When Alisa Bajramovic and I sat down in Frost Café, we went from talking about her time on the debate team in high school to her potentially unhealthy love of Amherst Coffee to her involvement with the Reproductive Justice Alliance (RJA) at Amherst and more.
Even though this interview was supposed to be all about her, I still found her listening and engaging with me, a quality that her thesis and major advisor Ellen Boucher, an assistant professor of history, has also noticed.
Samantha O’Brien is a senior law, jurisprudence and social thought major. Her thesis is on the Mann Act of 1910 and its connections to the literature of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Her thesis adviser is Professor Adam Sitze in the LJST department.
Amherst College, along with several other colleges including Williams, Middlebury and Tufts, is being investigated by the DOJ for alleged violations of federal antitrust laws in its early-decision program.
The colleges were notified on April 5 and 6 by letters from the DOJ requesting the schools to maintain records of all communications between officials at other schools regarding applicants and any communication that indicates decisions that were made about applicants.
The college launched “Promise: The Campaign for Amherst’s Third Century” on Friday, April 6 with a weekend of events, including the dedication of Ford Hall. The campaign aims to secure Amherst’s future as it moves into its third century starting in 2021.
The campaign plans to raise $625 million over the next five years, according to Suzanne Newby-Estes, the executive director of advancement and campaign operations. The college has already raised around half of the money through “quiet” fundraising leading up to the campaign launch.
After poring over a record-breaking 9,722 applications, the Office of Admissions admitted 1,244 applicants to the class of 2022, bringing the acceptance rate down to 12.8 percent, according to the Office of Admissions. Around 37 percent of the total number of accepted students were admitted through early decision.
Dean of Admissions Katie Fretwell expects a yield rate of 37 to 39 percent, which would make a class of 460 to 485 students. Admissions hopes to admit additional students off of the waitlist in late April and May in order to meet this target class size.
Christopher Collins ’20, a math major from Wakefield, Rhode Island, died on Thursday, March 29. The news was announced that day through emails sent to the college community by President Biddy Martin. His death, and the death of fellow student Andrew Dorogi ’18 two weeks before, have shaken the campus community.
A member of the college’s grounds crew found a deceased male between Morris Pratt Dormitory and Arms Music Center at 6:15 a.m. on Mar. 29, according to an email sent to the school by President Biddy Martin.
