Though the college opened to students in 1970, its history dates to the immediate
aftermath of World War II. The first "New College Plan" was drafted in
1958 by the presidents of the then-Four Colleges; it was revised several times as the
serious planning for the College began in the 1960s. Many original ideas for
non-traditional ways of arranging the College's curriculum, campus, and life were discarded along the way, but many new ideas
generated during the planning process were not described in the original documents.For several years in the early 1970s, directly after its founding, Hampshire College
was the most selective undergraduate program in the United States. Its selectivity declined thereafter, but the school's
applications increased in the late 1990s, making admissions more difficult. The College's
selectivity in admissions is now comparable to many other small liberal arts colleges'.The school has struggled with financial difficulties since its founding, and ceasing operations or folding into the University of Massachusetts Amherst
were seriously considered at various points. Today the school is on more solid financial footing (though still without a sizable
endowment), a condition often credited to the fundraising efforts of its most recent presidents, Adele Simmons and Gregory S. Prince,
Jr.. The College has also distinguished itself recently with plans for the future including a "sustainable campus plan" and a
"cultural village" through which organizations not directly affiliated with the school are located on its campus. Currently this
"cultural village" includes the National
Yiddish Book Center and the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.Some of the most important founding documents of Hampshire College are collected in the book
The Making of a College
(MIT Press, 1967; ISBN 0262660059).
The Making of a College is (as of 2003) out of print but available in electronic
form from the Hampshire College Archives
[1] . A new edition is rumored to be in
progress.Despite its small size and short history, Hampshire has made its own mark on pop culture and political activism. Its annual
Halloween party, once legendary for its ubiquitous debauchery and hallucinogenic
drugs, is said to have been profiled by
Rolling Stone magazine. It
was the first college in the nation to decide to divest from apartheid South
Africa in 1979 (with the nearby University of Massachusetts Amherst rapidly coming second). In November 2001, a controversial all-community vote at
Hampshire declared the school opposed to the recently-launched War on
Terrorism, another national first which drew national media attention, including scathing reports from the FOX News Channel and the New York Post ("Kooky College Condemns War"). Until he left the show,
Saturday Night Live had a regular sketch, "Jared's Room", starring Jimmy Fallon which purports to take place at Hampshire College but is grossly
inaccurate, referring to non-existent buildings ("McGuin Hall") and featuring yearbooks, tests, seniors, fraternities and
football team, none of which have ever existed at the school.