SOUTH HADLEY — Of all Mount Holyoke College’s distinguished presidents, three stand above the rest as the most transformative: founder Mary Lyon, women’s education pioneer Mary Emma Woolley and Elizabeth Kennan.
At least that’s how Robert Shilkret sees it. The former dean of studies and past acting dean of faculty at Mount Holyoke, Shilkret is among those remembering Kennan this month, the college’s 15th president who died on July 18 at the age of 87.
During Kennan’s presidency from 1978 to 1995, Shilkret explained that Mount Holyoke continued to lose incoming students to Smith College. Students often visited both colleges at the same time, and compared the lively downtown of Northampton to a half block of mostly empty storefronts in South Hadley.
“We were losing students right and left to the comment that Smith had Northampton, Mount Holyoke doesn’t have anything,” Shilkret said. “We knew we couldn’t compete with Northampton, but we wanted to take that idea that Mount Holyoke had nothing off the table.”
After a fire destroyed most of the town center next to the college in the mid-1980s, Kennan decided to personally take South Hadley’s redevelopment into her own hands. She recruited internationally-acclaimed architect Graham Gund from Boston to design several buildings near Route 116 and personally led fundraising efforts to build the shopping area. This development, known today as the Village Commons, continues to provide South Hadley’s student body with entertainment, food and community.
The Village Commons was just one of the educator and leader’s long list of triumphs. In addition to her role in administration, Kennan was a scholar of Medieval history, a leader of the Five College Consortium, a passionate conservationist and mother of Frank Alexander Kennan.
Each achievement was honored by friends, family and the Mount Holyoke Community at the news of her passing last week. Kennan died July 18 in her home on a Danville, Kentucky farm. She was 87 years old.
“The many and varied accomplishments of Elizabeth Kennan Burns were rooted in profound faith, boundless generosity and unwavering belief that we are called to love our neighbor and serve the common good,” Kennan’s husband and former professor Michael Burns wrote in her obituary.
In addition to her contributions to the Village Commons, Kennan pioneered new academic programs at Mount Holyoke such as the Frances Perkins Program — a program to help woman finish their degrees. She also created new majors in environmental studies and computer science.
Shilkret adds that she brought the institution’s technology up-to-date, from digital correspondence to digitization of the library materials. Kennan further stressed the importance of technological literacy for students in a 1983 United Press International interview.
“High-tech literacy or competency will be needed by all to function,” Kennan said. “Our liberal arts students must have a grasp of statistics and math and even engineering. And, of course, computer literacy.”
While serving as Mount Holyoke’s president, Kennan facilitated collaboration between Mount Holyoke, Smith, Amherst and Hampshire colleges and UMass as the president of Five Colleges Inc. Several majors under Five College programming included classes from two or more of the higher education institutions. These majors, like dance and astronomy, thrived under her leadership.
“A trailblazer, visionary leader and stalwart champion of higher education, she was the first alum to lead the College in the twentieth century,” Mount Holyoke President Danielle Holley wrote in an email to staff and students.
In collaboration with beloved Smith College President, Jill Ker Conway, Kennan co-wrote a mystery novel “Overnight Float” under the pen name Clare Munnings.
Prior to her time as president, Kennan studied in the very halls she would one day steward. After graduating summa cum laude, she’d receive her master’s degree at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford. Kennan translated St. Bernard’s “De Consideratione” as part of her PhD thesis at the University of Washington, which remains in print today.
Following her studies, she spent years as a teacher and director of medieval and Byzantine studies at The Catholic University of America as the first woman and Protestant professor.
“She was always pleasantly startled when the undergraduate men in black robes stood at attention as she entered the classroom,” Burns wrote.
In addition to her academic accomplishments, Kennan dabbled in the corporate world as a trustee on the boards of Northeast Utilities, now Eversource Energy; Bell Atlantic, now Verizon and Putnam Mutual Funds. She also led conservation work with Trustees of the Reservation in Massachusetts, National Trust for Historic Preservation and Kentucky’s Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill.
“Students today could learn from her that woman can do major things,” Shilkret said. “She rebuilt the town and was transformative in the college itself. Her life is educational for any young woman today.”
Emilee Klein can be reached at eklein@gazettenet.com.