Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Campus Center

Mount Holyoke is a gender diverse women’s college – our Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Center builds upon the longstanding activism of our students through intentional praxes of narrative change. We engage in truth telling, address erasures and build upon a legacy rooted in collective care as we seek to cultivate racial healing on our campus, within our broader community and beyond.

This work is carried out collaboratively through campus partnership between the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Intergroup Dialogue (IGD) Center and Community-Based Learning (CBL). The DEI Office is the coordinating member of this partnership and works to embed the values of truth, racial healing and transformation through various programming, policies, committees and community efforts. The IGD Center provides curricular, co-curricular and professional development opportunities for the campus community to engage in Intergroup Dialogue. Community-Based Learning pairs MHC students, faculty and staff with local leaders in South Hadley and beyond to collaborate on internships, research and service projects that have a direct, positive impact in our communities.

Alongside our campus partners, this work would not be possible without our community partners – The Odyssey Bookshop, Gorse Children’s Center, the Yiddish Book Center, South Hadley Aging Council, Enlace de Familias – House of Colors, The Joseph and Evelyn Lowery Institute for Justice & Human Rights, Spelman College, Morehouse College, Clark Atlanta University, Sewanee: The University Of The South and many others.

Our TRHT work draws upon collective wisdom and various ways of knowing to dismantle racial hierarchies. Through programming that uplifts storytelling and creates space for deep listening and institutional truth telling, we seek to build a more just and inclusive community where every member of the MHC community feels respected and valued.

THE TRHT MOVEMENT

In 2022, Mount Holyoke College was designated a Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Center and joined in the growing network of hundreds of universities and organizations across the country seeking to dismantle the false belief in a hierarchy of human value based on race.

The Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation movement was envisioned and brought to life by Dr. Gail Christopher while she served as Senior Advisory and Vice President of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The TRHT movement is shaped by more than 40 international truth and reconciliation commissions and their reports on human rights violations, national conflicts and civil wars. In 2016, Dr. Christopher brought together more than 150 members across sectors to develop the TRHT framework which today exists as a nuanced and expansive community-based process to meaningfully engage in challenging conversations especially around race and, in turn, community transformation.

Mount Holyoke is proud to be part of the American Association of Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) TRHT Campus Center network. The initial cohort was launched in 2017 and has since grown to more than 70 campus centers nationwide. Mount Holyoke partners with TRHT Campus Centers to mark the National Day of Racial Healing each year and continually seeks new opportunities to grow this transformational work with local community partners.

TRHT FRAMEWORK

The TRHT Framework that guides our work at Mount Holyoke has two major areas - (1) narrative change (truth-telling) and (2) racial healing (trust & relationship building). Through these two pathways, alongside local partners, we work to foster a stronger community. This work can manifest in a variety of ways, with three foundational elements anchoring the framework: Separation, Law and Economy.

Our TRHT goals

Goal one:

We will build Restorative Justice and racial healing circle process capacity and work toward healing, repairing and restoring relationships to provide models of accountability, care and compassion within our community. We will engage the surrounding communities of Holyoke, South Hadley and Springfield.

Goal two:

Actualize the promise and commitments around the launch of our Intergroup Dialogue Center and ensure its offerings are immersed throughout the campus community.

Goal three:

Archiving, truth telling, knowledge and capacity development of Mount Holyoke’s past and current commitments in response to student demands and accountability to BIPOC community members, especially students.

Actualizing TRHT @ MHC

Over the past few years Mount Holyoke has launched various programs, initiatives, committees and experiences which help to broaden the opportunities for greater narratives in our community and the dismantling of racial hierarchies. Below is a brief overview of signature offerings that have taken place and continue to be hosted at the College.

National Day of Racial Healing

Every year we participate in the National Day of Racial Healing. This annual event amplifies the voices of communities of marginalized and underrepresented individuals.

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President Holley poses with Judy Richardson and book "Hands on the Freedom Plow", 2025.

Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King Series on Racial Justice and Reconciliation

This annual series intentionally honors the distinctive legacies of racial justice activists Coretta Scott King and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. through speakers, hands-on experiences, teach-ins and more to thoughtfully educate, encourage and uplift individuals who are actively cultivating racial healing and building community solidarity.

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Mount Holyoke and Oydssey Bookstore staff at a Banned Books pop up tabling event, 2025.

Banned Books Week

For the past four years the College has been honored to take part in the Zinn Education Project's Teach Truth Day of Action and the National Banned Books Week, to reclaim the importance of freedom of expression and the right to seek and express ideas.

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Campus Programming, Policies and Working Groups

The offerings outlined above are examples of a variety of programming hosted throughout the year to engage students, faculty, staff and alums in this work. Our commitment to advance TRHT can be seen in other campus-wide opportunities like Indigenous People’s Day Teach-In, Fighting for Our Freedom Dreams, Teach Truth Day of Action, Teach-Ins on Fighting Antiseminism and Fighting Islamophobia, Intergroup Dialogue Symposium: Learning from the Past and Mapping Its Future and Restorative Justice Retreat (collaboration with Student Government Association and President’s Office), Newton M.A. Indigenous People’s Day Ceremonial Celebration, Tantaquidgeon Museum (Mohegan Tribe), Yiddish Book Center Tour and much more.

Professional development opportunities to bolster our communities capacity can also be found throughout the year. Our annual Intergroup Dialogue Faculty & Staff 2-Day Workshop, is a great example. Employees at the college are able to learn more about intergroup dialogue in a modified format, to explore their understanding, relationship and experiences across a range of social identities. In previous years, we have hosted a weeklong excursion for faculty and staff through the Evelyn Gibson Lowery Civil Rights Heritage Tour 2.0 which allowed participants to explore the history of voting rights activism, the legacy of its leaders and contemporary voting rights efforts from Atlanta, Georgia to Montgomery, Alabama.

To advance this work, sustainable approaches have been created through working groups, committees and policies. For example, the History, Legacy and Memory Task Force charged with uncovering past histories with regard to race, racism, xenophobia and other forms of bias. Other groups include Trails as Living Land Acknowledgement Committee and Affirming Practices for Trans and Gender Non-Confirming People (TGNC) Working Group. The Land Acknowledgement Policy reinforces our communities commitment to further education around the history of the land on which the College is situated and affirm the human dignity of Indigenous peoples both here and around the world. Since August 2020 our Anti-Racism Action Plan has bolstered our commitment to becoming an anti-racist community through a revisitation of policies, practices and dynamic programming.

The work around TRHT at Mount Holyoke is an evolutionary process which is revisited annually to ensure alignment with contemporary issues and community needs to further racial healing and narrative change.

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Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

The Office of Diversity, Equity and inclusion stewards efforts focused on understanding our community's multiple identities through the lens of social justice education, ally development, and identity development.

Paola A. Gallego Marin

Assistant to the Vice President for Equity and Inclusion