Hampshire College Hampshire College is a private liberal arts college in Amherst , Massachusetts , United States . 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 are now known as the Five Colleges , or the Five College Area . The College is widely known for its alternative curriculum , focus on portfolios rather than distribution requirements , and reliance on narrative evaluations instead of grades and GPA s . It is known particularly for facilitating the study of film , music , theater and the visual arts . In some fields , it is among the top undergraduate institutions in percentage of graduates who enroll in graduate school . Fifty - six percent of its alumni have at least one graduate degree and it is ranked 30th among all US colleges in the percentage of its graduates who go on to attain a doctorate degree ( notably first among history doctorates ) . History . The College opened to students in 1970 . Its history dates to the immediate aftermath of World War II . The first " The New College Plan " was drafted in 1958 by the presidents of the then - Four Colleges , and was revised several times after planning for the College began in the 1960s . Many original ideas for non - traditional arrangements for the College ' s curriculum , campus , and life were discarded along the way . Many new ideas generated during the planning process were not described in the original documents . For several years immediately after its founding in the early 1970s , Hampshire College was among the most selective undergraduate programs in the United States . Its admissions selectivity declined thereafter , but the school ' s number of applications increased in the late 1990s , allowing for greater 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 struggled with financial difficulties since its founding . At some points , the administration seriously considered ceasing operations or merging into the University of Massachusetts Amherst . In recent years , the school is on more solid financial footing , though without a sizable endowment . Its financial stability is often credited to the fundraising efforts of its most recent past presidents , Adele Simmons and Gregory S . Prince , Jr . . The College has also distinguished itself recently with a draft for a " sustainable campus plan " and a " cultural village " through which organizations not directly affiliated with the school are located on its campus . The cultural village includes the National Yiddish Book Center and the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art . On April 1 , 2004 , president Gregory Prince announced he would retire at the end of the 2004 - 05 academic year . On April 5 , 2005 , the Board of Trustees named Ralph Hexter , formerly a dean at University of California , Berkeley ' s College of Letters and Science , as the college ' s next president , effective August 1 , 2005 . Hexter was inaugurated on October 15 , 2005 . The appointment made Hampshire one of a small number of colleges and universities in the United States with an openly gay president . Some of the most important founding documents of Hampshire College are collected in the book " The Making of a College " ( MIT Press , 1967 ; ISBN 0 - 262 - 66005 - 9 ) . " The Making of a College " is ( as of 2003 ) out of print but available in electronic form from the Hampshire College Archives On August 23 , 2012 , the school announced the establishment of a scholarship fund dedicated to helping undocumented immigrants get degrees . It would give more than $ 25 , 000 each year to help an undocumented immigrant pay for the $ 43 , 000 - plus tuition . Academics and resources . Curriculum . Hampshire College describes itself as " experimenting " rather than " experimental , " to emphasize the changing nature of its curriculum . From its inception , the curriculum has generally had certain non - traditional features : The curriculum is divided into three " divisions " rather than four years , and students complete these divisions in varying amounts of time . The administration has recently made efforts to encourage students to stick more closely to the traditional four - year model by requiring that students spend three semester s in Division I , three semesters in Division II , and that they complete Division III in a year . Since 2002 , the school has taken steps to expand and attract more academically conventional students and address low retention . The most significant change was a revision of the Division I program for first year students . Before the fall of 2002 , Division I consisted of four major exams , one in each of the academic departments and / or quantitative analysis . These exams took one of three forms : a " two - course option , " where a student could take two sequential courses ; a " one - plus - one , " where a Hampshire course supplements an outside course ( AP score of a four or five , or a summer college class ) ; or a project , usually involving a primary or significant secondary research paper , or an art production ( a short film , a sculpture , etc . ) , that stems from previous coursework . Students were required to complete at least two project - based exams , while transfer students usually had one project requirement waived . In the fall of 2002 , a new first - year program was started in response to the high numbers of second - and third - year students who had not completed Division I . The program now mandates eight courses in the first year , at least one in each of the five schools . This reduces the required work for passing Division I significantly , as the old system could require up to 10 courses . Effective in Fall of 2011 , the first year requirements have been changed once more . Students most now fulfill FOUR of the FIVE distribution areas : Arts , Design , and Media ( ADM ) , Culture , Humanities , and Languages ( CHL ) , Mind , Brain , and Information ( MBI ) , Physical and Biological Sciences ( PBS ) , Power , Community , and Social Justice ( PCSJ . Students are expected to complete seven courses in their first year , four to fulfill distribution areas and three elective courses in areas of their own choosing . Schools and programs . The Hampshire College faculty are organized broadly in defined Schools . The Schools function much as departments do at a traditional liberal arts college . The Schools ' names and definitions have varied over the College ' s history , but they have always numbered between three and five . As of 2010 , the Schools were : The Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies ( PAWSS ) is based at Hampshire ; its director is Michael Klare . Five College Consortium . Hampshire College is the youngest of the schools in the Five - College Consortium . The other schools are Amherst College , Mt . Holyoke College , Smith College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst . Students at each of the schools may take classes and borrow books at the other schools , generally without paying additional fees . They may use resources at the other schools , including internet access , dining halls , and so forth . The five colleges collectively offer over 5 , 300 courses , and the five libraries have over eight million books . The Pioneer Valley Transit Authority ( PVTA ) operates bus services between the schools and the greater Pioneer Valley area . There are two joint departments in the five - college consortium : Dance and Astronomy . Several certificate programs among the schools are available to students at any of the schools : Prominent campus issues . Re - radicalization . In the spring of 2004 , a student group calling itself " Re - Radicalization of Hampshire College ( Re - Rad ) " emerged with a manifesto called " The Re - Making of a College " , which critiques what they see as a betrayal of Hampshire ' s founding ideas in alternative education and student - centered learning . On May 3 , 2004 , the group staged a demonstration that packed the hall outside the President ' s office during an administrative meeting . Response from the community has generally been amicable and Re - Rad has made some progress . The Re - Radicalization movement is responding in part to a new " First - Year Plan " that changes the structure of the first year of study . Beginning in the Fall of 2002 , the requirements for passing Division I were changed so that first - year students no longer had to complete independent projects ( see Curriculum above ) . Though still a major source of contention , this change is rapidly fading from memory as most students who entered under the old plan have graduated or are in their final year . Re - Rad submitted its own counter - proposal in both 2006 and 2007 , but these proposals were not acted on , and no follow - up was attempted . The Re - Radicalization of Hampshire College assisted the administration in launching a pilot program known as " mentored independent study " . This program paired ten third semester students with Division III students with similar academic interests to complete a small study — observed by , and subject to the approval of , a faculty member . The program was judged successful and has been institutionalized . While some students worry about what they see as Hampshire ' s headlong plunge into normality , the circumstances of Hampshire ' s founding tends to perennially attract students who revive the questions about education the institution was founded on , and who challenge the administration to honor the founding mission . Unsurprisingly , then , Re - Rad was not the first student push of its type . Similar efforts have sprung up at Hampshire with some regularity , with varying impacts . In 1996 , student Chris Kawecki spearheaded a similar push called the Radical Departure , calling for a more holistic , organic integration of education into students ' lives . The most durable legacy of the Radical Departure was EPEC , a series of student - led non - credit courses . A more detailed account of movements such as these can be found in a history of Hampshire student activities , an account written by alumnus Timothy Shary ( F86 ) that was commissioned by Community Council in 1990 ; he has subsequently been a faculty member at Clark University of Worcester , Massachusetts , and the University of Oklahoma In the media . In 1979 , Hampshire was the first college in the nation to divest from apartheid South Africa ( with the nearby University of Massachusetts Amherst second ) . Legal and financial research undertaken by student Michael Current and faculty member Kurtis Gordon was promoted nationally by business activists Douglas Tooley and Debbie Knight . In November 2001 , a controversial All - Community Vote at Hampshire declared the school opposed to the recently - launched War on Terrorism , another national first that drew national media attention , including scathing reports from Rupert Murdoch ' s Fox News Channel and the New York Post ( " Kooky College Condemns War " ) . " Saturday Night Live " had a regular sketch , " Jarret ' s Room , " starring Jimmy Fallon , which purports to take place at Hampshire College but is inaccurate . It refers to non - existent buildings ( " McGuinn Hall , " which is actually the Sociology and Social Work building at fellow cast member Amy Poehler ' s alma mater , Boston College ) and features yearbooks , tests , seniors , fraternities , three - person dorm rooms , and a football team — none of which the school has ever had ( though in the Fall 2005 , 2006 , and 2007 semesters the college experienced a higher than expected number of freshmen and temporarily had to convert some common spaces into three - person dorms ) . The sketch also claims that the college is actually in New Hampshire ( a common mistake ) . Alumnus Ken Burns wrote of the college : " Hampshire College is a perfect American place . If we look back at the history of our country , the things we celebrate were outside of the mainstream . Much of the world operated under a tyrannical model , but Americans said , ' We will govern ourselves . ' So , too , Hampshire asked , at its founding , the difficult questions of how we might educate ourselves . . . When I entered Hampshire , I found it to be the most exciting place on earth . " Loren Pope wrote of Hampshire in the college guide " Colleges That Change Lives " : " Today no college has students whose intellectual thyroids are more active or whose minds are more compassionately engaged . " In 2006 , the Princeton Review named Hampshire College one of the nation ’ s " best value " undergraduate institutions in its book " America ’ s Best Value Colleges . "