Homecoming Schedule 2020

Many faculty in the Spanish Department have open office hours via Zoom for students. This week they are also available to families at a variety of times. Learn more and sign up on the Spanish Dept. website.

With Sarah Bloom Raskin ’83 P’14,’17, Rubenstein Fellow at Duke Law School and former Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury and Ron Lieber ’93, a journalist who writes the “Your Money” column in The New York Times. Learn more about the Amherst Conversations series.

William A. Loinaz, professor of physics and chair of the Health Professions Committee, and Richard Aronson ’69, health professions advisor and assistant dean of students, will present an overview of the premedical and health professions advising program and community at Amherst and the medical school and health professions graduate school application process.

Have a question for the financial aid office regarding your student's aid package, FAFSA forms, changes in status, etc? Sign up for an individual Zoom appointment to meet one on one with a counselor. Appointments are 25 minutes long and space is limited. 

London-based artist Heather Agyepong has worked within photographic and performance arts since 2009 and is interested in mental health and well-being, activism, invisibility, the diaspora and the archive. She uses both lens-based practices and performance to create cathartic experiences for herself and her audiences. Agyepong’s works have been published, performed and exhibited extensively within the UK and internationally. A selection of her photographs are currently on view at the Mead Art Museum.

Join us to learn more about Agyepong’s artistic practice, her acclaimed project "Too Many Blackamoors," and her forthcoming projects, performances and exhibitions. This conversation will be moderated by Aneeka Henderson, assistant professor of Sexuality, Women's and Gender Studies.

This year BSU wanted to find a way to engage our Black community in a fun and dynamic way. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are unable to host our annual Harlem Renaissance event, which usually serves as a showcase for the many talents of our Black students on campus. This year, we hope to showcase these students virtually, while creating the opportunity for families to get to know each other through rounds of Amherst-inspired Family Feud! We hope you'll join us for a fun night of games, talent and social engagement. We look forward to seeing you there!

We won't sugarcoat it - the coming years will be challenging for new job seekers. But Amherst students do not have to navigate those challenges alone. Hear from the team at the Loeb Center for Career Exploration and Planning about how they are adapting and enlarging career development support for Amherst students in the face of overlapping crises and a recession job market. 

Join the Black Studies Department faculty for a meet and greet with alumni, families and students.

Kaufman will speak about the opera she wrote as a Russian major at Amherst; she is a professional composer and Assistant Professor in Music Composition at the University of California, Riverside. Barskova, Professor of Russian and one of Russia’s most visible poets, will discuss her experience living and writing as an émigré with ties to the international Russian literary scene.  

Zach Bleemer '13 is a PhD candidate in Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. Zach's talk will address the economic and distributional ramifications of meritocratic university policies: how valuable is the education provided by highly selective colleges (overall and in high-demand majors like Economics), and how does that value differ for students who enter college with less academic preparation than their peers, or for those who come from low-income backgrounds?

Javier Corrales, Dwight W. Morrow 1895 Professor of Political Science; Jonathan Obert, assistant professor of Political Science; and Kerry Ratigan, assistant professor of Political Science share their views. This program is part of a series of events in relation to the 2020 elections in the United States sponsored by the Political Science Department of Amherst College. 

Streamed from Buckley Recital Hall

Join Catherine Epstein, Provost and Dean of the Faculty and Winkley Professor of History, for a wide-ranging conversation about Amherst’s academic landscape. This year, Provost Epstein will discuss academic initiatives, pedagogical innovation and the challenges and opportunities posed by COVID-19.

Film & Media Studies (FAMS) faculty, staff, students, and alumni invite you to an open house reception where you can learn more about the major. Professor Adam Levine and senior thesis student, Ryan Sholtis will have a conversation on the program and student experience. A recent FAMS graduate will present their critical-creative thesis and share part of their film.

Have a question for the financial aid office regarding your student's aid package, FAFSA forms, changes in status, etc? Sign up for an individual Zoom appointment to meet one on one with a counselor. Appointments are 25 minutes long and space is limited. 

Come say a virtual hello and hang out with members of the club volleyball community! We're excited to see some familiar faces and meet new people.

A virtual panel on LGBTQIA+ community activism and organizing at Amherst College and beyond, featuring Ron Wold ‘70, Hilary North-Ellasante ’97, Tierra Allen '09, Matt Randolph ’16, and Kannan Jagannathan, the Bruce B. Benson '43 and Lucy Wilson Benson Professor of Physics. Our conversation will explore the resilience and resistance essential to the building and sustainability of our LGBTQIA+ campus community across Amherst’s history, as well as alumni activist, advocacy, and organizing work following graduation. Hosted by the Queer Resource Center.

The Carboniferous Period (359-299Ma) saw the rapid (emphasis on rapid) explosion of life on land. The Carboniferous is most known for its picturesque forests, filled with gigantic trees and ferns. By the end of the period, forests were swarming with air-breathing insects and arachnids, some giant compared to modern standards. Land vertebrates continued to adapt to land and diversify. Notably, amniotes emerged, laying their legs on land: a new innovation! The oceans were still just as exciting as in the Devonian, now featuring even more sharks and ray-finned fish. Coral reefs were abundant as well. This period is quite... beautiful. Land finally began to resemble what land looks like today. Presenter: Ben Gilsdorf '21 

The Carboniferous Period (359-299Ma) saw the rapid (emphasis on rapid) explosion of life on land. The Carboniferous is most known for its picturesque forests, filled with gigantic trees and ferns. By the end of the period, forests were swarming with air-breathing insects and arachnids, some giant compared to modern standards. Land vertebrates continued to adapt to land and diversify. Notably, amniotes emerged, laying their legs on land: a new innovation! The oceans were still just as exciting as in the Devonian, now featuring even more sharks and ray-finned fish. Coral reefs were abundant as well. This period is quite... beautiful. Land finally began to resemble what land looks like today. Presenter: Rilla McKeegan '21 & Lindsay Yue '21

Join the staff and interns of The Common for a celebration of uncommonly good literature! Come to hear readings from our 10th anniversary issue.

Janáček String Quartet No. 1, Kreutzer Sonata and Beethoven Grosse Fuge

Recipient of a 2018 Avery Fisher Career Grant and a 2017 Lincoln Center Award for Emerging Artists, the Calidore String Quartet first made international headlines as winner of the $100,000 Grand Prize of the 2016 M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition. The quartet was the first North American ensemble to win the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist, and is currently in residence with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two). The Calidore String Quartet has been praised by The New York Times for its “deep reserves of virtuosity and irrepressible dramatic instinct.” The Los Angeles Times described the quartet as “astonishing” and praised its balance of “intellect and expression.” The Washington Post said that “Four more individual musicians are unimaginable, yet these speak, breathe, think and feel as one.” Music@Amherst series details

One of the highlights of Homecoming is gathering at the football game in tents with other alumni in adjacent class years. While we can’t replicate that experience exactly, these virtual tent meetups are an opportunity for alumni to meet new people in graduation years close to their own, and to see old friends. Each event will include a series of breakout sessions for people to talk in small groups. 

Noon - 1 p.m.

• 1981 - 1985 
• 1991 - 1994 
• 2016 - 2020 

1:30 - 2:30 p.m.

• 2001 - 2010 
• Classes before 1960 (join at 1 p.m. for an orientation to Zoom, and how to participate in breakout rooms)

3 - 4 p.m.

• 1995 - 2000 - 25th Reunion Classes
• 1986 - 1990 
• 1970 - 1975 - 50th Reunion Classes

4:30 - 5:30 p.m.

• 2011 - 2015 
• 1960 - 1969 

6 - 7 p.m. 

• 1976 - 1980 

The Amherst College Choral Society will perform several works for choir, including traditional school songs, via livestream from Buckley Recital Hall and with a virtual choir that includes remote singers.

The Amherst Symphony Orchestra (ASO) and Chamber Music Program present works by Hildegard von Bingen, Ethyl Smyth, Amy Beach, Cécile Chaminade, Chrétien Hedwige, Florence Price, Valerie Coleman, Joan Tower and Ellen Taafe Zwillich in honor of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment establishing women's right to vote.

Female composers have long faced unjust exclusion from the concert hall. Patriarchal gate-keeping and gender bias has unfairly dictated whose music would be heard. Women are dramatically under-represented both in the music academy and on classical music stages. The ASO seeks to do its part to begin remedying this artistic inequity in a varied program of works by women composers.

Fall back, friends!

Connect with other Amherst families in a virtual meetup.

DQ Alumni join current members for a meet and greet!

From 2 - 3 p.m. join for a faculty panel presentation regarding curricular adaptations in classes and student research, followed by a meet and greet for parents. At 3 p.m. faculty will address “Expanding our Community Inclusively and Remotely,” and will have a particular alumni focus on ways alumni can be involved, including an alumni meet and greet.

Come to ASA's virtual reception and mingle with fellow Asian alums and students! Let's talk about what the Amherst Asian community has been up to. Students from the Asian Students Association (ASA), Middle Eastern and North African Association (MENAA), South Asian Students Association (SASA), Chinese Students Association (CSA), Mixed Student Union (MSU) and Korean Students Association (KSA) will be in attendance.