President Creighton's Biography

Joanne V. Creighton is an outspoken champion of the American liberal arts tradition who believes that such an education is “at its best, revolutionary. It transforms students; it awakens them to a fuller life of the mind.”

A teacher, literary scholar, and experienced academic administrator known for her expertise in strategic planning and implementation, Ms. Creighton assumed the presidency of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts on January 1, 1996.

During her first eighteen months as president, Ms. Creighton led a comprehensive and highly consultative planning process that culminated in unanimous faculty and Board of Trustees endorsements of The Plan for Mount Holyoke 2003. All of the major benchmarks and goals of the Plan were met or exceeded: applications for admissions to the College broke records for four consecutive years; fund-raising exceeded the campaign's $250 million goal, and major building and renovation on campus--including a state-of-the-art new science complex--was completed. Following the success of The Plan for Mount Holyoke 2003, the College completed a second round of strategic planning under Ms. Creighton's leadership, culminating in The Plan for Mount Holyoke 2010. The new Plan reaffirms Mount Holyoke's mission: educating a diverse, residential community of women at the highest level of academic excellence and fostering the alliance of liberal arts education with purposeful engagement in the world. In service of that mission, the Plan has commissioned further enterprises, including the creation of the McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives, a new 185-bed residence hall, and increased support for faculty and students, that will build on the excellence that has earned Mount Holyoke its long-standing reputation as one of the finest liberal arts colleges in the nation.  

In 2003 Ms. Creighton co-founded Women’s Education Worldwide, an organization bringing together the presidents and chief academic officers of women’s colleges and universities from around the world and other leaders in women’s education.  Ms. Creighton is the past chair of the Women’s College Coalition and of Five Colleges, Incorporated.  She currently serves on both boards as well as that of NOVA Chemicals Corporation.

Prior to coming to Mount Holyoke, Ms. Creighton served at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut as vice president for academic affairs and provost and professor of English from 1990-1994, and as Wesleyan's interim president from 1994 to 1995. Ms. Creighton is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Wisconsin at Madison and holds a master of arts in teaching from Harvard University and a doctoral degree in English The author of four books, Ms. Creighton has concentrated much of her scholarly work and teaching on the authors William Faulkner, Margaret Drabble, and Joyce Carol Oates. Her books are William Faulkner's Craft of Revision (1977), Joyce Carol Oates (1979), Margaret Drabble (1985), and Joyce Carol Oates: Novels of the Middle Years (1992). The author of numerous scholarly articles and reviews, she is a frequent commentator on contemporary literature and issues affecting higher education.