Mount Holyoke College • Vista • Fall 2012, Volume 17 No. 2


Then and Now: Hilary Pollan ’12
When Hilary Pollan ’12 describes MHC’s Community-Based Learning Program (CBL) as “her life,” it’s no exaggeration. Pollan, who grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, met CBL coordinator Alan Bloomgarden at an orientation session on her first day at the College. She was just back from a trip to Cambodia and eager to do social action work. “I went up to him and said, ‘My name is Hilary and I want to do a project. Can we talk?’ ”


While majoring in sociology and completing a Nexus minor in sustainable development, Pollan took numerous courses with a CBL component. She also was appointed to highly selective CBL mentor and fellow positions that honed her leadership skills. As part of those appointments, Pollan spent three years teaching ESOL, civic education, pre-GED, and GED preparation classes in the neighboring city of Holyoke.


“I can’t exist only in the academic realm,” she said. “There is a lot of theory in sociology but it doesn’t have much value to me until I apply it. What kept me coming back to Holyoke was how much I was learning. I really do believe in the curriculum to career, engaged learning that Mount Holyoke emphasizes.”


In addition to exploring the sociology of education through CBL, Pollan spent a summer in Chile as an English teaching intern at the Universidad de Alberto Hurtado. That experience, sponsored by MHC’s McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives, formed the basis of her senior thesis about Chilean student movements. Then, as her senior year drew to a close, Pollan received a prestigious grant from the Davis Projects for Peace.


Pollan’s proposal for the $10,000 grant was inspired by a wish to share something more with Holyoke before leaving western Massachusetts: “I’d been in and out of the community for three years. I wanted to find a way to dedicate myself to these students and this place.”


Toward that end, she proposed an eight-week program, the Educational Image Project (EIP). It ultimately enrolled 16 students aged 18 to 60-plus at various stages of GED preparation. Pollan’s curriculum focused on developing goal-setting and decision-making skills that would position them for opportunities beyond the GED. Though EIP emphasized the pragmatic, she also urged the students to dream. “Many of my students hadn’t dreamed anything for themselves and their future since they were kindergarten age,” she noted. “After that, they started hearing ‘You’re not a learner,’ and ‘You’re going nowhere.’ Many of them don’t really remember what dreaming feels like.”


In February, Pollan will continue her work in adult literacy and education in Brazil as a Fulbright Fellow. She’s excited about immersing herself in the principles of popular education that shape Brazil’s adult education, leadership, and technical training programs. Pollan remembers arriving at Mount Holyoke thinking she’d focus on social justice abroad. “Mount Holyoke encouraged those goals but also taught me the impor- tance of being involved right where I was. That expanded my world in ways I never could have imagined.”

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