Commitment: Establish a new faculty grants program
The goal of this $50,000 program will be to inform teaching, learning and research practices, and to build an academic culture that seeks to understand, analyze and challenge systems of oppression.
2021 Updates
As of spring 2021, five grants have been awarded, totaling $10,810 of the available $50,000. The grants continue to focus on critical initiatives including expanding the curriculum, supporting the development of BIPOC scholars and creating a more just and inclusive Mount Holyoke for BIPOC community members.
The offices of the Dean of Faculty and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion seek proposals from faculty members for the College’s new Racial Equity Research and Action (RERA) Grants program. Applications can be submitted on a rolling basis and are reviewed monthly. Proposals are sought for research, course development and creative projects in any discipline or subject area that uses race and racial equity as the center of analysis and that promises to enrich the academic curriculum and/or education of the campus community.
Racial Equity Research and Action (RERA) grants committee members:
- Kate Ballantine, Environmental Studies, Faculty Grants Committee
- Wei Chen, Chemistry, Faculty Equity in Hiring Committee
- Gabriel Hall, Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
- Kijua Sanders-McMurtry, Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
- John Tawa, Psychology, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Advisory Committee
May 2023 Updates
In 2020, the College made a commitment to devote $50,000 toward research and scholarship focused on racial equity under the purview of the dean of the faculty. To date, nine Racial Equity Research and Action (RERA) grants have been awarded for a total of $19,390. Four more grants are slated to be awarded by the end of the year, bringing the total to 13 grants and $32,861. Grants have ranged across disciplines, including a grant for the “Concourse” dance collaboration by Shakia Barron and Barbie Diewald, an “H-STEM” course (Humans in STEM) taught by Jon Ashby (chemistry) and Michelle Markley (geology and geography) that focuses on equity and inclusion, and research on students’ understanding of racism by John Tawa (psychology).
Commitment: Invest in efforts to hire faculty who are Black, Indigenous or people of color
2021 Updates
The College has renewed or initiated partnerships with several key organizations, both to enhance faculty development and to support efforts to recruit and retain Black, Indigenous or people of color among our faculty, as positions become available. These organizations include the Southern Regional Education Board Doctoral Scholars Program, the Liberal Arts Colleges Racial Equity Leadership Alliance, and the Consortium for Faculty Diversity.
As part of the Racial Equity Leadership Alliance, the leaders of Mount Holyoke participated in sessions led by the University of Southern California’s Race and Equity Center. Leaders who participated in these sessions through January 2022 include the College cabinet, senior leadership team, and other manager and director-level leaders across campus. Session topics included the following:
- Fostering and Sustaining Inclusive Classroom for Students of Color
- Confronting Explicit Acts of Racism and Racial Violence on Campus
- Recovering from COVID-19 Racial Inequities
- Teaching the Truth About Slavery and America’s Racial History
- Strategically Hiring Faculty of Color
- Supporting and Retaining Faculty of Color
- Recruiting and Strategically Diversifying Staff at All Levels
- Creating Equitable Pathways to Leadership Roles for Employees of Color
The College has sought to continue to recruit BIPOC faculty by working in partnership with the Southern Regional Education Board. Associate Dean of the Faculty, Liz Markovits and Vice President for Equity and Inclusion, Kijua Sanders-McMurtry virtually attended the Institute on Teaching and Mentoring in March of 2021 to participate in recruiting for open faculty positions. The College has also engaged in ongoing efforts to recruit BIPOC post-doctoral scholars through our partnership with the Consortium for Faculty Diversity (CFD). Two new BIPOC post-doc fellows will begin this fall. The faculty affirmative action committee is now recalibrated as the faculty diversity in hiring committee. This group has been revising guidelines and search procedures to communicate widely with search committees a set of standards needed to build a diverse and robust candidate pool in an effort to recruit more BIPOC faculty.
Under the leadership of Jared Schwarzer and Barbara Rotundo, the College's Multicultural College Life Committee has been recalibrated and is now the DEI Advisory Committee with a restructured membership and charge that was voted into faculty legislation in May of 2021. This critical effort will ensure that the vibrancy of this important faculty led committee that has been in existence through multiple iterations continues to advance causes of equity, justice and inclusion throughout the campus community.
The Department of Human Resources has launched a new applicant tracking system that will improve all efforts to build diverse talent pools and specifically improve the process of recruiting BIPOC faculty and staff.
May 2023 Updates
- The Provost’s Office worked this year to deepen required search committee training, with a focus on inclusive excellence and equity. This includes pre-search, asynchronous training materials; kick-off workshops for search committees; regular check-ins throughout the search process with feedback regarding composition of candidate pools and post-search reporting. The Provost’s Office also hosted a talk by Marybeth Gasman, “Doing the Right Thing: How Colleges and Universities Can Undo Systemic Racism in Faculty Hiring,” at BOOM!
- Our incoming faculty cohort is incredibly accomplished and one of our most diverse. We recruited a historian of Native American history to join the history department; three other faculty are part of a cluster hire in Africana studies, joining the departments of history, English and critical race and political economy. Our new faculty also includes a nationally recognized leader in Intergroup Dialogue, a computer scientist specializing in computational biology and robotics, an economist specializing in women and development in Ghana, an early music scholar, a geographer focused on climate change in Ghana, a jazz theorist and a psychologist studying prejudice and intergroup relations.
- We continued recruitment efforts at the Southern Regional Education Board conference (October 2022).
- The College has continued its partnership with the Consortium for Faculty Diversity with five CFD fellows in residence 2022–2023, one who will join the tenure track faculty in the fall as an assistant professor of English.
- The Provost’s Office has coordinated a successful BIPOC Faculty Mentoring Group for the past two years.
- Athletics applied for and received the DIII NCAA Ethnic Minorities and Women’s Internship Grant. This is a two-year position that has to be awarded to a woman and/or ethnic minority. This position is to promote our student-athletes and the programming of our department. This position will be critical in organizing and promoting our initiatives.
- The College is currently conducting a compensation study to make sure that we are compensating our faculty and staff fairly and equitably.
- College Health Services prioritized recruitment of diverse staff when positions opened:
- The College Health Services director served on the Disability Cluster Search Committee, which uniquely created intentional recruitment of diverse staff.
- Residential Life and Orientation updated their selection process for new candidates to ensure the process was equitable and reduced biased.
Commitment: Expand diversity education and curricula
Expand diversity education and curricula that directly challenge anti-Blackness and white supremacy. The Common Read will be dedicated to the interrogation of racism for the foreseeable future.
2021 Updates
- The Fire This Time edited by Jesmyn Ward was the Common Read for 2021. This text is a New York Times bestselling anthology of essays and poems and poems on race in America. It consists of three parts -- Part I: Legacy, Part II; Reckoning, Part III: Jubilee--along with an introductory essay by Jesmyn Ward. The book’s title alludes to James Baldwin’s 1963 book The Fire Next Time.
- The 1619 Project was the Common Read for 2020: ’s Common Read this year is prose essays from The New York Times Magazine’s ongoing initiative. A robust set of programs focused on cultivating an anti-racist community and supporting community members who engaged in these readings was offered throughout the year with specific emphasis on voting enfranchisement, understanding the persistence of racial inequities, etc.
- All members of the Mount Holyoke community have access to a wide array of ongoing programs, learning opportunities and events designed to further our collective goal of becoming an anti-racist Mount Holyoke. Specific highlights have included events focused on Latinx Heritage, Indigenous Heritage, LGBTQ+ History, Trans Awareness Month and focused efforts on educating the community around challenging ableism. The work is intersectional and focused.
- The College held its second annual from January 18-28 with a series of events including a two-day teach in on Fighting Anti-Semitism with keynote speakers, Rabbi Sandra Lawson and Rabbi Josh Lesser, an affinity-based dialogue for Jewish community members led by Rabby Hilly Haber ‘10, a womanist sermon led by Chaplain Q. Hailey ‘12 and a public keynote lecture with esteemed racial justice scholar, Jelani Cobb.
- The College cabinet is participating in ongoing reading, reflections and training sessions led by the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and with the. These sessions are designed to challenge anti-Blackness and use anti-racist frameworks to inform the development of future policies and practices at the College.
- BOOM! Building On Our Momentum: Community Day. The fifth annual BOOM! learning conference was held on March 23, 2021. The keynote speaker for this year’s conference was , which can be viewed here:. Another featured plenary session was a focused panel on the book, Mutual Aid by Dean Spade. This very special panel featured MHC alum, Prentis Hemphill ‘04, Dean Spade, Taylor Alxndr and was moderated by Jina Kim. The discussion focused on the long histories of BIPOC, queer and trans communities that have engaged in mutual aid. It can be viewed here:
- A number of new educational opportunities were offered including a course that directly addressed racism and the long history of violence that culminated in resistance movements throughout 2020, a course co-taught by Vice Presidents Dorothy Mosby and Kijua Sanders-McMurtry was introduced to first-year international students entitled: COLL-208-01 Histories, Memories, & Legacies: The Social Justice Protests of 2020. The primary course texts were Caste: The Origin of Our Discontent by Isabel Wilkerson and Stamped from the Beginning: The History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi which these two leaders
- With the rise of anti-Asian hate, the College has held the following events and amplified the voices of our AAPI community. This has included events such as “” and ”.” The following communications were shared with the community: “Fighting Anti-Asian Hate: Coalition Building and Community Care,” “The rise of COVID-19 and anti-Asian bias,” and “No more gaslighting anti-Asian hate.”
- The College held a number of events for with a specific anti-racist lens highlighting specific programming support and healing circles for BIPOC community members analyzing the long legacies of violence towards Black and Indigenous communities rooted in gender-based oppression. A specific event featured the work of , a non-profit organization that focuses on girls and women with a focused lens on fighting racial inequities and gender based violence collectively.
- The Divisions of Business and Finance, LITS, the Art Museum Advisory Board, the Counseling and Psychological Services Team have all been engaged in anti-racism training led by the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion throughout the year.
- Dining and Facilities Management have participated in extensive Title IX training throughout the year.
May 2023 Updates
- The College has maintained its membership with the Liberal Arts Colleges Racial Equity Leadership Alliance (LACRELA) which involved consistent training for faculty and staff between 2021–2022. There were over 75 faculty and staff who participated in sessions which included the following:
- Centering Racial Equity in Your Student Success Agenda.
- Reducing Implicit Bias in The Search and Hiring Process.
- Dismantling Persistent Racial Equity Problems in Stem.
- Managing and Resolving Racial Tensions in the Workplace.
- The College participated in the Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) Institute hosted by the American Associations of Colleges of Universities (AACU) in June of 2022 with a team of 7 faculty and staff. As part of the ongoing professional development, four members of the team - Liz Markovits, Associate Dean of Faculty and Professor of Politics and Raghu Raghavan, Director of Sustainability. Lauren Gaia, Chief of Staff and Strategic Communications, and Kijua Sanders-McMurtry, Vice President for Equity and Inclusion participated in an immersive learning Civil Rights Tour to Atlanta, Georgia and Selma, Alabama.
- The College has hosted a significant number of events related to “Braiding Sweetgrass,” our ’22–’23 Common Read, including the opening event with author and professor Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, the grand opening of the Zowie Banteah Cultural Center
- , the DEI “Brown Bag Series: Food Sovereignty and Native Ways of Knowing — Reflection on ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’” with Rachel Beth Sayet, the MHC Art Museum’s “Considering Indigeneity” and several sessions at the annual Building On Our Momentum (BOOM!): Community Day in March of 2023. Sessions included “Voices from the Dawnland: Indigenous Writers Speak” and “Ceremonial Herbs of Native America: Sacred Plants.”
- The College has selected “Disability Visibility” as its ’23–’24 Common Read, which will include an opening event with the text’s editor Alice Wong, a disabled activist, writer, editor, media maker and consultant.
- The College has established two teach-ins, the teach-in on antisemitism held each January as part of the Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King Series on Racial Justice and Reconciliation, and the Indigenous Peoples’ Day teach-in, which happens each October on Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
- The President’s Office appointed Dr. Kristie Ford a Presidential Fellow, and she is leading initiatives related to Intergroup Dialogue across campus, including an assessment of current IGD programming for students and a faculty and staff development session in January of 2023. Dr. Ford will join the faculty permanently as a full professor on July 1, 2023.
- Molly Keehn and Latrina Denson have continued to co-instruct 215-RR Intergroup Dialogue, Race and Racism in the U.S. and Mount Holyoke and 235-RR Intergroup Dialogue Facilitation each semester.
- Two program coordinators for community and belonging participated in Intergroup Dialogue class and facilitation training in the summer of 2022 with Anna Yankley.
- Latrina Denson, associate dean of students, community and belonging, was accepted and participated in the AABHE LMI (Leadership Mentoring Institute) summer 2023.
- The graduate assistant for community and belonging audited the Intergroup Dialogue facilitation class CUSP 235-RR.
- Members of the Division of Student Life participated in Kristie Ford’s Intergroup Dialogue training January 2023.
- A College health services nurse practitioner participated in IGD training in January 2023.
- In partnership with the Five Colleges Consortium, and with the support of the Mellon Foundation, the College has worked to expand offerings in Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS).
- Faculty from Africana Studies, Critical Studies and Latino/a Studies have joined in the new Department of Critical Race and Political Economy, launched in spring 2023. The first cohort of majors in the department will graduate in 2024.
- Mount Holyoke is part of the HHMI Inclusive Excellence 3 Learning community, “A Comprehensive Toward Achievement-Oriented Thinking and Practices,” fall 2020–2028 ($529,500). This provides the College with the opportunity to reimagine our STEM education, moving from a deficit-orientation to a strength-based curriculum, a key component of an anti-racist approach in higher education.
- The Teaching & Learning Initiative has continued to provide training and consultations through an anti-racist lens. This year’s sessions include: “Dismantling Deficit Thinking in Library Instruction”; “Equity and Excellence: Challenges and Opportunities for African Americans” with Dr. Terrence Blackman, “Appreciative Advising”; and a keynote and workshop with Dr. Cathy Davidson and Dr. Christina Katopodis titled “The New College Classroom.”
- College health services co-sponsored with community and belonging Dr. Yolanda Lenzy’s dermatology presentation on skin and hair care for students of color in February 2022.
- College health services, in collaboration with Be Well, hosted two TGNC workshops: “Safer Binding” and “Trans Tape” in spring of 2023.
- LITS has been partnering with Tech Foundry, a local organization with a mission to support the region’s growing need for a qualified technology workforce and elevate underrepresented groups into sustainable careers in IT through advocacy, hosting internships and temporary assignments.
- In celebration of the achievements of our alums and to highlight the many ways Mount Holyoke prepares its graduates to lead in the world, in AY ’22–’23 we presented a conversation series — Launching Leadership — between Interim President Beverly Daniel Tatum and a diverse group of graduates. These alums exemplify an intellectually adventurous Mount Holyoke education in action.
- Jeannette Marks sponsored a Legal Name Change Workshop with UMASS Stonewall Center on March 23, 2023.
- Archives and Special Collections co-sponsored a movie night with the Jewish Student Union, showing a documentary that included the life and work of Wendy Wasserstein ’71.
- Archives and Special Collections continues to release additional LGBTQ alum oral history interviews, making them available to researchers.