page_title: Hampshire College
section_title: Timeline of Sustainability Initiative
hierarchical_section_title: Hampshire College / Sustainability / Timeline of Sustainability Initiative
caption_attribution_description: English: Hampshire College's maple sugar shack
context_page_description: Hampshire College is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. It was opened in 1970 as an experiment in alternative education, in association with four other colleges in the Pioneer Valley: Amherst College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Together they have since been known as the Five Colleges or the Five College Consortium.
  The college is known for its alternative curriculum, self-directed academic concentrations, progressive politics, focus on portfolios rather than distribution requirements, and its reliance on narrative evaluations instead of grades and GPAs. Sixty-five percent of its alumni have at least one graduate degree and a quarter have founded their own business or organization. Alumni include recipients of the Pulitzer Prize; the National Humanities Medal; Emmy, Academy, Peabody, Tony and Grammy Awards; and MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships. The college is also among the top producers of Fulbright Students and of alumni who go on to earn a doctorate degree.
  The college announced in January 2019 that it was experiencing severe financial difficulties and seeking a merger with another institution.
context_section_description: Since 2011, Hampshire College has been involved in various projects to "transform its food systems, campus operations, curriculum and campus culture to embrace sustainability." The college's advances in sustainability include various projects.  In 2011, the college was the first in the world to divest from fossil-fuels.  In 2012, they developed the Climate Action Plan for climate neutrality by 2022. Hampshire College Farm expanded their education and operation, establishing the Center for New England and Agriculture. In 2014 the main traffic circle and parking lot was eliminated and turned into a meadow.  They also stopped mowing dozen acres of lawns in hopes of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, saving landscaping expenses and creating wildlife and plant habitats.  In the same year, they installed an electric car-charging station behind the library.  In 2015 they permanently protected 46 acres of their property through a conservation restriction. The Kern Center became their first 100% emission-free building in 2016 and the Hitchcock Center for the Environment built its new living building on Hampshire land. In 2017, Hampshire College pledged to continue to support climate action and reduce carbon emissions in accordance with the Paris Climate Agreement.  They signed the We Are Still In campaign along with 2,600 total signers.
caption: The Maple Sugar Shack
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