Editing Mount Holyoke College (section)

== History ==
[[File:Mary Lyon ivory miniature.jpg|thumb|left|150px|Mary Lyon ivory [[Portrait miniature|miniature]]]]
[[File:Mount Holyoke in 1837.gif|thumb|left|Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in 1837]]
Mount Holyoke was founded in 1837 by [[Mary Lyon]] as "Mount Holyoke Female Seminary".<ref name="google1">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z3qWLyDZ8PsC&pg=PA13 |title=Alma Mater: Design and Experience in the Women's Colleges from Their ...  | via=Google Boeken |access-date=2012-07-14|isbn=978-0870238697 |last1=Horowitz |first1=Helen Lefkowitz |year=1993 |publisher=Univ of Massachusetts Press }}</ref>  Lyon developed her ideas on how to educate women when she was assistant principal at [[Ipswich Female Seminary]] in Massachusetts.

By 1837 she had convinced multiple sponsors to support her ideals and the nation's first real college for women.  Mount Holyoke Female Seminary opened on November 8, 1837, in South Hadley, Massachusetts.  The town had donated the land and main building.<ref>See [https://offices.mtholyoke.edu/marylyon/founding "The Founding of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary" (2022)  online]</ref> Lyon's layout of the campus provided a widely imitated model for the higher education of women by providing a physical environment that supported a rigorous and comprehensive curriculum equivalent to that of men's colleges. 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. All the students worked in one building with little privacy. There was close contact with the all-female faculty, and daily self reports on their personal strengths and weaknesses. The college cut staff to the minimum as the 100 or so students each performed one hour of work a day, handling most of the routine chores like cooking and cleaning and maintaining the grounds.

Lyon rejected the goal of the men's colleges to promote individualism and independence and instead fostered the collective ideal of a united team of women could match the success of nearby men's colleges like Amherst and Williams. 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.  Lyon's efforts in founding an institution of higher education for women, despite the economic challenges of the time, paved the way for more women to have the same opportunities for higher education as their brothers.<ref>Andrea L. Turpin, "The Ideological Origins of the Women’s College: Religion, Class, and Curriculum in the Educational Visions of Catharine Beecher and Mary Lyon." ''History of Education Quarterly'' 50#2 (2010), pp. 133–58. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/40648056 online].</ref><ref>The major study is Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, ''Alma mater: Design and experience in the women's colleges from their nineteenth-century beginnings to the 1930s' (2nd ed., U of Massachusetts Press, 1993).</ref>

[[File:Mount Holyoke Seminary and Ground 1887.jpg|thumb|left|Mount Holyoke in 1887]]
Mount Holyoke Female Seminary was one of several Christian institutions of higher education for young women established during the first half of the 19th century. Prior to founding Mount Holyoke, Lyon contributed to the development of both Hartford Female Seminary and Ipswich Female Seminary. She was also involved in the creation of ''Wheaton Female Seminary'' (now [[Wheaton College (Massachusetts)|Wheaton College]]) in 1834.<ref name="google1" /> Mount Holyoke Female Seminary was chartered as a [[Female seminary|teaching seminary]] in 1836<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/lifemarylyon00gilcgoog |page=[https://archive.org/details/lifemarylyon00gilcgoog/page/n474 436] |quote=mount holyoke chartered 1836. |title=First Charter of Mount Holyoke |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |year=1910 |access-date=2011-02-20|last1=Gilchrist |first1=Beth Bradford }}</ref> and opened its doors to students on November 8, 1837. Both [[Vassar College]] and [[Wellesley College]] were patterned after Mount Holyoke.<ref name="Crispen">{{cite web|url=http://www.dean.sbc.edu/crispen.html|title=Seven Sisters and a Country Cousin|author=Jennifer L. Crispen|publisher=sbc.edu|access-date=2007-07-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070818074928/http://www.dean.sbc.edu/crispen.html|archive-date=2007-08-18|url-status=live}}</ref>

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."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Porterfiled |first1=Amanda |title=Mary Lyon and the Mount Holyoke Missionaries |date=1997 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=978-0195113013 |page=32}}</ref> 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".<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.mtholyoke.edu/marylyon/life.html |title= Daily Life at Mount Holyoke |publisher=mtholyoke.edu |access-date=2006-09-01 |archive-date=January 13, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100113220757/http://www.mtholyoke.edu/marylyon/life.html }}</ref> Mount Holyoke Female Seminary was the sister school to [[Andover Theological Seminary|Andover Seminary]]. By 1859 there were more than 60 missionary alumnae; by 1887 the school's alumnae comprised one-fifth of all female American missionaries for the ABCFM; and by the end of the century, 248 of its alumnae had entered the mission field.<ref>{{cite journal | title=Did You Know? | journal=Christian History & Biography | date=Spring 2006 | volume=90 | pages=3–4 }}</ref>

=== Collegiate charter ===
Mount Holyoke Female Seminary received its collegiate charter in 1888, becoming "Mount Holyoke Seminary and College". The change in admission from Seminary to College included fundraising by the trustees, an overhaul of the entrance requirements, and course catalog. Entrance exams were introduced at this time, scheduled in June or September at the college. In 1889, students traveling from the midwest could take these examinations in [[Freeport, Illinois]], and within a few years, this was expanded to other cities. Many additions were made to the course catalog, and starting in the 1889 academic year, students could choose to pursue degrees of [[Bachelor of Arts]] or [[Bachelor of Science]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=A Hundred Years of Mount Holyoke College|last=Cole|first=Arthur C.|publisher=Yale University Press|year=1940|location=New Haven|page=219}}</ref>  Within 4 years, the seminary enrollment dropped from 269 to 8. In 1893, the seminary course was discontinued, and the new title "Mount Holyoke College" was authorized.<ref name=":0" />

=== Cottage-style living ===
A movement towards what was referred to as cottage-style living started in 1889 by the New York Association<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://new.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/nyc/|title=Mount Holyoke Club of NYC|website=Mount Holyoke Club of NYC|access-date=April 16, 2018|archive-date=November 12, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181112172131/http://new.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/nyc/|url-status=dead}}</ref> after the change to Mount Holyoke Seminary and College. $15,000 was raised, and plans were put in place for Mary Brigham Cottage, with accommodations for the president and thirty students, with priority given to those in the collegiate course. At the time, two South Hadley families agreed to host boarders. President [[Elizabeth Storrs Mead|Elizabeth Mead]] deemed these options unsatisfactory and pushed the trustees to build yet another cottage. Mrs. Mead was ready to relieve the students of a large share of the drudgery of domestic work that had made up a good portion of their studies since Mary Lyon's conception of the seminary. From 1895 to 1996 the trustees allotted funds for the employment of four women to wash the dinner dishes that had formerly constituted the task of eight or ten students.<ref name=":0" />

On February 28, 1987, the [[United States Postal Service]]'s [[Great Americans series]] issued a [[postage stamp]] featuring [[Mary Lyon]], in honor of Mount Holyoke's ''Sesquicentennial'' (Mount Holyoke's 150th anniversary).<ref>{{cite news|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE0DB1239F932A15751C1A960948260|title=Stamp for Holyoke Founder|agency=AP|date=1986-12-21|newspaper=New York Times|access-date=2011-02-20}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.mtholyoke.edu/%7Edalbino/fdcs/mlyon.html|title=The Mary Lyon Stamp|access-date=2006-09-01|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060219234157/http://www.mtholyoke.edu/%7Edalbino/fdcs/mlyon.html|archive-date=2006-02-19|url-status=live|publisher=mtholyoke.edu}}</ref>

=== Debate on becoming co-educational ===
In the early 1970s, Mount Holyoke had a long debate under the presidency of [[David Truman]] over the issue of coeducation. On November 6, 1971, the board of trustees voted to remain a women's college.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.mtholyoke.edu/cic/about/detailed.shtml|title=Mount Holyoke: A Detailed History|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070926222407/http://www.mtholyoke.edu/cic/about/detailed.shtml|archive-date=2007-09-26|url-status=live|publisher=mtholyoke.edu}}</ref>

=== Admission of transgender students ===
At Convocation on September 2, 2014, President [[Lynn Pasquerella]] announced a new policy allowing the [[Transgender admissions policies at women's colleges|admission of transgender individuals of both sexes]] to the college,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/transgender-applicants-welcome-mount-holyoke-womens-college|title=Students react to decision to admit transgender students at Mount Holyoke|date=October 15, 2014|website=PBS NewsHour}}</ref> as well as the admission of students whose gender identities are [[Genderqueer|non-binary]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Admission of Transgender Students|url=https://www.mtholyoke.edu/policies/admission-transgender-students|website=Mount Holyoke College|access-date=2015-01-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150116134430/https://www.mtholyoke.edu/policies/admission-transgender-students|archive-date=2015-01-16|url-status=live|date=2014-09-02}}</ref> Of the Seven Sisters that had remained women's colleges, Mount Holyoke was the first to implement such policy.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.advocate.com/politics/transgender/2014/09/03/watch-first-seven-sisters-schools-admit-trans-women|title=Mt. Holyoke Becomes First 'Seven Sisters' School to Admit Trans Women|date=2014-09-03}}</ref>

At Convocation on September 3, 2024, the College launched TGNC10 @ MHC, described as "a trans and gender nonconforming (TGNC)-led, student-led project sponsored by Mount Holyoke College (MHC) in commemoration of the 10-year anniversary of MHC’s gender-inclusive admissions policy, which was established as the result of student activism through the 'Open Gates' initiative."<ref>{{Cite web |title=TGNC10 @ MHC |url=https://events.mtholyoke.edu/tgnc10-mhc#tabs-47365351174281-47365351180428 |access-date=2025-02-06 |website=Mount Holyoke College Events |language=en}}</ref>