Amherst Quotes & Facts

Games. Ice skating. Music. A donut wall! Follow the Mammoth to Winter Fest.  Winter Festival: Sunday, Feb. 16, 2020, 6-8 p.m., Coolidge Cage.

There’s no better time to note that our dining hall is named Valentine Dining Hall. The Feb. 14 dinner menu features heart-shaped ravioli. Dining Services at Amherst College. 

Note: Download the “Mammoth Meals” dining app today from your preferred app store.

“Professor McFeely’s riveting lectures brought to life in the most vivid way a world about which most of us had been unaware, a world of black achievement, sacrifice, resistance and attainment.” Henry Louis Gates Jr., acclaimed historian and former student of the late William S. McFeely ’52, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Frederick Douglass and Ulysses S. Grant, and a co-founder of the nation's first black studies department.

NOTE: McFeely wrote an article for Amherst magazine about the experience of Amherst students, including his own father, in World War I. 

Welcome back! Classes are in session and the calendar is full. Upcoming events at Amherst College.

“Democracy must press ahead, out of the past of ignorance and intolerance, and into the present of educational opportunity and moral freedom.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., from a February 1964 speech rebroadcast on Amherst’s college radio station, WAMF, later that year. Martin Luther King day is Jan. 20.

NOTE: Rediscovered in Frost Library in 2015, the WAMF recording is the only known audio of the speech. 

“I'm looking for energy. I.m not looking for perfection. Perfection is highly overrated.” Jim Rooney ’60, a Grammy-winning music producer specializing in the Americana genre, has worked with John Prine, Iris DeMent and Nanci Griffith. Rooney won a Grammy for production of Griffith’s Other Voices, Other Rooms. This year’s Grammy Award ceremony airs Jan. 26.

“I knew from day one that we would be able to effect good and needed change.” Deborah “D.J.” Williams ’20, on serving on the Massachusetts Governor's Task Force on Hate Crimes.

Note: Baker-Polito Administration Re-Establishes Governor’s Task Force on Hate Crimes.

“My comfort with discomfort is the most important ingredient in my work.” Susannah Grant ’84 is the screenwriter and showrunner of the Netflix series Unbelievable. It was nominated for four Golden Globes, including Best Television Limited Series. The awards ceremony airs Jan. 5. (Photo credit: Netflix)

“I could have been reading him Robert Frost, or a section of the Internal Revenue Code—it didn’t matter.” Peter Zheutlin ’75 on taking a cross-country road trip with his dog, inspired by John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley.

“At the risk of sounding idealistic, what could be more powerful than bridging campus divides through love?” Catherine Epstein, provost and dean of the faculty,  describes the importance of building community through intellectual pursuits.

“I think these projects need to become obsessions. Nothing happens unless someone is obsessed with making it happen.” Rosanne Haggerty ’82 is a housing advocate for the homeless. Dec. 7 marks the event known as “The World’s Big Sleep Out,” which brings attention to issues of homelessness. 

NOTE: Photo of the Times Square Hotel lobby by Gregory Goode. Creative Commons Licence). The image has been cropped slightly on the sides.

“ It is important for me to tell the story that my mother cannot tell for herself. ” Tracy Jarrett ’11, a producer at Vice Media, writing about her mother Julie Keith Jarrett ’81, who died from AIDS in 1994. Dec. 1 is World AIDS Day.

“The first time I came into the chapel, I had a sense of someone missing. And that someone was Emily Dickinson.” Cullen Murphy ’74, chairman emeritus of Amherst's board of trustees. Johnson Chapel now features two new portraits of the poet, painted by Robert Sweeney, the William R. Mead Professor of Art. 

“What would you do if you were replaced by a robot?” That’s the question Patrick Frenett ’19 is traveling the world to ask this year, as Amherst’s latest recipient of a Watson Fellowship.

NOTE: Nearly 100 Amherst alumni have served as Watson Fellows.

“He staggered up and fell to his knees before me, uttering, ‘Freiheit. Freiheit.’—Freedom. Freedom.” Thayer Greene ’50. For Veterans Day, we honor Amherst College military veterans, including Green, an infantryman in World War II who helped liberate a Nazi concentration camp. 

NOTE: Photo by Jens Meyer, from “Nazi ‘V-2 rocket’ concentration camp liberation remembered.”

“For decades and into future generations, when the doings of this team are recalled, hearts will dance and race and scream in joy.” Thomas Boswell ’69, Washington Post sports columnist, on the Washington Nationals World Series win.

“We are victims in the present of a false portrayal of the past.”  From an editorial in The Amherst Student. In 1969, novelist and scholar Ralph Ellison spoke on campus during one of two campus moratoriums featured recently in Amherst magazine.

“I’m not your usual Amherst story.” Nancy Wu ’93 on becoming a prolific audiobook narrator.

“Our society depends for its well being on the identification and development of talent wherever it exists. It exists in every community and group.” President Biddy Martin.

Amherst welcomes and applauds the decision in the Harvard University admissions lawsuit, which affirms the importance and constitutionality of race-conscious admissions as part of a holistic review of applicants to our colleges and universities.

“We are looking for individuals on the precipice of great discovery or a game-changing idea.” The MacArthur Foundation, describing its “genius” grant. Andrea Dutton ’95 is among the newest winners. Her work focuses on climate change.

NOTE:  Art historian and curator Kellie Jones ’81 received a MacArthur fellowship in 2017. 

Photo of Dutton: John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

“History has failed us, but no matter. ” Writer-in-Residence Min Jin Lee, from her acclaimed novel Pachinko

“Empathy is a habit that can be cultivated.” Jason Seto ’19 one of six young alumni to be offered a 2019-20 Fulbright grant, one of the most prestigious fellowships in the world.

“Almost all battles can be boiled down to the irritable question: ‘Why can’t you be more like me?’” Author Marietta Pritchard in “Scenics from a Marriage,” which chronicles a lifetime of travel with her husband, English professor William Pritchard

Welcome to Amherst College, Jack and Sarah! These two names appear most often on the 470 new IDs created for the class of 2023.

Link: Orientation concludes on Monday, Sept. 2 with Convocation. See the full schedule.

“It was like we unleashed the magic of Amherst athletics. ” Kristin Ogdon ’00, who, 20 years ago, helped bring home the College’s first-ever NCAA team championship.

“Amherst College was doing ‘community engagement’ long before it actually was a phrase.”  Richard Aronson ’69 on the College’s deep ties to the town of Amherst’s A Better Chance House, now celebrating its 50th anniversary.

“Each course is amazing in and of itself, with obvious intellectual benefits. But, for me, it is actually the social part that is most compelling.” Catherine Epstein, provost and dean of the faculty, on course-specific trips that take students around the globe.

“There I was, floating around the Mediterranean—and it sounds kind of corny now, but I decided to devote my life to public service.” Longtime Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau ’41, speaking of his experience after German bombs sank his World War II destroyer. Morgenthau died, at age 99, on July 21.

NOTE: The New York Times obituary

“The micro, the macro, everything’s so different from what people had imagined.”  Malloy’s groundbreaking “Dimensionism” show in the Mead's Art Museum, which includes Capricious Forms by Wassily Kandinsky, closes on July 28.

“What if we could redefine work so that instead of determining the lives we have, it enables the lives we want?” Christine Bader ’93, on picking up and moving to Bali with her family in order to live more sustainably. 

“Tutoring at the ABC House helped me break out of the ‘Amherst bubble.’ It also helped me realize the importance of doing things with meaning rather than for yourself.” Brendan Seto ’18 is one of 109 alumni tutors, over 50 years, who have mentored the teen scholars of color at the A Better Chance House in the town of Amherst. 

“To be honest, I didn't really know about being an academic until the Mellon Mays. It's made me understand exactly the topography of that world.” Chimaway Lopez ’20 is one of five Amherst juniors in a program that helps today’s students become tomorrow’s professors. 

NOTE: Detail from ‘View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm — The Oxbow’ (1836) by Thomas Cole. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

“Two heads are not just better than one. They're actually like three.” Sheila Jaswal, associate professor of chemistry speaking of her weekly consultations with Amy S. Wagaman, associate professor of statistics.

“A lot of those milestones were set by the constructs of the system, not the constructs of my heart.” Cristian Hinojosa ’00 on starting over as a firefighter.

Reunion is here! Alumni from the classes of 1949 through 2014 are returning to campus to take part in more than 100 programs—a record number for this annual event.  Reunion Schedule and more.

63 years, 6 months, 3 weeks, 6 days, 1 hour and 6 minutes—Cumulative time the class of 2019 spent in Amherst classrooms during the past four years. More facts about the class that graduated on Sunday, May 26.

“I am the luckiest unlucky person.” After an accident, Sasha Blair-Goldensohn ’98, a software engineer became a disability rights activist.

“You make a commitment to these kids, you stick with it.” Jénine Shepherd ’20, winner of the Jamaican Prime Minister’s Youth Award for Excellence.

 “When you think about it, having your books stolen is a huge compliment.” Professor Emeritus William Taubman, on his acclaimed biography of Gorbachev.

“The best thing Amherst ever taught me was curiosity.” John Michael Higgins ’85 is one of the most accomplished character actors of our time.

“We ask too much of love—but surprisingly love often delivers.”  Richard Todd ’62. From his 2008 book The Thing Itself: On the Search for Authenticity.  Todd, an acclaimed editor and writer, died on April 21.

“Happiness, like the flu, is contagious.” Catherine Sanderson, the Manwell Family Professor in Life Sciences (Psychology), in her new book The Positive Shift: Mastering Mindset to Improve Happiness, Health, and Longevity.

“More than a novel, Don Quixote is an instruction manual on how to keep dreaming.”  Professor Ilan Stavans on his new graphic novel version of Don Quixote.

“This mission is at the limit of what humans are capable of doing—remotely and even, possibly, beyond that limit.” What can a Mars rover teach us about space? What can it teach us about humanity? Emily Lakdawalla ‘96 explores these questions in the new Amherst magazine. 

“It allowed me to look at myself completely differently. Classes like this are why I chose to come to Amherst.” Alexis Chavez-Salinas ’22 on his First-Year Seminar “ Finding Your Roots,” taught by Professor Rick A. Lopez ’93.

Assistant Professor Pooja Rangan’s Immediations: The Humanitarian Impulse in Documentary has won the 2019 Harry Levin Prize for outstanding first book.

NOTE: Read a review of the book by her former student. 

“Wade Fellows helped show us how to reconcile the blessing and burden of our education, to take it and do something for our communities.” Adrienne White-Faines ’82 speaking about a program that for decades has introduced Amherst students to the successful and rewarding careers of notable black alumni. 

Note: Neuroradiologist Nadia Biassou ’88, the newest Wade Fellow, has been appointed for the 2019-21 academic years.

“He became smaller. It became very clear this was not Philip’s war.” Lisa Brooks, professor of English and American Studies, was just awarded the prestigious Bancroft Prize for History for her book Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip's War. 

“Why not take music one step further? Why not use it to help others, or to comment on injustices, or to speak up for people?” Arianne Abela, Amherst's choral director,  on leveraging the power of music.

“There are a lot of writers who find a groove and spend a career mining that vein. I seem to be exactly the opposite.” Novelist Jennifer Egan in an interview with The Economist. She will keynote Amherst’s 4th annual LitFest this weekend.