Professor Franklin Odo is the John J. McCloy ’16 Visiting Professor of American Institutions and International Diplomacy. He received his bachelor’s degree in Asian Studies from Princeton University, his master’s degree in East Asian regional studies at Harvard University and his doctorate degree on Japanese feudalism from Princeton.
Grades are a subjective system that systematically values a narrow set of qualities that so very often do not correlate to greater life satisfaction or produce better students of the world. Tests chronically misdiagnose ineptitude in a subject, and professors’ personalities have the power to fundamentally alter both the way material is taught and how students’ work is examined. One of the greatest and most accepted myths in the academic realm is such: Grading properly measures a student’s achievement, understanding and hard work.
This past weekend, men’s squash traveled south to Trinity to compete in the NESCAC championships, which stretched from Friday, Feb. 5 to Sunday, Feb. 7. The team was coming off of a disappointing 0-2 showing at the Little III championship on Jan. 31, where the purple and white fell 8-1 to Williams and 5-4 to Wesleyan in a heartbreaker which nonetheless included several bright spots for Amherst. Senior captain Noah Browne continued his dominant play on the first court, where he started down two sets but fought back for a 3-2 victory to the tune of 8-11, 7-11, 11-9, 11-7, 11-1.
The Amherst women’s track and field team competed and impressed in the Tufts Invitational last Saturday.
First-year Julia Asin finished sixth in the 200-meter dash with a time of 27.42, while Sarah Whelan ’17 and Katherie Hom ’19 finished back-to-back to take both 10th and 11th place. Whelan completed the race with a time of 28.50, and Hom 28.64.
Asin also competed in the 400-meter dash, claiming second place overall with a time of 59.54. Danielle Griffin ’18 finished fourth in the event with a time of 1:02:73.
The Amherst men’s basketball team split its two conference games this week, beating Bates easily on Friday night and falling in a close matchup with Tufts on Saturday afternoon. The men’s performances this weekend dropped them in the league standings to second place, behind Trinity and tied with next Friday’s opponent Middlebury for second place.
The Amherst women’s ice hockey team added three wins to its record after a trio of non-conference games last week. The purple and white had an exciting 3-2 win in the final minutes of play over Saint Anselm on Wednesday, Feb. 3. The women then traveled to Rye, New York on Saturday to defeat Manhattanville, 9-1, and finished up their non-conference win streak back at home on Tuesday night, when they took care of Salem State 10-0.
In a partnership with the Office of Student Life and the Multicultural Resource Center, photographer Steven Rosenfield visited the college between Feb. 2 and Feb. 5 to work with students on Amherst Community Photo Project.
