By Jo Elliott ’27
Features Editor
A staple and well-celebrated Mount Holyoke tradition, Pangy Day was held on May 1 this year. Starting in 1979, Pangy Day — short for Pangynaskeia Day — has been a day to celebrate women, with all the College's students, staff and faculty coming together to celebrate. Some of the events included are an all-College picnic on Pageant Green, music, games, face-painting and so much more. One of these events, highlighted in this article, is the Ciruti World Fair hosted by the Language & Culture Commons.
The Ciruti World Fair is the Language & Culture Commons’ open house, where students can enjoy cool drinks, a collection of international snacks, arts and crafts and a photobooth. Some of the international snacks they offered were soft taro-flavored candy, dulce de leche wafer cookies, Ukrainian chocolate marshmallows, Macedonian delights, Korean syrup coated rice senbei, and Spanish deuto cookies with vanilla filling.
The fair offered students the chance to learn about the French and Spanish, Latina/o and Latin American studies and Romance languages departments. Some of the activities offered at the fair included a Zumba Session in Ciruti’s courtyard with Spanish professor Flavia Cunha. Students could also participate in a Korean Calligraphy Art Class, and meet the Five College Centers for World Languages to learn about the language learning opportunities in the 5 Colleges.
On the fair, Sally Rolland ’27 wrote in an email to Mount Holyoke News, “I just returned from study abroad with the IES Nantes program in France. As it happens, I am not currently enrolled at MHC, but I was visiting friends for Pangy Day. I popped by the World Fair because I missed speaking French (my program was full immersion) and because I heard there would be food! I am already familiar with many people in the Mount Holyoke French program, as we are a pretty small group.”
“It was nice to see them and chat with them. I like stretching my foreign language muscles, and it's now been a while since I've seen a lot of people so I was happy to say hi. Many majors who have been around almost my whole time at college will be graduating this spring, so it feels good to check in with the language community before then. It's maybe bittersweet, because it kind of felt like goodbyes, but I also chatted with some underclassmen. I guess there's always a next generation!” Rolland wrote.
Abigail McKeon ’26 contributed fact-checking.