“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.
“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.