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College administrators roll out plan for distributing CARES Act funds BY SHANZE HASAN ’21 NEWS STAFF WRITER
On Monday, June 15, a few days after the College announced information regarding the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, students who receive financial aid were notified by Student Financial Services about their eligibility for funding under the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund. The CARES Act is a federal grant that was recently introduced in order to provide relief to individuals as well as businesses in order to combat the negative impacts of the pandemic. According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the $2 trillion coronavirus economic stimulus bill was passed after much negotiation and was implemented on March 27, 2020 by President Donald Trump. According to the U.S. Department of Education, HEERF was established by Congress to provide funding to colleges and universities around the nation. Mount Holyoke was awarded this funding based on the total number of Pell Grant recipients enrolled in the College by a formula devised by the U.S. Department of Education. The College will receive $794,402, which will be directly distributed to students in the form of emergency grants. “At a time when unemployment is skyrocketing, I’m glad us students are being provided with some sort of relief,” Zenia Saqib ’20 said. 2020 graduates who were enrolled through March 27 will also qualify to receive grants. These grants will range from $200 to $1,200 based on the students’ eligibility. In order to qualify for this funding, students must be enrolled as degree-seeking undergraduates, as of March 27. They must meet the Title IV Federal Financial Aid eligibility requirements, meet the minimum requirements of satisfactory academic progress and have a family contribution of less than $35,000 in the 2019-2020 academic year. The College will distribute the grants in two phases. The initial phase, around mid-June, will directly deposit a major chunk of the funding into the eligible students’ accounts via Zelle Pay. In the second phase in mid-July, after the eligible students’ needs have been met, 10 percent of the remaining funding will be allocated to those who did not receive a grant in the initial phase through an application process. Each grant applied in the second phase will not exceed $200 per student. Funds allotted to those who qualify were determined by Student Financial Services, Student Life and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion as per the government’s guidelines. Grants were allocated based on each student’s family contribution using the College’s process of Institutional Methodology. DACA and international students who would normally qualify to receive funding under the aforemenCONTINUED ON PAGE 4
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Photo by Ali Meizels ‘23 Beginning on June 15, Mount Holyoke distributed nearly $800,000 in CARES Act grants to students who met aid eligibility requirements.
College puts on Juneteenth community match BY SHANZE HASAN ’21 NEWS STAFF WRITER
On Juneteenth, the Mount Holyoke administration announced a Community Match program for financial gifts made by students, staff, faculty and alumni in recognition of Juneteenth and Pride month. The initiative, led by the Office of the President and the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, will strive to match community members’ donations to three charitable organizations: The Loveland Foundation, the Marsha P. Johnson Institute and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Juneteenth (June 19) is a holiday that celebrates the emancipation of enslaved people in the U.S. While the Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863, it was not until nearly two years later that news of freedom reached Galveston, Texas. Pride month, a celebration and recognition of the LGBTQ+ community, was created to commemorate the Stonewall Uprising, a revolt against police brutality by transgender women and Black and Brown drag queens. In order to commemorate both events, the College matched donations made from June 19 to June 23 to the organizations they identified up to $50,000 with a maximum of $150 per donor. According to a June 25 article on the College’s website, 332 community members gave “more than $25,000.” The article continued, “A one-time opportunity for a matching gift initiative was made possible by a gift
to the College.” Alongside posting information regarding the launch of the program on the school’s website, Facebook and Twitter pages, Mount Holyoke’s official Instagram also released a post informing the community about the initiative. In the comments section of the College’s Instagram post, many students and community members expressed the opinion that the money in question should instead be used to directly help marginalized people on campus. Some gave alternate ideas for funding, such as hiring more professors of color, organizing talks surrounding race and the history of racism and loan forgiveness for low-income students of color. One user commented, “Please invest in the QTPOC community on campus. Actions taken within the institution are stronger than those given to other institutions.” Another commenter wrote, “It feels like Mount Holyoke is shrugging off its own responsibilities and implicit power for how to support its own QTPOC community by drawing attention to *other* non-profit institutions. While I acknowledge the gesture to support these very deserving organizations, what can Mount Holyoke in all of its abundance do for its own QTPOC community of students, staff, faculty and alums?” The Mount Holyoke News reached out to the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, which was not able to provide a statement on the Juneteenth donation initiative at this time.