Archives: Publications

May 06, 2008

Douglas C. Wilson '62, 1940-2008

Doug Wilson ‘62 passed away on May 5. For those of us lucky enough to have met Doug during our time at the College, this is particularly sad news. A wonderful person, an ardent supporter of Amherst and invaluable College historian: Doug was each of these things and much more. The College news release is here.

Parker reports that the Daily Hampshire Gazette has also posted a long obituary. Unfortunately, even online access to the obits there requires a paid subscription.

Certainly, there will be an outpouring of remembrances of Doug over the next few weeks. We welcome our readers to share their reflections here in the comments. All of us here offer our condolences to Doug’s family and friends.

UPDATE 5/7: The College has set up a website (password required) where members of the Amherst community can share memories about Doug. For those who are unable to view the page, here are two quick excerpts which convey the impact Doug had on our community:

“Doug was the kind of person we too often take for granted, and one whose absence will be sorely felt.” —Steve Vladeck ‘01

“He was a gentle, very smart, and loyal man. Our world is less rich with his passing.” —Professor Ron Rosbottom

UPDATE 5/9: The Globe’s obituary for Wilson is up, highlighting his time with the College, as well as the oft-mentioned fact that he was the first reporter to break the story of Nixon’s resignation in 1974, while reporting for the Providence Journal.

UPDATE 5/15: Wednesday’s Providence Journal, the paper Wilson worked for when he broke the Nixon story, published a laudatory column about Wilson’s newspaper days, “Almost famous for a day”.

Dave Nardolillo '98 at 12:54 PM | Comments (4)

January 19, 2008

New online look for the Amherst Student

After several volumes with a lifeless and poorly updated website, the current leadership of the Amherst Student has unveiled a fresh new website.

While it looks like there’s still a few kinks to be worked out (like dates on the articles, instead of issue numbers), I like the new layout.

Readers of this blog know that I like to complain about the Student on a regular basis. Hopefully, this new website is an indication of a higher level of care and attention that will be given to the paper by the executive board.

In the past few years, despite good work in places, the paper has been marred by a declining amount of effort from its editors. This has manifested itself in a number of ways, ranging from the relatively benign (failing to maintain the current editions or archives of the web editions) to the more serious (demonstrably inaccurate reporting and questionable editorial decisions on important and sensitive campus matters).

While mistakes are part of the territory when students put together a newspaper—certainly I made plenty of my own when I was on the staff—the talented Amherst students that comprise the current staff of the paper should reflect on the important role that the Student plays for the College.

The paper is really the only publication that serves as the historical record of the events on campus; alumni magazine articles and campus press releases have that inevitable touch of gloss that often obscures many significant angles to a story. The independence of the Student and its weekly format allows for an objective record and provides a space, unavailable via other campus publications, for contemporaneous and detailed reporting of campus events and issues. It’s a really valuable publication when you sit down and think about it.

Although new websites are often more about gloss than substance, I welcome the Student’s new online face with hopes that even better things are on the horizon

Dave Nardolillo '98 at 04:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 24, 2007

The Student and the Solomon Amendment

Yesterday, I wrote this post about Amherst’s announcement that it would allow military recruiters on campus without restriction in compliance with federal law.

At the end of that post, I highlighted an article from the Amherst Student which noted that the College could face fines of $600 million by failing to comply with federal law. While I briefly remarked that such a number was absurd, I moved on to make other points.

I just received the November 14 edition of the Student (not yet available online, as usual), and they correct the error, sort of. On the front page of the paper this paragraph appeared over a reprint of the statement by Tony Marx I discussed yesterday.

Editor’s note: The article “Faculty Backs Enviro-Studies” in last week’s issue incorrectly stated that the College will continue its long-held policy of requiring military recruiters to participate in public forums explaining “Don’t ask, Don’t Tell” in order to recruit on campus. However, in lieu of a recent Supreme Court decision that would withhold roughly $6 million in federal funds from Amherst if it continued its policy, the College will now allow recruiters on campus, unconditionally.

So the number is $6 million, which makes much more sense.

However, the editor’s statement that the reporting in the November 7 article was inaacurate means that Student publisher Suvayu Pant ‘09 penned an article that borders on a complete fabrication of President Marx’s comments. That is well below the standards of any student newspaper, particularly ours. At the same time, it’s hard to believe, despite the $600 million error, that any reporter would get the facts so wrong. As far as I know, no further corrections to Pant’s article, which touched on a variety of topics, were made.

Perhaps the editors of the Student came to their conclusion after reporting by Casey Brennan ‘11 and Sam Huneke ‘11 revealed that the College’s “Committee of Six” had made the decision reflected in Marx’s official statement a week before the faculty meeting that was the subject of Pant’s article. In an article entitled “Dean Outlines New Policy on Military,” Dean of Students Ben Lieber announced the Committee of Six decision in the context of a discussion on the history of military recruiting on campus.

To be clear, I agree with the position the College ultimately took on the issue, even if others, including perhaps President Marx, were not on the same page during different stages of the discussion. However, the performance of the Amherst Student was not acceptable in reporting this important event. If it is true that Pant’s article was that inaccurate, the editors of the paper need to take action and explain how an article printed on the pages they review every week could be that far from the truth.

Dave Nardolillo '98 at 03:01 PM | TrackBack

August 17, 2007

Amherst second in 2008 US News ranking of liberal arts colleges

It’s that time of year again! US News and World Report has released it’s annual college rankings issue and little has changed. Williams secured the top spot in the liberal arts rankings for the fifth consecutive year while Princeton was named tops in the university category. An article on Bloomberg.com notes that there were no significant changes in either ranking; all schools in the top 10 were among that group a year ago.

There were a couple of interesting wrinkles, though. This year, after a change in classification by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the US Naval Academy (T-20) and West Point (22) were deemed to be liberal arts colleges for the purpose of the US News ranking.

I don’t have much to say regarding Amherst here, but if we nitpick the numbers, it appears that the student/faculty ratio and class sizes are the reasons why Amherst is not ranked first in the US News formula. These numbers are certainly not deficient when considering Amherst vs. the field, but Williams is simply better in this area. Class size numbers help comprise the “faculty resources” rank which counts for 20% of the overall score. Williams ranks first in this category, Amherst ranks sixth.

There are some good things to note in the underlying numbers, in light of current events at the College: In terms of student selectivity, Amherst remains strong, at least as measured by SAT scores. The Amherst alumni network also stood out; the alumni giving rank was second overall. Given Amherst’s gradually expanding student body and likelihood of a capital campaign to fund the initiatives of the Board of Trustees and Tony Marx, these two numbers suggest strength in two key areas going forward, regardless of the weight assigned to them by the US News rankings.

Dave Nardolillo '98 at 09:26 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

July 27, 2007

Williams, Amherst Won't Fight Top U.S. News Ratings

…is the title of a July 23 Bloomberg.com news story which reports that 61 liberal arts colleges—including Trinity, Holy Cross, Lafayette and Kenyon—have joined forces to withhold cooperation from the annual U.S. News rankings of national liberal arts colleges by refusing to cooperate with the portion of the survey which asks colleges to rank the other institutions in the survey by reputation

Amherst is mentioned as the article notes that no school ranked higher than 30 is in the group of 61.

Williams, Amherst and Swarthmore have topped the liberal arts rankings since 1997. Amherst President Anthony Marx says the criteria should be rewritten to favor colleges that enroll a higher percentage of low-income students.

Marx hasn’t agreed to sign the protest letter, spokeswoman Stacy Schmeidel said.

I commented briefly on this matter last month expressing doubt that a concerted effort to boycott U.S. News would have any real effect. I still think it won’t. The participating colleges are missing the point that regardless of whether they assist U.S. News or not, the rankings will survive due to the high demand with which each annual rankings issue is met. If anything, U.S. News may, in the future, obtain these reputation scores from other sources, such as college guidance counselors (a possibility that U.S. News has mentioned publicly). That alternative might hurt the “lower ranked” schools even more since guidance counselors, usually serving the regional interests of their students, probably know less about a liberal arts college halfway across the country than those who work in higher education for a living.

I also wrote last that the movement would likely suffer from a lack of participation from the schools which are highly ranked. My feeling is that those schools enjoy free publicity from the rankings and really have no incentive to participate in any attack on the rankings. It indeed seems to be unfolding in that way—no school ranked higher than 30 has currently signed on (although the article reports that Barnard, at 26, is leaning towards joining in). Lloyd Thacker, head of the Education Conservancy and a leader of this movement, is hoping for schools like Williams and Amherst to join.

“Yeah, I would like a big-name person to step up to the plate,” Thacker said. “I’m waiting for that.”

But that statement suggests an odd situation and a bad bargaining position for Thacker and the 61 presidents: the schools supporting the boycott need the support of the very schools they imply are inaccurately ranked.

While it’s fair to criticize the US News rankings for being arbitrary and it’s fair to criticize Amherst (and alumni, like me, who think Tony Marx should take a pocket veto on this one) of being disinterested due to the fact Amherst is ranked second, it’s also fair to ask the presidents of the boycotting colleges what their alternative ranking system would entail and what the order of the schools would look like under it. In the world of higher education, it is poor form to openly suggest that you should be ranked higher than “Liberal Arts College B”; the cynic in me thinks that attacking the methodology of the US News rankings gives the 61 presidents a more polite way to suggest those very same thoughts.

Tony Marx should steer clear of this for a couple of reasons. First, the college has its hands full with near-term projects, especially given the blockbuster announcement of last week, and would have no time to be thrust into a front-line role here, as it automatically would be. Second, whatever you may think of the US News rankings, I think it is a relatively small issue compared to the challenges that really threaten the quality of higher education in the future. Amherst should continue to focus its energy on the creative and aggressive policies it has been implementing in order to properly meet those challenges, whether it is ranked second or 35th.

What do you think? We welcome your comments and criticisms, as always.

Dave Nardolillo '98 at 12:46 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 19, 2007

More colleges plan to snub annual U.S. News ranking

… or so says the headline from a Bloomberg story published online earlier today.

A group of U.S. liberal arts colleges plans to stop participating in U.S. News & World Report’s higher- education rankings, saying the magazine’s yearly survey misleads students.

A majority of representatives at a meeting today agreed not to cooperate with the annual U.S. News assessment, said Christopher Nelson, chairman of the association, called the Annapolis Group because it was founded there in 1993. Members will work with other organizations to develop alternative ways to evaluate colleges.

Although it is unclear what role Amherst played in this meeting, if any, the Bloomberg reporter decides to drop a few names:

The decision by the group, which includes colleges such as Williams, Amherst and Swarthmore, compounds the resistance to the system used by U.S. News, which compiled its first rankings in 1983 and began publishing them annually in 1987. The Washington- based magazine is facing criticism for using subjective criteria to evaluate a school’s value, particularly a survey asking administrators to pass judgment on other schools’ reputations.

Despite the assertion that a boycott is brewing, the article notes that the vote was informal and essentially non-binding. In my opinion, that strips any real significance away from the vote and the message it is purported to announce. Each school will still have the ability to “make its own choice about whether, or to what extent, it will cooperate with the magazine.”

Does anyone know if Amherst was represented at this meeting, and if so, what was the College’s vote?

I’ve added a few random thoughts below the fold. For those interested in reading more, the Christian Science Monitor supplies more detailed reporting on the meeting and the underlying issues.

UPDATE 6/20: Tony Marx is quoted in today’s New York Times article on the meeting:

Other college presidents who attended the meeting were more cautious. Anthony Marx, the president of Amherst, which is ranked second among liberal arts colleges, said he was not ready to stop cooperating with U.S. News and wanted to continue to discuss the issue.

While most people with an opinion on the topic agree that the US News rankings are flawed, it is hard to imagine that even a complete boycott will be fatal to the rankings, given the heavy demand with which each annual installment is greeted (it is one of the magazine’s best selling issues each year). As noted in the Christian Science Monitor report, if large numbers of schools do not turn in their reputation surveys, US News may turn to other sources, including college guidance counselors, to provide the reputation scores.

There’s also the issue of which college presidents will really be on board with a decisive action. Despite its flaws, the US News rankings benefit the schools which are prominently featured, and good performances in the rankings have been trumpeted by more than one communications office at colleges with which we are familiar (see final paragraph of press release). Some college presidents may be hesitant to openly part ways with rankings that have provided free publicity over the years. Those who benfit most from the rankings might have a hard time staying the course with a boycott. An example from this year’s law school rankings illustrates such a departure:

Those who have followed the US News law school rankings (and the “gaming” it allegedly inspires) know that concerted action to downplay the rankings has had little effect. In April, 2006, a large number of law school deans signed this letter which called the US News law school rankings “unreliable” and “unworthy of being an important influence” on a student’s application and matriculation decisions. Despite the unity displayed in the letter, several deans who signed it subjected themselves to accusations of public hypocrisy the following spring when they lauded positive movements by their respective law schools in the very same US News rankings they had sought to discredit the year before.

We shall see if the presidents of liberal arts colleges do any better.

Dave Nardolillo '98 at 11:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 01, 2007

Amherst Bulletin covers town issues

Amherst College wouldn’t have the appeal it does without the town of Amherst, but since the Daily Hampshire Gazette restricted access to its website to subscribers, our only means of following town news from afar has been the Union News from Springfield.

Fortunately, that has recently changed, as the Gazette’s weekly publication, the Amherst Bulletin, launched a revamped website earlier this year. The Bulletin shares a significant fraction of its copy with the Gazette, but covers town issues like economic development or the recent $6M Koenig gift to the College in greater depth (albeit less frequency) than either the Gazette or the Union News.

Despite its recent launch, the Bulletin’s website includes archive stories back into 2005.

Parker Morse '96 at 08:38 PM | Comments (0)

August 24, 2006

Multiple rankings

It’s that time of year when the college rankings are out, and once again the College is in the second row of U.S. News’s annual rankings, with some cow college in the Berkshires taking the lead spot. Congratulations to Williams for their title defense, particularly on the heels of last year’s “triple double” (for three consecutive years, Williams led both the U.S. News rankings and the Sears Director’s Cup standings.) The College did well in graduation numbers and the percentage of faculty who are full-time, but lagged behind Williams in class size, faculty resources, and financial resources. (We’re proud to point out that we had a higher alumni giving rate, but clearly the three areas where we’re lacking can be best addressed by, you guessed it, more money.)

Still, the U.S. News rankings are coming under attack from many directions, and it’s useful to note that they aren’t the only show in town. Once again, the Jeffs trounced Williams in the Washington Monthly college rankings, moving up to fifth while Williams was eighth. The Washington Monthly rankings are a deliberately contrarian set based on asking “not what colleges can do for you, but what colleges are doing for the country.”

And the sports information office tells us that both Amherst and Williams are in the top five of the 2006 NCSA Power Rankings:

The National Collegiate Scouting Association takes a comprehensive approach to determining which schools are tops in the country. Using an average of three different national rankings, including the U.S. News & World Reports rankings (academics), the U.S. Sports Academy Director’s Cup ranks (athletics), and the NCAA Student-Athlete graduation rates, NCSA is able to provide the public with a more broad view of which schools top the charts.

Amherst College placed second in the Division III rankings in addition to the overall rankings, with Duke University and Stanford University joining the trio of NESCAC powerhouses in the overall top five.

Amherst placing second in both the overall ranking and the Division III ranking allows those who took Logic to make some deductions about where in the top 5 Williams placed, particularly considering the triple double mentioned above, but the Athletics office delicately does not mention a number. Considering that graduation rates are considered in the U.S. News rankings, it would seem that those are double-counted in the NCSA report, but what do we know about college rankings? After all, we went to the #1 ranked college, which wasn’t Williams in those days, and yet we don’t think the two institutions have changed that much in the last ten years.

Parker Morse '96 at 09:52 AM | Comments (1)

June 19, 2006

Applegate '89 and Beecher 1839

Today’s Hartford Courant has an article in the “Lifestyle” section about Debby Applegate ‘89 and her new book, The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher. Beecher, of course, was a member of the class of 1834.

Applegate’s relationship with the complicated, charismatic man started with her sophomore seminar paper at Amherst College, a senior thesis and her subsequent Yale doctoral dissertation.

The Courant’s review is largely positive:

It was also tough to resist turning the story of his family—known as the fabulous Beechers—into, as Applegate, 38, says, “a big Russian novel.” … Given the topic, the book reads not so much like a history book but a dense novel peopled with interesting characters.

This is particularly true when you read the thumbnail outline of Beecher’s life, which includes both a career as a preacher in the abolitionist movement and an adultery trial.

Parker Morse '96 at 09:34 AM | Comments (4)

February 22, 2006

Something afoot at the Student

“[W]e are dedicated to reforming this publication to more closely follow its two founding principals [sic]: student inclusion and independence.” So states an editorial titled “The Student moves to reclaim the founding principles of its creation” in the most recent issue of the Amherst Student. The editorial, attributed to the paper’s Editorial Board, describes the current state of the paper, and makes reference to a relationship between the paper and the College that is not exactly clear, both because we’re not sure what the board are referring to, and because their choice of language is confusing and muddled:

We regretfully admit that The Student has still not fully evolved from its pre-Internet manifestation. Worse yet, the authoritative presence of College-authored news has hung over this publication, rendering The Student less independent and unfortunately as a mouthpiece for the administration. Luckily, we still have the opportunity of the independence the founding board held so dear.

Any thoughts on the Student, its relationship to the College, its current status, or what it might do to improve itself and its relevance? Thanks to Dave for the tip.

Brian Meacham '97 at 08:41 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 16, 2005

New art from Amherst

On the one hand, a great deal of the news coming from the College this week is about men’s basketball coach Dave Hixon ‘75 approaching his 500th career win for the Jeffs. On the other, there’s a lot of activity in the arts.

At the movies, The Family Stone (which has already won a Golden Globe nomination) is the work of Amherst native Thomas Bezucha, a name which may be familiar to those who took a History course from his father, Robert. The younger Bezucha says the movie, starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Dermot Mulroney, isn’t deliberately autobiographical, but “…some people in Amherst might recognize themselves.”

A long way from Hollywood, the Lewiston, Maine Morning Sentinel tells us about a new short story from a local author about teaching orphaned sparrows to fly. The illustrations came from Emily Cornell du Houx, of Solon, Maine and a Fine Arts major at the College. The book will be published by Polar Bear & Company, a publishing company run by du Houx’s parents; she is a regular illustrator for their books.

Springing directly from his 1970 travels to the Balkans as a student at the College, Washington photographer Steve Horn’s new book, Pictures Without Borders, documents Bosnia both then and now, but also, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, “Horn’s obvious empathy for his subjects turns his pictures into a remarkable testament to the power of photography to reach across time and across national boundaries.” Horn returned to Bosnia in 2003 to document the changes since his 1970 trip, and to use photographs from his first trip to “help people there reconnect with their own pasts.”

Parker Morse '96 at 08:58 AM

August 22, 2005

Amherst beats Williams in college rankings

It’s old news now that Amherst was #2 in the U.S. News “America’s Best Colleges” rankings, and that the other bunch out in Williamstown were #1. Having been around this particular block a few times, we are unconcerned (though if we are ranked #1 next year, we will certainly congratulate the editors of USN&WR on their perceptiveness.) The gap, from what we can tell, appears to be in financial resources and faculty resources, so to alumni who are concerned with rankings, we can only say two words: “annual fund.”

While the USN&WR ranking is widely watched by incoming first-years, parents, and admissions departments, we’re more pleased with Amherst’s trouncing of Williams in the Washington Monthly college guide, where Amherst was 6th and Williams a lowly 14th. (Wellesley topped the list, making sending your children to a top-ranked college problematic if you have only sons.) The Washington Monthly list places a premium on a commitment to national service (see, for example, our alumni in the Mississippi Teacher Corps.)

The first question we asked was, what does America need from its universities? From this starting point, we came up with three central criteria: Universities should be engines of social mobility, they should produce the academic minds and scientific research that advance knowledge and drive economic growth, and they should inculcate and encourage an ethic of service. We designed our evaluation system accordingly.

Parker Morse '96 at 01:22 PM

July 25, 2005

Amherst feeds

With weblogs and web feeds in the news so much lately, I’ve developed an itch for more web feeds. Nearly any page which is updated frequently (regularly or irregularly) is a candidate for a web feed. Here’s a few Amherst College feeds I’d like to see:

The Public Affairs feed. An added bonus of creating a feed for the News Releases page would be that it would also serve as a source for the “News@Amherst” box at the top of the College home page.
And can the entire “Amherst News Digest” email be a feed? I get plenty of email, thanks, but I would like to hear about this stuff. Same with the Newsgram.
How about a feed for Amherst magazine? Headlines and summaries would be fine. A class notes feed would probably be asking too much, but with the agitation several years ago to reduce the printing costs of the class notes, alternate technology solutions bear exploring.
It should go without saying that a Student feed would be welcomed. Since that would kill one of the Student’s revenue streams (paid postal subscriptions,) I’m not holding my breath.
Not to tweak Nick directly, but the feed for the Amherst Recording Council has been “coming soon” for four months. Maybe the cause of the delay is podcasting support?

And, we could even bundle some of those feeds in with amerst.com for one-stop feed shopping (and then we wouldn’t be duplicating press releases with posts.)

Any other Amherst College feeds you’d like to see?

Parker Morse '96 at 02:29 PM

May 26, 2005

Pouncey interviewed

Past president Peter Pouncey was interviewed in the Wednesday, May 25 Daily Hampshire Gazette (paid subscription required) about his new novel, Rules for Old Men Waiting.

Pouncey’s book has received many positive, and some glowing, reviews. Writing in the Boston Globe, Gail Caldwell called it “an exquisite, realized homage to narrative itself…” Susan Balee of the Philadelphia Inquirer pronounced it “a masterwork” that “can easily stand shoulder to shoulder with any novel about war written in the last century.”

A few reviewers have taken Pouncey to task, among them Peter Parker of the London Sunday Times who deemed the novel ”overly self-conscious” and ”seriously flawed.”

Pouncey, who will be reading from the book at the Jeffery Amherst Bookshop on Saturday, May 28 at 5 PM (during Alumni Weekend,) recently finished a two-week cross-country book tour.

“It was very useful and rather moving to me, to see who came to hear—an extraordinary variety of older people. And the taking of the message that the man works to the end, to the last tick of his life was moving to them. That he held himself together, that he had a discipline as he approached the moment of dying, after almost being about to lose it.

“I was sort of rendered speechless a couple of times. One man said, ‘I bought it a week ago, I’ve read it twice since, and I wanted to see what kind of person wrote it.’”

Parker Morse '96 at 01:31 PM

May 20, 2005

Amherst Magazine on Amherstiana

The Spring 2005 issue of the Amherst Magazine has just been mailed out and updated online, and, among other things, it features an article about Amherst memorabilia and eBay. The article, titled “Wild, Wild Web: The Hunt for Amherst on eBay,” was written (and photographed) by Sam Masinter ‘04, whose photos of the Mandela event we brought you earlier this week. The piece features an interview with me (plus at least one photo of me surfing the web - has that ever looked cool?) that Sam conducted back in January. The article also features some of Sam’s experiences as well as an interview with Daria D’Arienzo of the College Archives and Special Collections.

It’s always strange so see oneself referred to by one’s last name in a publication, and I can’t remember saying half the stuff I seem to have said, but Sam did a good job representing the strange and interesting world of Amherst on eBay.

Photo by Sam Masinter ‘04.

Brian Meacham '97 at 04:45 PM

March 16, 2005

Amherst Recording Council

As of this winter, there is a relatively new campus organization centered around a relatively simple task: making audio recordings of as many campus events as possible. The Amherst Recording Council’s website explains:

Various academic departments, student organizations and College offices pay or otherwise convince a wide range of speakers to come to the campus and give lectures on their various specialties. But we don’t just record visiting lecturers, as you can see from a complete list of our recordings on this website. For example, we make a point of recording the fortnightly Coffeehouse hosted at Marsh House which showcases the wide range of talents, humour, music and poetry which characterizes our student body.

[…]

The ARC creates an online audio archive that makes the events you may have missed, or been too busy to attend, available to you at any time. It also gives prospective students and alumni a glimpse of the ongoing tradition and vitality of the liberal arts at Amherst College.

The promised Coffeehouse recordings are not evident as of yet, but many campus lectures are available in mp3 format for the listening pleasure of anyone who cares to drop by and download. It’s not quite a podcast, but it’s close.

Update: yes, I’m caught, I haven’t been doing my Amherst reading. There’s the ARC in “College Row,” and I thought they were news. How embarrassing.