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Date: 5/18/2022
HOLYOKE – In a celebration of 75 years of Holyoke Community College (HCC), day-long festivities were put on May 5 to celebrate and concluded with a community reception at the HCC MGM Culinary Arts Institute.
The milestone achievement for the first community college established in Massachusetts started the celebrations with special programming from the college radio station, continued through the day with student presentations, program tours, exhibitions, open houses, demonstrations, alumni panels, food, music, dancing and culminated with a community reception. Twenty-twenty-one marked the actual 75th anniversary but due to COVID-19 concerns a year ago, the celebration was put off until this year.
At the HCC MGM Culinary Arts Institute on Race Street where the celebrations concluded, the public was given food prepared by HCC Culinary Arts students and chefs from MGM Springfield, live music from HCC music students and faculty and brief remarks from current students and HCC alumni.
HCC was founded in September 1946 as Holyoke Graduate School, later changing its name to Holyoke Junior College and finally Holyoke Community College.
“Our 75th anniversary enables us to celebrate our remarkable past and provides us an opportunity to define our bright future,” said HCC President Christina Royal in a press release. “HCC was built and rebuilt by innovative and resilient individuals, who we are proud to honor as part of our history. That history has laid the foundation for who we are today, and it inspires us to advance excellence, increase equity and foster innovation for years to come. Our celebration is for our community – past and present – and for the future of HCC.”
Holyoke City Councilors David Bartley, the son of HCC’s second president David Bartley, and Will Puello presented Royal with an official resolution from the Holyoke City Council. The resolution read: “Congratulations to Holyoke Community College, in recognition of their 75th Anniversary educating thousands and stands today as a pioneer of higher education.”
Several HCC alumni and students were also invited to take turns in speaking about their experiences at HCC during the celebration event. Matthew McMahon, a cybersecurity analyst from the class of 2006 talked about the importance of HCC’s interdisciplinary learning community classes in his education and career trajectory.
“HCC gave me the tools to implement lifelong learning and a growth mindset,” he said. “The learning communities taught me that I can approach complex topics from different perspectives … I’ve taken classes at six different colleges. I’ve got several degrees. I’ve never seen anything that really compares to HCC.”
Yannelis Cruz, a biology major, STEM scholar and student trustee from Springfield says she came from a family where, as a woman, she was not expected to go to college.
“HCC gave me hope for me and my family so that in the future I can make an impact. HCC allowed me to become a leader,” Cruz said.
Harry Hill graduated from HCC in 2013 with his degree in graphic design and now works as a graphic designer in the college’s Marketing Department.
“I want the world to know that HCC is as liberating as you make it. Today’s themes and that of the past 75 years are academic excellence, innovation and opportunity, themes that HCC has embodied completely,” Hill said. “Without these foundational ideas, HCC would be just another institution where performative measures outweigh impactful actions.”
Vice President of Institutional Advancement Amanda Sbriscia said the celebration was really a great time and was a culminating celebration of the school’s history.
“It really felt so celebratory, and you can really feel the energy in the room of our community feeling, both excitement around the fact that we were gathering in person having not been able to do that in a long time as well as new faces who came to experience the event,” Sbriscia says. “It was the icing on the cake of our daylong celebration of different events happening on campus.”
HCC has a well-known and important role within the Holyoke and greater Western Massachusetts community and Sbriscia said the 75th celebration was an opportunity to celebrate the very best of HCC and to honor those who have enabled them to be where they are today.
“Where we have been throughout our history is really being an innovative and resilient institution,” Sbriscia said. “We’ve always met students where they are and created the conditions for them to succeed.”
Sbriscia said when HCC was first founded in 1946, a big reason behind it was to provide education through the GI Bill to those returning from World War II and has continued to grow in its educational foundation since then. She noted this was the origin of HCC, providing opportunity and helping students find a way to succeed and thrive.
At the time when HCC first opened, classes were offered at the former Holyoke High School building. These were evening classes and had 85 students in total who were by in large soldiers returning from war looking for an education. Sbriscia added that another thing that has been consistent throughout HCC’s history is their faculty and academic rigor remaining at a high level of academic excellence.
Sbriscia said the themes of HCC’s 75-year history feels a lot like what their vision statement is today.
“That vision is to be a college of academic excellence known for helping students overcome barriers to success,” Sbriscia said. “There’s two distinct things there, the academic excellence and helping students overcome barriers. Regardless of what that looked like 75 years ago, it’s something we did then and that we’ve continued to do since that moment. We have always been a place where students can come and know they are getting an exceptional education.”
She added that while barriers have changed many times over the years, HCC has always been there making it a focus of the school to strive to help students overcome these barriers to put them on as solid a footing so they can to achieve their success. Sbriscia said barriers in recent years have included providing mental health support, a food pantry or emergency funding.
“Those two core tenants of academic excellence and overcoming barriers I think is what HCC has always been about,” Sbriscia said.
“A lot has changed in 75 years, but what hasn’t changed is our core and central purpose,” said Royal at the community reception.