The original landowners were farmers and their farms I feel are part of the true foundation of Hampshire College. As the faculty marched in together, it was possible already to sense something of the culture that would become Hampshire: First came the president, trustees, and deans all dressed in academic regalia; next, a hodgepodge of faculty members, some in business dress, a few in academic regalia, some in casual clothes. "In about 1973 a sculptor gave Hampshire a large, steel, orange-painted modern sculpture with the expectation that it would be displayed prominently on campus We had no sculpture at the time and so Polly and I prowled around and decided where to place the pieces. With narrative evaluations instead of grades, no defined departments, no faculty tenure and a flexible curriculum, Hampshire offers its students unusual control over their education. With the departure of Marriott, the only groups who consistently used the Tavern were the Prescott House Office and TEAC, the Tavern Entertainment and Activities Committee. In November, it must submit a report on its financial sustainability to the New England Commission of Higher Education. A slight 19-year-old with longish brown hair, hed already experienced the kind of bull sessions about politics and philosophy that make college so special. Economies of scale were to be achieved at the new college in several ways. Deacon's special variety of red kernel popcorn has helped him achieve minor celebrity status. In the new proposal, the managers' collective expressed its confidence that the project would be successful, based on the success Mixed Nuts had had in the past--"Mixed Nuts is one of the only student organizations that is self-sustaining and probably has been ever since Hampshire opened. Starting in the late 1970s and the 1980s, it survived by cutting faculty and staff salaries and using its endowment to plug budget holes, according to a PowerPoint presentation about its fiscal situation that Hampshire made public in January. Another bedroom had an ironing board set up with both a real and a representational iron. Both proposals were rejected, primarily because the Marriott Corporation had a contract to operate a grill/restaurant in the Tavern. "In 1978, a group of students, Mike Bird (76F), Katie Downes (77F), Brian Fradet (77F), Naomi Guttman (77F), Scott Nadel (75F), Karen Schmidt (77F), Nicole Sumner (78S), and Martha Zimicki (78F), wanted to do something about the lack of student social space. DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC SAFETY AND ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH (1976-PRESENT). Next he took out a pot, poured some oil and turned the stove on. Out of the maelstrom came Hampshire. They would do so in a much changed social and political climate than the one that had inspired Hampshires founding. Wingenbach hopes it will allow Hampshire to market itself to new students and donors and keep a lean faculty. That message resonated with idealistic high-school graduates of my era. Cameron Prata On my visit in the spring, tarps covered study carrels in the library to protect them from a leaky roof. Bob opened the co-op in October, 1971, and by that December only 21 people had joined, resulting in "economic disaster" (Fleisher, 1971). It was a signihcant and heartwarming achievement." Nedda: "What was the other color?" FY19 Fundraising Update | Hampshire College It operated from 1965 through 2017 and had a strong aeronautics focus during much of its history. It devastated the community.. In 2013, Hampshires net revenue from tuition, room, board and fees was 3.3 percent higher than in the previous year. Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass. NORTHAMPTON The four private colleges in Hampshire County generate an annual economic impact of more than $1.5 billion to the Massachusetts economy, including more than 8,000 . It was a place, she remembers, "where people would debate with equal fervor the meaning of relevance and where to put the pencil sharpeners." Poll most top educators about their ideal kind of learning for the 21st century, and theyll probably sound a lot like a Hampshire student. Taught in small classes, Hampshire students were free of grades, required courses, rigid distribution requirements, lecture courses with periodic exams, fixed majors, and the predictable four-year college sequence. Bob McNitt started his co-op with two purposes in mind: to make consumer goods available to the Hampshire community at low cost, and to set up a model for a larger co-op (Fleisher, 1971). She didn't see why she should put up with this. By 2018, that was down to 40 percent. And in those days, I would just wait for them to come in. Ray Coppinger, professor of biology and a founding figure in the development of Hampshire's Farm Center, was among the early core of faculty on hand in 1970. Photograph by Katherine Taylor / NYT /. Design by Emma Kumer. Of greater concern everywhere was the more risk-averse climate among middle-class Americans, who worried about economic stagnation, future job prospects for their children, and the affordability of higher education. The co-op was able to set up a permanent space. Kern Center. Although Hampshire is overseen by a traditional board of trustees and led by a president with accompanying officers who set basic policy, Hampshires founders gave to all of the communitys constituencies a primary role in determining the internal governance of the College. The major governing bodies of the community will be few, Patterson and Longsworth promised, but students will have representation on each of them. The assumption was that anyone in the community could propose innovations and evaluations. Members of the college community more than rose to these expectations over the ensuing decadesto the chagrin, no doubt, of its leadership on many occasions. Hampshire College Careers and Employment DIRECTOR OF HOUSING (1971-1984). During that first year, he says, "the entire student body and faculty attended weekly human development lectures. Dairy products and vegetables came once a week, and staples such as grains, nuts, flour, and oil came once a month. Among the first to address the gathering was President Franklin Patterson: "There is a certain irony," he noted, "in being inaugurated five months into the fifth year of one's service as president of a college." Because of low birthrates following the Great Recession, Carleton College economist Nathan Grawe predicts that the four-year-college applicant pool is likely to shrink by almost 280,000 per class, over four years, starting in 2026, a year known in higher ed as the Apocalypse. As youth populations decline everywhere but the southern and western United States, colleges in New England and the Midwest will find it increasingly hard to lure students, particularly those able to pay. Its as if you had won a race, instead of going to a school that has opportunities you never knew existed., On the day before classes started in September, hundreds of faculty, staff, students, alumni and parents gathered in the gym to discuss how to save the school. By January, Nelson and the trustees had apparently concluded that the institution had reached its Rubicon. By Nate Cohn. In greeting the first crop of students, Patterson acknowledged that "the Founding Class of this college is made up of exceptional young men and womenFor every student enrolled this fall Hampshire had to turn down more than seven othersOur students in this sense mark a major positive turning point in the swiftly changing world that we share with them. After she left, Hampshire charted a different course. The administration promised co-op that it would be completely set up in a new store in Prescott by September 1 (Mixed Nuts letter, 1987). In a Tuesday morning letter to the college community, Hampshire College President Miriam "Mim" Nelson disclosed school leaders' "intent to find a long-term partner that can help us achieve a thriving and sustainable future for Hampshire.". These young men and women have sought out membership in the community of this college because they want to share in the building of a new kind of institution that is desperately needed and whose time has come." To compete, private colleges are then forced to offer merit aid to top students who dont need the money. Democrats despise the electoral college. Perhaps they should get over "In 1970, I took my natural history class on a field trip to the Quabbin Reservoir," he recalls. Handwritten notes on The Belonging Map, an interactive art installation inside the R.W. Harold Johnson, whose spirit and words have seeped into the bricks and the farmers whose roots I feel are part of the true foundation of Hampshire College. First-generation students the first in their families to attend college and students of color needed more resources. Have you ever gone to the museum and tried putting your hand on that thing and all the electricity goes up to where your hand is? she asked. I was skeptical because I wasn't convinced that it was a good space and I knew it would take an enormous effort to accomplish their goal. An Amherst alumnuss gift of $6 million provided the money to purchase the land and set up Hampshire, which admitted its first students in 1970. But Hampshire College in Massachusetts is taking this one step further -- last year, the liberal arts school stopped accepting standardized test scores altogether. I know that students often view her absences with cynicismAnyway, she supports the co-op"). They would say, Dont come to Hampshire. JOHN FOSTER 10.12.21 To paraphrase Mark Twain, "Reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated." Sure, we had a bumpy 2019, but Hampshire was made for change, and we've been reinventing ourselves all along. Someone had sodded the floor. Those will be but the stalks that bear the grain. A History of Mixed Nuts, Hampshire's Own Food Cooperative The board voted to abandon the possibility of a merger and enlisted noted filmmaker Ken Burns, an alumnus, to help raise $100 million in five years. "The Way We WereHampshire College, the founding years." MIKE FORD He ran the co-op out of his dorm room in Dakin. Ken Rosenthal, treasurer at the time, took a dollar out of his pocket at the end of the year--which still hangs framed over my desk at home--and wrote then President Longsworth a memo saying that he had just paid my first year's salary, and would Chuck similarly take care of the second!" She was recently on the phone with some of the Five Colleges of Ohio, a consortium of selective private schools, discussing a possible joint program in Cleveland. If were going to have this rush to vanilla, that would be terrible, says Michael Roth, the president of Wesleyan University. By the mid-2010s, Hampshire was grappling with the demographic shifts and market pressures bearing down on higher ed. And we arent slowing down; were doubling down. We faced trouble, Simmons put it succinctly in a recent conversation, and we figured it out. Its oldest alumni are now aging, alas , but not fast enough to provide the kind of bequests that have so enriched its neighboring private liberal-arts schools, all of which were established in the 19th century. Hampshire College, a Child of the Sixties, Faces Its "Visioning Problem Thank you! If were going to have this rush to vanilla, that would be terrible. However,the general student attitude toward a move seemed positive. "This, in the deepest sense, is an inaugural ceremony," Patterson told the crowd, "for all of you who have been associated with the forming of the college." Harold Johnson, the library, a place always filling me with ideas as I would sit surrounded by books always researching, answering questions and only finding more. Daniel Webster College First-year student Devin Forgue, 19, on campus in Amherst, Mass. Student self-direction would, in theory, free up professorial time and allow for a smaller faculty. Alec and his friends wrote to Senators Kennedy and Lowell Weicker, demanding that the United States respect Renganese neutrality, and close U.S. bases on Renga. I never even considered the history of the school and this land; when I entered I felt like I was part of something radical, young and new, a departure from the traditional. Students were turning down Harvard and Radcliffe for a slot at Hampshire. Institutions with over a billion in endowment are getting stronger and stronger as they can attract the best students. During the human development discussion about these experiments, a huge fight broke out between faculty members in the natural sciences and the social sciences about the ethics of the study. For an intimate liberal arts college, that was low. Hampshire College is now set to welcome more than 300 students, its largest class since 2018. At this point, there's still been no mention of a retiring but highly successful financier and educational visionary named Harold Johnson, whose simple question "Whatever happened to that New College Plan?" Warner vividly recalls the beginnings of Hampshire College, acknowledging that "[its building] was a big attraction around here." All of the colleges presidents faced very difficult financial challenges and uncertainty throughout Hampshires history. Unfortunately, because Bob's "personal beliefs" prevented him from using paper to hang up posters advertising the co-op, nobody knew about it. The night of the opening for the Bridge Cafe, they put up some posters, and lit candles on the tables. This is an inflection point in higher ed, says Twillie Ambar of Oberlin. Richard: "Oh--white. Focusing on the community of Hampshire College I have begun to work with this by learning about the history of this land and the people who lived here. She wanted to see if one or more of her bread recipes could be used as the only food in the diet (a potentially useful idea for Third World countries). Once again, the community rallied around co-op. DERRICK ELMES (76F) It sounds counterintuitive, but choosing a public school to save money is actually a privilege for the affluent. Rather than selecting a major, wed be asked to develop an area of concentration. What prompted a New England college to offer New College students a But if youre used to the grassy quads of state flagships or the rich Gothic and brick of the Ivy League, Hampshires austerity is striking. With considerable courage and a strategy that appeared counterintuitive, Simmons undertook a series of initiatives to both promote the college and steer it toward greater selectivity. Its hard to believe that nearly a half century has passed since I stood on a hillside in South Amherst, Massachusetts, with Van Halsey, then Hampshire Colleges director of admissions, gazing at the rolling green farmland that stretched out toward Hadley, Massachusetts. He has "hundreds of favorite Hampshire stories," he says, but his "favorite January Term trips to faraway places with strange-sounding names would occupy a small volume. Hampshire College Overall Rankings | US News Best Colleges (p.17-18) This puts even more pressure on schools just below the top. Coming after a series of mergers and closures of New England schools, the announcement provoked alarm in the world of higher ed. They might substitute independent studies for some of these courses. SMITH COLLEGE. Settling into its new space has, at times, been difficult for Mixed Nuts--more products, hours, and space require more maintenance and work. It was a nonprofit college until 2009, when ITT Educational Services, Inc. bought it and converted it to a for-profit model. As a student, new to the place, I never really thought about the people whose names identified the buildings where I studied, learned and lived. Financial aid would be limited to a modest number of mostly full scholarships based entirely on need. Produce and dairy products were distributed every Thursday, and the co-op held regular store hours for people to buy grains and other non-perishables. (p.26-28), You Must Remember This, 2000 Walking through the pine forest, composing Division III titles in my mind "Seeds of Sustainability: Cultivating Our Agricultural Heritage" I emerge into the open hayfield and think about the agricultural heritage that is present right here, right beneath my feet. If we cant find a model that allows residential liberal arts colleges to survive within the constraints of what students and families can afford to pay then [a] reckoning is really going to happen.. Non Satis Scire, Spring/Summer 2000, p. 13-21 Get the inside scoop on jobs, salaries, top office locations, and CEO insights. Marlon Becerra, a 2019 graduate now at Harvard Law School, could have gone to a more highly ranked school, but Hampshires collaborative spirit and lack of requirements fit his ideal college vision. One day, the topic was Stanley Milgram's controversial experiments on obedience to authority. He considered the less expensive Holyoke Community College, but he didnt want to give up on his dream. Hampshire did so through the adroit management of its third president, Adele Smith Simmons, who served from 1977 to 1989. A chandelier of plastic forks, spoons, knives, and plastic ivy hung in the living room. So she'd bang her shoe on the desk and say, 'Are we here to learn or what?' Faculty salaries were in the bottom 25 percent compared with peer institutions. What Does The Future Hold For Hampshire College? | WBUR News It seems appropriate that Harold Johnson was inspired by the agricultural process in his dedication at groundbreaking, the ground that had already been "broken" so many times before by the farmer's plow. Ken Hoffman was among the core group of faculty hired in the late 1960s. The share of low-income students receiving federal grants at the most competitive colleges stayed essentially flat between 2000 and 2014, going from 15 to 16 percent, while it grew from 46 to 59 percent at noncompetitive institutions, according to the Washington-based consulting firm EAB. Critics of higher ed like to point to its obsession with facilities and fancier buildings money they say inflates the cost of college at the expense of whats important. At one table, facilitator Naia Tenerowicz, 22, a third-year student with teal hair who uses a wheelchair, laid out the goal. as so often happened in the early days of Hampshire. Reflecting on the Hampshire experience for faculty and students in those early years, Robert Birney concludes that "there was a kind of rock-bottom integrity about the way things were done that was extremely exhilarating and kind of unbelievable that you could stick this close to the heart of scholarship with students."