Renowned poet and former John Woodruff Simpson Lecturer Richard Wilbur ’42 died on Oct. 14 after a lifetime of writing, reading and teaching. In a community-wide email, President Biddy Martin and Dean of Faculty Catherine Epstein wrote that Wilbur, a two-time Pulitzer Prize recipient and U.S. Poet Laureate, was “a remarkable man whose decency and humanity are as memorable as his verse.”
President Biddy Martin sent a community-wide email on Sept. 5 condemning President Donald Trump’s decision to rescind Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). In her email, she emphasized the college’s commitment to recruiting and protecting students with DACA status.
When Gretchen Sisson ’06 was a senior in high school, she only applied to five schools. When she received her first letter back, she opened it, set it aside and waited.
Then she received her Amherst acceptance and didn’t open any of the following letters. “My mom wasn’t too thrilled with that decision,” she said. “But I felt confident and I didn’t want to complicate the decision — I had made up my mind.”
Now a sociologist studying abortion and reproductive health, Sisson credits her time at Amherst as critical to her life and career in research.
