Students, staff and community members gathered outside of College Hall at Smith College in Northampton. Flowers were laid out across the entryway at the front of the campus. Large camping tents were pitched just behind the gates. A banner reading “DIVEST FROM WAR INVEST IN PEACE” hung from a window of College Hall. Students inside peered out from the windows. 

The Mount Holyoke College Board of Trustee’s decision to significantly raise its cost of attendance for the 2023-2024 school year has inspired renewed conversations about how financial aid is calculated at the institution. Mount Holyoke News reached out to current students, staff members, parents and former students who transferred to other institutions, citing financial struggles as a significant factor in their decision to continue their studies elsewhere, to learn more about financial aid processes at Mount Holyoke College. Mount Holyoke News also spoke with several individuals who have interacted with Student Financial Services to understand better how the office responds to federal financial aid policies, which factors determine how much aid a student receives, and how the appeals process operates.

The discovery of anti-Black vandalism in a Mount Holyoke College residence hall at the beginning of the November Break period has prompted an investigation by the College. Around midnight on Nov. 22, residents on the third floor of Pearsons Hall found a racist message scrawled across a community bulletin board. The hate message reading “no [N-word]s” expressed that Black students are not welcome at Mount Holyoke.

Since the Israeli state declared war on Hamas militants in October, universities around the world have seen their fair share of student-led organizing in support of Palestine.

Mount Holyoke College is now one of these institutions after a chapter of the international movement Students for Justice in Palestine began meeting early in November. The group led a rally, march, vigil and sit-in for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, Nov. 9, with several students occupying Mary Lyon Hall overnight.

On Saturday, June 24, a large crowd of custodians and their supporters gathered in Cambridge’s Galaxy Park to advocate for a strong union contract on behalf of the Service Employees International Union’s 32BJ chapter. The ensuing march served as the kick-off event for SEIU’s ongoing campaign to negotiate a better contract for 32BJ janitors before the current one expires on November 15.

Nine months after successfully unionizing at a store location in Hadley, Massachusetts, the Trader Joe’s United independent labor union has continued to advocate for workers’ rights. Since becoming the first Trader Joe’s location to have a formally recognized union following a 45-31 employee vote last July, the Hadley store and its workers have served as key players in the ongoing effort to negotiate a national contract between Trader Joe’s and the workers at its over 500 locations.

Residential advisors and fellows gathered in Chapin Auditorium alongside other community members on the evening of Nov. 9 to determine the future of the Mount Holyoke Collective and their union status on campus. Officials from the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1459 chapter read aloud the individual votes to the hushed room. The silence was broken by applause when it was announced that the student workers had voted unanimously to formalize their union membership.

Maura Healey made history with her win in the Massachusetts gubernatorial election on Nov. 8., making her Massachusetts’ first woman elected to the position, Associated Press News reported. Along with Governor-elect Tina Kotek of Oregon, Healey will be one of the two first openly lesbian governors in the U.S.

he 2022 midterm elections took place on Nov. 8, 2022. There has been a lot of lead up to this election, with several prominent officials such as President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren (MA-D) claiming that “democracy is on the ballot,” as noted on Al Jazeera and Warren’s Twitter page. Numerous news outlets, including The Hill, predicted that the slim Democratic majority would fall. It is common for the party in power to switch in the midterm elections, but, as the Daily Kos explains, there have always been exceptions.

The Oct. 5 MHC This Week email to the College community included a letter from Interim President Beverly Daniel Tatum which stated that the campuswide mask mandate will end “at the close of business on Oct. 14.”