Many of you have noticed the framed photos of students working on Book & Plow Farm adorning the walls of Valentine Hall, or maybe you attended last year’s Farm Fest at Book & Plow. Both are examples of recent endeavors aiming to raise the profile of Amherst’s green initiatives.
“It is part of the ethos of the operational department on campus to conserve and to ensure that we are minimizing our environmental footprint,” said Jim Brassord, Chief of Operations at the college. “We’ve had some really good successes, but they’ve been quiet, behind-the-scenes successes.”
As students shuffled into Converse Hall’s Cole Assembly Room last Wednesday night, a gray-haired, casually dressed, beefy, not-quite-6-foot-man with a Van Dyke mustache lounged in the front row of the auditorium. The Amherst Political Union, who hosted the event, soon introduced the man as Kirk Noble Bloodsworth, the first American on death row to be exonerated by DNA evidence.
Men
The Amherst College men’s indoor track and field distance medley relay team set a NCAA Div. III record with a time of 9:48.61 at the 2015 NEICAAA indoor track and field championships hosted by Boston University last Friday, Feb. 27 and Saturday, Feb. 28.
College football made its long-awaited switch from a single championship game to a four-team playoff this year, to pretty much universal acclaim. Even the playoff’s detractors had to admit that it delivered some good football and some great storylines, and the fact that No. 4 seed Ohio State won also vindicated the format. Of course, the format was modeled on March Madness, the giant college basketball tournament. March Madness is, to me and many others, the most fun time of the year in sports.
Feb. 26 brought with it an All-NESCAC nomination for men’s squash standout Noah Browne ’16, kicking off the week of CSA individual championships with a great start. This was nothing new to Browne, as it was the third consecutive time the junior had earned the accolade. Coming off of a clean sweep in the MCSA national team championships, Browne won all three of his matches against his Middlebury, Colby and Hobart opponents. The junior has competed for the Jeffs at the No. 1 court all season, going 10-4 individually.
Amherst College’s athletic team engagement initiative is fairly new, but in just a few years, has already had widespread impact.
The program is composed of individual “ATELs” (Athletic Team Engagement Leaders), individuals that represent each athletic team and facilitate team wide community engagement.
The Amherst women’s hockey team had a nail-biter of a game this Saturday in the NESCAC quarterfinal against Colby. The second-seeded Jeffs defeated the seventh-seeded Mules 2-1, in overtime. The win was crucial for the Jeffs, and they will move on in the highly competitive NESCAC tournament having obtained redemption for last year’s loss to Colby in the quarterfinals.
“In the NESCAC, the teams are all extremely competitive,” said Erin Martin ’16. “Anyone can win any day. The one and eight seed went into four OT’s. We play in the most competitive league in all of Div. III.”
