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Vista • Fall 2009 • Volume 14 • Number 2


Vista is published twice a year by the Mount Holyoke College Office of Communications.


Vista is produced for prospective and current Mount Holyoke College students; alumnae; Mount Holyoke College faculty and staff; parents of current students; institutional advancement, guidance, and media professionals; and other friends of the College.


Editor • Writer
Sarah Curran Barrett


Creative Director
Tekla McInerney


Copy Editors
Allison Gillis
Bonita Sennott


Contributing Writers
Tia Brueggeman ’09
Michelle Ducharme
Mickey Rathbun


Executive Director of Communications and Strategic Initiatives
Patricia VandenBerg


Associate Director of Communications
Kevin McCaffrey


©2009 by Mount Holyoke College.


Portions of Vista may be reproduced with the permission of the Office of Communications, 50 College Street, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA 01075-1459; 413-538-2809; email: scbarret@mtholyoke.edu. Third-class postage paid at South Hadley, MA 01075


Office of Communications 35390909  


http://www.mtholyoke.edu


Career Connections
Meet MHC students who landed dynamic summer and January Term internships and research opportunities.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/comm/news/21766.shtml


Comic Relief

See how Casey Brienza ’03 won a full scholarship to Cambridge, where she’ll research the transnational publishing of Japanese comics.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/news/stories/5681411


It’s Debatable
Check out the new IR blog, which includes commentary from MHC and other Five College faculty on a variety of global issues.
https://pub.mtholyoke.edu/journal/mhcirblog/


Parting Words
Watch Mary McAleese, the president of Ireland, deliver the 172nd commencement address to MHC’s class of 2009.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/comm/news/22807.shtml


Vision Quest
Read about neurobiology prof Susan R. Barry’s new book, Fixing My Gaze: A Scientist’s Journey into Seeing in Three Dimensions.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/news/stories/5681409


Curriculum to Career
Mount Holyoke recently launched Nexus, a certificate program designed so that students can connect their liberal arts studies with their personal and professional goals. Each Nexus participant chooses a Nexus “track” that includes an experiential component, such as a summer research project or internship. The seven tracks are Sustainability; Art and Society; Law and Public Policy; Journalism, Communication, and the Media; Health and Society; Global Business and Entrepreneurship; and Education and Society. Dean of the College Penny Gill, who oversees Nexus, explains the benefits and value of this new initiative.


How does the Nexus program enhance a liberal arts education?
PG: A liberal arts education—with its emphasis on communication, critical analysis, and creativity—is more important than ever in preparing a young woman for a successful career in our very complex global economy. Nexus, an alternative to a traditional minor, invites students to create a bridge from their own course of study to their long-term professional future.


What might a typical Nexus program look like?
PG: Each student will take two courses specific to each Nexus track as preparation for her “beyond the gates” experience. She will identify and organize an appropriate internship, paid job, or research project. She will take a predeparture course to prepare her for that project and a postexperience course of critical analysis of that project in preparation for an oral report to the MHC community at the fall LEAP (Learning from Application) Symposium. The last piece will be an advanced course where she will bring all she has learned back into the classroom. An example for the Art and Society Nexus: Begin with Anthropology 232: Cultural Performances, and Theatre 215: Topics in Performance, followed by the predeparture and postexperience courses before and after a summer internship with a regional theatre company. The last course could be Italian 301: Liars and Pranksters on the Italian Stage.


Who will administer each Nexus track?
PG: Each track will have a faculty chair and two or three additional faculty members who will assist with advising and planning the pre- and post-experience courses.


How have students reacted so far to the new program?
PG: Students are very enthusiastic about Nexus; they seem to understand immediately the power of this program for catapulting them into the workforce in a strong and clear way. We expected about 30 or 40 students to sign up for the pilot predeparture course in April 2009; much to our surprise, 139 applied.


Mount Holyoke College • Vista

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