2022 Report on Philanthropy

The Mount Holyoke Fund

The Mount Holyoke Fund provides flexible funding on an annual basis to support the areas of greatest need and potential at the College. In fiscal year 2022, over 9,600 individuals made gifts to The Mount Holyoke Fund. These funds were allocated to campus priorities including financial aid; faculty support; diversity; equity and inclusion initiatives; technology and teaching tools; and campus preservation and sustainability.

In March 2022, The Mount Holyoke Fund held its third annual March4MHC, a two-day fundraising event that sought to raise $400,000 from 4,000 donors. Through friendly class competitions, social media campaigns and matching gift opportunities, 4,463 donors gave an astounding $1.6 million to The Mount Holyoke Fund. Combined with matching gifts, March4MHC secured nearly $2 million in 48 hours to support our deserving students and talented faculty and staff.

Meet the Moment Financial Aid Challenge

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For prospective college students and their families, one issue is always top-of-mind: college affordability. This can be especially true for students from historically marginalized groups, who often face significant financial barriers to attending college.

To help make a Mount Holyoke education more accessible to students of all backgrounds, the Meet the Moment Financial Aid Challenge was launched in 2020 and was one of the most ambitious campaigns in Mount Holyoke’s history. Mount Holyoke Trustee Liz Cochary Gross ’79 and her husband Phill kicked off the challenge with a record-setting $10 million matching gift. By the completion of the challenge in May 2022, 80 alums and friends had created new endowed scholarship funds, and 21 others added to existing endowed funds. In total, the Meet the Moment Financial Aid Challenge secured $41.5 million in new financial aid funds — a pivotal step toward enhancing our financial aid program.

The Mount Holyoke Fund Scholars Challenge

Graphic of an academic award: Access | Opportunity | Inclusion

As part of the Meet the Moment Financial Aid Challenge, Mount Holyoke Trustees Bess Weatherman ’82 and Monica Landry ’90 each committed $250,000 in matching funds to encourage current-use gifts for The Mount Holyoke Fund Scholars Program. Each gift of $5,000 for this program was matched to create a one-year named scholarship to support a currently enrolled student. By the conclusion of the Meet the Moment Financial Aid Challenge, 116 donors made gifts that were matched dollar-for-dollar, resulting in $1.4 million in additional support for financial aid.

Student Safety Net Fund

First-generation and low-income college students often face significant financial barriers that threaten their ability to obtain a college degree. The COVID-19 pandemic amplified the need to help Mount Holyoke students address unexpected financial obstacles that may stand between them and graduation day.

As part of the Meet the Moment Financial Aid Challenge, Mount Holyoke Trustee Bess Weatherman ’82 endowed the Student Safety Net Fund. This permanent resource will help current and future students meet financial needs beyond the cost of attendance, including seasonal clothing, emergency medical expenses, classroom materials, technology tools and summer housing.

Living-Learning Communities

Deepika Kumawat ’24 — Deepika Kumawat '24 is part of the Interfaith Living Learning Community in Wilder Hall.

For students living on campus, 16 Living-Learning Communities (LLCs) function as “neighborhoods” within a residence hall, bringing together students with shared academic, co-curricular or cultural interests. There are LLCs for first-year students, transfer students, athletes and activists. Others allow students to further their foreign language study, explore religion and spirituality or connect with peers of similar racial and/or ethnic backgrounds. In each LLC, students make powerful connections that enrich their academic study, leadership potential and social experiences on campus.

Cultural centers

Zowie Banteah ’95 (center) with her family and Larry Spotted Crow Mann (far right). — Zowie Banteah ’96 (center) with her family and Larry Spotted Crow Mann (far right).

Gifts to Mount Holyoke also support a network of cultural centers — community spaces where students can explore their cultural heritage and engage in opportunities for learning, reflection and support. In the spring of 2022, the Mount Holyoke community celebrated the rededication of the Zowie Banteah Cultural Center (named in honor of Mount Holyoke alum Zowie Banteah-Yuselew ’96), where Indigenous students can gather together in community and find a home away from home. With a new physical location between Ham and MacGregor halls, the Zowie Banteah Cultural Center is now more visible to and physically accessible for Mount Holyoke students.

“Our cultural centers create spaces for coalition building between different cultural communities and are islands of sanctuary for individuals. They are a home away from home, a place to be together with people who have similar identities, and they’re also places to find your sense of community.”
— Latrina Denson, Associate Dean of Students and Executive Director of the Office of Community and Belonging

Support for first-generation and low-income students

A group of students and staff at the Fearless First reception during Orientation

As Mount Holyoke works to make its campus community more equitable and inclusive, support for first-generation and low-income students is a top priority. Student groups like FLIP, the First-Generation and Low-Income Partnership, provide advocacy and resources for students with high financial need. FLIP is entirely student-run, and members receive support from affiliated faculty and staff to hold events, including internship and career panels, faculty mixers, and annual celebrations of National First Gen Day.

First-generation and low-income students are also able to access tangible resources like textbooks and seasonal clothing through the Fearless First Resource Center, run by Mount Holyoke’s Office of Community and Belonging.

“We all have a responsibility to look around, understand who is not present and bring them to the spaces we’re in. It is on each of us to help create the communities we want to be a part of and to bring others with us.”
— Maille Romulus ’24

Deconstructing a problematic housing program

Vanessa Rosa, Class of 1929 Dr. Virginia Apgar Assistant Professor of Latina/o Studies

In 2016, Professor Vanessa Rosa and her students partnered with the nonprofit Springfield No One Leaves to research the impacts of receivership, evictions and existing city housing policy. In response to their findings, the Springfield City Council, in March 2022, approved an ordinance that would allow the city to set up a housing trust. Homeowners at risk of falling into the receivership program will be able to use this trust to fund needed repairs. The trust offers grants, not loans — with no risk for debt.

For Professor Rosa, this community project was a natural extension of the work she does with students in the classroom: “The core of Latina/o studies is thinking about our relationship to the communities around us, addressing injustices and contributing to transformation.”

Reaching the community through art

During the spring semester, 16 students in visiting lecturer Pasqualina Azzarello’s Public Art course engaged in visioning, designing, refining and ultimately painting a six-panel local ecology–themed piece installed this summer at Buttery Brook Park in South Hadley. Azzarello is a public muralist whose work spans the globe from Central and South America to the Southwest United States and New York City. The theme for the mural was chosen in collaboration with board members from the town of South Hadley, who appreciated the collaborative approach of Azzarello and her students.

“There are many skills and lessons that are explored within the platform of public art. … I think that these skills are all things that are incredibly valuable for students because they’re learning to establish community partners and maintain and cultivate those partnerships. Those are skills that are transferable in many careers after they graduate.”
– Pasqualina Azzarello

CBL partnerships

Luisa-Linares — Luisa Linares ’22 worked as a tutor at Homework House.

Thanks to robust donor support, in FY22 the Community-Based Learning program continued important partnerships with local nonprofit organizations, most notably Homework House in Holyoke. Fifty-five Mount Holyoke students worked as tutors for Holyoke elementary school students, helping to mitigate the effects of pandemic learning loss. Other students worked closely with Girls Inc. of the Valley, a nonprofit that provides academic support and mentorship for girls aged 5–18. The CBL program also established a new relationship with the Central West Justice Center, a nonprofit agency that provides free legal assistance to low-income residents of central and western Massachusetts.

Carrying the work forward

For Sophia Jung ’22, opportunities to study racism through the lens of psychology led her to transfer to Mount Holyoke. “A psychology department that offers courses on racism is very uncommon in undergraduate institutions,” she explains. “I was especially interested in the classes that Professor Tawa offered. He was one of the main reasons I transferred.”

Sophia joined Professor John Tawa’s as a research assistant. As COVID-19 raged against a backdrop of racial unrest and hate crimes against minorities, she collaborated with Professor Tawa on a study examining how stereotypes against Black and Asian individuals can be mediated through the use of virtual technology. She carried this work forward into an honors thesis and is now studying at Johns Hopkins University to become a physician-scientist.

Hands-on research

Elena Frogameni ’22 and Chisato Kimura ’22 happily displaying the New York Times article that featured their research

In the wake of the fractious 2020 election, Mount Holyoke students had a unique opportunity for hands-on learning in law and politics. Last year, six student researchers worked with the late Jon Western, Carol Hoffman Collins ’63 Professor of International Relations to investigate the origins of a post-election lawsuit. Their work garnered citation in the . Read more about this timely and fruitful work.

Celebrating students

A student presenting in front of a lecture hall during Senior Symposium — A student presenting research during Senior Symposium 2022

In May 2022, the Mount Holyoke community came together in person for the first time since 2019 for the annual Senior Symposium. This donor-supported event began in 1975 as a way to showcase original student research in the sciences but now features work from students across all disciplines. One hundred seniors presented their work to faculty, the public and their fellow students on topics ranging from the relationship between memory and choreography to the role of the Progressive wing in Democratic politics to the function of membrane fusion of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein.

“It was very special to return to a primarily in-person Senior Symposium after two long years. The opportunity to be together in community, hearing brilliant senior capstone work, has been a gift.”
— Amy E. Martin, director of the Weissman Center for Leadership

A commitment to learning by doing

Students working on a wood project in the Fimbel Lab

Embracing makerspace culture is one way Mount Holyoke’s curriculum is evolving to ready today’s students for a twenty-first century workplace. In the Fimbel Maker & Innovation Lab, faculty, students and staff can access 3-D printers, laser cutters, a wood and metal workshop, sewing machines and other tools that facilitate object-based learning. Disciplines ranging from studio art to politics to theater hold classes in the Fimbel Lab and work with staff and student facilitators to bring the liberal arts to life. Mount Holyoke’s commitment to “learning by doing” is garnering national attention; last summer, Newsweek cited Mount Holyoke as one of the .

The Fimbel Lab is also a crucial resource for students enrolled in Mount Holyoke’s interdisciplinary minor Entrepreneurship, Organizations and Society. EOS coursework provides a knowledge framework that helps students approach the social and economic challenges they will face after graduation. The Fimbel Lab helps EOS student entrepreneurs connect their coursework to practical competencies, giving them experience with cutting-edge technologies that foster innovation and make social impact.

A panel of students having a discussion with the audience during LEAP — A panel of students taking questions from the audience during a session of LEAP

Lynk opportunities

Although internship participation has not fully rebounded to prepandemic levels, in 2021–2022 nearly 1,000 Mount Holyoke students participated in work-based internships and research opportunities. Seventy-one percent of these experiences were paid for by the employer or supported by Mount Holyoke.

Thanks to robust donor support, The Lynk offers each student between $3,000 and $3,600 for qualified summer internships or research experiences. During the summer of 2021, 249 students were granted awards totaling $768,608.

Wordcloud of words that describe MHC students, such as communication, independent, professional, learner, adaptable, hardworking and effective — How employers describe interns from Mount Holyoke

Beyond financial support, The Lynk also offers students advising, mentorship and reflection opportunities that help students make the most of their internships. Each fall, Lynk students participate in the annual LEAP Symposium, where they present on their internships and connect what they learned to their time at Mount Holyoke.

Employers who host Lynk interns widely praise Mount Holyoke students for their tenacity and dedication. In business, health care, STEM laboratories, and communications and politics, Lynk interns are tremendous ambassadors — not only for Mount Holyoke but for the relevancy of a liberal arts education in the twenty-first century workplace, no matter the industry or field.

With Gratitude

Dear Friends,

In a time of global unrest and challenge, one important thing has not changed: the dedication of Mount Holyoke donors like you. You show up for our students with genuine enthusiasm and overwhelming generosity, providing them with the resources they need to thrive and persist, to overcome financial barriers and to chart their paths forward.

In fiscal year 2022, 9366 alums, parents, and friends made Mount Holyoke a philanthropic priority. Gifts of all sizes made a tremendous impact across campus, bolstering our financial aid endowment, funding study abroad opportunities and internships, and growing resources for the people and programs that make a Mount Holyoke education second-to-none. With your help, Mount Holyoke remains on the leading edge of innovation and excellence in the liberal arts, and the world is noticing: once again, this year we received a record number of applications for admission, and we continue to rank highly in national publications like the Princeton Review and U.S. News & World Report.

In this season of giving thanks, I am deeply grateful for all the ways in which you support our community and help strengthen Mount Holyoke for today’s students and those who will follow. Because of you, we are able to lead boldly. To provide our students with an education equal to their ambitions. To prepare our graduates for lives of limitless possibilities. To demonstrate powerfully the relevance of a liberal arts education in a world of complex challenges and opportunities. None of these things would be possible without you.

On behalf of our students, faculty and staff, thank you for all you do for Mount Holyoke.

Sincerely,

Kassandra Jolley
Vice President for College Relations

View the honor roll of donors

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