page_title: Mount Holyoke College
section_title: Campus
hierarchical_section_title: Mount Holyoke College / Campus
caption_attribution_description: English: John Payson Williston Observatory, exterior, ca. 1945-1955, South Hadley, MA
context_page_description: Mount Holyoke College is a private liberal arts women's college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Founded in 1837, it is the oldest institution within the Seven Sisters schools, an alliance of East Coast liberal arts colleges that was originally created to provide women with education equivalent to that provided in the then men-only Ivy League. Mount Holyoke is part of the region's Five College Consortium, along with Amherst College, Smith College, Hampshire College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
context_section_description: The 800-acre (3.2 km²) campus was designed and landscaped between 1896 and 1922 by the landscape architecture firm of Olmsted and Sons. The campus includes a botanic garden, two lakes, several waterfalls, tennis courts, stables and woodland riding trails. It is also home to the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum which is part of the Five College Museums/Historic Deerfield and the Museums10. An independent bookstore, The Odyssey Bookshop, is located directly across from the campus in the college-owned Village Commons. Mount Holyoke has instituted “The Big Turn Off” energy conservation campaign. It also focuses on "green" building with five LEED certified buildings on campus. It has reduced its environmental impact by recycling 40% of waste and composting as well as using produce grown in the student-run organic garden in dining halls.
  The Seminary Building (1837) contained classrooms, parlors and rooms for students and faculty, the original library, and a periodical reading room. A south wing was added in 1841, a north wing in 1853, a gymnasium and laundry in 1865. All were destroyed by fire in 1896. Upon the burning of the college building in September 1896, Treasurer Williston announced the pressing need for a new chapel building, a new gymnasium, and a series of cottage dormitories in the modern style. This style of separated buildings allowed for a flexibility of fundraising that was attractive to the Trustees, while still providing the students with the resources and accommodations they needed. In 1897, Mary Lyon Hall and Mary Lyon Chapel were built, as well as dormitories Brigham, Safford, Porter, and Pearsons. Blanchard Gymnasium was completed in 1899.
  John Payson Williston Observatory (1881) was given in memory of the Willistons' eldest son and built to be ready for the rare transit of Venus in 1882. It is the oldest academic building on campus.
  The school's iconic entrance, the Fidelia Nash Field gate, was dedicated in 1912. It was a gift of its namesake's children Helen Field James and Joseph Nash Field. Their brother Marshall Field had died in 1906.
  The home of Benjamin Ruggles Woodbridge, known as "The Sycamores", served as a dormitory for the college from 1915 to 1970. The mansion, built in 1788 by Colonel Woodbridge, is on the National Register of Historic Places.
  Mount Holyoke is also close to the cities of Amherst and Northampton as well as to two malls: Hampshire Mall and Holyoke Mall. The Mount Holyoke Range State Park is also close to the campus. The college is named after the westernmost mountain of the range Mount Holyoke which was named by colonial surveyors in the 1600s.
  Mount Holyoke is consistently named on "Most Beautiful College Campuses" lists, including The Huffington Post, The Princeton Review, and Architectural Digest. Its buildings were designed between 1896 and 1960. It has a Donald Ross-designed 18-hole golf course, The Orchards, which hosted the U.S. Women's Open in 2004.
caption: John Payson Williston Observatory, Mount Holyoke College, ca. 1945–1955
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