Graphic by Betty Smart '26
MHC mascot, Paws the Lion, walks away from a blue circle with the word "NEWMAC" written across in white letters. Paws sports a full mane, dressed in a white athletic uniform with the letters "MHC" across the chest. He is posed confidently, with one arm across his chest and the other swinging as he strides forward, content and proud. To the left of Paws, the "NEWMAC" circle contains the same abstract leaf-like shapes of its logo.
By Emily Tarinelli ’25
Managing Editor of Content
Competitive greatness awaits Mount Holyoke Athletics: far, far away from the New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference.
In May 2024, Mount Holyoke College abruptly cut two of its 11 varsity teams: squash, which was transitioned to a club sport, and tennis, which was eliminated entirely. Previously, Mount Holyoke News reported in its coverage of this decision that the College had been facing pressure from the NEWMAC for almost a decade to take action to increase its competitive standing in the conference. As a result, the College removed tennis and squash from varsity status so that their funds could be reinvested in the remaining programs, a measure which, in theory, would help boost the College’s athletic rankings.
As a student-athlete, I am deeply grateful for new initiatives supporting our coaches and students, such as our recently renovated varsity weight room, highly successful Athletics Day of Giving and hiring of full-time assistant coaches. However, the College’s decision to abruptly cut two of our best performing teams to appease the NEWMAC has left me fearful for what is to become of the athletics program. The elimination of tennis and squash in response to a decade of scrutiny from the NEWMAC has demonstrated that remaining in the NEWMAC is not a sustainable option for Mount Holyoke Athletics.
Mount Holyoke and the NEWMAC: A history
According to the NEWMAC webpage, the NEWMAC began in 1985 as the New England Women’s 6 Conference, or NEW-6, which included Babson College, Brandeis University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Smith College, Wellesley College and Wheaton College. In 1988, Mount Holyoke and WPI joined the league, and the NEW-6 was rebranded as the NEW-8. By 1998, Brandeis had left the league, Clark University had joined and the NEW-8 became the NEWMAC, expanding its competitive offerings to include men’s athletics.
Today, the NEWMAC is a body of 12 selective, academically-rigorous institutions competing within Division III of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. In addition to Mount Holyoke, the roster consists of Babson, Clark, Emerson College, MIT, Salve Regina University, Smith, Springfield College, the United States Coast Guard Academy, Wellesley, Wheaton and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. As stated on the NEWMAC website, the Conference is “committed to academic and athletic excellence strengthened by the diversity of our selective institutional membership.”
As previously reported by Mount Holyoke News, the NEWMAC has pressured Mount Holyoke to take more action to increase its competitive ranking within the Conference since as far back as 2015. According to an email sent to the tennis team from President Danielle R. Holley and obtained by Mount Holyoke News, the NEWMAC had “issued several letters of serious concern and documented conversations with previous presidents and athletics leadership emphasizing the need for immediate and sustained change to maintain the College’s standing in the conference.” It was this mounting pressure that resulted in the discontinuation of the varsity tennis and squash teams so that their funds could be reallocated throughout the rest of the department, as stated in the May 2024 announcement, which claims that the goal of the reinvestments is to “increase competitiveness” within the NEWMAC through the restructuring of the Department of Athletics.
An ever-shrinking athletics program
This reallocation of athletic resources is not the first of its kind, either. As previously reported by Mount Holyoke News, the College eliminated its varsity golf team in 2020 to, in part, “allow the Department of Physical Education and Athletics to reallocate the resources from the program to support the broader-reaching priorities of the departmental strategic plan, enhancing the overall student-athlete experience at Mount Holyoke.” This was announced in a press release on the Mount Holyoke Athletics website by former Director of Athletics Lori Hendricks ’92.
The language behind this decision is strikingly similar to the College’s most recent justification for eliminating the tennis team. A College webpage discussing the changes to the Department of Athletics stated that an internal and external study “outlined the reorganization, reallocation and investments required to support universal success” and that those findings were considered “in the context of the College’s strategic planning process and investments needed to ensure universal success in athletics.”
While the elimination of the golf team did not necessarily correlate with pressure from the NEWMAC to increase Mount Holyoke’s competitive ranking, its discontinuation marked an early instance in the College’s history of cutting varsity programs to invest more in the remaining ones.
To stay or to leave
My question is simple: why do we want to remain in a conference that has spent almost 10 years scrutinizing our athletics program and is a leading cause for shrinking it?
Mount Holyoke’s longstanding association with the Conference makes me doubtful that the College would easily part ways with the NEWMAC. In addition, it is unlikely that Mount Holyoke would leave behind fellow Seven Sisters institutions Smith and Wellesley. Furthermore, leaving the conference may affect the reputation of the college. Staying in the NEWMAC — a body which prides itself on being a collection of selective, academically-rigorous institutions — could be a means of maintaining Mount Holyoke’s reputation as an elite, small liberal arts college that competes in an elite conference. Thus, to leave the NEWMAC would essentially be to “move down” a conference. From a marketing standpoint, this would not be desired.
Nonetheless, if it’s a question of competitive standing — which it is — then the issue of our competitive ranking would be immediately rectified by leaving the NEWMAC and joining a conference with members we could realistically compete against. In terms of our athletic capability, Mount Holyoke is much better positioned to build its success in a conference like the Great Northeast Athletic Conference, or GNAC — a body of 16 private, Division III institutions located all across New England. According to the GNAC web page, the conference is committed to “balancing academic integrity, athletic opportunity and community involvement in an effort to enhance the student-athlete experience,” a mission that I believe is far more aligned with Mount Holyoke than the NEWMAC’s.
What’s more, Mount Holyoke already competes against schools from the GNAC in their regular seasons, including fellow historically women’s college Simmons University and co-ed institutions Elms College and Dean College, among others. If we are already basing a portion of our regular season win-loss statistics off of a consistent number of GNAC schools, it makes sense to consider looking into how to request membership to their conference.
The present is just as important as the future
It seems to me that the College is invested in a future for the athletics program that does not equally prioritize its student-athletes of today. While, again, I am grateful for the new initiatives detailed previously, these initiatives will not necessarily see us — the student-athletes of today — ascend in the NEWMAC by the end of the year. Instead, we have seen the loss of two varsity programs. Those students were the student-athletes of today, too, and the College failed to invest in them.
The bottom line is that the College cannot keep cutting varsity programs to stay in the NEWMAC. This will not sustain a competitive athletics program at Mount Holyoke. Joining a conference that better aligns with our competitiveness would enable the College to further invest in its current student-athletes while simultaneously boosting the College’s competitive ranking.
What the College needs to do now is rebuild its trust with current student-athletes. After the abrupt elimination of the tennis and squash teams and their alleged lack of support in its wake, I can’t help but fear for the survival of my own team, be that in five, 10, 15 years or beyond. Considering that the College has now repeatedly invested in Mount Holyoke Athletics by dismissing its own coaches, student-athletes and programs in order to cling to the NEWMAC, it is difficult to feel any other way.
Which one of our teams is next?
Sofia Ramon ’27 contributed fact-checking.