About the Weissman Center

At Mount Holyoke College, our students are bursting with idealism and a passionate desire to make a difference. The Weissman Center for Leadership and the Liberal Arts supports students who aspire to become inspiring and effective agents of change in their chosen professions and communities.

Located in Porter Hall, the Weissman Center and its affiliated partners, the Speaking, Arguing, and Writing (SAW) Program and the Community-Based Learning (CBL) Program, provide substantial resources to students as they become effective agents of change in their chosen professions and communities.  The center collaborates with faculty, students, alumnae, student organizations, and College offices to engage students critically with important issues; to foster their commitment to public and civic life; to build their abilities to analyze, argue, and promote their views; and to intensify the ways in which women will  take action and create positive change in the world.

The Weissman Center was established in 1999 through a $4 million gift from Harriet Levine Weissman ’58 and her husband, Paul M. Weissman.  The College’s Center for Leadership and Public Interest Advocacy merged at that time with the Speaking, Arguing, and Writing Program and became the Harriet L. and Paul M. Weissman Center for Leadership and the Liberal Arts.

In the spring of 2009, we celebrated the tenth anniversary of the center and its demonstrated commitments to student leadership and excellence.