Mount Holyoke College is a five-time HEED Award recipient

Mount Holyoke College has received the 2024 Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award from Insight Into Diversity, the oldest and largest diversity-focused publication in higher education.

As a recipient of the annual HEED Award, Mount Holyoke will be featured along with 113 other recipients in the November/December 2024 issue of Insight Into Diversity magazine. This is the fifth year the College has been named as a recipient of the HEED Award, a national honor recognizing colleges and universities in the United States that demonstrate an outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion.

“As a gender-diverse women’s college, we continue to cultivate life-affirming policies and practices for women, trans, non-binary and gender-nonconforming students as we seek to fully actualize our commitments to becoming an anti-racist and inclusive community,” said Kijua Sanders-McMurtry, vice president for equity and inclusion at Mount Holyoke. “The HEED Award is an important way to honor and recognize the work all the Mount Holyoke College students, faculty, staff and alums have invested to continue to build a college where everyone can discover their passions and develop the skills to contribute meaningfully to scholarship, community and the world.”

“The HEED Award process consists of a comprehensive and rigorous application that includes questions relating to the recruitment and retention of students and employees — and best practices for both — as well as leadership support for diversity, campus culture and climate, supplier diversity and many other aspects of campus diversity and inclusion,” said Lenore Pearlstein, publisher of Insight Into Diversity magazine. “We take a detailed approach to reviewing each application and in deciding who will be named a HEED Award recipient. Our standards are high, and we look for institutions where diversity and inclusion are woven into the work being done every day across their campus.”