In Contentious Debate, AAS Approves Purchase Of Senate Sweatshirts

In a close vote, the AAS Senate approved the purchase of sweatshirts for senators at their weekly meeting on Dec. 6. Senators’ debate over the purchase went beyond its constitutionality to questions surrounding ethical uses of student funds and appropriate compensation of senators.

Exit Letter: Becca Says Bye

Editor-in-chief Rebecca Picciotto '22 reflects on her year at the helm of The Student with all of its highs and very real lows. In her last issue of The Student, she bids goodbye to a job that has challenged her sleep schedule but enriched her Amherst career.

Storyteller Behind the Scenes and Screen — Alumni Profile, Amy Stevens Hammond ’92

From the stage to the screen, Amy Stevens Hammond ’92 has found a home behind the scenes, working tirelessly to bring stories to life.

As College Announces Anti-Racism Plan Updates, Some Students Lament Slowed Progress

President Martin sent out an email update on the college’s anti-racism work, initially launched by the Anti-Racism Action Plan of August 2020. Students have felt that, though the college has made some tangible changes, the updates seem to rely on unsubstantial committee work and shallow promises.

As Progress Stalls on Roofies Investigation, Students Question College Response

Definitive evidence of roofies on campus has yet to be found. Nonetheless, the potential presence of date rape drugs continues to loom on students’ minds and have prompted broader concerns over the administration’s response to reports of sexual misconduct on campus.

Campus Shaken by Reports of Possible "Roofies" Incidents

Rumors and reports of possible "roofies" incidents have circulated around campus over the past two weeks, causing worries among students about safety at social gatherings. Students and administration have responded with tentative caution to the drug’s potential presence on campus.

Yom Kippur Service Interrupted by CSO Due to Booking Mishap

Yom Kippur services taking place in the Powerhouse on Sept. 16 were interrupted by a CSO because of miscommunication with the DQ over the booking of the space. The incident prompted alarm among students over the role ACPD played in it.

Former Men's Lax Coach Alleges Racial Discrimination, College Denies All Claims

The former men’s lacrosse head coach filed legal action against the college for racist discrimination and more. The filing states Rashad Devoe took the position to clean up lacrosse culture but faced retaliation from administrators before he could do so. The college has denied all claims.

Missed the Town Hall? Here's What You Need to Know

On Monday, the Association of Amherst Students held a virtual town hall with several members of the administration. Topics discussed included long wait times at Val, staffing shortages and Covid enforcement policies.

Olivia Gieger: The Activist Behind the Byline

From the outside, Gieger’s path seems to decouple into two distinct threads: activism and journalism. But talking to Gieger, it becomes clear that, for her, those parallel interests are inextricably connected.

On the Road of Journalism: A Conversation with Jessica Bruder, Author of Nomadland

Every so often, a journalist finds a story and gives it wings. What Jessica Bruder ’00 found in “Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century” didn’t need wings — it already had wheels. “Nomadland” is the deeply candid chronicle of a growing community of American nomads who, after the Great Recession, turned their vehicles into homes to travel the country in search of work and a liberated lifestyle. It observes a host of nomads, getting to know their quirks, their struggles and some

Students Demand Immediate Release of College’s Student Relief Funds

On Sunday, April 18, the Association of Amherst Students (AAS), the First Generation Association and the Covid-19 Student Task Force released a letter [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EHu2D4VD493PDVtXw6bFEeuGQplSYNj13WH1OCKUabE/edit?usp=sharing] calling on the Office of Financial Aid to immediately disburse the Higher Education Emergency Relief Funds III (HEERF III) to qualifying students. HEERF III was created on April 1 under the American Rescue Plan (ARP), the program that has offered s

Students Walk Out in Protest After Police Killing of Daunte Wright; AAS and BSU Demand Abolition of ACPD

At 10 a.m. on Tuesday, April 13, hundreds of students, dressed in black, left their classes to gather on the First-Year Quad and participate in a #BlackMindsMatter walkout coordinated by the Black Students Union (BSU). They were spurred by the recent killing of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man who was shot by a Minnesota police officer on Sunday, April 11 — the latest of a series of national incidents highlighting the often fatal consequences of police brutality and anti-Black racism. Rem

Staff Spotlight: Larissa Hopkins

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Q: What initially got you interested in this work and where were you before Amherst? A: My experience at Hamilton College as an undergraduate student really opened me up to the world of power, privilege and oppression, individual identities, the complexities of those identities and the ways in which we have very different lived experiences and realities. I ended up transitioning from being pre-med to being what was called then a women’s st

Thoughts on Theses: Jackson Lee

Jackson Lee is a film and media studies major. For his thesis, he wrote, casted and directed a film set in the city of Hong Kong. His thesis advisor is Elliot Montague, a visiting lecturer in Film Media Theater at Mount Holyoke College. Q: What is your thesis about? A: Sure. So I’m doing a thesis in film and media studies (FAMS). Usually FAMS theses consist of a creative component and a critical component — the creative component usually being kind of a film or some other project and a critica

Students Look Back on Inaugural January Term Classes

This past winter, from Jan. 4 to Jan. 29, the college offered its first-ever selection of optional January Term (J-Term) courses, allowing students to choose one class to take intensively over the span of four weeks. According to Provost and Dean of the Faculty Catherine Epstein, 813 students enrolled, 45 professors taught and 51 classes were offered. The new J-Term academic program came with the general overhaul of the academic landscape in spring 2020 as Covid-19 forced in-person classrooms t

Trevor Noah and Heidi Gardner Talk Comedy, Covid and College

If you have entered any major Amherst College building over the past week, you may have come face to face with award-winning comedian and host of The Daily Show, Trevor Noah — or rather, an eerie cardboard cutout of him. The two-dimensional cardboard figures of Noah scattered throughout campus finally came to life last night, Feb. 23, over Zoom. The college partnered with four other small colleges — Smith College, Union College, Middlebury College and Skidmore College — to virtually host Noah in

College Shifts Into Gear as Hundreds of Students Arrive on Campus

From Thursday, Feb. 11 to Sunday, Feb. 14, students moved into their respective residence halls to begin the college’s second full Covid semester. The move-in period brought the total number of on-campus students to approximately 1,120. The college is now the most populated that it has been in nearly a year. As such, students moving to campus have been greeted by streamlined testing protocols and a stringent quarantine period. For most students on campus, the testing process began before they s

Academic Dismissal Rates Reveal Persistent Racial, Socioeconomic Disparities and Institutional Bias

Dismissal from the college for either academic or disciplinary reasons is a roadblock — it slows down the college experience. At Amherst College, Black, Latinx, first-generation and low-income students experience that roadblock the most. On average, the rates of academic dismissal among Black, Latinx and first-generation students at the college are all, respectively, more than double the average of all students. And they are over four times the rate of academic dismissal among white students, l

Editors' Note

Dear Readers, The college has long faced significant disparities in the representation and inclusion of marginalized communities. Anti-Black racism, along with other forms of prejudice, have persisted at Amherst, in part due to the perpetual lack of an adequate administrative response. Spurred by these injustices, recent student and alumni movements — Amherst Uprising, Integrate Amherst and Reclaim Amherst, to name a few — have impelled the college to fulfill its responsibility, to reflect on a

Audrey Cheng: The Nexus of Econ, Law and Piano

Amid figuring out her place in the world, Audrey Cheng ‘20 has made meaningful contributions in academics and music. Photo courtesy of Audrey Cheng ’20.Audrey Cheng ’20 has been playing the piano since she was five years old. In a parallel universe, her musical talent and passion would have naturally led her to a music conservatory where she would have lived and breathed the likes of Mozart and Tchaikovsky. Amherst’s Orchestra Director Mark Swanson believes she would have been “a star at any of

As Summer Opportunities are Canceled, Students Tread an Unpaved Road

Gavi Forman ’22 opened her email inbox on March 26 to a message notifying her that her summer research internship through the Institute of Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis had been canceled due to the coronavirus outbreak. With the click of a send button, her original vision of the summer had disintegrated. Instead, the months ahead looked more like “an unpaved road,” as she put it. Forman received the news about her internship at the tipping point of summer cancellations. No

#IntegrateAmherst: A Call to Renew Our Humility

This article is a part of The Student’s #IntegrateAmherst op-ed series. The series intends to act as a forum for a multitude of perspectives to engage in a dialogue surrounding the Black Student Union’s recent #IntegrateAmherst movement responding to racism at Amherst College. Articles included in the series represent the opinions of the authors themselves only and are not necessarily endorsed by the BSU. To contribute your opinion on these events and topics, please contactrpicciotto22@amherst.e

Democracy at a Distance: What We Lose

Democracy is an incredible thing. It is capable of bringing together thousands of jubilant supporters packed into convention centers. It stages heated debates on the floor of Congress. It survives by volunteers knocking on strangers’ doors and poll workers handing out “I Voted” stickers in school gyms. But since March, these in-person events have all but vanished. For good reason, everyone has hunkered down at home, far away from a rally or phone bank. Today, our politics are little more than a

Two Weeks In, Amherst Community Reflects on Remote Learning Adaptations

As the coronavirus outbreak continues to erupt worldwide, the college’s return from spring break looks different than usual. Rather than the gradual repopulation of campus that typically ensues the weekend before classes continue, students and faculty alike have instead resumed college life via their home computer screens. As social distancing and quarantine transform all aspects of the Amherst experience, the college’s academic atmosphere is figuring out how to navigate the world of remote lear

#IntegrateAmherst: Restorative Justice Is Necessary but Insufficient

On January 15 and 16, along with about 25 other students, professors and administrators, I took part in an introductory course on the general principles and goals of restorative justice and the ways to embed these practices into our college community. I entered the first day of training with few expectations and about a million questions: What even is restorative justice? How does it work? It might first be beneficial to explain the philosophy behind this exercise. A typical judicial system, wh

Thoughts on Theses: Camille Blum

Camille Blum is a history, Russian and math major. Her thesis looks at the human rights movement in 1970s Soviet Russia and considers how scholars might reframe the narrative of the Soviet dissidents in that period. Her thesis advisor is Five College Associate Professor of History Sergey Glebov. Q: What is your thesis about? A: It is about Soviet dissidents in the 1970s, both about their activities in the Soviet Union and how they interacted with potential allies in the West and the steps that

Thoughts on Theses: Abby LeCates

Abby LeCates is an anthropology major on the pre-medicine track. Her thesis explores the relationship between recovery networks for opioid addicts and the criminal justice system in upstate New York. Her thesis advisor is Winthrop H. Smith 1916 Professor of Sociology Jerome Himmelstein. Q: What is your thesis about? A: Very broadly, it’s about the opioid epidemic in upstate New York. I was initially interested in studying it because I’m really interested in medical anthropology, and I wanted t

Amherst Architecture: Unearthing History for Today

You and I have never met, but we’re part of the same family, one bound together not by blood, but by experience: the experience of a liberal arts education at one of the most beautiful campuses in the United States. That campus is the focus of a new book I’ve written, “Amherst College: The Campus Guide.” Published to celebrate the college’s upcoming bicentennial, the book aims to let you see such landmarks as Johnson Chapel and Memorial Hill with fresh eyes. But the guide also can be understoo