Mount Holyoke Reacts to an Amherst Controversy

Founded as a seminary in 1837, Mount Holyoke has been a women’s college since 1888.

The area in which Mount Holyoke College is located is a unique one. Within one corner of Western Massachusetts, the Pioneer Valley, there are five schools:  Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Smith College in Northampton, UMass Amherst and Amherst College in Amherst, and Hampshire College right in the middle. There are 35,000 students that frequent the same malls, shopping centers, and restaurants. Students from different schools attend the same classes through cross-registration, and attend the same parties, speaking engagements, and concerts. The five schools are officially linked through an incorporated organization named the Five-College Consortium. So when something notable happens on one campus, like a scandal, it, in many ways, happens to all of the students.

It began with a shirt. On October 8 2012, Amherst College student Dana Bolger posted an article discussing an offensive t-shirt created by an unrecognized Amherst fraternity. The shirt depicted a woman being roasted over an open flame with the caption, ‘roasting fat ones since 1847.’ Bolger’s article focuses on two issues; the Amherst administration’s attempts to keep the issue from the general public, and the problematic handling of sexual assault in the student body. Then came the story of Angie Epifano, a former Amherst student whose rape and subsequent emotional devastation was poorly handled by the administration. When she posted her account on The Amherst Student’s website, the already-audible outrage on the Mount Holyoke campus became louder.

Amherst was founded as a men’s college in 1821, and became coeducational in 1975.

Ali Safran, a junior at Mount Holyoke College said:

 “I’ve experienced Amherst’s loathsome culture firsthand and have heard horror stories of how Amherst fails to respond to sexual assault…I survived a sexual assault prior to college, and hearing all of this about Amherst led me to decide not to spend weekends there anymore and to get active in creating a space for Five-College students to come together and take a hard look at the culture we are part of.”

Ali is one of the students who has contributed heavily to the Pioneer Valley Alliance for the Respect of EveryBody (PVARE), an online Facebook forum for Five-College students, many of whom are Mount Holyoke students, to discuss issues of collegiate sexual consent.

However, online activism is not the only form of action that has been taken. One of the first actions that came from the controversy was a demonstration on October 19, 2012 protesting the closed nature of the meeting that Amherst President, Biddy Martin, Amherst College trustees, and a select number of students were having on the recent controversies. The students and other allies at the protest were a mixture of genders, races, and college affiliations; united for a common cause.  Mount Holyoke student Susanna Holmstrom ’14, is one of the students who headed up the demonstration.

 ”This rally revealed the breadth and depth of anger and hurt in response to rape culture as well as a shared passion for change. We hope to direct this energy into a movement that will teach people how to interrupt rape culture and further a culture of consent.”

 While the rally was a sign of possible change in the Pioneer Valley, it is clear that there is much to be changed. The online forums on which the inciting articles were posted have spouted massive comment wars, many of which contain immature comments common to the internet. On the Facebook wall of PVARE, many members have posted accounts of equally immature comments made by students in response to the tragedy. Others involved in the movement feel that those currently involved are people who have been passionate about sexual consent politics prior to the controversies of the last few weeks.

 “As a Mount Holyoke student, it was very refreshing to see so many familiar faces from the Five-College area, yet also disappointing because I couldn’t help but think that we were preaching to the choir. With that said, I think any rally, however big or small, can make a difference and it is people like this who are active in their communities that give a movement momentum…”

 These are the feelings of Claire Frilot, a Mount Holyoke senior active in the F-Word, Mount Holyoke’s feminist club.

The founder of Mount Holyoke College, Mary Lyon, had one of her closest allies in Edward Hitchcock, professor and later President at Amherst. So from the very beginning, Mount Holyoke and Amherst were intertwined. In the modern day, this can often be a negative.

 “I personally don’t think the school would have changed if [the recent controversies], did not come out on national news, because stories like that, (about Amherst College), are not new. I know a number of Mount Holyoke girls, whom at the very least, have been harassed (by Amherst students).”

 This account of Stephanie Roses ‘13, is not the only negative account of Amherst-Mount Holyoke relations. However, if any positives can come from the recent issues surrounding consent, it may be a changing of this narrative. It may be taking the behavior of a select group of Amherst students, and others, and calling it into question, questions involving sexual consent politics that were raised by Angie Epifano and Dana Bolger. If Mount Holyoke students can do this, perhaps by being involved with PVARE, or finding inspiration through our history of graduates who challenge the status quo, than this student body will be pushing for Amherst College, the other Five Colleges, and institutions all over the country to take a collective step in the right direction.