So…here I am on a college forum that isn’t my alma mater nor that of anyone in my immediate social circle and notable for the fact that its last thread is dated from 2022. And yet, I feel compelled to be here; as much as I might upon hearing an old friend has passed away. To those of the greater 5 College community who may be sitting shiva this morning, I join you in sharing my memories of the deceased.
When I was shopping around for colleges a half-century ago, Hampshire seemed to arrive on the scene fully formed, a Venus in the galaxy of colleges whose orbits included UMass, Smith College, Mt. Holyoke and the spiritual heart and soul of the group - Amherst College, one of the most venerable all-male colleges in the country. Overnight, the Four-College Consortium became the Five-College Consortium and our collective imaginations had to get used to it.
Each member seemed to have its own special character: Smith and Holyoke brought the women and Amherst brought the keg parties and destination weekends. UMass mostly brought the STEM research opportunities.
What did Hampshire bring? That’s the crux of the issue, isn’t it? I always thought Hampshire brought “the wild”, the unmarked roadways of experimentalism that were a feature of the 60s and 70s. Hampshire’s presence obviated the need for the other four colleges to expend money on “free colleges”, makerspaces, pottery kilns, student-run farms, student built geodesic domes - the part and parcel of feral, hands-on, exploratory learning.
I think it was always meant to be in tandem with the other, more traditional modes of learning and that there would be a free flow of students across all the campuses dipping their toes in the unfamiliar waters of the others. I wonder however, if towards the end rather like the rest of American society, people simply retreated to their comfort zones? It certainly sounds that way. It sounds like Hampshire had become an extreme version of a “fit” college with a limited appeal to a limited slice of American society, mainly, those who could afford it.
And that’s too bad.
