South Hadley, Mass. - November 17, 2020 - Mount Holyoke College's Nicole Lara Granados (Bronx, N.Y.) and Sophia Anderson (Morrisville, Vt.) were recently selected to attend the 2021 NCAA Division III Student Immersion program, a virtual conference that will be held in conjunction with the NCAA National Convention this upcoming January.
Lara Granados, a psychology and education major and member of the squash team, and Anderson, a mathematics major and cross country/track & field student-athlete, were two of 45 Division III student-athletes across the country who were accepted into the program. Mount Holyoke was one of nine institutions nationwide to have multiple student-athletes selected to attend.
"It brings me great joy to see Mount Holyoke College continuing to develop women for professions in college athletics; moreover, I continue to be grateful for the NCAA's support and recognition of this work by the College," said Chair of Physical Education and Director of Athletics, Lori Hendricks '92. "Both Sophia and Nicole are incredibly talented and have been very engaged within the Department. I am very excited for them to participate in this NCAA-sponsored program. They will join a distinguished list of MHC alums who got their start in college athletics through this programming."
In 2015, at the recommendation of the Division III Diversity and Inclusion Working Group, the Division III governance staff and the NCAA Office of Inclusion partnered on a new program that brought 40 ethnic minority students to the NCAA Convention. The selected students are fully funded to attend the Convention, and they are exposed to Division III, its members and its governance process. In addition to the scheduled Division III programming, grant recipients receive DiSC training, and attend welcome and debrief meetings.
In 2019, field hockey student-athlete and senior Micaela Pierce '20 attended the NCAA Division III Student Immersion Program, which was hosted in Anaheim, Calif. in conjunction with the 2020 NCAA National Convention.
The goal is to build a pipeline of talented ethnic minority candidates, with an interest in Division III coaching and/or administration, in an effort to ultimately diversify the division. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year's Student Immersion Program, along with the NCAA National Convention, will be held virtually.
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