“ 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