There’s a joke here about “the great Amherst chain of being.” The phrase evokes an invisible continuum, binding Amherst College students to their alma mater from graduation to grave. It is the strength of this chain that brings alumni back each year on the weekend after commencement, allowing them to soak in once again a view of the Holyoke Range, a stretch of mountains in the backyard of this elite, New England liberal-arts college.