It's a girl for Lia!

Lia Thomas gave birth to Lilah Clay Levesque in September 2006. Little Lilah was born 12 weeks premature, and spent 7 long weeks in the hospital, but has been thriving at home ever since.

Congratulations Lia!

Rally Day 2007!

HAPPY RALLY DAY

For the first time this year Smith is hosting a Rally Day Carnival to celebrate at the Campus Center. The carnival will feature games, prizes and temporary tattoos, karaoke, beading and make-your-own picture frames, an open mic, and snacks. During the day medalists will be holding discussions.

This year's medalists include:
Sarah Chasis ’69 - environmental lawyer
Mary Ann Hoberman ’51 - children’s author
Carolyn Kaelin ’83 - physician
Amy-Jill Levine ’78 - feminist biblical scholar
Trudy Rubin ’65 - journalist.

Some more info from the Smith site:
A history of Rally Day
Rally Day traditions
About the Smith College Medal

Malian's Song

Marge Bruchac (Ada '99) recently published her newest children's book, "Malian's Song", which illustrates the experience of two young Abenaki girls during Robert Roger's 1759 raid. The book was selected as an "Editor's Choice" by the New York Times Book Review. Congratulations Marge!


The Vermont Folklife Center describes the story in the following way:
In the words of a young Abenaki girl, Malian’s Song tells the true story of the deliberate English attack by British Major Robert Rogers on the St. Francis Abenaki community near Montréal in 1759. Jeanne Brink, a descendant of Malian living in Vermont, told the little-known Abenaki version of the brutal attack--which stands in direct contrast to Rogers’ surviving journal records--to the Vermont Folklife Center. The only picture book to present this key piece of North American history from the Native American perspective, Malian’s Song underscores the Abenaki people’s strength and fortitude in the face of unspeakable loss.

Diane Davison King-Shaw's Wedding

In November of 2006, Diane married Joe King-Shaw and changed her name to Diane Davison King-Shaw. The ceremony was attended by Cindy Neil '94, Maura Burns '95, Amanda Austin '00, and Jai Berg '00.

Congrats Diane and Joe!

Were you a blog contributor?

Blogger finally forced us to upgrade the blog to the new system and in the process we seem to have lost some of our contributors. If you are a contributor and have not upgraded your account please do so, we think this may be the problem. We hope that by upgrading you will be reactivated as a contributor. If you are still having problems please send us an email and we will add you back.

We are always looking for new people to help out with posting. If you would like to contribute to the blog, please create a google/blogger account at the Blooger homepage and then email us to let us know you have an account. We will help get you set-up from there.

Cheers all!

Congrats Lisa & Spencer!

Lisa (Boone) Chastain and her husband Spencer welcomed the birth of their second son, William Edward Chastain, on February 13, 2005. Their older son, Joshua, is enjoying being a big brother!

Lisa Matter's Wedding

Congrats to Lisa and Ben!!

From Left to Right: Sheila Nelson '97, Johanna Lindsay '99, Ben Pershouse '01J Lisa Matter '99, Anne Booker '99, and Simone Chess '02(?)

Congrats Yacine!

Yacine Ndao writes, "I wanted to share the most amazing event of my life: my son Maximilian H. G. Fox was born on November 28, 2006 at St. George's Hospital in London. He is an amazing baby and is growing every day. He is sweet natured and very sociable!"

Congratulations Yacine!

Submit your news & check us out!

Hello Class of 1999!

Just a quick update to remind everyone to submit their news to Ingrid by Wednesday, Feb. 14. Just send a quick email to the officers email. We want to hear from all of you!

News Submission Schedule
February 14 for the SUMMER issue
May 14 for the FALL issue
August 14 for the WINTER issue
November 14 for the SPRING issue

The class now has more communities set-up on the web. If you have accounts on Flickr or MySpace add your self to one of our groups.

Flickr
Our Flickr Page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/smithcollege99/
Class of '99 Group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/smithcollege99/

Email your photos to me if you would like them uploaded to the class flickr page. I would love to include everyone's wedding, new baby/child, vacation, reunion, and just everyday photos. Please either state in the subject line or the body of the message that the photo is for the flickr site and whether is can also be posted on the blog. Thanks!

MySpace
Our Group: http://groups.myspace.com/smithcollege99

Some people have had problems connecting to the group through the direct link. We are listed under alumni organization. If you still have problems locating us send me an email with your MySpace ID and I will send you an invite.

Your Blog
If you have a blog of your own and want it linked from our site send me an email and I will add you to our links list.

Hope everyone is doing well!
Tiffany

14 valentines to celebrate women

14valentines is a LiveJournal community conceived to celebrate and empower women in each of the 14 days leading up to V-Day. Each day is assigned a theme along with a supporting partner (foundation or group). Folks then make a thoughtful post and/or share their own works (fiction/art/music/etc.) on their journals, cross-posted to the community - related to the topic and partner(s) of the day(s), anytime before February 14.

14 Valentines kicked off on Feb 1 and ends on Valentine's Day, also Vagina Day, Victory Against Violence Day and is in a large part inspired by Eve Ensler, her amazing Vagina Monologues, and the organization that grew out of that movement, the V-Day foundation.

The themes for each day this year are:
Day 1: Women in Academics
Day 2: Women in the Arts
Day 3: Women and Body Image
Day 4: Domestic Violence
Day 5: Economics and Wealth
Day 6: Women's Health
Day 7: Hunger
Day 8: Peace Movements
Day 9: Reproductive Rights
Day 10: Sexual Abuse
Day 11: Women in Sports
Day 12: Voting
Day 13: Women and Work
Day 14: Pick your own cause!

Lastly, this terrific soundtrack was specially compiled for each of the 14 days. Entertain, educate, empower and enjoy!

Study links negative expectations and women's performance

I just rediscovered this story that came through in early January when I was out of town. Have a great weekend!

A new study by Associate Professor of Psychology Maryjane Wraga documents, for the first time, how certain regions of women's brains react to positive and negative stereotypes. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, Wraga and fellow researchers Molly Helt '05 and Emily Jacobs '04 documented brain activity in 54 women between the ages of 18 and 34 after they had read a stereotypical message about women and then performed a spatial reasoning task. The task required them to view pictures of objects and describe what the objects would look like from different, imagined perspectives.

The group exposed to a negative stereotype made 6 percent more errors than the group exposed to a neutral message, and 14 percent more errors than the group exposed to a positive stereotype. "The results demonstrate the remarkable power of culture in determining performance," said Wraga, lead author on the study, published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. For more information about the study see the study press release.

Goodbye Molly Ivins

I am sure that many of you heard about the passing of Molly Ivins. She was a brilliant women who was proud and outspoken about her Smith education. At a 2002 round table during Pres. Christ's inauguration she said "...the biggest gift I got from Smith: It wasn't that Smith taught me that women can do anything. Smith taught me to simply assume women can do anything! And as I went forth to conquer the world in 1966, I didn't yet realize what a great gift that [concept] was. It took me a long time -- and I'm still grateful for it."

From President Carol Christ this morning...
I was greatly saddened to learn of the death of Molly Ivins '66, someone I've long admired. Molly was courageous, and she was funny. Those two qualities may not seem related, but, in her work, they were. Through her writing, she gave her readers the boldness to see hypocrisy and absurdity and the resilience to laugh at it. She was one of our country's great political satirists, and she was a gracious, generous lady to boot. The Smith community, and the nation, have lost one of our most insightful and authentic voices.
-- Carol T. Christ, President

Her Last Article: Stand Up Against the "Surge"
Smith College Press Release
2000 Profile on Salon.com
2003 Interview on Salon.com
Remembering Molly Ivins
NY Times Obit
Boston Globe Obit
Texas Observer

Some other great Ivins quotes which only illustrate her ability to balance humor and passion.

"The first rule of holes: when you're in one, stop digging."

"What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority."

"I believe that ignorance is the root of all evil. And that no one knows the truth."

"It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America."

"Politics is not a picture on a wall or a television sitcom that you can decide you don't much care for."

"I believe in practicing prudence at least once every two or three years."

"I still believe in Hope - mostly because there's no such place as Fingers Crossed, Arkansas."

On Texas: "I dearly love the state of Texas, but I consider that a harmless perversion on my part, and discuss it only with consenting adults." (Fort Worth Star-Telegram column, March 1, 1992)

On Camille Paglia: "Christ! Get this woman a Valium!" (Mother Jones, 1991)