On September 21, 2023, Danielle R. Holley was celebrated as the twentieth president of Mount Holyoke College. A noted legal scholar and educator, she is widely recognized for her broad intellectual interests and curiosity, as well as for her rigorous advancement of racial and social justice.
Thank you for celebrating this momentous occasion and welcoming her into our dynamic community.
For more information and questions please email inauguration@mtholyoke.edu.
Processional
Order of the Academic Procession
Call to Order and Land Acknowledgment
Invocation
Welcome
Remarks
Musical Greeting
Greetings
Video Greetings
Video Presentation
Greetings
Presentation of the Symbols of Office and Investiture of the President
Inaugural Address
“Lift Every Voice and Sing”
Closing
“Alma Mater”
Recessional
Hymn & Poem: James Weldon Johnson
Lift every voice and sing,
'Til earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list'ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on 'til victory is won.
Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
'Til now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.
Music: Gladys Pratt, Class of 1914
Text: Gertrude Brady Murphy, Class of 1914
Oh Mount Holyoke we pay thee devotion,
In the fervor of youth that is strong,
The courage of right is thy garland,
Our lives, Alma Mater, thy song.
So from east and from west now we gather,
And united in firm love to thee,
All years are as one, and their loyal pledge,
Mount Holyoke forever shall be,
Mount Holyoke forever shall be.
Through the heart of a new day’s endeavor,
Breathes the life of the old days that live,
For what thou hast given we honor,
But we love thee for what we can give.
So when soft in a whisper thou callest,
For the treasures unlocked by thy key,
Our achievements, our hopes and our glorious faith
Shall answer, Mount Holyoke, to thee,
Shall answer, Mount Holyoke, to thee.
