Amherst’s newly opened Ford Student Center and Dining Commons is discussed in this NYTimes piece Can Design Heal Battles on the Mall and the American College Campus (gift link below):
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Thanks for the link!
This may be an unpopular opinion, but … … … Amherst’s campus is an embarrassing jumble of otherwise fine buildings that have absolutely no regard for one another.
I have never seen a school spend so much on construction while investing so little (or so it seems) effort or thought on the overall design of its campus.
This is my sole criticism of this otherwise amazing school 
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As any visitor to Amherst discovers soon enough, its first-year quad fits perfectly upon a hill. And that’s part of the problem; the first-year quad used to be the main campus.
By the time Amherst came around, New England colleges had become pretty adept at lining up buildings in a row of handsome brick or masonry. The really ambitious ones built quadrangles; buildings of roughly the same scale arranged around a yard. Amherst was one of the early adopters.
The Amherst main campus remained a paradigm of American college architecture throughout much of the last century due to a very great stroke of luck: it was built on a hill rise seemingly made to order for it - until the end of WWII when it became obvious to every small college in New England that they would have to build bigger labs, bigger libraries, bigger dorms - bigger everything, if they were ever going be able to expand their curricula.
This is where having a design originally meant for a college of 500 male students began to have problems. At first, Amherst got away with replacing “outdated” pieces like Walker Hall, the old, Victorian-era. chemistry building that preceded Frost Library. Walker had been the first of the Amherst buildings to face away from the town, southward and closing one end of the quad. But by 1963, there was no better place for a brand-new (albeit brutalist) building.
Other replacements were less radical. The 1948 James and Stearns dorms were replaced 30 years later by two dorms with the same names, done in the same style, but with more amenities - like common rooms. But after that, everything else has had to be built on the downside of the hill with not much connection to the rest of campus:
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Wait. Is that a sports field I see in the middle of campus? I thought only Wesleyan did that!
As to the charge of a mishmash campus, which I assume is about both Amherst’s architecture and physical layout, you hear people level the same criticisms at Wesleyan’s campus. While I appreciate the matchy matchy of Conn College and other like campuses, there is some charm (for me) in the schools that have developed over an extended period and the variety of styles that often accompany that kind of history. IOW, it grows on you. 
Like a sports field in the middle of campus.
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I’ve become a fan of eclectic campuses, too. I like seeing how a school evolves over time. IMHO, Williams is the epitome of a mishmash, with the added “bonus” of a relatively major road bisecting the campus. The setting is gorgeous, but I don’t think it often lands on most beautiful campus lists.
One of my favorite non-NESCAC campuses is Vassar, which has everything from College Gothic to Victorian to International Modernism. Chacun a son gout!
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Vassar is the best campus!
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Williams is one of the oldest of the NESCACs and its design - if one can call it that - predates campus planning of any sort. Its rural Berkshire location encouraged a kind of “every tub on its own bottom” approach with single-use buildings spread out in every direction (including both sides of Route 2.) A very powerful fraternity/athletic tradition led one house to occupy the Williams geographical center and dominated nearly every aerial view of the campus until 1975. As a final statement of where its late president, William Sawyer, wished to position the college, the fraternity house was bulldozed and replaced by a library which later bore his name.
The new library proved to be a very unpopular choice both thematically and architecturally. It was a massive wall of windowless brick that highlighted the smaller buildings along Route 2 and a long greenway fronting Chapin Hall that was often referred to as “Chapin Beach” because of its popularity as a place to sit in the sun on warm days. But it was in the brutalist tradition and never quite fit the Williams self-image. It was gone nearly forty years later.
What we have today is Williams’ first attempt at a quadrangle in over 200 years, a greensward that runs the length of Sawyer’s former location all the way to its replacement, a brand-new Stetson Library (that, ironically, uses another building called, Chapin - its first college library - as an entry hall.)
From another angle (thank you, Google Maps!)
Chapin Library/Stetson is at the top of the photo; Chapin Hall, the auditorium, is two-thirds of the way down, on the left
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2027 U.S. News Rankings (Upon Request)
National Liberal Arts Colleges
︎1. Williams
︎2. Amherst
︎3. Bowdoin
︎14. Hamilton
︎14. Wesleyan
︎19. Middlebury
︎22. Colby
︎26. Bates
︎31. Trinity
︎47. Connecticut College
National Universities
︎31. Tufts
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Here is the '26 list for comparison:
Top 50 Best Liberal Arts Colleges:
1 Williams College
2 Amherst College
3 US Naval Academy
4 Swarthmore
5 Bowdoin College
5 US Air Force Academy
7 Claremont McKenna College
7 Pomona College
7 Wellesley College
10 Carleton College
10 Harvey Mudd College
10 US Military Academy at West Point
13 Barnard College
13 Davidson College
13 Grinnell College
13 Hamilton College
13 Middlebury College
13 Smith College
13 Vassar College
13 Wesleyan University
21 Washington & Lee University
22 Colgate
22 University of Richmond
24 Bates College
24 Colby College
24 Haverford College
27 College of the Holy Cross
28 Macalester College
29 Mount Holyoke College
30 Bryn Mawr College
30 Bucknell University
30 Colorado College
30 Lafayette College
34 Denison University
35 Franklin & Marshall College
35 Occidental College
37 Pitzer College
37 Scripps College
37 Skidmore College
37 Soka University of America
37 Spelman College
37 Trinity College
37 Trinity University
44 Union College
45 Berea College
45 Dickinson College
45 Furman College
45 Kenyon College
45 The University of the South
50 Connecticut College
50 Hillsdale College
50 St. Olaf College
50 Wabash College
50 Wheaton College (IL)
Looks like Bowdoin and Trinity benefited from the tweaked methodology and Middlebury took a hit. I would have guessed that a major by major financial outcome comparison would be a positive for Midd, given the number of kids they push to Wall Street.
The massive tie with Barnard, Davidson, Grinnell, Hamilton, Midd, Smith, Vassar and Wes has been obliterated with Barnard, Davidson, Grinnell and Midd moving down and Vassar moving up a spot over Hamilton and Wes.
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NESCAC NLACs
Median: 16.5
Mean: 17.9
Mode: 14
Range: 46
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a few thoughts:
- Pretty big drop for Barnard too, and equally surprising since they are located in the heart of a HCOL destination.
- The 5-way tie at #3 is also kind of interesting (almost evenly divided between the east and west coast.)
- Wellesley seems to have switched places with HMC.
All in all, not a seismic YOY change. Confirms my belief that there are 20 or 30 Top 10 LACs. 
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A bit off-topic, though not entirely, the biggest shake-up from my perspective involves Washington & Lee and Carelton. Carlton drops from the T10 for the first time I can remember down to #16 and W&L goes from #21 to #12. Also, consider Vassar jumping ahead of the big group that were tied and remembering back one more or two years ago when Vassar was down in the 20s. I think this sophisticated group of LAC consumers never bought that ranking for Vassar but it’s still worth noting that they are a good 10 or so spots higher now than they were a couple of years ago.
Here’s the full ranking for reference:
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges
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I missed that rise with W&L; We’ve been discussing them so much lately on other CC fora that it felt as if the bump had already occurred. With Davidson the more academicky of the two, it almost seems inevitable that they should trade places.
Basically, I’m just impressed by how much the more academicky LACs held on to their places. Richmond barely budged.
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Deleted.
Tragic loss for the Middlebury, Hamilton and really entire NESCAC community. Thought it worth sharing.
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W&L has a lot going for it, including the business program and law school. The president Will Dudley (who went to Williams and was Provost at Williams before being wooed to W&L) recently left for CMC this year and did a very good job with their strategic plan. The location in Southwestern VA is drivable from DC, Charlotte and Greensboro, growing metro areas. Roanoke, VA is the main airport, about 1 hr away.
I think we’re pretty much in agreement:
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This is the NESCAC thread. Please move discussions about W&L to private message. Further posts will be deleted.
Man, that felt good. I’m going to apply for a Mod job. I think I’m a natural. @Lindagaf , put in a good word for me?
Ok, ok, this is my fault; I brought up W&L, but only for the rankings discussion.
Back to regular NESCAC programing.
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