A compilation of recent remarks made at Amherst.
“Teaching looms large at Amherst. Harvard is once again concerned about the state of undergraduate teaching; they will issue a report and make suggestions, you will read about it in the papers, and people will discuss them. But there is not a damn thing Harvard will or can do about it. It is not in the nature of their institution. We, on the other hand, talk about it and judge it. We value it, and we evaluate it.”
Kim Townsend, Class of 1959 Professor of English In his Senior Assembly speech Johnson Chapel, May 6, 2005
“It is the role of the social problem solver that I will be speaking about this evening. Consider this a recruiting pitch, because the world needs your help. Agencies and communities need your help. Individuals struggling to put their lives back together need you. Trust me on this: many problems that ruin people's health and lives and destroy communities and families are solvable, but the right people are not yet involved….This story is repeated in so many areas: good people, doing good work for people in need, but without the gift of vision to see that it might be done differently with transformative effects. The challenge is not to enlist more people in social service careers, but to bring a new quality of thinking to these issues and new levels of imagination and rigor in designing services.”
Rosanne Haggerty ’82
Keynote speaker in the “common reading” program during -First-Year Orientation
Johnson Chapel, August 29, 2005
“Habitat for Humanity has a radical goal: to eliminate poverty and homelessness. We do that one house at a time, one partner family at a time.”
Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity volunteer Peter Jessop Announcing a new program in which Amherst College will donate land and labor for four Habitat houses Northampton, Mass., Oct. 6, 2005
“If I could move this college to Romania, that would be nice.”
Romanian student Bogdan State ’09 When asked by the Amherst Student what he would like to take home with him when he leaves Amherst