The It Gets Better Project, a brainchild of syndicated columnist and media pundit Dan Savage, is a collection of over 10,000 videos from celebrities, politicians, organizations, activists and regular people offering encouragement and support for LGBT youth who may find it difficult to see a future for themselves where they can be in open, loving and happy relationships while they endure bullying and harassment in high school.

Some Americans come from families with such mixed heritage that it is virtually impossible to claim a dominant ancestry. Many such families claim descendence from any combination of countries or ethnic groups in Europe, Scandinavia, or really any other part of the world, and thus their cultural heritage as well. This means that during the winter holiday season, various cultures vie for representation in American homes and much of the globalized world. Many holiday celebrations of various creeds or secular traditions are practiced in the same or adapted ways as they are in their mother countries, and yet some wide-spread traditions may be virtually unknown to most American students here. In honor of Mount Holyoke’s diverse community and our love of a good reason to celebrate, get to know some of these winter holiday traditions with which you may or may not be familiar.

Our generation, give or take several years, grew up in tandem with the characters of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. When the seventh and final book in the series was released in 2007, those of us who are now in our late teens and early twenties were maturing at the same time as Harry and his friends, and the staggered release of the novels reflected the pace of our own coming of age. With the opportunity for such a nostalgic sentiment, wouldn’t you expect our generation to still associate the series with all things innocent and childish and, well, magical?

The American Association of University Women, as it comes close to its 129th year of service, has named its 2010-11 Student Advisory Council. Mount Holyoke’s Chiedza Mufunde ’12 has been named as one of ten college students from across the United States to the Council. The MH News caught her in between classes this week to talk about her selection.

Food for Thought Books in Amherst is, in the words of community members, a “staple” and a “landmark.” It is a space beloved not only for its unique collective co-operative business model (one of only a few that exist in the country), but also for the educational events it hosts, which allow the community to physically share the space with the collective owners. It is, as of this fall, also a space at risk of succumbing to the powerful hand of the economy.

Many Mount Holyoke traditions have moved recently from the recesses of our communal memory to the forefront of discussion. While Faculty Show brought out only fond sentiments of by-gone eras and the community was appeased with the preservation of class-colored OneCards, the fate of J-Term cannot be said to be as satisfactorily resolved.

It’s doubtful that even the most popular lecturer gathers a crowd the size of which spilled out of their seats at the Mount Holyoke Democrats’ Date Auction on Saturday, April 17 in Hooker Auditorium. Beginning at 9:30 p.m., the Dems auctioned off twelve “items” for charity to a packed lecture hall, with bidders overflowing into the aisles.

On Friday, April 16 beginning at 10 a.m., seniors will present research and work relevant to theses spanning the spectrum of academic disciplines in the annual Senior Symposium. Students of all classes and all members of the Five College community are invited and encouraged to attend any of the approximately 139 presentations scheduled to be given throughout the day in Kendade and Cleveland.