The words "senior thesis" connote long, esoteric, boring undergraduate papers that will only be read by the writer, a few professors and perhaps an enterprising parent or two. Certainly most students do not consider the work of their peers applicable to their own lives. However, the psychology thesis of Mary Duvernay applies directly to approximately half of the College community and deals with a subject that is one of the major concerns of many Amherst students: disordered eating behaviors, specifically among women. "Norm misperception education as a primary prevention of disordered eating in college women," the title of the thesis, is quite a mouthful. However, explaining the thesis itself is easier.

While the majority of college women do not have actual eating disorders, many take part at one time or another in unhealthy behaviors like purging and over-exercising. "I was looking for ways to reduce these 'disordered eating behaviors,'" said Duvernay. Using the pamphlets already handed out at health services and previously-written articles as guides, Duvernay created three pamphlets of her own. One addressed alcohol as a control group, the second gave general nutrition tips, and the third, the most important, was about "norm misperception."

"Past research has shown that women misperceive how important being thin is to other people," said Duvernay. The pamphlet on norm misperception strived to correct this mistake by explaining that many women share this belief and are more likely to discuss diets and yesterday's workout at the gym rather than hours spent lounging around the common room or eating an ice cream sundae.

Duvernay gave these pamphlets to 120 women in the freshmen and sophomore classes and interviewed them in October. In February, she brought nearly all of them back in for more interviews. "The follow-up and the sample size on a campus of only 800 women were particularly impressive," said Associate Professor of Psychology Catherine Sanderson, Duvernay's thesis advisor.

"The women who had gotten the pamphlet [on norm misperception] showed healthier attitudes in a few different ways," said Duvernay. Most strikingly, on a picture scale of nine different women ranging from extremely thin to large, the women who had seen the pamphlet pointed to bigger ideal bodies that were closer on the scale to what they perceived to resemble their own bodies. "[These women are] less likely to go on a diet or do things that are even more dangerous to their health," said Duvernay.

Duvernay's inspiration for the thesis came from Professor Sanderson, who had advised similar thesis work by Jenny Mutterperl '00. However, Mutterperl's brochures produced mixed results.

Using Mutterperl's study and other articles and working "very independently," according to Sanderson, Duvernay altered the pamphlets, and, as she had hoped, the results were overwhelmingly positive. She did not know for sure, however, until March when she had analyzed the last of her data. The thesis tops out at over 160 pages of writing and data, "the longest thing I've ever written," said the psychology and French double major. "[It is also] one of the best works of writing that I've ever produced."

"I think that the thing that's most exciting about the results is that they have theoretical importance but they also have practical importance," said Sanderson. "You can imagine colleges and high schools using the kind of messages that are in Mary's brochures to try to help prevent eating disorders."

Professor Sanderson believes that the thesis is publishable in a scientific journal such as The Journal of Health Psychology if, in Duvernay's words, it is "massively edited" down to approximately 15 or 20 pages. The publication date would be some time in 2005.

Though she enjoyed working on her thesis, more psychology work is not in Duvernay's immediate future. Instead, with a fellowship from the French department, she will spend next year teaching English in Dijon, France.

Koo focuses on research for two theses

If thesis writing stands as the high summit of a student's academic experience at Amherst, Eunice Koo's journey was the sparse, brave expedition of climbing this summit twice. During her senior year, she wrote a thesis in both of her majors-Spanish and religion. The former, entitled, "Santa Maria la Blanca: Biografía de Templo Toledano," follows the history of one single synagogue in Toledo, Spain.

Through a detailed analysis of its architecture and functionality, Koo aimed to contextualize the synagogue in a broad cultural study of the Jews in Spain, since the synagogue's erection circa 1180 to the present day. Through exhaustive research and on-site exploration in December of 2003, Koo managed to strike the fundamental pith of her hypothesis, ultimately portraying the Jews as historical strangers in Spain.

Her religion thesis, entitled, "Biblical Worldviews and Rabbinical Thought on Agricultural Laws in Leviticus, Exodus and Deuteronomy," analyzes various biblical verses dealing with agricultural law from the three books, in an effort to understand the biblical imputation of the poor. Koo examined closely the year of release (the Sabbatical) and tithing to evince the manner in which biblical writers may have endeavored to account for the poor. These she juxtaposed against subsequent rabbinical texts, in an effort to compare the manner in which rabbis expounded upon the original text and translated its meaning into culturally relative terms.

Despite the seemingly all-consuming exertion occasioned by these two theses, Koo has participated in quite a few other activities at Amherst. She has served as an arts editor for The Amherst Student, secretary and president of Amnesty International and treasurer and co-president of the Asian Students' Association. This year, she was elected to be a peer career advisor for the Career Center, a job which enables her to help fellow Amherst students with resumes, cover letters and job searches.

Next year, Koo plans to work for the Manhattan District Attorney's office in New York City. This day job marks a brief hiatus in the trend of her unstinting academic research. She explains the decision as follows: "It's a Monday through Friday, 9 to 5 job, and I wanted to take a year off of school and experience the real world. I thought it best to try something different." For the long term, however, Koo expresses an interest in non-profit work, a field in which she already has a good deal of experience.

Kravitz writes creative short story series

The great tradition of fiction and poetry writing at Amherst has not yet come to an end. While it may be tempting to look back, down the vaunted corridors of our literary past-to Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, James Merrill, or even more recently David Foster Wallace-it may be equally important to gaze upon the present. For it is perhaps safe to say that our literary heart beats on at what is much more than a dim pulse. This year, the English department boasted more majors than any other department at the College. The budgetary committee recognized more literary magazines than any other form of publication. And the Robert Frost Library celebrated the acquisition of its millionth volume by creating a collection of student poetry.

One student, though, arose from this fray to stand above the rest. English major Jordan Kravitz submitted a collection of short stories, entitled "Like New," as his thesis. Kravitz was thoroughly influenced by a special topics course conducted with Professor of English and Russian Dale Peterson during the spring of his junior year, called "The American Novel." Kravitz remarked that there is something inherently "American" about his collection, which features three stories of approximately thirty pages in length each, entitled "A Day in Chelsea," "The One They Call the Seventh Son" and "Like New." "[Professor Peterson's class] really helped shape lots of my ideas about writing," said Kravitz. He also enjoyed the support of a number of other Amherst College faculty members while writing his thesis, particularly Professor of English Judith Frank, whom he refers to reverentially as "a wonderful editor, mentor and friend," and Professor of French and European Studies Ronald Rosbottom, who read nearly every single draft.

Kravitz made a further contribution to the campus literary scene as associate editor of the magazine A Further Room. He was involved with writing, but also editing fiction and poetry for the publication, as well as layout and management. His influence also spread to the further reaches of the campus. For two years he worked as an admissions officer under director Katherine Fretwell. His work there involved reading applications and devising functional strategies. Yet the extracurricular activity to which he was most dedicated over his four years here was an Indie Rock radio show called "Two Skinny J's," which he began as a first-year along with classmate Jim Beck '04.

Next year, Kravitz will teach high school English as a brief stop in the pursuit of his long-term goal of obtaining a degree in Creative Writing from a Masters of Fine Arts program.