By Rehat Thussu ’23 & Soleil Doering ’24
Staff Writers
The Mount Holyoke Board of Trustees met virtually between Oct. 8 and Oct. 10 to discuss the College’s endowment, enrollment and non-discrimination policy.
On Oct. 28, the College released an update via email from Chair of Trustees Karena Strella ’90 about the Board’s recent virtual meeting. According to the update, “a Mount Holyoke graduate and trustee and her family have committed a $10 million lead gift for the College’s upcoming financial aid fundraising initiative.” This donation is the largest gift in support of financial aid that Mount Holyoke has ever received. The update expressed gratitude for this “extraordinary generosity, which ensures that now more than ever students have access to the distinctive, 21st-century liberal arts education offered at Mount Holyoke, and, in turn, give rise to a better world for all.”
According to the endowment report’s statistics, the endowment generated an investment return of 3.3 percent in FY20, despite the difficulties posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
As previously reported by the Mount Holyoke News, the College lost upwards of $7.6 million in the early months of the pandemic and expected the endowment to garner “less revenue than anticipated” for the FY21 operating budget. Still, this most recent report places the College’s endowment — estimated to be $789 million as of June 2020 — in the top 15th percentile of nearly 400 peer institutions. The endowment, along with tuition and fees and gifts and grants for operating purposes, is one of Mount Holyoke’s main sources of revenue. It funds various expenses, such as research, experiments, faculty positions, libraries and financial aid.
According to the report, the Board voted to increase the draw from the endowment in FY20-21 “to help close the budget gap” caused by the impact of COVID-19. A detailed budget update from the Finance and Investment Committees “noted that COVID-19 will have a long-lasting impact on the financial picture for the College” continuing at least through FY24.
Many U.S. colleges’ and universities’ enrollment rates have declined this year due to the ongoing pandemic. Mount Holyoke was not spared from this reality, and the College saw a slight decrease in first-year fall enrollment from the class of 2024. However, Mount Holyoke experienced a marked 30 percent increase in inquiries from prospective students. According to Vice President of Enrollment Management Robin Randall, this growing interest directly correlates to new virtual enrollment and recruitment strategies.
“We are reaching more students as a result of putting our programs online and having them accessible in that format,” Randall said. “Putting it online meant we didn’t have to have that regional limitation. The virtual nature of our work takes down those borders.”
Dean of Admission Leykia Nulan explained the objectives of the updated student recruitment strategies. “Our goal is to not only produce opportunities for the students who know about us but to also generate opportunities for students who haven’t heard about us yet,” Nulan said. “So [we are] thinking critically about how we can be robust in the ways that we are conducting our outreach.”
“It is easy to forget that the work we’re doing in enrollment will impact what you see on campus in years to come,” Nulan said. “We’re often thinking about tangibly how what we’re able to bring home [to Mount Holyoke] translates into your experience in the classroom and outside of the classroom.”
During their October meeting, the Board also held an extended session to discuss “proposals for new Board committee configurations,” according to the College’s update. Ultimately, they voted on “a two-year pilot of a model that coordinates the Board’s deliberations around the three distinct experiences of Mount Holyoke constituents: before Mount Holyoke, maximizing interest in and the reputation and reach of the College; during Mount Holyoke, with a focus on enhancing the College experience; and after Mount Holyoke, maximizing connectivity to the College.” The Board anticipates that the new structure will be in place by spring 2021.
In their formal actions, the Board also approved a Statement of Nondiscrimination. The statement asserted Mount Holyoke’s gender diversity and clarified the College’s commitment to “providing equal access and opportunity in employment and education to all employees and students” in compliance with current state and federal guidelines. It states, “Mount Holyoke College does not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, color, genetic information, sex, national or ethnic origin, religion, age, physical or mental disability, marital status, sexual orientation, pregnancy, gender identity or expression, ancestry, veteran or military status, or any other legally protected status under federal, state or local law.”
Though the update reads that the Board “will more fully engage faculty and students as a result of the changes,” at this time, the Board has not elaborated on how they will do so.
The Board will reconvene in early 2021 for their annual spring meeting.