In a letter sent this week to the community, Creighton writes, “At this moment of escalating technological and economic change, mounting threats against the freedoms of democratic societies, and increasingly stark challenges to the sustainability of the planet, we must make sure that we educate students not only to process information effectively, but to think wisely and well, and to communicate effectively across differences in race, background, and world view.”

An Ad Hoc Committee on the Future of the College will lead the community-wide conversation on how Mount Holyoke can continue its longstanding leadership as a liberal arts institution for women. Chaired by Creighton, the committee consists of two subcommittees--the Educational Priorities Subcommittee and the Administrative Priorities Subcommittee--and includes trustees, students, administrators, faculty members, senior staff, and the president of the Alumnae Association. Stephanie Hull, assistant to the president and secretary of the College, will staff the committee.

Donal O’Shea, dean of faculty, and Beverly Daniel Tatum, dean of the College, will cochair the Educational Priorities Subcommittee. The subcommittee includes five faculty members elected by the faculty: Lois Brown, assistant professor of English; James Coleman, professor of dance; Carolyn Collette, professor of English; Sean Decatur, associate professor of chemistry; and Eleanor Townsley, assistant professor of sociology. Three students will also sit on the subcommittee: Nicole Townsend ’02, president of the SGA; Alyssa Whitbeck ’02; and Shelley Shelby ’02.

Mary Jo Maydew, vice president for finance and administration, and Jane Brown, vice president for enrollment and College relations, are cochairing the Administrative Priorities Subcommittee. This subcommittee includes broad representation from the faculty, students, administration, and senior staff. (A full listing of the membership of the subcommittees is available on the College’s Web site at www.mtholyoke .edu/committees/planning.)

The committee’s first goal is to encourage multiple conversations next semester about the challenges and opportunities facing the College in the first decade of the twenty-first century, in preparation for a more intensive planning period during academic year 2002–2003. Those conversations will be wide open and will seek ideas to build on Mount Holyoke’s strength in all areas. They will take place in a variety of settings, including special forums, focus groups, and within committees, departments, programs, divisions, and other organizations and groups. Both subcommittees will also draw on materials and findings generated by current and recently completed studies and planning initiatives conducted here. The ideas generated in this community discussion will prepare the ground for the development, next academic year, of a comprehensive Plan for Mount Holyoke 2010, a document that will be the heir to the College’s current comprehensive plan.

The College is now in the fifth year of the six-year The Plan for Mount Holyoke 2003. That comprehensive plan, developed with widespread participation from faculty, students, alumnae, and staff, has been highly successful, with the College realizing significant progress in curricular development, admission, fundraising, capital improvements, and institutional visibility. The plan also identified important distinguishing emphases of the College, including leadership, science, technology, the arts, athletics, internationalism, diversity, and the environment. (For a progress report from fall 2000 on The Plan for Mount Holyoke 2003, see www.mtholyoke.edu/ offices/comm/csj/planfor2003/.)

The new plan, Creighton writes, will “build on the gains of The Plan for Mount Holyoke 2003 and continue to focus on our powerful mission, ‘to educate a diverse community of women at the highest level of academic excellence and to foster the alliance of liberal arts education with purposeful engagement in the world’.”

The president’s office is soliciting ideas from the community by email at ideas@mtholyoke.edu or by interoffice mail c/o Planning, the President’s Office. President Creighton has requested that ideas be submitted by January 15, 2002. With the permission of submitters, the president’s office will post ideas on a page dedicated to the new planning process on the College’s Web site at www.mtholyoke.edu/committees/planning.

President Creighton will be on sabbatical for the first six months of 2002. On her return, work will begin on reviewing the ideas and thoughts that come forward next semester and on formulating preliminary priorities for the new plan. “Through a highly consultative, iterative, and collaborative process,” Creighton writes, “we’ll test these ideas in various forums and continue to refine our thinking with the goal of formulating a new plan by, if possible, the fall of 2003.”