As of late, the Save Our Departments movement, a student group of the same name advocating for the preservation of the Mount Holyoke arts, languages and social sciences departments, has garnered attention across campus. As the College merges departments and cuts programs, some students are increasingly worried about what budget cuts will mean for their areas of study. As a prospective history major, I have a lot to lose from potential budget cuts and the downsizing of departments.
Four years ago, a group of Mount Holyoke students organized a campaign aptly titled “Mount Holyoke Doesn’t Teach Me.” As archived by the Daily Hampshire Gazette in 2018, students at the time organized this campaign to address the lack of inclusion in our curriculum. The Gazette quoted several anonymous students who pointed out that Mount Holyoke fails to teach its students “that South Asian poets and authors are significant;” about “non-Western art history;” “about [their] culture without the colonizer’s perspective;” and about the “history of Muslim countries in an unbiased way.”
