Welcome to the spring 2022 semester
President Stephens shares her message of welcome for the new year and the new semester.
Dear members of the ɬ community,
Welcome to the beginning of the spring 2022 semester. It is always a joy to see everyone back on campus after a break, and to feel the excitement of move-in, even in stages. I’m delighted to be able to welcome new students, who are just beginning their ɬ adventure, as well as new staff and faculty. It is also a moment to celebrate the seniors, whose time on campus is drawing to a close, and to look forward to celebrating with them their ɬ achievements and their transition into our vibrant alum community.
In light of the omicron variant of COVID-19, we had to make some last-minute adjustments to move-in and to start spring classes remotely. To date, this seems to be working exactly as we had hoped. I am so grateful to you all for your continued flexibility and for your commitment to keeping each other safe and in good health.
However, as we know, the omicron variant has triggered an ongoing surge of breakthrough cases and, sadly, yet more serious illness and loss of life. We are still far from turning a corner on the pandemic as well as on the racial, economic and health injustices that COVID-19 has thrown into sharp relief.
COVID-19 updates
Omicron has also forced us to make other changes to our on-campus operations and procedures. Besides the staggered move-in days and temporary remote classes, the College is implementing changes to dining, masking protocols and testing. For the full details, please read this letter from January 13.
The vaccination and booster rate in our community is certainly helping us to manage this variant and new surge, as is the broad commitment to the other health and safety measures in place.
The best protection for our campus against this variant is everyone’s continued vigilance with masking, social distancing, vaccination and booster shots. For all the information related to this, please review this January 7 letter from our stalwart Health and Safety committee. It outlines our booster shot mandate, the new Community Compacts for residential and commuter students and information on returning to campus.
The requirement for the booster shot is a critical . Our COVID-19 positivity rates, even with this new variant, are still very low, and this would not be the case without commitment and adherence to these measures. We will continue to monitor the ever-changing health and safety landscape and communicate updates as needed.
Week of Racial Justice and Reconciliation
We still have much work to do to combat racism, xenophobia, antisemitism, Islamophobia, homophobia and other biases that have been promoted and embraced by some. We continue to move forward with the efforts detailed in our Anti-Racism Action Plan. An important part of this work is engaging across differences and raising awareness and understanding of bias, inequities and injustice.
This month we are holding our third annual . As many of you know, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. visited ɬ and spoke in the Gettel Amphitheater on October 20, 1963. In his address, he spoke to the interrelatedness of the universe, of all nations and all people. “All life is interrelated,” he said. “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be.” Dr. King’s words on that solemn occasion resonate as much in this time as they did in October 1963.
The week has many events of interest for students, faculty, staff and alums. We are delighted to welcome Nikole Hannah Jones back to ɬ for a . “The 1619 Project” was ɬ’s Common Read for the 2020-2021 academic year. Originally a special publication of the New York Times, it is now a bestselling book that is a dramatic expansion of this groundbreaking work of journalism.
This annual program also features a public lecture by Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin on January 27, Dr. King’s birthday. She will be speaking on “.” We are honored to be able to host both Nikole Hannah Jones and Sybrina Fulton, and I hope that you will be able to participate in these and the other events that are an integral part of this program.
On January 31, we will host Dr. Laura Leibman as she gives the keynote lecture for the College’s annual teach-in on fighting antisemitism. Her lecture, “,” is about the Moses family and how their story mirrors that of the largely forgotten population of mixed African and Jewish ancestry. It sheds new light on the fluidity of race — as well as on the role of religion in racial identity — in the first half of the nineteenth century.
As part of the ongoing work of our Anti-Racism Action Plan, the College legally repatriated the remains to the Stockbridge-Munsee community of western Massachusetts in 2020. The Stockbridge-Munsee community, in turn, physically repatriated the remains to the Hassanamisco Nipmuc Nation on Oct. 15, 2021. My sincere thanks go to the many community members involved with this work over the years since it began, but especially to Aaron Miller, associate curator of visual and material culture and NAGPRA coordinator at the ɬ Art Museum, and Kijua Sanders-McMurtry, vice president for equity and inclusion.
Commencement 2022 — and Commencement 2020
ɬ is as committed as ever to an in-person teaching and learning experience, and that includes key celebrations such as our Commencement. I am very pleased to announce that we are planning to hold this year’s Commencement in person. ɬ’s 185th commencement ceremony will be held Sunday, May 22, 2022 in the Kendall Sports & Dance Complex. Information about honorary degree recipients, regalia, Senior Week, guest policies and more will be forthcoming throughout the semester. I hope you are as excited as I am about celebrating the class of 2022 and all that they have accomplished.
The pandemic has disrupted so much in our lives and in the life of the College. In March 2020, we decided to postpone a commencement celebration for the Class of 2020. We promised to hold an in-person ceremony when it was prudent to do so, and I am pleased to announce that we will also be holding an in-person Commencement ceremony for the Class of 2020 this year on May 29, 2022, during Reunion II. The week leading up to Commencement will be filled with all Senior Week activities and traditions for the class, including the Canoe Sing, the stoling ceremony and more. These recent alums will also be receiving information from the Alumnae Association about safe and responsible gatherings.
In order to hold these events safely and responsibly, we will be keeping a close eye on the latest health information from national, state and local sources. I urge everyone to be flexible, stay on top of email communications and remember that, at the center of all our planning, there is the continued health and wellbeing of our entire community.
Admissions success
While the graduation of a class is always a bittersweet moment—a moment of celebration, departure, and commencement—there is a real sense of continuity and of renewal, as we begin to admit the Class of 2026. This year, we saw strong applications in Early Decision, with 391 students applying for Fall 2022. This is a 40% increase from last year. We also had a record number of applications overall — 4885 — an increase of 25%. Other statistics of note for this banner year include: applications are up 26% for international students, 23% for domestic students, 27% for first-generation applicants and 25% for students of color from the U.S.
Strategic planning
Throughout the fall semester, the Strategic Planning Committee (SPC) worked with our partners, Art and Science, to engage Board and community members to identify our strengths and opportunities, as well as possible areas of focus for the next strategic plan. Art and Science will now spend several months conducting field research, eventually providing information to us about which of our ideas — and indeed, which combination of them — might meet the needs and align with the interests of tomorrow’s students. While this work is underway, SPC is turning its attention to addressing other areas of improvement and institutional effectiveness, such as curricular planning, digital futures, staffing, professional development and a broad range of concerns identified in the faculty COACHE Survey and in the Staff Climate Survey administered last spring, as well as in the conversations and town halls that were also hosted in the spring. The goal is to prioritize these efforts, ensure that we have a full picture of the work and studies that are already underway in support of such institutional improvement, and then create opportunities to explore some of these further, with working groups that will operate alongside and in concert with formal committee structures as well as faculty and student governance.
Welcome to new associate vice presidents and to the chief of staff and secretary of the college
As we begin this new year and this new semester, I want to introduce three new members of the community. They are taking on key roles across the College and I want to make sure that you are aware of their appointments, and to extend to them a very warm welcome.
Penn’lope Davis has joined the College as the Associate Vice President for Human Resources. Penny comes to ɬ after serving as the Chief Human Resources Officer for the Department of Social Services in the State of Connecticut. She has also served as an adjunct professor at the University of Connecticut. She has worked in various leadership positions with the State of Connecticut and is excited to make the transition to higher education.
Karla Youngblood FP ’99 will be joining ɬ as the Associate Vice President for Facilities Management in February. Karla, an alum of ɬ’s Frances Perkins Program, is coming to the College from Amherst College, where she has been the Director of Facilities Operations since 2019. Previously, she was the Operations Director at Smith College. Before moving into higher education, Karla was a project manager for the City of Springfield.
Bett Schumacher will join the President’s Office on February 14 as the President’s Chief of Staff and Secretary of the College. Bett has extensive experience in this role, having served as the Chief of Staff and Secretary of the Board of Trustees at Amherst College since 2017. Before coming to Western Massachusetts, she was the Chief of Staff to the President at University of the Pacific in northern California. Bett will join Paul Kandel, AVP for Strategic Initiatives (and chair of our COVID-19 Health and Safety Committee), who moved from Finance and Administration to the President’s Office in July last year, and Julie Yurgielewicz, who continues as executive assistant.
Below you will find a selection of campus news stories, and a retrospective look at the top stories of 2021. I wish you all a productive, enriching and healthy semester, as well as success in all of your endeavors in the year ahead.
Sincerely,
Sonya