In 1958-1959 Mount Holyoke College students, faculty, administrators, and alumnae expressed concern through articles in the Mount Holyoke News and other means about the long-standing requirement that all students regularly attend chapel services on campus. In response, the Board of Trustees formed the Committee on Religion (sometimes known as the Committee on the Religious Program) in June, 1959. The Committee solicited opinions from students, faculty, administrators, alumnae, parents, staff at other colleges, ministers, and clergymen before submitting their report. On November 10, 1959 the Board of Trustees, citing overwhelming student opinion against the continuation of required chapel attendance and a feeling on the part of Board members that the policy was not achieving its purpose, voted to discontinue the practice. The Committee on Religion continued to exist until 1965, when it was replaced by the Board of Trustees Committee on Religion and Student Life.

Records of the Committee on Religion date from 1958-1960 and consist of minutes, reports, correspondence, statements, articles and other publications, memoranda, notes, and statistical studies. These materials document the development of the controversy over Mount Holyoke's required chapel attendance policy and the resulting review of that policy by the Committee. Records include correspondence from alumnae, students, parents, faculty, faculty and staff at other colleges, and ministers and clergymen. There are also notes from student conferences held in all dormitories in September, 1959 to discuss the compulsory chapel requirement and statistical information regarding the religious make-up of the College's student body at that time.