The recently published draft of the college’s strategic plan addresses, among many other issues, the culture of busyness and high achievement that leaves students, staff and faculty short of the time and energy necessary to build the strong community Amherst could and should foster. Yet despite taking perfect aim at this problem, the plan’s strategy for dealing with it leaves a lot to be desired, as it focuses on improving existing resources rather than locating the source of the problem.
Ashley McCall ’12 teaches third grade at LEARN South Chicago.
Inspired by Nora Gayer’s excellent piece.
In Valentine, I often see plates piled full of lasagna, General Tso’s chicken, macaroni and cheese or salad cycle through the dishwashing conveyor belt. Throughout campus, sandwiches perch helplessly on top of traffic posts. Defeated black bananas litter the snow, abandoned by students as if they are a joke. If these attempts are part of a joke, I hope those students understand that worldwide, according to a working paper for the World Resources Institute and United Nations Environment Programme, around 25 percent of food calories produced for human consumption are wasted annually. In the U
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: You and your four friends are trying to get a suite in Taplin, but it only has four rooms. Perhaps your group will have to draw straws. Maybe you’ll all just decide whom to kick out based on messiness, sleep schedules or high volume of sex. The room draw process is stressful, messy and ruinous to friendships. It’s rumored that room draw keeps the Counseling Center in business. In short, it is a commonly held belief that room draw destroys friendships and should be avoided at all costs for the sake of your mental and physical well-being.
Amherst College hosted the only home meet of the year this past Saturday, endearingly and perhaps ironically dubbed the “Spring Fling” as the weather was anything but springy — rain drizzled down in the early morning, and the wind maintained a pervasive chill for the duration of the meet. This was only the second time a meet has been hosted on Pratt Field since the newly renovated track was finished.
Winning both matches on the road this weekend, the Amherst women’s tennis team has started off April with a bang. This past Friday, the team swept No. 21-ranked Babson 9-0 marking their first sweep of the season. The following day, the Jeffs dominated No. 28 Brandeis 7-2, moving to 7-1 overall on the season and maintaining their No. 4 national ranking.
