Mount Holyoke College: A Legacy of Liberal Arts Education and Diverse Degree Offerings

Mount Holyoke College, a private women's liberal arts college in South Hadley, Massachusetts, stands as the oldest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges. Founded in 1837 by Mary Lyon, a pioneer in education for women, Mount Holyoke has a rich history of providing a rigorous and comprehensive curriculum. The college is characterized by its commitment to academic excellence, a strong sense of community, and a focus on empowering women to make a positive impact on the world.

A Foundation in Liberal Arts

At Mount Holyoke, a liberal arts education is not just about acquiring knowledge across diverse disciplines. It is a way of intentionally connecting people, ideas, and solutions to make the world work better. The college encourages students to see the world through a different lens, discover new pathways, and find new answers. With keen curiosity and a collaborative spirit, Mount Holyoke students seek a better way, whether in the classroom, laboratory, art studio, or at the leading edge of industry and innovation. They use what they’ve learned to make positive, lasting change for themselves and their communities.

Mount Holyoke's primary degree is the Bachelor of Arts (BA). The college confers one undergraduate degree, the Bachelor of Arts. At Mount Holyoke as elsewhere, this degree may be abbreviated as either A.B. or B.A., depending on whether one is abbreviating the customary Latin (artium baccalaureus) or the current English name for the degree. An A.B. or a B.A. are the same degree. Students pursue a rigorous, well-rounded course of study that includes work in the humanities, science and mathematics, and social sciences. All students must complete 128 semester credits (one standard course equals 4 credits). The College's distribution requirement is designed to acquaint students with a wide range of knowledge and encourage them to explore new areas of interest. At least 68 credits must be earned from course work outside the major department, across the three curricular divisions: humanities, science and mathematics, and social sciences. Mount Holyoke requires a distribution across divisions of knowledge, a language other than English, and a multicultural perspectives course.

Academic Programs and Offerings

Mount Holyoke offers 50 departmental and interdepartmental majors, including the option to design a special major. The college also offers dual-degree programs, a Master of Arts in Teaching and other programs. Mount Holyoke’s membership in the Five College Consortium allows students to enroll in courses at nearby Amherst College, Smith College, Hampshire College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Degrees offered:

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Bachelor's
Master's

Combined-degree programs:

B.A./B.E. in Engineering with Dartmouth College
B.A./B.S. in Engineering with California Institute of Technology
B.A./B.S.

Popular Majors

The most popular majors at Mount Holyoke College include:

Experimental Psychology
Biology/Biological Sciences, General
English Language and Literature, General
Political Science and Government, General
Econometrics and Quantitative Economics
Visual and Performing Arts, Other
Environmental Studies
Mathematics, General
Computer Science
Sociology, General

The college boasts a 9:1 student-faculty ratio, and 72.2% of its classes have fewer than 20 students. All classes are taught by faculty, ensuring every student has access to a paid internship. The average freshman retention rate, an indicator of student satisfaction, is 90%.

Dual-Degree Programs

Mount Holyoke offers several dual-degree engineering programs in partnership with the California Institute of Technology, the University of Massachusetts, or the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College. Engineering students can earn both a bachelor of arts degree from Mount Holyoke and a bachelor of science degree in engineering from these institutions.

Other Degrees and Certificates

The College also offers:

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Certificate for International Guest Students
Five College Certificates
Nexus Program
Teacher Licensure
Master of Arts in Teaching with programs for:
- Initial Teacher Licensure
- Mathematics Teaching
- Teacher Leadership

Special Majors

Students may apply for special, self-designed majors through the Dean of Studies. A special committee of faculty members is assigned to oversee the student's work.

Ungraded Options

Students may take up to a total of four courses (16 credits) of work on an ungraded (credit/no-credit) basis. They may never be elected in the field of the student's declared major(s), nor applied to the minor, nor used to meet the College's multicultural, language or distribution requirements. Only one course may be taken ungraded within any one semester. If a course is taken ungraded, it may not be changed later to graded, even though a student may want to include it in their minor or toward a general requirement.

Second Bachelor’s Degree

While Mount Holyoke welcomes students interested in earning a second bachelor’s degree, candidates are not eligible for financial aid from the College. Interested students should contact the Office of Admission for information about the application process.

Experiential Learning and Global Opportunities

By combining the proven strengths of a liberal arts education with the transformative power of experiential learning, the Mount Holyoke College liberal arts experience provides the best foundation for citizenship and career in a global world. Four academic centers support the academic program through public lectures by visiting scholars, conferences on issues of pressing concern, mentoring and internship opportunities, and hands-on learning experiences:

The Weissman Center for Leadership
The McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives
The Miller Worley Center for the Environment
The Intergroup Dialogue Center

The Weissman Center's Speaking, Arguing, and Writing (SAW) Program provides opportunities for developing leadership and communication skills, including the ability to effectively frame, articulate, and advocate positions.

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Mount Holyoke has study abroad programs and exchanges for full-year or semester study in France, Senegal, Costa Rica, Chile, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom, as well as a summer program in China and January term programs in Georgia and South Africa. The college is also affiliated with more than 150 study abroad programs in more than 50 colleges and students have the opportunity to petition any programs with which the college is not already affiliated. The college also encourages international internships and research for the semester, year, summer, or January terms.

Campus Life and Traditions

Mount Holyoke offers a vibrant campus life with a variety of student groups and organizations. The college's independent, student-run publication, Mount Holyoke News, has been in print since 1917. WMHC (91.5 FM) is a radio station licensed to serve South Hadley, Massachusetts.

Mount Holyoke classes have been voting on class colors and mascots since the late 1800s, but the colors currently in use were not adopted until 1901. The class of 1901 chose hunter green, and the classes of 1902, 1903, 1904 voted for crimson, golden yellow, and royal blue, respectively. In 1909, the students voted for lion, griffin, sphinx, and pegasus as their class symbols. They also decided that even-year classes would use pegasus and lion and their colors would be red and blue, and odd years would use griffin and sphinx, with green and yellow as their colors. This system has persisted to this day.

Traditions

The Junior Show (J-Show): A show created by Juniors (and a few professors) who parody life at Mount Holyoke.
Big/Little Sibling: A pairing of juniors and "firsties" (or first-years) who are paired up to take part in organized events together.
Elfing: A tradition shared between sophomores and first-years, where secret sophomore "elves" leave presents and treats for their first years throughout the week-long event.
Founder's Day: Held on the Sunday closest to 8 November (the date of the opening of Mount Holyoke in 1837), it includes ice cream being served early in the morning near Mary Lyon's grave.
Convocation: A spirited celebration of community marking the beginning of the academic year.
Canoe Sing: An event that takes place prior to commencement in which canoes are decorated with lanterns and paddled by seniors singing Mount Holyoke songs.
Baccalaureate: Held in Abbey Chapel, the medieval German ode to Academe, "Gaudeamus Igitur", is sung by berobed Seniors and Faculty during the procession. Following convocation, Faculty line the path to Mary Lyon's grave. Seniors walk through this throng, to the grave (to place a wreath). The Baccalaureate Ceremony is a celebration that honors members of the graduating class.
The Laurel Parade: Takes place the day before commencement. Graduating seniors wear white and carry laurel garlands, in a parade to Mary Lyon's grave, escorted by approximately 3,000 alumnae, also in white. Once at Mary Lyon's grave, the garland is wound around the cast-iron fence, and the Mimi Fariña song "Bread and Roses" is sung by all in attendance.

A Storied Past

Mount Holyoke College has a rich history dating back to its founding in 1837 as the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. Mary Lyon's innovative goals set her Seminary apart from other female seminaries of the period, offering a curriculum equivalent to those at men's colleges. The curriculum allowed women to study subjects like geometry, calculus, Latin, Greek, science, philosophy, and history, which were not typically taught at other female seminaries in the 19th century.

Mount Holyoke Female Seminary was chartered as a teaching seminary in 1836 and opened its doors to students on November 8, 1837. According to historian Amanda Porterfield, Lyon created Mount Holyoke to be "a religious institution that offered a model of Christian society for all to see." Students "were required to attend church services, chapel talks, prayer meetings, and Bible study groups. Twice a day teachers and students spent time in private devotions. Every dorm room had two large lighted closets to give roommates privacy during their devotions".

The institution underwent several name changes, becoming "Mount Holyoke Seminary and College" in 1888 and finally "Mount Holyoke College" in 1893. These changes reflected the college's growth and evolution as a leading institution of higher education for women.

A Beautiful Campus

The campus includes a botanic garden, two lakes, several waterfalls, tennis courts, stables, and woodland riding trails. It is also home to the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum which is part of the Five College Museums/Historic Deerfield and the Museums10.

Mount Holyoke has been recognized for its campus beauty by Huffington Post, The Princeton Review, and Architectural Digest. Its library includes more than 740,000 print volumes, 1,600 periodicals, and more than 140,000 electronic resources. The college has 21 residence halls as well as apartments and "annex" spaces in which to house students, and an overwhelming majority of students live on campus (98%). Each residence hall reserves a quarter of its rooms for housing first-year students. Most residence halls house students from all four class years at any given time. In January 2018, Mount Holyoke opened a new centralized dining commons within the previously existing Blanchard Community Center.

Mount Holyoke in Popular Culture

Mount Holyoke has been referenced in several works of popular culture:

Uncommon Women and Others: Wendy Wasserstein's 1977 play is based upon Wasserstein's experiences at Mount Holyoke of the early 1970s.
The Broom of the System: David Foster Wallace's 1987 novel features a Mount Holyoke graduate.
Dirty Dancing: The protagonist plans to attend Mount Holyoke in the fall.
National Lampoon's Animal House: The film satirizes the connection between Seven Sister colleges and Ivy League schools.

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