shock that horrific events or inevitable losses cause, even when we have been forewarned, even when we know they are coming. After years of attacks on truth and the possibility of a shared sense of reality, it is good that we retain the capacity to be shocked, even, if not surprised.

November 23, 2020

Dear Students, Faculty, Staff, and Alumni,

We write with our first quarterly update on the anti-racism plan you received in early August. As you will recall, the plan, with its focus on combating anti-Black racism, was designed to bolster our broader diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. This status report is intended to let you know where things stand on key commitments, inform you about which offices or groups are responsible for the work, provide as precise a timeline as possible, and explain, when relevant, where final decision-making authority lies. The framework for this work is our overarching institutional commitment to providing the best possible liberal arts education to talented students regardless of their background and means, and to doing so as a community that benefits from diversity, inclusiveness, and equity, free of systemic barriers and incidents of discrimination, harassment, and bias.

October 28, 2020

Dear Students, Families, Faculty, and Staff,

I am writing today to share some of the key elements of our plans for the spring semester. Although the fall has been, by necessity, a different kind of residential experience for everyone involved, it has brought great joy to have students on campus and I am grateful to everyone for their efforts to ensure a successful semester so far. Dean of Students Liz Agosto will continue to communicate with you about spring planning over the next several weeks.

Based on our experience this fall and the continued adherence to our COVID-19 safety protocols in our community, we plan to bring approximately 1,200 students in the spring (versus the 970 or so who arrived at the beginning of the fall semester). We will continue to maintain a low residential density by assigning only one student per room in the residence halls, using at least one residence hall that was not in use in the fall, and maintaining adequate isolation and quarantine spaces.

October 7, 2020

Dear Students, Faculty, Staff, Alumni, and Families,

I hope you are staying well and bearing up during this difficult time. We are midway through this historic fall semester; time for a fall update. 

Seven months after COVID-19 forced us to disperse back in March, we are fortunate to have more than half our students on campus, with nearly as many studying remotely. I have the great privilege of living on the campus and have loved seeing it enlivened after so many quiet months. I am also grateful for a beautiful fall with plenty of sunlight on the shades of red, russet, yellow, and gold as the leaves change.

September 24, 2020

Wesleyan University’s President, Michael Roth, and Amherst College’s President, Biddy Martin, have written the following statement regarding the DOE’s investigation of Princeton surrounding racism and adherence to federal non-discrimination law:  

Across the nation, individuals, families, communities, businesses, corporations, and educational institutions are coming to grips with the country’s legacies of slavery and racial oppression,  which stretch back over four hundred years. Recently, the U.S. Department of Education Office of Postsecondary Education announced that it will be investigating Princeton University for possible misrepresentations in its reports of adherence to federal non-discrimination law because its president publicly recognized that historic racism has been embedded in the institution over time. 

August 3, 2020

Dear Students, Faculty, Staff, and Alumni,

For the past few months, I have read, listened, and thought deeply about the experiences of racism and violence that Black students and alumni have shared, and which they endured across this country and also at Amherst. I have spoken before about the environment in which I grew up and the racism and violence that were endemic to it. I know how visceral and violent the belief in white supremacy can be. I have seen it first hand. I know how essential it is to many white people’s identities, even when its importance is unconscious and unacknowledged. Given what I have lived and what I have studied, I know there can be no neutrality about the fact of racism and no legitimate debate about the urgency of confronting it. It is time for me as a president, who is also white, to take stronger stands and to enlist the entire Amherst community in bolder efforts to make Amherst a truly equitable and inclusive place. For me, this is a time to transform what I know and what I have known into what I can do and what I can enlist you to do.