What to See in South Hadley - Top Sights and Attractions

Museum in South Hadley, Massachusetts. The Mount Holyoke College Art Museum in South Hadley, Massachusetts, is located on the Mount Holyoke College campus and is a member of Museums10. It is one of the oldest teaching museums in the country, dedicated to providing firsthand experience with works of significant aesthetic and cultural value. The works in the museum's collection can be searched on the database maintained by the Five College Museums/Historic Deerfield.

Working in conjunction with the Five College museums, its collection includes contemporary works from Asia, Europe, and the United States, as well as classical Egyptian, Greek, and Roman works. Other periods include medieval and Renaissance art. The collection was inaugurated by the purchase of Albert Bierstadt's Hetch Hetchy Canyon (oil, 1875) by Mrs. A. L. Williston and Mrs. E. H. Sawyer in 1876.

In addition to the permanent collection, the museum offers multiple rotating exhibitions each year.

In March 2016, the museum was named one of the "35 Best College Art Museums" in the nation by Best College Reviews.^[1]

Liberal arts college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Mount Holyoke College is a private liberal arts historically women's college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It is the oldest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of elite historically women's colleges in the Northeastern United States.

The college was founded in 1837 as the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary by Mary Lyon, a pioneer in education for women. A model upon which many other women's colleges were patterned, it is the oldest institution within the Seven Sisters schools, an alliance of East Coast liberal arts colleges that was originally created to provide women with education equivalent to that provided in the then men-only Ivy League. Mount Holyoke is part of the region's Five College Consortium, along with Amherst College, Smith College, Hampshire College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst: through this membership, students are allowed to take courses at any other member institution.

Undergraduate admissions are restricted to female, transgender, and nonbinary students. In 2014, it became the first member of the Seven Sisters to introduce an admissions policy that was inclusive to transgender students. However, all graduate programs are open to applicants regardless of gender. Unlike the open curriculums of the other liberal arts schools in the Five College Consortium, Mount Holyoke undergraduates are required to take at least one class each in the humanities, science or mathematics, social sciences, and foreign language, as well as a physical education requirement.

The college's 800-acre (3.2 km2) campus includes the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, the John Payson Williston Observatory, and a botanic garden, and awards the Glascock Prize annually. Alumni and affiliates include notable poets, authors, feminists, academics, entertainers, scientists, politicians, and civil rights activists, as well as recipients of the Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, Olympic Gold Medal, Rhodes Scholarship, Emmy Award, Golden Globe, and Academy Award.^[2]

The Mount Holyoke College Botanic Garden, in South Hadley, Massachusetts, United States, encompasses the Mount Holyoke College campus, an arboretum, numerous gardens, and the Talcott Greenhouse. It was first designated a botanical garden in 1878, with guidance from Lydia Shattuck, professor of botany. The construction of the Talcott Greenhouse complex, which houses the Botanic Garden's collection of non-hardy plants, began in 1896, after the original greenhouse was destroyed by fire, and was completed in 1899.

The Botanic Garden serves as an outdoor teaching laboratory as well as a place to arrange and display plants on campus. The Talcott Greenhouse maintains a permanent collection in addition to space for research and teaching purposes.^[4]