In
1937 Mount Holyoke selected its Roswell Gray
Ham as the College’s first male president.
Ham and his successor, Richard Glenn Gettell,
guided
Mount Holyoke through the turmoil of World
War II, attacks on academic freedom in the
1950s and the
social and political upheavals of the 1960s.
During this period enrollment increased greatly
and changes
in the curriculum and the abolition of the
chapel requirement gave students more flexibility.
More
than 15 buildings were constructed including
five dormitories, a religious center, two laboratories
and a new theater.