Nancy Skinner Nordhoff ’54

Mount Holyoke College: Service, impact and legacy

Nancy Skinner Nordhoff ’54 shaped Mount Holyoke College for more than six decades through sustained volunteer leadership, transformative philanthropy and an unwavering belief in women’s education as a catalyst for social change. Her influence is visible in the lives of students, the strength of the College’s academic and co-curricular programs and Mount Holyoke’s leadership in access, equity and environmental justice.

Commitment to access and students

At the heart of Nordhoff’s legacy is her deep commitment to student access and opportunity. Through the Nancy Skinner Nordhoff Scholars Endowment, she ensured that Mount Holyoke could enroll exceptionally talented students regardless of financial circumstance. Each year, cohorts of Nordhoff Scholars are selected not only for academic excellence, but for leadership potential, social commitment and diverse lived experience. For many recipients, her support made the difference between imagining a Mount Holyoke education and being able to claim it, and enabled full participation in the defining experiences of a Mount Holyoke education, including research, internships, global study and leadership development.

Across decades of student letters and stewardship reports, a consistent truth emerges: Nancy’s generosity changed lives. Students credit her support with giving them the confidence, freedom and opportunity to pursue ambitious paths in science, public health, sustainability, technology, education, advocacy and the arts, and many express a lasting commitment to pay that generosity forward.

Leadership in sustainability and climate justice

Nordhoff’s vision and generosity were central to Mount Holyoke’s emergence as a national leader in environmental education and feminist climate justice. She was a foundational supporter of the Miller Worley Center for the Environment, strengthening hands-on learning, interdisciplinary environmental literacy and ambitious sustainability goals, including progress toward carbon neutrality. Her philanthropy has supported internships, research projects, fellowships, conferences and signature initiatives that have launched student careers and positioned Mount Holyoke at the forefront of campus sustainability and climate justice.

Advancing equity and institutional courage

Consistent with the values that later defined her founding of Hedgebrook, Nordhoff provided early seed funding for what has become Mount Holyoke’s DEI infrastructure, recognizing the need for dedicated institutional capacity to advance equity, inclusion and belonging. This early investment helped position the College to act with intention and accountability at a moment when such commitments were far from universal.

Decades of volunteer leadership

Nordhoff’s service to Mount Holyoke was as sustained as her giving. Over the course of her lifetime, she held leadership roles across the Alum Association and College governance, including President of the Class of 1954; chair and member of multiple nominating, reunion and fundraising committees; service on the Alum Association Board of Directors; and leadership of national and regional major gifts efforts. Her stewardship reflected a lifelong sense of responsibility to the institution and to future generations of students.

A personal reflection: an “Uncommon Woman”

Nancy Skinner Nordhoff embodied what Mount Holyoke has long meant by an uncommon woman. She did not seek ease, approval or recognition. She sought meaning. Her life reflected a rare combination of independence and responsibility, an insistence on thinking for herself paired with a deep sense of obligation to others.

Formed in an era when women’s voices were routinely narrowed or dismissed, Nancy absorbed at Mount Holyoke the radical idea that women could claim the whole field of possibility. That belief never left her. It surfaced in her trust in students, her insistence on access and equity, her early and courageous investments in environmental justice and diversity and her conviction that institutions must live their values, not merely state them.

Nancy believed in people before it was comfortable to do so. She believed in students who could not yet imagine their own futures. She believed in ideas before they were proven. She believed that asking, clearly, honestly and bravely, was itself an act of leadership. And she believed that generosity carried responsibility: to be thoughtful, to be bold and to leave things stronger than she found them.

Those who worked with her remember her not just for what she gave, but for how she gave directly, without pretense, and with profound trust. She expected seriousness of purpose and met it with loyalty and care. She reminded others to “believe in the work,” because she believed — deeply — in Mount Holyoke, in women and in the power of education to change lives.

Enduring legacy

Nancy Skinner Nordhoff’s impact on Mount Holyoke College is profound and lasting. She strengthened access to education, invested in programs addressing the most urgent challenges of our time and helped build institutional capacity for equity and inclusion. Her legacy lives on in the students whose lives she changed, the programs she helped build and a College that continues to draw strength from her courage, conviction and generosity.