Mary Lyon Dinner on May 27!

The annual Mary Lyon Dinner will be held at the Town and County Club in Hartford on Wednesday, May 27. This event will feature guest speaker Kate Ballantine, assistant professor of environmental studies at Mount Holyoke, an opportunity to meet with alumna author Robin McLean, and the election of club officers for 2015–16.


lakerestoration_KateBallantineBallantine will speak on the College’s restoration ecology program. She was recently awarded funding to start this program and has been working with students to develop and implement a plan to improve water quality in Upper and Lower Lakes by restoring a wetland on campus. While her focus is on the ecology of Mount Holyoke, her reach is much broader, as she works to develop MHC into a global center for restoration research and education. Ballantine’s passion for her research is infectious. Check out her students’ work on their Facebook page and website.

Meet Short Story Writer Robin McLean

A cocktail hour with cash bar will be held beginning at 5:30 p.m., followed by the ReptileHouse_Front_3-330dinner with guest speaker at 6:15. During cocktails, Robin McLean ’87 will be available to talk about her award-winning, debut short story collection, Reptile House, to be released by BOA Editions on May 12. The collection won the 2013 BOA Editions Short Fiction Prize and was a finalist for the Flannery O’Connor Short Story Prize in 2011 and 2012. We are delighted to welcome Robin as she kicks off her book tour.

Nomination and Election of Club Officers

Our current slate of officers for 2015–16 is:

President : Carrie Field

Co-Vice Presidents: Marnie Clark and Carolyn Dorais

Treasurer: OPEN

Secretary: Annmarie Merritt

Social Media Chair: Liz O’Grady

Young Alumnae Rep: Tinashe Masaya

Admissions Rep: OPEN

If you or someone you know would be interested in serving as treasurer or admissions representative, please contact Carrie Field at carriannaK@gmail.com. The admissions representative coordinates with the admissions office to communicate with admitted students and works to promote Mount Holyoke in area high schools.

Please RSVP for the Mary Lyon Dinner by May 18!

Entrée choices are broiled salmon, chicken chardonnay, or mushroom ravioli. The cost of the dinner is $30 for young alumnae (Classes of 2011–15) and $35 for all other alumnae and guests.

RSVP by Monday, May 18, by sending a check made out to Mount Holyoke Alumnae Club of Hartford to Natasha Domina, 237 Main Street, Rockfall CT 06481, and indicate your meal choice (salmon, chicken or vegetarian).

The Town and County Club is located at 22 Woodland Avenue in Hartford.Click here for directions.

Many thanks to the dinner committee—Natasha Domina, Susan Glasspiegel, Rita MacRae, and Lynn Hayden Wadhams—for all their work in organizing the dinner.

Alumna News!

ReptileHouse_Front_3-330Author Robin McLean has several events coming up around New England, including a reading at Bank Square Books in Mystic!

Robin McLean is one of four sisters who all followed their mother attending Mount Holyoke. After South Hadley she was a lawyer and then a potter for 15 years in the woods of Alaska before receiving her MFA at UMass Amherst. Her debut collection Reptile House won the BOA Editions Fiction Prize in 2013. The collection was a finalist for the Flannery O’Connor Short Fiction Prize in 2011 and 2012. Her fiction is forthcoming or has appeared in numerous journals including The Cincinnati Review, CARVE, The Carolina Quarterly, Western Humanities Review, Green Mountains Review, Copper Nickel, The Common, Malahat Review and Nashville Review, among others. A figure skater first—having learned to skate and walk at the same time—McLean believes crashing on ice prepared her for writing fiction. She teaches at Clark University and splits her time between Newfound Lake in Bristol, New Hampshire and a 200-year-old farm in western Massachusetts, helping with the haunted in the corn maze each fall. For a full schedule, see www.robinmclean.net.

Three College Luncheon on April 23!

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Award-winning novelist J. Courtney Sullivan, a Smith College alumna, will be the guest speaker at the annual Three College Luncheon for Hartford area alumnae of Mount Holyoke, Smith and Wellesley. Sullivan is the author of Commencement (2010), Maine (2011) and The Engagements (2013), as well as coeditor (with Courtney Martin) of the essay anthology Click: When We Knew We Were Feminists.

The luncheon will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 23, at the Pond House Café in Elizabeth Park, 1555 Asylum Avenue, West Hartford. Registration will begin at 11:30 a.m. and lunch, including salad, entrée, dessert and coffee, will be served buffet style at noon. The cost is $40 per person.
To RSVP (advance registration by April 17 is required):
You may pay in advance with a check payable to Hartford Smith College Club, or with cash or check at the luncheon.