“To Hear a Sound is to See a Space”: Professors and Alumni Collaborate to Build ARCHITECT Opera

Submitted on Tuesday, 11/22/2011, at 11:40 AM

November 15, 2011

During her time studying at Yale in the 1980s, Professor of Music Jenny Kallick was struck by what she calls the “sacred essence” of two of the New Haven school’s buildings, the Art Gallery and the Center for British Art. That she was drawn to those two particular facilities was no coincidence: both were designed by award-winning architect Louis I. Kahn, a major figure in 20th-century architecture.

Alumna Bessie Young Awarded Mitchell Scholarship to Study Photography and Aging

Submitted on Monday, 11/21/2011, at 11:23 AM

November 21, 2011

Amherst College alumna Bessie Young has been selected as one of 12 recipients nationwide of the 2012-2013 George J. Mitchell Scholarship, the US-Ireland Alliance has announced. A 2011 graduate of Amherst and the college’s first-ever winner of a Mitchell, Young was chosen from 300 applicants for the award, which funds one year of postgraduate study in any discipline offered by institutions of higher learning in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

University of Toronto Philosopher to Discuss “Probability and Nature’s Design” at Amherst College December 8

Submitted on Thursday, 11/17/2011, at 3:31 PM

November 17, 2011                     

AMHERST, Mass. — Jonathan Weisberg, assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto, will visit Amherst College on Thursday, Dec. 8, to deliver a lecture titled “Probability and Nature’s Design.”

In “Big Books,” Students Get Some Hefty Reading

Submitted on Wednesday, 11/9/2011, at 10:19 AM

By William Sweet

In a literature class, works might be surveyed by country, or time period, or language. This semester, English professor Andrew Parker’s students study literature by the pound.

At the beginning of every semester of “Big Books,” the First-Year Seminar that Parker has taught for five years, he makes a show of coming in carrying the three tomes that students will tackle. He puts them each on the desk. Thud. Thud. Thud.

 “It makes a big sound,” he said, “and [students] go ‘Oh my God, what am I in for?’”