Hampshire College

The idea for Hampshire originated in 1958 when the presidents of Amherst, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, appointed a committee to examine the assumptions and practices of liberal arts education. Their report, "The New College Plan," advocated many of the features that have since been realized in the Hampshire curriculum: emphasis on each student's curiosity and motivation; broad, multidisciplinary learning; and close mentoring relationships with teachers. In 1965, Amherst College alumnus Harold F. Johnson donated $6 million toward the founding of Hampshire College. With a matching grant from the Ford Foundation, Hampshire's first trustees purchased 800 acres (3.2 km2) of orchard and farmland in South Amherst, Massachusetts, and construction began. Hampshire admitted its first students in 1970. For several years immediately after its founding in the early 1970s, the large number of applications for matriculation caused Hampshire College to be among the most selective undergraduate programs in the United States. Its admissions selectivity declined thereafter because of declining application popularity. The school's number of applications increased again in the late 1990s, causing increased admissions selectivity since then. The college's rate of admissions is now comparable to that of many other small liberal arts colleges. The school has been financially challenged since its founding, in large part because the college lacked a founding endowment to rely upon for stability of income, and it relied almost entirely upon tuition income for operations. As of 2012, the endowment was a very modest $35,739,555. In recent years, the school has been on more solid financial footing, though lacking a sizable endowment. Its financial stability relies on fundraising efforts of its most recent past presidents, Adele S. Simmons and Gregory S. Prince, Jr.. The College has issued a draft for a "sustainable campus plan" and a "cultural village" making possible the residence of non-profit organizations not affiliated with the school on its campus. The cultural village includes the National Yiddish Book Center and the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.