September 2024
Dear Classmates—
Although this past year has been a particularly stressful one for most colleges (and for the world as a whole), Mount Holyoke did not receive the negative publicity that so many have. I credit President Danielle Holley’s statement in late October, “My position not to make institutional statements about national or international events is based on several considerations.”, in large part for that. For her succinct reasons, you can read at:
As for our class, things have understandably been somewhat more low-key than in the past couple of years. We had three well attended Sphinx Salon Zoom sessions organized by Beth Boland and Lisa Oberreuter:
November—new interests/passions embarked on in the past ten years
March—classmates Val Bryan and Michele Sorenson, both Master Gardeners, provided a variety of excellent tips and insights about environmentally healthy gardening
June—celebrating turning 75!
The plan for this coming year is to have four Sphinx Salon events; Beth and Lisa continue to welcome suggestions for upcoming topics.
A huge thanks to Andrea Lange and Christine Chastain-Warheit for leading our class fundraising team this year. And thanks to so many of you who contributed a total of $269,250 to the Mount Holyoke Fund for a 55% participation rate. Also, 80 of you contributed to the March4MHC Challenge, so that we earned an extra $13,000 to be added to our class total! We greatly appreciate the ongoing work of the others on this past year’s team: Linda Chu, Mary Corbitt Clark, Catherine Conover, Bethany Holley Craig, Meg Gere Harris, Marian Strobel, Susan Weed, and Marjorie Deitzler Zunder. And we’re grateful to six additional classmates who have agreed to be part of this coming year’s team: Carol Armstrong, Judy Katzenelson Brownstein, Becky Ritchie Cutting, Anne Marsh Fields, Kathleen King Parker, and Jeremy Pierce.
As for our class finances, treasurer Carol Mills has invested an appropriate amount of our funds in CDs so that our balance has grown by $300 to about $8800. Thanks to her for this work as well as all she does in other ways, particularly in starting to think about our next reunion.
Since my letter of last September, the loss of the only of our classmates is that of Joann Otto. I’ll expand on the news of her death for a couple of reasons. Hers was the first for which we received information about a Zoom offering of the celebration of her life, which we conveyed by email to the class this spring. I imagine that in this age of Zoom we’ll be conveying more notifications of this sort in the future. And Joann, who had been a highly respected biology professor for almost forty years, was a wonderful member of our class Climate Change Workgroup who contributed greatly to the Sustainability Stroll at last year’s reunion. Joann inspired and mentored many of her students, just as Professor Isabelle Sprague had done for her at Mount Holyoke. To honor Joann, members of the Climate Change Workgroup have decided to make individual contributions to an endowed fund honoring Professor Sprague. Anyone interested in honoring Joann in this way should direct a donation to Mount Holyoke College to The Sprague Research Fund, supporting undergraduate student research in the biological sciences.
And now, looking at some changes in the near future, the first to mention is that since the Alumnae Association is discontinuing hosting website services for classes, our class will be using Squarespace to create and maintain a new website. Our very competent and flexible webmaster, Kathy Bendo, has configured our new website. Great thanks to Kathy for all she has done and will be doing!
Also, our class scribe, Linda Keown, has let us know that The Quarterly will be redesigned and will have only three issues this coming year, with no winter edition. But the word count for each edition has been raised, so Linda especially continues to encourage us all to submit any interesting updates. She has done a great job in mentioning as many people as possible in her class notes and in reaching out to freshman and senior dormmates of any deceased classmates, but she would appreciate more contributions!
And, of course, in our future is our 55th reunion in May of 2026. We’re fortunate to again have our trio of terrific past reunion organizers Carol Mills, Beth Boland and Lisa Oberreuter take the job on again. On the class website, the 55th Reunion section has a list of potential activities. As that page indicates, any other ideas and comments are welcome and should be sent to Carol.
One other thought to mention concerns awards presented by the college. Many of our classmates have received awards for various levels of involvement and leadership that focus on volunteer work for Mount Holyoke. But there is one award that only one of our classmates (Laverne Berry) has received, while every class within five years of ours has multiple recipients, some just two but others more. The Achievement Award is “Presented to an alum for outstanding achievements and service to the larger society through salaried or volunteer fields of endeavor. Recognizes work that exemplifies the ideals of a liberal arts education; that demonstrates professional distinction, sustained commitment, and/or creativity; and that reflects the vision and pioneering spirit of Mary Lyon.” Surely our class has some worthy candidates who might qualify, so any suggestions could be directed to me or by replying to this class email address.
Hoping you have an enjoyable fall—Meg Harris
mgharris118@gmail.com