The First Hampshire College Catalog

The The First Hampshire College Catalog was published in 1970.

Some excerpts follow.

The Idea that Hampshire's Campus is the World.
Without intended pretentiousness or melodrama, the curriculum of Hampshire aims at overcoming a dichotomy between "academic" and "real" life, which may seem irrelevant and unimportant to an older generation but is very much a reality for many undergraduates. The academic program of Hampshire College is intended to utilize field experience actively in connection with course work, to allow students time out either before or during college for extended leaves, and to use the January Term for off-campus work and study projects, especially after the student's first year.

The College does not take a passive position of permissiveness in this area, but intends to cultivate purposefulness, not opportunity for random drift...

The Idea of Academic Coordination with Related Colleges.
In practice, Hampshire's academic program is planned to complement in useful ways the programs of the other Valley institutions (Amherst, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges, and the University of Massachusetts), to offer their students certain distinctive opportunities at Hampshire, to avoid wasteful duplication of offerings, and to enable Hampshire students to pursue certain advanced or special studies on the other campuses.

The Idea of Academic Program Flexibility and Student Responsibility.
Hampshire College's academic program will offer students work in a variety of basic, intermediate, and advanced studies. But an accumulation of any given combination of courses is neither compulsory nor equivalent to satisfactory completion of the collegiate phase of education...

The Idea of the Student as Teacher.
A principal concern of Hampshire's academic program is the active and practical preparation of students to teach themselves. And students will be engaged in teaching others through leading discussion seminars, through acting as assistants to faculty in classes and through serving as tutors and research associates...

The Idea of the Teacher as Teacher.
The view expressed above is complemented at Hampshire by a stress on the central role of the teacher. The faculty at Hampshire, as at any college worth the name, will be more important than the organized curriculum. In Hampshire's program, with its emphasis on enabling the student to teach himself, a strong faculty role will be indispensable. If students are to become scholars, in the sense of having the will and ability to pursue learning on their own, they cannot do so in an atmosphere where the adult models available to them are neuter...

The Idea of Technology and Learning.
The College proposes to be bold in exploring the potential educational and economic advantages of new technologies for the support of learning. The College intends not only to use new technologies where it is sensible and economically possible to do so, but to introduce its students to their meaning and use as a part of liberal education in the present age...

The Idea of Successive Approximations.
Curriculum development is a continual process; it is not possible to prescribe a fixed curriculum which will remain adequate to the demands liberal education must meet in a world of revolutionary change. Hampshire's academic program will arise out of a continuous process of phased planning or approximations in which a variety of people play important parts.

The Idea of Continuing Self-Study.
Along with academic program development by successive approximations, Hampshire subscribes to the view that continual evaluation of all of its work is essential. Institutional "self-studies" on an occasional basis are helpful. But for an experimenting college to be what it claims to be, there must be provision for steady observation, assessment, and interpretation of the consequences of the enterprise...

The Idea of Maintaining an Innovative Climate.
The preceding two paragraphs are integrally related to a third view Hampshire represents: that what starts as an experimenting college should continue to be one. An initial innovative stance can too easily soften into institutional stasis. Academic program development by successive approximations, backed up by a process of continuous evaluation, will help to maintain an innovative climate. But more will be required than this... (p.26-29)

What Hampshire College is NOT
The publications of Hampshire College, including this catalog, are aimed at stating affirmatively what Hampshire will be; it may be useful to state as explicitly as possible what Hampshire will not be.

1. Hampshire does not assume that a student can pursue only his self-defined interest in the College. Many of the comprehensive examinations will require the integration of materials from a wide number of fields, and passing those examinations will require a reasonable mastery of those fields. Though there are no "required courses" in the conventional sense, there are required examinations and most students will find it advisable to take a full program of courses in order to prepare for them. In short, the college sees its obligation as encouraging the expansion of a student's definition of relevance, not pandering to it.

2. Hampshire does not assume that a student is the only reasonable judge of his own educational progress. The rigorous, periodic examinations, requiring hard work in preparation, will provide feedback essential for any education.

3. Hampshire does not assume that learning is a relaxed or casual experience. The system of not assigning grades in courses is a means of achieving higher standards, not a guarantee that any minimal amount of work will do.

4. Hampshire does not assume that the intellectual tradition of the West is irrelevant to the growth and development of its students or the solution of pressing social problems. To the contrary, the College is committed to the proposition that engagement with this tradition is essential for any person wishing to obtain a liberal education.

5. Hampshire will not assume that all of its students are capable of full independent work from the first day of their stay at the College. Rather, Hampshire assumes that all students can become capable of such work, but that it takes time and a great deal of effort.

6. Hampshire does not assume that field work is separate from theoretical work. To the contrary, field work makes sense only when it is coupled with an obligation to abstract from the data defensible generalizations.

7. The Hampshire governance arrangements will not be egalitarian; they will be hierarchical. To be involved, informed, and participating will be the responsibility and right of every member of the community; but experience, past performance, and a definition of role will determine the decision-making arrangements. (p.52)