Alum appointed president of Mount Holyoke

Brown graduate Lynn Pasquerella will be the 18th president of Mount Holyoke College, the school announced on Monday. Pasquerella PhD’85 was selected Oct. 31 in a special meeting of the Mount Holyoke Board of Trustees after a unanimous recommendation from the Trustees’ search committee.

“Lynn represents the ideal of a Mount Holyoke education,” said Leslie Anne Miller, chair of the Board of Trustees, in a Holyoke news release. “She is in the vanguard of a new generation of academic leaders who are taking the helm at a time of great challenge and opportunity for top liberal arts colleges.”

Pasquerella earned her Ph.D. in philosophy from Brown after receiving her bachelor’s degree from Mount Holyoke, a women’s college in South Hadley, Mass., in 1980. Pasquerella is currently the provost of the University of Hartford, where she will remain until she assumes the Mount Holyoke presidency next summer.

University of Hartford President Walter Harrison, in an e-mail to the school community, asked students to “please join me in cheering and crying at the same time as Lynn accepts this important position.”

“She and Mount Holyoke have a very bright future indeed,” he wrote.

Before working at the University of Hartford, Pasquerella taught philosophy at the University of Rhode Island. She later became an associate dean of the graduate school and later served as an interim vice provost.

At her swearing-in ceremony, Pasquerella spoke about “the singular value of women’s education and the challenges of articulating the worth of liberal learning in contemporary society.” This sentiment reflects the general theme of her work and research, much of which relates to ethics and women’s issues.

Pasquerella spoke about her work with the Africa Center for Engineering Social Solutions in Kenya, where she promotes clean water delivery and sustainable agriculture by empowering local women.

She also reflected on the difficulties she faced as the child of a single parent, her reliance on Pell Grants and the support of friends and classmates to succeed at Mount Holyoke.
Pasquerella will take office on July 1.