MHC Forward | Mount Holyoke College
Source: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/strategic-plan-mhc-forward
Archived: 2026-04-23 17:14
MHC Forward | Mount Holyoke College
Home
MHC Forward
MHC Forward
The Strategic Plan for Mount Holyoke College
A legacy — and future — too bold for boundaries
Rooted in the collective voices of students, faculty, staff, alums and friends of the College, our
MHC Forward Strategic Plan
maps an audacious vision for MHC’s next decade and beyond.
Developed and launched in 2024, t
his plan centers the innovative, rigorous
educational opportunities
that Mount Holyoke values and champions, and outlines a roadmap to leverage resources to
further develop leaders
who make lasting, positive change in today’s increasingly global world.
The MHC Forward plan establishes four strategic priorities:
Executive summary
Mission
Track our progress
Our mission, vision and values
The Mount Holyoke Mission
Mount Holyoke, the leading gender-diverse women’s college, immerses students in a vibrant, intellectually adventurous global community to develop their voices and vision for the future, preparing them for lives of purposeful leadership in a culturally diverse world.
Vision
Where bold leaders and boundless learners make a better world
We advance excellence.
Academic Excellence
Mount Holyoke advances academic excellence with a focus on intellectual curiosity, rigorous scholarship and cross-disciplinary study
Inclusive Learning
Mount Holyoke is a dynamic learning community that connects students, faculty and staff from all backgrounds to opportunities and each other
We cultivate leaders.
Active Engagement
Mount Holyoke centers experiential learning on and beyond campus for responsible impact
Purposeful Leadership
Mount Holyoke develops authentic leaders who make positive contributions to their communities and our world for a just and vibrant future
Advancing innovation and inclusive academic excellence
Academic excellence
MHC Forward’s academic excellence initiatives strengthen our distinctive approach to learning, teaching and scholarship. Together, these initiatives cultivate a creative, cross- disciplinary, and richly inquisitive culture that emboldens students and faculty to shape pathways through global intellectual and social challenges. By opening opportunities for bright minds and bold ideas to meet — across disciplines and lived experiences — we’re preparing learners and leaders to navigate complexities and make meaningful contributions to scholarship, society and the world of work.
Advancing innovation and inclusive academic excellence
Strategic pathways and initiatives
○ Short-term (1-3 years) ◐ Medium-term (3-7 years) ● Longer-term (7+ years)
I. Make a Mount Holyoke education bold, rigorous and responsive to the needs of today's world through inclusive faculty-led and student-centered academic innovations:
○ Create a faculty institute for research and curricular innovation.
○ Create an innovation fund to support curricular and pedagogical innovation, including project-based learning and interdisciplinary co-teaching that prepares students to consider issues from multiple perspectives.
○ Launch the MHC “Changemaker” residencies: short-term residencies for alums and others who are driving positive change at the local, national or global level.
II. Invest in areas of distinction:
○ Promote Mount Holyoke’s maker culture, emphasizing creative thinking, and making and doing broadly across the curriculum, including the arts, languages, humanities, sciences and social sciences.
○ Strengthen curricular, cocurricular and study away opportunities, including short-term study away opportunities that address global perspectives.
◐ Enhance connections between the curriculum and cocurriculum around climate change, sustainability and environmental justice.
◐ Strengthen and leverage College centers by continuing to build curriculum and faculty affiliations.
III. Enhance the infrastructure that scaffolds academic excellence:
○ Expand the tenure track faculty in all divisions in a manner consistent with the objectives of the strategic plan and an augmentation of course offerings.
○ Robustly support our distinctive faculty mentorship of student research and practice in STEM, humanities, social sciences and the arts.
◐ Enhance technological/technical support for students, faculty and staff while focusing on emerging needs and opportunities.
Enhancing the student experience on and beyond campus
Student experience
Through experiential learning opportunities and amplified student support throughout their MHC experience, every learner will make the most of their education. MHC Forward’s student experience initiatives bring faculty, staff, students and alums together to reimagine what it means to sustain a vibrant learning community that is responsive to change in the student population, technology, communication, culture and more. From supporting students in their transition to college to teaching them how to engage in challenging conversations to developing a best-in-class career readiness program, we’re ensuring students thrive at MHC and graduate ready to shape the future.
Enhancing the student experience on and beyond campus
Strategic pathways and initiatives
○ Short-term (1-3 years) ◐ Medium-term (3-7 years) ● Longer-term (7+ years)
I. Bolster student success and enhance retention and graduation rates:
○ Improve student learning, academic success and persistence through a well-integrated network of support that encompasses existing strengths, such as the Speaking, Arguing and Writing (SAW) Center, and new initiatives around peer-led mentoring and quantitative reasoning.
○ Expand support for academic advising, including post graduation opportunities, and increase the legibility and navigability of the curriculum.
○ Invest in a new first-year living learning program and create a residential cocurriculum.
II. Deepen students’ engagement, affinity and well-being by fostering a healthy, inclusive and diverse community:
○ Enhance the vibrancy of the student social experience, including shared experiential events and better integration with Five College social life.
○ Encourage intergroup dialogue to teach students to learn across differences, prepare for a diverse world after graduation and form lifelong bonds with one another.
○ Promote holistic health by incorporating well-being learning objectives and goals for all students, including continuous exposure to the “Be Well” program for every student.
◐ Shape an athletics program to recruit first-rate, talented scholar-athletes with competitive programs and facilities; build an inclusive community on campus; and represent Mount Holyoke at a high level to the world.
III. Execute a best-in-class career exploration and readiness program that integrates curricular and co-curricular approaches:
○ Establish a distinctive and comprehensive career initiative — co-led by faculty — that supports students as they plan their next steps after graduation. The initiative will build on universal funding for internships (The Lynk initiative), pre-professional tracks (Nexus) and the Career Development Center (CDC).
○ Create a set of “Liberal Arts in Action” seminars distributed across the curriculum that ground career preparation in the liberal arts.
○ Guarantee all students access to liberal arts-based “experiential learning” (learning-by- doing) opportunities integrated deeply and purposefully with academic study.
○ Serve communities in western Massachusetts and beyond through an increased commitment to community-based learning.
○ Strengthen career coaching and advising, grounded in the diversity of student experiences and aspirations.
○ Expand mentoring and networking opportunities with alums by creating a strong triangular relationship between alums, the College’s development office and the CDC.
Strengthening infrastructure for long-term success
Operational leadership
At MHC, our talented and diverse community comes together to live and learn on a campus that — from our founding — has been intentionally designed to support our unique mission. Generations of Mount Holyoke faculty, staff, students and alums have contributed to and cared for one of the nation’s most beautiful college campuses. Given the age of our buildings and changes in climate, technology, teaching and learning, the MHC Forward plan makes bold and necessary investments in our campus, particularly the interior spaces where we explore, learn and form lifelong bonds. By modernizing our residence halls, academic spaces and other facilities, we will ensure accessibility for all and sustainability for years to come. Coupled with initiatives to expand support for our deeply committed staff, investments in digital infrastructure and state-of-the-art learning spaces will preserve the beauty of our campus and advance the College’s commitments to curricular innovation and inclusive academic excellence.
Strengthening infrastructure for long-term success
Strategic pathways and initiatives
○ Short-term (1-3 years) ◐ Medium-term (3-7 years) ● Longer-term (7+ years)
I. Reimagine the campus for greater accessibility, sustainability and educational excellence:
◐ Modernize existing residence halls and/or build a new residence hall to enhance accessibility and improve student experience.
● Renovate Williston Memorial Library in service of inclusive academic excellence and scholarship, respecting its rich legacy and tradition and creating an accessible, technologically rich state-of-the-art space that will enable inclusive curricular and pedagogical innovation.
◐ Renovate or build an accessible classroom building to meet the needs of the life sciences in accordance with universal design and sustainability principles. It will include state-of-the-art lab spaces and flexible, technology-enabled instructional spaces.
◐ Develop a campus wide approach to address sustainability and climate change, including the replacement of the College’s fossil fuel-powered steam heating system with a geothermal heat-exchange system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80%.
● Identify opportunities for further responsible carbon reduction across campus sectors and operations.
● Reimagine performing arts spaces.
II. Invest in functional supports to enhance operational effectiveness:
○ Make Mount Holyoke an employer of distinction by investing in recruiting, developing and retaining a diverse staff to support the educational mission and operational needs of the College.
◐ Install a college-wide information system to create an inclusive digital ecosystem to support operational excellence and student success.
◐ Enhance Mount Holyoke’s information and technology infrastructure, with particular focus on data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, while protecting the security and privacy of the community.
Growing resources responsibly for a thriving future
Resource stewardship
With these initiatives, we are committing to attracting and retaining a diverse student body; building graduate and professional programs; increasing faculty grant funding; sustaining, expanding and establishing new relationships with generous donors; and more. Together, we can ensure Mount Holyoke forever shall be the place for learners and leaders to reach their full potential and help make a better world.
Growing resources responsibly for a thriving future
Strategic pathways and initiatives
○ Short-term (1-3 years) ◐ Medium-term (3-7 years) ● Longer-term (7+ years)
I. Expand and diversify earned revenue through mission-aligned initiatives:
○ Create a strategic enrollment plan that will attract and retain a diverse student body that will benefit from and contribute to the College’s mission, vision and values. The plan will include a sustainable financial aid program that builds on Mount Holyoke’s distinction for meeting full demonstrated need.
◐ Add new graduate and professional programs that meet emergent societal challenges and student interest.
● Leverage effects of new programs to increase the College’s reputation, reach and enrollments, in alignment with emerging areas of societal need and student interest.
○ Leverage campus facilities in support of mission-aligned programs and events that generate revenue.
◐ Leverage real estate holdings to support new and emerging needs.
II. Boost contributed revenue for strategic growth initiatives and continued inclusive excellence:
○ Launch a comprehensive fundraising campaign to support the College’s strategic initiatives and priorities.
○ Grow sponsored research and grants income with investments in faculty grants, training and support and staff development.
◐ Advance and sustain endowment growth by securing more gifts, upholding investment excellence and increasing distributions to the annual operating budget.
The plan came together
2+
years of research and intentional, inclusive planning
40+
community listening and feedback sessions
1,000+
students, faculty, staff, trustees, alums and friends shaping the plan
Happening at Mount Holyoke
Campus news
Understanding science in English and Spanish
Cerebro 101 is an initiative led by Mount Holyoke College faculty Marta Sabariego and Nieves Romero-Díaz that teaches dual-language elementary students about neuroscience and behavior.
Tags:
Academic Excellence
Alum
BIPOC
Community-based learning
Diversity and Inclusion
Faculty
Humanities
MHC Forward
Science & Technology
Student
MHC faculty named an AI education fellow
Mount Holyoke College Assistant Professor of Computer Science Diane Uwacu is a member of the inaugural cohort of NSF NAIRR AI Education Fellows of the Computing Research Association.
Tags:
Academic Excellence
Awards and Honors
Faculty
MHC Forward
Research
Science & Technology
Mount Holyoke athletics branding matches Lyons’ ambitions
Mount Holyoke College has overhauled its mascot, Paws, and its athletics branding in line with student-athlete ambitions and MHC Forward.
Tags:
Athletics
College History
MHC Forward
Student
Women’s College
More News
Campus voices
What stories will you tell?
A possible future, with the Careers in Public Service event
Sindy Maldonado ’27
she/her
From reluctant leader to successful SGA president
Julia Keane ’26
she/her
Replacing the sophomore slump with MHC’s Sophomore Institute
Mia Lederer ’28
she/her
Explore Stories
Quick links
Visit Mount Holyoke
Request Information
Apply
Home
MHC Forward
MHC Forward
The Strategic Plan for Mount Holyoke College
A legacy — and future — too bold for boundaries
Rooted in the collective voices of students, faculty, staff, alums and friends of the College, our
MHC Forward Strategic Plan
maps an audacious vision for MHC’s next decade and beyond.
Developed and launched in 2024, t
his plan centers the innovative, rigorous
educational opportunities
that Mount Holyoke values and champions, and outlines a roadmap to leverage resources to
further develop leaders
who make lasting, positive change in today’s increasingly global world.
The MHC Forward plan establishes four strategic priorities:
Executive summary
Mission
Track our progress
Our mission, vision and values
The Mount Holyoke Mission
Mount Holyoke, the leading gender-diverse women’s college, immerses students in a vibrant, intellectually adventurous global community to develop their voices and vision for the future, preparing them for lives of purposeful leadership in a culturally diverse world.
Vision
Where bold leaders and boundless learners make a better world
We advance excellence.
Academic Excellence
Mount Holyoke advances academic excellence with a focus on intellectual curiosity, rigorous scholarship and cross-disciplinary study
Inclusive Learning
Mount Holyoke is a dynamic learning community that connects students, faculty and staff from all backgrounds to opportunities and each other
We cultivate leaders.
Active Engagement
Mount Holyoke centers experiential learning on and beyond campus for responsible impact
Purposeful Leadership
Mount Holyoke develops authentic leaders who make positive contributions to their communities and our world for a just and vibrant future
Advancing innovation and inclusive academic excellence
Academic excellence
MHC Forward’s academic excellence initiatives strengthen our distinctive approach to learning, teaching and scholarship. Together, these initiatives cultivate a creative, cross- disciplinary, and richly inquisitive culture that emboldens students and faculty to shape pathways through global intellectual and social challenges. By opening opportunities for bright minds and bold ideas to meet — across disciplines and lived experiences — we’re preparing learners and leaders to navigate complexities and make meaningful contributions to scholarship, society and the world of work.
Advancing innovation and inclusive academic excellence
Strategic pathways and initiatives
○ Short-term (1-3 years) ◐ Medium-term (3-7 years) ● Longer-term (7+ years)
I. Make a Mount Holyoke education bold, rigorous and responsive to the needs of today's world through inclusive faculty-led and student-centered academic innovations:
○ Create a faculty institute for research and curricular innovation.
○ Create an innovation fund to support curricular and pedagogical innovation, including project-based learning and interdisciplinary co-teaching that prepares students to consider issues from multiple perspectives.
○ Launch the MHC “Changemaker” residencies: short-term residencies for alums and others who are driving positive change at the local, national or global level.
II. Invest in areas of distinction:
○ Promote Mount Holyoke’s maker culture, emphasizing creative thinking, and making and doing broadly across the curriculum, including the arts, languages, humanities, sciences and social sciences.
○ Strengthen curricular, cocurricular and study away opportunities, including short-term study away opportunities that address global perspectives.
◐ Enhance connections between the curriculum and cocurriculum around climate change, sustainability and environmental justice.
◐ Strengthen and leverage College centers by continuing to build curriculum and faculty affiliations.
III. Enhance the infrastructure that scaffolds academic excellence:
○ Expand the tenure track faculty in all divisions in a manner consistent with the objectives of the strategic plan and an augmentation of course offerings.
○ Robustly support our distinctive faculty mentorship of student research and practice in STEM, humanities, social sciences and the arts.
◐ Enhance technological/technical support for students, faculty and staff while focusing on emerging needs and opportunities.
Enhancing the student experience on and beyond campus
Student experience
Through experiential learning opportunities and amplified student support throughout their MHC experience, every learner will make the most of their education. MHC Forward’s student experience initiatives bring faculty, staff, students and alums together to reimagine what it means to sustain a vibrant learning community that is responsive to change in the student population, technology, communication, culture and more. From supporting students in their transition to college to teaching them how to engage in challenging conversations to developing a best-in-class career readiness program, we’re ensuring students thrive at MHC and graduate ready to shape the future.
Enhancing the student experience on and beyond campus
Strategic pathways and initiatives
○ Short-term (1-3 years) ◐ Medium-term (3-7 years) ● Longer-term (7+ years)
I. Bolster student success and enhance retention and graduation rates:
○ Improve student learning, academic success and persistence through a well-integrated network of support that encompasses existing strengths, such as the Speaking, Arguing and Writing (SAW) Center, and new initiatives around peer-led mentoring and quantitative reasoning.
○ Expand support for academic advising, including post graduation opportunities, and increase the legibility and navigability of the curriculum.
○ Invest in a new first-year living learning program and create a residential cocurriculum.
II. Deepen students’ engagement, affinity and well-being by fostering a healthy, inclusive and diverse community:
○ Enhance the vibrancy of the student social experience, including shared experiential events and better integration with Five College social life.
○ Encourage intergroup dialogue to teach students to learn across differences, prepare for a diverse world after graduation and form lifelong bonds with one another.
○ Promote holistic health by incorporating well-being learning objectives and goals for all students, including continuous exposure to the “Be Well” program for every student.
◐ Shape an athletics program to recruit first-rate, talented scholar-athletes with competitive programs and facilities; build an inclusive community on campus; and represent Mount Holyoke at a high level to the world.
III. Execute a best-in-class career exploration and readiness program that integrates curricular and co-curricular approaches:
○ Establish a distinctive and comprehensive career initiative — co-led by faculty — that supports students as they plan their next steps after graduation. The initiative will build on universal funding for internships (The Lynk initiative), pre-professional tracks (Nexus) and the Career Development Center (CDC).
○ Create a set of “Liberal Arts in Action” seminars distributed across the curriculum that ground career preparation in the liberal arts.
○ Guarantee all students access to liberal arts-based “experiential learning” (learning-by- doing) opportunities integrated deeply and purposefully with academic study.
○ Serve communities in western Massachusetts and beyond through an increased commitment to community-based learning.
○ Strengthen career coaching and advising, grounded in the diversity of student experiences and aspirations.
○ Expand mentoring and networking opportunities with alums by creating a strong triangular relationship between alums, the College’s development office and the CDC.
Strengthening infrastructure for long-term success
Operational leadership
At MHC, our talented and diverse community comes together to live and learn on a campus that — from our founding — has been intentionally designed to support our unique mission. Generations of Mount Holyoke faculty, staff, students and alums have contributed to and cared for one of the nation’s most beautiful college campuses. Given the age of our buildings and changes in climate, technology, teaching and learning, the MHC Forward plan makes bold and necessary investments in our campus, particularly the interior spaces where we explore, learn and form lifelong bonds. By modernizing our residence halls, academic spaces and other facilities, we will ensure accessibility for all and sustainability for years to come. Coupled with initiatives to expand support for our deeply committed staff, investments in digital infrastructure and state-of-the-art learning spaces will preserve the beauty of our campus and advance the College’s commitments to curricular innovation and inclusive academic excellence.
Strengthening infrastructure for long-term success
Strategic pathways and initiatives
○ Short-term (1-3 years) ◐ Medium-term (3-7 years) ● Longer-term (7+ years)
I. Reimagine the campus for greater accessibility, sustainability and educational excellence:
◐ Modernize existing residence halls and/or build a new residence hall to enhance accessibility and improve student experience.
● Renovate Williston Memorial Library in service of inclusive academic excellence and scholarship, respecting its rich legacy and tradition and creating an accessible, technologically rich state-of-the-art space that will enable inclusive curricular and pedagogical innovation.
◐ Renovate or build an accessible classroom building to meet the needs of the life sciences in accordance with universal design and sustainability principles. It will include state-of-the-art lab spaces and flexible, technology-enabled instructional spaces.
◐ Develop a campus wide approach to address sustainability and climate change, including the replacement of the College’s fossil fuel-powered steam heating system with a geothermal heat-exchange system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80%.
● Identify opportunities for further responsible carbon reduction across campus sectors and operations.
● Reimagine performing arts spaces.
II. Invest in functional supports to enhance operational effectiveness:
○ Make Mount Holyoke an employer of distinction by investing in recruiting, developing and retaining a diverse staff to support the educational mission and operational needs of the College.
◐ Install a college-wide information system to create an inclusive digital ecosystem to support operational excellence and student success.
◐ Enhance Mount Holyoke’s information and technology infrastructure, with particular focus on data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, while protecting the security and privacy of the community.
Growing resources responsibly for a thriving future
Resource stewardship
With these initiatives, we are committing to attracting and retaining a diverse student body; building graduate and professional programs; increasing faculty grant funding; sustaining, expanding and establishing new relationships with generous donors; and more. Together, we can ensure Mount Holyoke forever shall be the place for learners and leaders to reach their full potential and help make a better world.
Growing resources responsibly for a thriving future
Strategic pathways and initiatives
○ Short-term (1-3 years) ◐ Medium-term (3-7 years) ● Longer-term (7+ years)
I. Expand and diversify earned revenue through mission-aligned initiatives:
○ Create a strategic enrollment plan that will attract and retain a diverse student body that will benefit from and contribute to the College’s mission, vision and values. The plan will include a sustainable financial aid program that builds on Mount Holyoke’s distinction for meeting full demonstrated need.
◐ Add new graduate and professional programs that meet emergent societal challenges and student interest.
● Leverage effects of new programs to increase the College’s reputation, reach and enrollments, in alignment with emerging areas of societal need and student interest.
○ Leverage campus facilities in support of mission-aligned programs and events that generate revenue.
◐ Leverage real estate holdings to support new and emerging needs.
II. Boost contributed revenue for strategic growth initiatives and continued inclusive excellence:
○ Launch a comprehensive fundraising campaign to support the College’s strategic initiatives and priorities.
○ Grow sponsored research and grants income with investments in faculty grants, training and support and staff development.
◐ Advance and sustain endowment growth by securing more gifts, upholding investment excellence and increasing distributions to the annual operating budget.
The plan came together
2+
years of research and intentional, inclusive planning
40+
community listening and feedback sessions
1,000+
students, faculty, staff, trustees, alums and friends shaping the plan
Happening at Mount Holyoke
Campus news
Understanding science in English and Spanish
Cerebro 101 is an initiative led by Mount Holyoke College faculty Marta Sabariego and Nieves Romero-Díaz that teaches dual-language elementary students about neuroscience and behavior.
Tags:
Academic Excellence
Alum
BIPOC
Community-based learning
Diversity and Inclusion
Faculty
Humanities
MHC Forward
Science & Technology
Student
MHC faculty named an AI education fellow
Mount Holyoke College Assistant Professor of Computer Science Diane Uwacu is a member of the inaugural cohort of NSF NAIRR AI Education Fellows of the Computing Research Association.
Tags:
Academic Excellence
Awards and Honors
Faculty
MHC Forward
Research
Science & Technology
Mount Holyoke athletics branding matches Lyons’ ambitions
Mount Holyoke College has overhauled its mascot, Paws, and its athletics branding in line with student-athlete ambitions and MHC Forward.
Tags:
Athletics
College History
MHC Forward
Student
Women’s College
More News
Campus voices
What stories will you tell?
A possible future, with the Careers in Public Service event
Sindy Maldonado ’27
she/her
From reluctant leader to successful SGA president
Julia Keane ’26
she/her
Replacing the sophomore slump with MHC’s Sophomore Institute
Mia Lederer ’28
she/her
Explore Stories
Quick links
Visit Mount Holyoke
Request Information
Apply