Helen Davis ’76

“At Mount Holyoke, everyone wants you to win.” Helen Davis ’76 sensed this from the moment she first visited campus as a prospective student. She made an immediate connection with admissions counselor Candi Cornelius ’69. “I could understand Mount Holyoke, the campus life and academic expectations from Candi’s perspective — an African American perspective,” Helen said.

Helen knew that the next four years would be a major transition from the Catholic boarding school she attended in Connecticut, where she had been the only African American in her class. But after seeing Mount Holyoke’s supportive environment, she realized that the College was a place where all women could excel and be their best selves — and where she could truly shine. She was accepted early-decision.

Over the next four years, Helen grew in confidence while she explored career opportunities in health care. Working as a peer counselor in the student health center, Helen helped others feel safe and comfortable as they navigated care.

“In the ’70s, there wasn’t a lot of information provided to women about their options for their sexual health,” she explained. Helen’s career aspirations — continually guided by the question, “How can I transform someone’s life?”— came into sharper focus when she spent a semester in Washington, D.C., as an intern with the National Association of Community Health Centers.

On campus, Helen found kinship at Mount Holyoke’s Black Cultural Center (later renamed the Betty Shabazz Cultural Center). “The Black House was a place where African American women could study, party … and just be comfortable talking about issues that were unique to them,” she said. The students connected over their shared identity, furthering the sense of belonging and personal security that was important to Helen as an African American student.

Helen credits Mount Holyoke’s close-knit environment with equipping her “to lead, to question and to not be fearful about pushing back.” These qualities served her well in her graduate studies — Helen holds both an MBA and a Master of Public Health degree from Columbia University — and in her career in health care management. “I really felt that whatever I could conceive, even if I didn’t ultimately attain it, I could just go for it,” Helen said. “Mount Holyoke gave me that freedom.”

Helen’s subsequent work shaping public health interventions would have a far-reaching impact. Long before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, she promoted telehealth and opened avenues to accessible care that many Americans came to rely upon during that time.

Now semi-retired, Helen continues to advocate for patients as a board member for the TREO Foundation; she was the surgeons’ organization’s first non-medical director. She also finds joy in volunteering with a national pet therapy nonprofit that provides connection, comfort and non-traditional healing to a wide range of people.

Knowing firsthand how access to both health care and higher education can change one’s life, Helen saw her fiftieth Reunion from Mount Holyoke as the perfect time to make a provision in her estate plan to create a scholarship at her alma mater. She is excited that the Helen L. Davis Fund will one day give students like her the chance to flourish.

“Mount Holyoke did so much for me,” said Helen. “I don’t want finances to be a barrier for the next generation. Who knows what kinds of innovations they can produce, given the opportunity?”