Special Programs and Resources
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The Harriet L. and Paul M. Weissman Center for Leadership
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The Dorothy R. and Norman E. McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives
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The Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Center for the Environment
Library, Information, and Technology Services (LITS)
Other Programs and Resources, including:
- Foreign Languages at Mount Holyoke College
- Domestic Study Away
- Intersession
- Independent Study
- Honors Thesis
- Teaching and Learning Initiative
Academic Centers
The Harriet L. and Paul M. Weissman Center for Leadership
The Weissman Center for Leadership, established in 1999, empowers students, faculty and staff with the skills and supportive opportunities to think openly, engage deeply, and go forward boldly. The Weissman Center defines leadership broadly and inclusively so that each member of the Mount Holyoke community can find their own way to have a transformative impact. Our work is guided by four over-arching themes: Inspiration sparked by public events with renowned guest speakers; Capacity-building to develop skills and confidence through leadership courses, experiential learning, conferences, and trainings; Mentoring and networking on campus and across nonprofit, public service, and business realms to promote opportunities for professional success; Reflection and discovery, the foundation for perpetual leadership growth. From courses and workshops to internships and public events, we connect people to the resources and relationships they need to find their own path and make their mark on their communities and the world. The Center is home to four affiliated programs which enrich both the academic and co-curricular aspects of college life and prepare students for leadership:
- Community-Based Learning
- Leadership and Public Service
- Speaking, Arguing, and Writing
- English Speakers of Other Languages
Community-Based Learning
Community-Based Learning (CBL) pairs Mount Holyoke students, faculty and staff with local leaders in South Hadley, Holyoke, and beyond to collaborate on internships, research and service projects that have a direct, positive impact in our communities. Students will be able to learn from on-the-ground practitioners and understand how to apply the ideas, theories and models students learn in class. A CBL experience breaks down the barrier between the classroom and the real world, enhancing understanding of current social issues both locally and nationally, and helping students grow the leadership, organizing and advocacy skills that are vital to change making at all levels. And for our community partners, CBL fosters sustainable, mutually beneficial relationships that support local organizations and help them thrive. The core components of the CBL program include student employment opportunities, tutoring and mentoring opportunities and community partnerships.
See the CBL website for more.
Leadership and Public Service
Leadership and Public Service (LAPS) is for students who want to address pressing and critical problems facing the world through public service. We define public service broadly and inclusively – running for office, serving as an elected official, working for the government at any level, advocating for policy solutions, lobbying for constituent needs, engaging with the local community through organizing or activism, or belonging to one of the many institutions world-wide that promote democracy, peace, and justice. It can mean working in embassies, think tanks, foundations, civil society organizations, or serving on a school committee or city council. Public service means being involved, caring about others, understanding the issues, seeing the big picture, listening to all sides, negotiating, learning and making change.
Many of our LAPS initiatives are inspired by a MHC student delegation’s 2011 visit to the U.S. State Department to strategize about how underrepresented populations can find more ways to enter the public service arena. LAPS hosts multiple site visits per year to Washington D.C., NYC, and Boston featuring distinguished speakers, site visits, and networking opportunities.
See the LAPS website for more.
Speaking, Arguing, and Writing
The Speaking, Arguing, and Writing Program (SAW) strives to empower students to be leaders who can think critically and creatively as well as to speak and write persuasively and effectively. SAW peer mentors partner with faculty in designated courses and are assigned to every first year seminar to provide academic support and mentoring as first years transition to the academic experience at Mount Holyoke. SAW peer mentors also staff the SAW Center where they are available to students from across the disciplines for individual sessions. The SAW program offers campus-wide workshops; collaborates with other college offices to support writing, speaking, and leadership-related activities; offers a library of print resources and materials for students and faculty; and provides pedagogy resources for faculty.
In cooperation with the Department of English and embedded within SAW, the English Speakers of Other Languages program offers courses to support students who are multilingual or whose native language is not English, as well as individual or group-level support opportunities, and consultation for faculty. The SAW and ESOL program administrative offices are in the Weissman Center for Leadership in Dwight Hall. The SAW Center is also located in Dwight Hall. For more information, call 413-538-3428 or visit the SAW website. To schedule an appointment at the SAW Center, visit www.mtholyoke.mywconline.com.
The Dorothy R. and Norman E. McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives
A global education is crucial for successful careers and purposeful engagement in today’s complex, interconnected world.
At Mount Holyoke, we motivate students to engage deeply with the world in all of its wonder, challenges and complexity. Whichever paths our graduates pursue, they are prepared to engage with widely varying perspectives and to collaborate with colleagues across the globe.
The extraordinary international diversity of our student body and faculty provides a uniquely powerful context for students to understand issues from many different perspectives. With nearly 25 percent of our students from over 55 countries, every classroom — and residence hall, lab, studio, student org, athletic team and dining table — is a panoramic, intercultural experience. Every day is a chance to grow into a more astute global citizen.
The distinctive opportunities we offer for students to study, research and intern abroad become stepping stones to future success. By navigating other cultures, students gain the global experiences, skills and knowledge that will serve them for life, and that employers across industries seek and value.
A global education — learning from and with the world — transforms our students’ lives forever.
Engagement with Global Issues on Campus
Many departments and programs are already offering courses which investigate – from their own disciplinary vantage points – different dimensions of globalization and ask questions whose scope reaches beyond national boundaries. The center complements these offerings with initiatives that explore global issues, their origins, and their legacies from cross-disciplinary, cross-cultural, and cross-national perspectives.
Study Abroad
When students journey to another country to broaden and deepen their academic studies and foreign language skills, they gain a better understanding of the world and local cultures. By navigating unfamiliar situations and societies, students encounter and reflect upon beliefs and values that are different from their own. They emerge as more enlightened citizens and, in the process, hone marketable skills.
Study abroad is one of the best ways for students to develop qualifications that are prized by employers and institutions. In addition to valuing the “soft” skills students acquire while abroad — such as flexibility, initiative and adaptability — employers seek workers who can collaborate with others around the world.
Study abroad is for all majors, and students in every field benefit from an international experience. About one‐third of Mount Holyoke students study abroad each year for at least a semester. Most students study abroad in the junior year, but they may also study abroad as a sophomore or first‐semester senior. Many programs in non‐English‐speaking countries are taught in English and require little or no previous knowledge of the local language. Students can choose from more than 150 approved programs in 50 countries. Laurel Fellowships, need-based financial aid, is readily available to students who qualify.
International Diversity on Campus
Mount Holyoke College boasts a uniquely diverse international faculty and student body, which provides a powerful setting for education for global citizenship, in and out of the classroom, on a personal and intellectual level. The first international student enrolled at MHC is 1839! Currently over 550 international students from over 55 countries attend Mount Holyoke. The McCulloch Center provides immigration and visa advising to our international students along with various other assistance and programming. We are at the forefront of advising and advocating for our students. The center also administers a special program for students who are selected to spend a semester or year at the College as international exchange students.
International Internships and Research
Through immersive experiences, Mount Holyoke students are challenged to understand their academic and career paths and themselves in broader ways. The McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives cultivates a small number of international internship and research opportunities for highly qualified MHC students in locations such as Germany, Japan, India and Switzerland. Through the College’s Lynk initiative, every student can access funding to pursue an internship, faculty-mentored research or a creative project. Students interested in a related discipline or region should consider searching and applying for opportunities through Mount Holyoke's Handshake jobs database, and search by “MHConnect Global”, to find available internships with our organizational partners across the world.
The McCulloch Center's Global Competence Award
This award is given to seniors with demonstrated achievement in language learning, cultural immersion, developing global perspectives, and cross-cultural learning on and off campus. In working toward the award, students challenge themselves to grow intellectually, cultivating empathy, awareness and understanding. Review information about requirements and the application process.
The Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Center for the Environment
The Miller Worley Center for the Environment (formerly the Center for Environmental Literacy) was established in 1998 with the goal of making environmental literacy a central part of Mount Holyoke students’ education through the use of the campus as a natural laboratory. In recognition of a generous gift from Leslie Miller and Richard Worley, the Center was renamed in 2010 the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Center for the Environment.
The Center for the Environment prepares students to think critically, creatively, and globally — to tackle the worlds’ most complex issues as environmental leaders. It advances a culture of sustainability and justice on campus and beyond through community building, programming that encourages environmental literacy, and opportunities for sustainable action and leadership in service of all generations. Situated within a world-class liberal arts college on an exceptional landscape in the heart of western Massachusetts, the Center promotes an inclusive, just, equitable, and anti-racist campus and society in all its programs.
Sustainability
The Miller Worley Center encourages students to understand and study the connection between sustainability on campus and local and global communities — both in terms of the people moving through the institution and the resources it consumes. Mount Holyoke aims to foster a healthy environment with equitable distribution of resources by reducing the impact of human activity, implementing ethical economic development and promoting social justice. Recognizing that climate change is threatening people and ecosystems around the globe, and that without intervention, that impact will continue to escalate, the College has set a goal of Carbon Neutrality by 2037, the College’s 200th anniversary. As an educational institution, Mount Holyoke is in a position to lead by educating students and the broader community on the science of climate change, as well as on the political, economic and social factors influencing it. The Miller Worley Center works across the College to advance sustainability as a core value in all aspects of the campus, including academic programs and research, campus planning and operations, co-curricular student opportunities, and engagement with the local community.
The Campus as Living Laboratory
The Miller Worley Center manages Mount Holyoke’s Campus Living Laboratory. Inspired by a diversity of ecosystems and a culture of sustainability, the living laboratory transforms Mount Holyoke’s natural and built landscape into an exciting destination for hands-on, multidisciplinary undergraduate research and teaching. More than 300 acres of Mount Holyoke’s 800-acre campus are an undeveloped nature preserve — of reservoirs, streams, forests, marshes, shrub wetlands, forested wetlands, pastures, meadows and vernal pools. This remarkable diversity of environments exists in close proximity to areas of rapid development, providing Mount Holyoke students with opportunities to study a variety of ecological processes and their responses to human activities.
For decades, the Center has maintained several long-term water, climate and forest monitoring systems and routinely collects data on the rich array of environmental phenomena that occur in the College’s undeveloped and built environments. These datasets are stored online in the College’s Institutional Data Archive and are made publicly available. Various science courses use the datasets to study subjects ranging from weather and water quality to forest succession, biodiversity and community structure. Students can also use the Center’s data for their own independent research projects.
Internships and Grant Funding for Environmental Study
The Miller Worley Center offers curated internships and grant funding that provide students opportunities to explore environmental issues across disciplines, communities, cultures and landscapes while developing career skills and professional contacts. Miller Worley internships focus on topics from biodiversity conservation and ecological restoration to energy efficiency and sustainable agriculture, and the Center partners with a diverse group of local and national organizations to provide students both local and global opportunities. Grant funding enables students to travel to conferences, embark on environmental research projects, and promote campus sustainability initiatives. (Faculty curriculum development grants are also available through the Miller Worley Center.) Students are encouraged to integrate their Miller Worley curated internships and grant-funded opportunities with their academic coursework. Frequent collaboration with Mount Holyoke academic departments, programs, and centers, including the Nexus program, the Weissman Center’s Community-based Learning program and the McCulloch Center’s Global/Local Fellowship program, provides students well-rounded and interdisciplinary co-curricular experiences.
Environmental Awareness within the Community
Outside the classroom, the Miller Worley Center works to increase environmental awareness within the community at large. Each semester, the center presents lectures on important environmental issues. Recent guest speakers have included Robert Musil, President and CEO of the Rachel Carson Council; Shaughnessy Naughton, chemist, science advocate, and former Congressional aide; and Sarah duPont, founder of the Amazon Aid Foundation. The Center also organizes alumnae career panels and environmental film festivals.
The Miller Worley Center for the Environment is located in Dwight Hall, 2nd Floor. For more information, visit the Center's website or www.facebook.com/MWCEMtHolyoke/ or telephone 413-538-3091.
Library, Information, and Technology Services (LITS)
Library, Information, and Technology Services (LITS) offers the Mount Holyoke community a premier library, teaching, and learning facility with a dedicated team to assist students, faculty, and staff in their academic and administrative pursuits. LITS endeavors to support students of all backgrounds, to help them thrive in their academic and co-curricular goals.
LITS represents both a physical place and virtual gateway to information and technology resources critical for student success, providing access to the physical library collection of more than 700,000 volumes, direct access to the eight million volumes in the Five College library system, as well as a global library network at their fingertips. Complementing the physical library collection is a rich selection of digital information sources, such as art images, electronic books and journals, streaming video, and music. Students also have access to archival records, manuscripts, and rare books housed in our Archives and Special Collections, encouraging active engagement with primary sources.
Teaching and learning happen in classrooms, enhanced through connections with the Five Colleges, community practitioners, and experts around the world. Faculty use Moodle (MHC’s learning management system) to facilitate sharing of course materials and to foster discussions outside of the classroom. Student research and technology support is offered through course-integrated instruction, consultations, and personalized assistance.
Computer labs across campus offer students high-end technology. Students may also borrow a wide range of equipment, such as laptops, video/DSLR cameras, and projectors. To protect student computers and the campus network, the College provides antivirus software to all students. LITS staff assist faculty, staff, and students with computer and technology issues that may arise.
The LITS complex includes many places to study and work, outfitted with comfortable furniture, quiet nooks, places to meet, and the library’s coffee shop, the Frances Perk.
Please visit the LITS website for more information: lits.mtholyoke.edu.
Internships and The Lynk
A central goal of Mount Holyoke’s The Lynk initiative is to ensure that each MHC student has the opportunity to explore her career interests, gain practical experience and begin to develop a professional network through a summer internship.
Students can find internships through Mount Holyoke College internship programs, existing job postings with external employers, or develop their own internship opportunity by contacting an organization and offering to work as an intern.
The Career Development Center and other Academic Centers like the Miller Worley Center for the Environment and the McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives supports preparation for internships in the United States and abroad through individual advising, workshops, networking and other opportunities.
Mount Holyoke supports qualified, substantive, supervised opportunities and emphasizes the connection between the liberal arts and career and personal development.
Credit for internships is granted if a student enrolls in independent study as a practicum associated with the internship (295P or 395P. See Independent Study later in this chapter). A student can also receive credit in a department capstone or in the post-internship class COLL-211. Many students also present publicly on their internship at Mount Holyoke’s LEAP (Learning through Application) Symposium or present research done in their internship in department poster sessions, at Five College conferences, or at the Senior Symposium.
Mount Holyoke provides funding for sophomores and juniors to pursue unpaid or low paid internship and research opportunities through The Lynk Universal Application Funding (UAF) program. More information about The Lynk is available in the advising chapter and The Lynk website.
Other Special Programs and Resources
Foreign Languages at Mount Holyoke College
Encouraging Mount Holyoke students to become proficient in languages other than English is an essential part of the College’s goal of fostering engaged, global citizenship, both abroad and in the U.S. At Mount Holyoke, language learners become educated speakers of languages other than English with deep translingual and transcultural competence, so that they can understand and participate in our interconnected world and compete in the ever-changing global job market. As part of its Living Learning Communities initiative, the College offers students the opportunity to live in a community of students that promotes a supportive and congenial environment of language immersion for its residents. The languages for the 2023-24 academic year Living Learning Communities are Chinese (Mandarin), Italian, German, and French.
Domestic Study Away
Mount Holyoke offers its own Mount Holyoke Semester in D.C. program for eligible students who wish to spend a semester in Washington D.C. Further information about this program is available below or from the Weissman Center for Leadership.
Other students may apply for academic leave from Mount Holyoke College to pursue up to two semesters (full-time equivalency) of study at any of the College's other approved domestic study away programs listed below or at another accredited U.S. institution as a visiting student. Although federal financial aid may travel with those on approved academic leaves, institutional aid does not. Occasionally programs at other institutions have program-specific aid, but this is not typical and students applying to these programs should plan accordingly. For more information see the Leaves of Absence page in my.mtholyoke or contact Kat Eldred in the Office of Academic Deans at 413-538-2855.
Twelve College Exchange Program
Mount Holyoke College maintains a residential exchange program with Amherst, Bowdoin, Connecticut, Dartmouth, Smith, Trinity, Vassar, Wellesley, Wheaton College, and Wesleyan University. The exchange also includes the Williams/Mystic Program in Maritime Studies and the O’Neill National Theater Institute Program (NTI). For more information, see the 12 College Exchange Program page in my.mtholyoke or contact Kat Eldred in the Office of Academic Deans at 413-538-2855.
Bard New York City Program
Bard NYC provides a unique opportunity for college students and recent college graduates from around the world to take advanced courses while working in carefully selected internships based on individual interest -- all while experiencing life in Manhattan, the island at the center of the world.
Semester in Environmental Science Program
The Semester in Environmental Science (SES) is an intensive, 15-week program that immerses students in rigorous field and laboratory work, lectures, and independent research in environmental and ecosystems sciences at one of the world’s leading marine laboratories. SES is primarily for juniors, and is offered only in the fall semester. For more information about the program contact Thomas Millette, professor of geography.
SEA Semester
Boston University’s accredited study abroad program, SEA Semester® provides an experiential opportunity to gather firsthand knowledge that will influence students’ lifelong relationships with the ocean. Moving beyond the textbook toward practical application, hands-on research, and personal experience, SEA Semester® prepares students to take a more active role in solving today’s environmental problems. Several semester-long options in different regions around the globe are offered. While the academic focus varies, each program offers an interconnected suite of courses designed to explore a specific ocean-related theme using a cross-disciplinary approach.
MHC Semester in D.C.
The MHC Semester in D.C. program combines an intensive internship with rigorous coursework in government, policy, advocacy, and related fields. Juniors and Seniors from all majors are encouraged to apply to spend the Fall semester in the nation’s capital at top-ranked American University in its Washington Semester Program, studying alongside ambitious and diverse students from the United States and beyond. Much of each student's work will center around an internship they arrange requiring three to four days of internship work per week. In addition to that intensive work experience, students enroll in a total of 13 credits, completing: two multidisciplinary seminars (8 credits total) taught by American University faculty and Washington area experts, a 4-credit independent study taught by the Mount Holyoke faculty director for MHC Semester in D.C., and a 1-credit internship course. For details of the application process and deadline, see the program's website. The per-student cost for a semester in this program will be the same as if attending Mount Holyoke College.
MHC Semester in D.C. program participants will be able to use most outside aid, including federal direct student loans, parent loans, Pell grants, some state aid, and outside scholarships. Please note: federal work-study and Mount Holyoke aid will not be applicable. All students who apply to this program will have a 1:1 consultation with the Semester in D.C. consultant from the Student Financial Services specialist to review their aid and financial position for the program.
Intersession
Intersession, sometimes referred to as January Term, is an optional period for undergraduates in January during which they may pursue independent research with a faculty member, apply to take a graduate-level credit-bearing course through Mount Holyoke’s Professional and Graduate Education (PaGE) program, or explore new interests through nonacademic courses and workshops. Many students use this period as an opportunity to travel, participate in an extensive two- to three-week internship off campus, work, take a short-term course for transfer credits, or relax at home.
Housing and meals for Intersession are only available to eligible students who apply in advance to the Office of Residential Life and are approved. Qualification criteria include participating in an approved activity such as undertaking a PaGE course, a Five College course, an independent study with a faculty member, a required athletic commitment, off-campus or on-campus employment, or being an international student. Applications due to hardship are also considered.
Students who completed their degrees at Mount Holyoke at the end of the fall semester, students going on a spring semester leave, or students returning from a fall semester leave are not eligible for Intersession housing or meals.
Independent Study
Mount Holyoke values independent-minded students who seek to develop and pursue a course of study that satisfies a particular intellectual curiosity. Projects may range from independent research in areas as diverse as protein folding, copyright law, rural development, literary analysis, and second language acquisition to original compositions in music, sculpture, and fiction.
All requests to undertake independent study are rigorously assessed and must be approved by the student’s independent study faculty advisor.
A maximum of 16 credits of independent study and honors work may be used toward the 128 credits required for graduation. A maximum total of 8 credits of independent study may be elected in the sophomore and junior years.
Independent work with a practicum component in a professional or volunteer setting, and a substantial academic component supervised by a Mount Holyoke faculty member, may be designated 295P (Practicum) or 395P (Practicum). When the practicum takes place during the summer or January, the bulk of the credit-bearing work will normally take place during the following semester. Practicum designation ordinarily requires consultation with a faculty member prior to commencement of the practicum. Independent work with a practicum component is governed by the same policies as all other independent work.
Courses with practicum components bearing the word Practicum in their title may qualify international students with an F-1 visa for Curricular Practical Training (CPT). Students seeking CPT should contact the McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives.
Honors Thesis
During the senior year, qualified students can elect to write an honors thesis based on research and in-depth study of a particular subject. Ordinarily, students write an honors thesis in their major department. A student may write an honors thesis in another field with the approval of that department and the dean of the College. To qualify to write an honors thesis, a student must have maintained a cumulative average of 3.00 in College work or a 3.00 average in the major field prior to the senior year. The thesis must be approved by the department concerned. Students who write an honors thesis must earn at least 8 credits in independent study (or an alternative course sequence pre-approved by both the department and the Academic Administrative Board) over two semesters.
An honors thesis or project that does not culminate in a recommendation for a degree with honor is recorded on the transcript as independent study.
