Welcome Back: Fall 2019

Dear members of the Mount Holyoke community,

Welcome to a new academic year, and, if you are beginning as a new student, faculty or staff member, to the Mount Holyoke campus. We are so glad that you are all a part of this community. I extend my thanks to all the faculty and staff who have been working over the summer to prepare for this new year.

The newest members of the Mount Holyoke community

This year we are welcoming 509 new first-year students, 26 transfer students and 20 Frances Perkins scholars. They make up one of the most selective classes in the history of Mount Holyoke, and 40% of them chose Mount Holyoke as their only school by applying through early decision. They come from 42 countries and 40 states —  44% of them are from New England. We are delighted that they have chosen to be a part of this community, and are excited to see all that they will bring to our work together.

We are also welcoming 11 new tenure-track faculty, two new lecturers and 21 new visiting faculty, as well as a number of new staff across the College. They join academic departments that include Mathematics and Statistics, Neuroscience and Behavior, History, Dance, Politics, English, Psychology and Education, Spanish and Latina/o Studies, Asian Studies and Theatre Arts, as well as LITS, the Art Museum, the Division of Student Life, the Office of Student Success and Advising, and our recently founded Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. In addition, some new officers have joined Campus Police.

The new Fimbel Innovation & Maker Lab is now fully open in Prospect Hall and will be hosting classes. We will formally open the space at the end of this month.

New in the Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

The Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion has a new home and will be co-located with the Teaching and Learning Initiative on the second floor of Dwight Hall. They will host an open house later in the semester to welcome everyone to their new space. The office is launching this year with a new team focused on supporting the campus community and fulfilling the institution’s strategic plan goals in three key areas:

• Education and training
• Outreach and programming
• Consultation and support

After thoughtful conversations with community members, including student leaders and the senior leadership team, and driven by the needs of our community and commitments made in the Plan for 2021 (the College's strategic plan, now extended to 2023), we have invested in a new staffing structure that will have a broad span and reach:

• We are excited for Carol Stewart to serve as Director of Staff Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives. She begins in this newly created role on September 9, and will be responsible for executing key components of the vision to provide bias education and response, consultation and support, and further staff development around equity and inclusion. Carol has extensive experience serving the College, including as employee development manager with the Department of Human Resources and as the College’s ombudsperson. She brings a wealth of experience to the position, including in the areas of conflict mediation and employee development, and an understanding of key policies related to Title VI, Title VII, Title IX and Section 504. Carol has also agreed to serve as the mentor for Posse 10.

• Shannon Da Silva, who currently serves as the Title IX and 504 Coordinator, has been promoted to Associate Director of Equity and Compliance/Title IX and 504 Coordinator. Shannon’s role has an intentional focus on creating equitable and inclusive practices related to gender, sexuality and accessibility within the DEI structure. Shannon has also been leading the process to create hearing boards for faculty and staff. A group of staff was trained during the summer, and the faculty serving on the Advisory Committee will be trained in September and serve as a hearing board for faculty.

• We are also pleased to welcome Marilyn Torres, who as the assistant to Vice President for Equity and Inclusion Kijua Sanders-McMurtry will support the DEI team’s work.

• The DEI team will also be joined by an Assistant Director of Campus Diversity Programming and LGBTQ Initiatives. A search committee is currently reviewing applications for this new position and finalists will be identified for public campus visits in October. This staff member will round out this important work as a new member of the DEI team focused on intentional structured diversity programming, including the 2020 BOOM! Community Day 2020, which will take place on April 14, 2020.

• Kai Chuckas ’20, Nohelya Zambrano ’21 and Angelis Liriano ’22 are DEI fellows doing important work on helping the DEI team develop materials, serving as student liaisons and participating in campus searches.

  Previously, Kai held a Lynk Internship as a DEI Fellow and Gender Inclusion Special Assistant. He was involved in campus searches, supporting the development of a name change policy that will be implemented in spring of 2020 and creating important materials to support trans and non binary students on campus.

Mellon Grant for a new presidential initiative

We were delighted to receive a $100,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation. The grant, which is to be used for a new presidential initiative, will enable us to develop programming that I announced in my inaugural address last year. What is envisioned, in this moment of deep divisions, is a new opportunity to engage in conversations across ideological differences. We will be consulting with a group of faculty and staff about how we might bring together panels of experts of every political stripe to engage with each other and with us. We hope they will model within our community what freedom of thought and speech, and learning from difference, can look like when it is done with courage, compassion and skillful care. I welcome your ideas for this initiative as we begin to plan the program and to think about how best to prepare and support students to engage in such conversations.

New in the Division of Student Life

The Division of Student Life has a new mission statement, as of July 1, 2019:

“The Division of Student Life cultivates a dynamic, engaged and inclusive community that enriches the student experience, promotes wellness and belonging, and supports the purposeful development of every student.”

Greater alignment with Athletics

As you may know, after the review of Athletics last summer, it was recommended that we provide greater alignment between Student Life and the Department of Physical Education and Athletics. We began a soft transition in January, and as of July 1, Athletic Director Lori Hendricks and her staff report to Vice President for Student Life Marcella Runell Hall. In addition, the staff in both areas are now working even more closely together. Marcella and Jon Western, vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculty, have been leading a strategic planning initiative with Lori to lay out a vision for Athletics at the College that is aligned with our strategic plan.

Counseling Service

The Counseling Service continues to recruit and retain new staff with expertise in serving a diverse campus community. Please join me in welcoming Shirley Yuanrui Li, Brittania Weatherspoon North, and Hal Sposato.

Organizational and staff changes

Following a review of Health Services and its programming, there has also been a change and reorganization of staff in the area of health education. Health education will now be called Be Well, and its coordinator, Karen Jacobus, will report to the Director of Residence Life Rachel Alldis, with a dotted line to the director of the Health Center. 

The areas of Religious and Spiritual Life and Student Community and Inclusion have begun conversations to align their work more closely and there will be opportunity for community participation in these conversations.

And finally, Ysabel Garcia, a new graduate assistant, started in August and will support the cultural centers, MoZone and LGBTQ student programs.  

Student Programs is renamed Student Involvement

To better reflect the work and goals of student programming, that office has changed its name to Student Involvement. Look out for the staff wearing teal T-shirts with the name change and the slogan “Your involvement is your legacy.”

Student employment and compensation in Residence Life and for Orientation

We are pleased to share that we were able to increase the compensation for Community Advisors and Senior Community Advisors, as well as introducing compensation for our Orientation leaders.

Homecoming at the Cultural Centers

Homecoming at the Cultural Centers is an annual welcome home/meet-and-greet event for students, faculty/staff, retired faculty/staff and regional alumnae, based on how they self-identify in relation to the various cultural centers. 

This is the full list of event dates and times:

• Eliana Ortega (Latinx) and Zowie Banteah (Native American/Indigenous) 
  September 17, 4–6 p.m. 
• Betty Shabazz (African American and Afro-Caribbean) 
  September 18, 4–6 p.m.
• Asian Center for Empowerment (Asian and Asian American)
  September 19, 4–6 p.m.
• Unity Center (first-generation, undocumented)
  September 23, 4–6 p.m.
• Jeannette Marks (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual/aromantic, pansexual and nonbinary)
  September 24, 4–6 p.m.

Campus Police to report to Student Life

Starting in January 2020, Campus Police will report to Student Life, in order to better align and focus their work with community-building and support. This decision came from a review of campus policing models elsewhere, and from ongoing conversations with members of the community, including members of the Campus Police department. We are excited to work with the department, the new police officers, and members of our community over the coming months to strengthen these relationships, and to build a vision for cooperation and the safety of all campus constituents.

This determination also follows the mutual agreement with Smith College to operate separate campus police departments, effective July 1, 2020. This announcement was made by Shannon Gurek on June 10 in an email to the Mount Holyoke community.

Mount Holyoke College Art Museum teaches with art

A special feature of a Mount Holyoke education is the opportunity to engage with the College’s collections and in object-based learning. This year’s exhibitions at the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum showcase these opportunities. A special two-year exhibition, Major Themes: Celebrating Ten Years of Teaching with Art, provides history and context for the College’s efforts in this area. Alongside this, special exhibitions through June 2020 include:

• In the Making: The Mount Holyoke College Printmaking Workshop, curated by Katelyn Allen, Art Museum Advisory Board Fellow.
• Money Matters: Meaning, Power, and Change in the History of Currency, co-curated by Associate History Professor Desmond Fitz-Gibbon and Associate Curator Aaron Miller.
• “Der Kreislauf (A Handful)”, a film by Belgian artist Katrien Vermiere. 

The Art Museum welcomed new staff over the summer, including a new associate curator, Stephanie Sparling Williams, who shares this passion for teaching with objects.

Office of Foundation Relations relocates

Given the new location for the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, the Office of Foundation Relations and Sponsored Research (aka the grants office) is now located in Torrey Hall D-suite, facing Park Street. This includes Fred Baumgarten, Dyan Wiley, Laura Bundesen and Nexus coordinator Katie Walker. I am extremely grateful to all of them for their cooperation and positive approach to the relocation.

Updates from Hampshire College

Hampshire College welcomed a new president, Edward Wingenbach, in August. Hampshire admitted a small class of first-year students (13) and has about 600 students on campus this fall. Hampshire’s administration and board of trustees continue their work to secure their future as an independent college, and to assure the New England Commission of Higher Education of their ability to sustain Hampshire’s mission and operations. Recent revelations about the proposed partnership with the University of Massachusetts Amherst drew a response from the new president, who has also written recently about the tight timeline (seven weeks) to create a shared vision for Hampshire’s future, leading up to the reaccreditation review in early November.

Sonya around campus

To make conversation easier, and because I learned so much from last year’s listening sessions with students, I’ve planned a number of opportunities to engage:

• Weekly office hours and breakfast conversations in the Dining Commons. These will be announced with sign-up information in the weekly email from Dean of Students Marcella Runell Hall. 
• Regular meetings with the SGA — plus some fireside chats in the Living-Learning Communities, meetings with student leaders in the cultural centers, and a dinner with our 10th Posse cohort. 
• A pet-a-pet event so that everyone can meet my dog, Cleo. 
• Attendance at a few games to cheer on our athletic teams, with hopes that students will come along, too. 

I urge students to talk to me about anything and everything, or just come by to say hello. There will be opportunities to talk informally with faculty and staff as well, and I welcome their insights and ideas at all times.

I look forward to a full and productive academic year with you all and wish each of you an excellent start to the semester.

With my very best wishes,

Sonya Stephens
President