In November 2016, students designed and proposed two identity based floors, the first ones on campus: the Shirley Chisholm LLC and the Mosaic LLC. They were approved as a new community in January 2017 and students began living in these communites in fall 2017.
The Shirley Chisholm LLC is named after Shirley Chisholm, a former professor of politics and sociology at Mount Holyoke and the first African American woman elected to the U.S. Congress. It is a community designed to support students who are of African descent, identify within the African diaspora and/or wish to foster connections between different cultures within the diaspora. The community residents are committed to developing a safe, supportive, and celebratory environment that is sensitive to the complexities of being a student of African descent at a predominantly white institution.
Mosaic LLC is “a community that is designed to support students who self-identify as people of color and express a commitment to creating an inclusive and socially just community that allows residents to learn, listen and share the many identities they embody.”
