Campus mask mandate extended without end date due to high transmission
Dining options restricted at the start of semester
“There is no eating anywhere in Blanchard Hall or the Great Room until further notice,” Marcella Runell Hall, dean of students, wrote in an email sent out on Jan. 21.
Other dining hall updates listed in the email took effect on Jan. 18. Students with Accessibility accommodations will be allowed to sit in the dining hall, while all other students are required to eat in dorms or outside until further notice. Mount Holyoke employees are also not allowed dining hall access until further notice. The meal plan will remain the same and commuter students may purchase meal swipes on the dining hall website.
Mount Holyoke commits to land acknowledgment, repatriation
Content warning: this article discusses anti-Indigenous violence.
Beginning this semester, a land acknowledgment recognizing the Indigenous nations which once occupied the land currently owned by Mount Holyoke College must be given before every public event at Mount Holyoke. As the College takes steps to repair its relationship to Indigenous communities both on and off campus, the institution’s history of anti-Indigenous acts has resurfaced. Earlier this month, the College repatriated Indigenous remains that had previously been in their possession. As the College reckons with this and other past violences this National Indigenous Heritage Month, some members of the Mount Holyoke community are calling for further action and accountability.
President Stephens announces new ‘climate action commitments’
In an email shared with the Mount Holyoke community on Oct. 18, President Sonya Stephens announced several plans to increase progress towards the College’s sustainability goals. The letter featured updates to the goals previously outlined in the College’s Sustainability Task Report in 2018, while also introducing new commitments. Stephens discussed the College’s plan to “eliminate holdings in fossil fuel investment funds” in the next 10 years, a commitment that was announced by the Board of Trustees in March, adding that no new investments in fossil fuels have been made since 2017.