Creating and Supporting an Inclusive Mount Holyoke Environment

The mission of the Mount Holyoke College Alumnae Association is to uplift Mount Holyoke alums and build a community that fosters lifelong learning and empowers impactful connections. Our three strategic pillars — to Build Belonging, Enrich Lives and Broaden Opportunities for all alums — are upheld by the shared values of our inclusive, respectful, agile and collaborative community.

To live these values and achieve our goals requires us all to actively commit to our shared responsibilities as a community. Building from the commitments our volunteers make to uphold the Volunteer Code of Conduct and the Guidelines for Community Responsibility adopted by Mount Holyoke faculty and agreed to by students, we have developed the Alum Community Responsibility Guide. The guide is available here for use at future events and programs, and is part of a toolkit we are developing to support our alum community.

As you read these words, we invite you to reflect on what belonging means to you, within and beyond the gates of our beloved Mount Holyoke community.

We welcome your questions or thoughts about how we can support an inclusive environment when we gather as alums and as a broader Mount Holyoke community.

Alum Community Responsibility Guide

Our mission is to uplift Mount Holyoke alums and build a community that fosters lifelong learning and empowers impactful connections. The Association’s strategy has three pillars, to: build belonging, enrich lives, and broaden opportunities. We do this by thoughtfully identifying and addressing barriers to inclusion. We ask all alums to actively support the belonging of all community members.

As a women’s college that is gender diverse, the Mount Holyoke community includes women, transgender and gender non-conforming members who come from around the world and with many backgrounds, cultures, beliefs and identities. Fostering an equitable and inclusive community is our shared responsibility.

We ask that everyone engaging with Mount Holyoke alums, students, faculty and staff:

• Be respectful. This includes respecting people’s identities, abilities, appearances, pronoun use, lived experiences and religious and spiritual beliefs.
• Educate yourself. The Association and MHC Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion provide a variety of resources and events to support lifelong learning.
• Be kind. Allow space for others’ learning as well as differing views, approaches and perspectives.

Discrimination by any member of the Mount Holyoke community will not be tolerated. Please review the College and Association’s shared non-discrimination statement.