![United States study-abroad news hero: Statue of Liberty / US Capitol with national flag or map symbolism — Mount Holyoke College is a private women's liberal arts college in South Hadley, Massachusetts, United States.[10] It is the oldest member o](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcontent1.nexstudy.in%2Fnews-heroes%2F2026-07-23%2F71737109f80b4dc9c8f86cd2-96c674.jpg&w=3840&q=75)
Mount Holyoke College is a private women's liberal arts college in South Hadley, Massachusetts, United States.[10] It is the oldest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of historically women’s colleges in the Northeastern United States.[11] The college was founded in 1837 as the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary by Mary Lyon, a pioneer in education for women. Mount Holyoke is part of the Five College Consortium in Western Massachusetts.
Undergraduate admissions are restricted to female, transgender, and nonbinary students.[12] In 2014, it became the first member of the Seven Sisters (not counting the coeducational Vassar College) to introduce an admissions policy that was inclusive of transgender students.[13] Graduate programs are open to applicants regardless of gender.[14]
The college's 800-acre (3.2 km2) campus includes the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, the John Payson Williston Observatory, and a botanic garden. The college awards the Glascock Prize annually.
Mount Holyoke was founded in 1837 by Mary Lyon as "Mount Holyoke Female Seminary".[15] 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.[16] 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 l
Sources:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Holyoke_College
- http://www.mtholyoke.edu
