A History of Student Activities and Achievements at Hampshire College

The information on this page comes directly from the Hampshire College Archives.

A History of Student Activities and Achievements at Hampshire College originated in a summer 1990 project funded by Community Council, during which Tim Shary, former chairperson of Community Council, organized the existing Community Council records and also compiled a chronological index to the student newspapers and other historic documents.

In 2000, Sarah Finger, as part of a HACU Div. I, decided to continue the project, focusing on indexing student newspapers as the stories reflected the activities and achievements of Hampshire students.

Together, the two indexes provide a historical overview of a wide variety of student activities and concerns over the decades of the college's existence. The student newspapers indexed here are available in the library on microfilm as well as in the college archives.

On Hampedia
As Hampedia works to document Hampshire in some semblance of an organized fashion, these histories have provided a strong basis for the History of Hampshire College's Timeline section.

Tim Shary's Introduction
This history was written as a chronology of events and changes that have involved students at Hampshire since the school was founded in 1965. Virtually all of the information used to compile this history was taken from the student newspapers, all of which are available through the college archives. Other reference sources included memos and governance documents, which should also be available in the college archives; I tried to limit the number of personal accounts as much as possible, but there are obviously many stories missing from this record. While I am hoping that students and alumns will come forth to fill in the crucial absences, I hope that this history as it stands now proves to be comprehensive and enjoyable.

Commentary
The two decades that have defined Hampshire students thus far were both a time of testing the experimental ideas set forth by the previous generation, and a means of proving valid the new discoveries that these ideas produced in their application and reality at this small but incredible college. Statistics and stereotypes aside, since Hampshire opened in 1970, students have been challenging themselves to be unique and important while still remaining socially conscious and responsible. If the goal of students in these first twenty years was to show that an experiment like Hampshire can indeed work within the structures of a culture which seems preoccupied with achieving personal success through the accumulation of numbers on paper, then the goal of the next generation which now grows from this point may be to redefine the ideals that the results of this experiment have yielded so that we may remain progressive enough to continue creating change without losing sight of our original ambitions. Hampshire College may no longer be an actually experimental institution, but it does offer a distinct alternative to the ideologies and operations of the thousands of other schools in America today. If the students here have their way, based on these past twenty years and the current entering class, Hampshire will remain alternative as long as these students, and those they inspire, continue reaching and moving beyond their own goals. The first twenty years of Hampshire can be divided into five different eras of student activities and attitudes:

1970-74: The True Test
These were years in which students did not know if the college would last from one month to the next, let alone if they would ever earn degrees. Pragmatism pressed hard against the great plans of the early students who were willing to take such a radical risk as attending an naccredited and undefined college: the cost was high, financial aid was low, and no one knew what a Division III would be. Those who held on remained iconoclastic hippies with a cause. When the first students began graduating after Hampshire received its precious New England accreditation in May of 1974, there was a sense that the test worked. It could be done.

1974-77: Letting It Work
Students began directing their concerns to local and global issues as they could now stop worrying so much about the school. Patterns, otherwise known as traditions, could be detected. The spirit of experimentation was kept alive, but was visibly more comfortable now that the school was on firmer financial ground and had gained some actual practice in using the many policies that had been instituted during the early years. The end of the Vietnam War also marked a new direction of activism, as the attention to social oppression and destruction decentralized. The resignation of President Charles Longsworth, and the student occupation of Cole Science Center to demand the college divestment from South African corporations in May of 1977, gave a certain closure to the former community energies of the campus.

1977-82: Apathy and Attrition
The hope aroused by Adele Simmons and her new perspective as President was quickly quelled as more and more students became disinterested in campus events and governance, while the administration affirmed stronger stands on decisions which did not consider student involvement. Despite a brief surge in communal introspection around the tenth anniversary, students channeled their passions primarily off-campus. Again a student occupation was the symbol of a turning point: after extensive problems accumulated which the administration seemed less interested in solving due to their concern with falling admissions and rising attrition, a group called Students for a Responsible Institution took over Cole Science Center with a comprehensive set of demands in May of 1982. Meanwhile, Simmons had spent $75,000 to revamp the applicant pool by producing the Krukowski report in October of 1982, which indicated that the college needed to become less countercultural and ideological if it was going to attract the "Ivy League quality" students that certain few people apparently desired.

1983-1987: Holding Back The Act
The "Krukowski Classes" started to arrive and the focus on independent and experiential learning shifted to more course-based projects and attention to transcripts; many people feel the instating of the two-course Division I option in 1985 embodied a traditional response to the sense of lost academic direction. Students grew restless as they were challenged by their own absence: four newspapers were born or died during these years, and the lack of cohesion within and without student groups became sadly apparent. Tensions rose as a few lone people tried to be heard. Students resorted to extreme forms of communication, culminating in the suicide of a student's brother during a live television show. Something was needed to bring the frustrations to the forefront.

1988-1991: Finding Ways Or Making Them
In one month, February of 1988, the latent angst of the past years surfaced in a ten-day occupation of the Dakin Master's House by Source, a called walk-out by the Student Workers' Coalition, a student suicide at Physical Plant, and the controversial removal of a member of Community Council for allegedly being racist. Fingers were suddenly being pointed everywhere, and students combated their confusion by active response. Student involvement in governance hit an all- time high, and a new group for each issue or activity appeared virtually every week. Adele Simmons announced her resignation later in 1988, and once again hopes bloomed for new potential. President Greg Prince appears to follow the former ideals of communication and cooperation with students, but by the eve of the twentieth anniversary, suspicions remain strong as students still detect fissures in the college facade. The first post-Olga Euben/Adele Simmons entering class arrives in the autumn of 1990, and they may work counter to the previously refined and enriched normative attitudes that had been festering. The stage is set to continue the growing changes of the past years; students make plans.

Acknowledgements
I am indebted to many people for helping with this project. The original idea for a newspaper records index was proposed by Hampshire alum Michael Dorfman, who also steered me in the use of dBase III for the database which I designed to organize the items. Susan Dayall, Hampshire College archivist, was extremely helpful in locating various obscure documents and providing access to all the newspapers and memos cited herein. Carol Boardway, Merrill House I coordinator, contributed a treasure trove of old papers which were integral to the research process. Harriet Boyden, Director of the Library computer center, spent time helping to remove glitches from the system. Former Community Council Chairperson David Early also contributed valuable documentation and information. This entire project would not have been possible without the support of the spring 1990 Community Council, who approved the funding of this crazy endeavor.

Timothy Shary September 30, 1990

How did I choose what to include in the history?
The title of Tim Shary’s work is A History of Student Activities and Achievements at Hampshire College. I have decided to continue using this title for my work because I believe it accurately describes the history both Tim and myself compiled. The history I compiled came from student newspapers available in the library on microfilm and in the archives. I realize this means that I am relying on an incomplete record of events, and should not be considered a comprehensive history of the school. This compilation is a picture of what students did and achieved at Hampshire College, but is limited to those activities that students at the time deemed news worthy. In Shary’s introduction he wrote that he “tried to limit the number of personal accounts as much as possible,” and I have tried to do the same. The events which I choose to include were those which I believed to have an impact on the lives of students at Hampshire as well as those that would be of interest to readers. For a most part I left out daily occurrences such as sports events, dances, music performances, and personal stories. I also chose not to include activities such as labor issues that students were not involved in including hirings, firings, and union disputes, unless they directly affect daily student life. When these things were included it was because of something extraordinary about them.

What is the importance of this project?
It helps students in the preserve their sense of community and belonging and learn about past students. I have found that there are a number of reoccurring student struggles at Hampshire and it is useful to know what has been tried before at the college. Many academic and social policies have changed over the years and it is important for students, faculty and staff to be reminded of how and why these changes took place so as not to repeat problems. A recorded history allows the community to examine the college and think about what it was and can be. A wonderful place to begin is to see where we came from and how the college grew up as a community. The compilation of achievements and activities allows us to remember and to know that what we have is worth working for.

How can I continue the project?
First, anyone can continue compiling the history from memos, publications, and personal accounts. Both Tim Shary and I relied on a limited number of sources to write our part so more information can always be collected. For me it was useful to understand that students at Hampshire can change things they do not like and create new things to enhance their education and experience at Hampshire. I used this as a HACU Div I, Tim was paid by Community Council to do it in conjunction with cataloging all the Council records.

Some reoccurring issues in Hampshire’s history

 * financial aid
 * community space
 * race and gender issues
 * communication - newspapers, what makes a paper or info source, what works in the diverse Hampshire community
 * community governance
 * pet policy

Archives
The archivist, currently Susan Dayall, is a wonderful resource and a great place to start. She has been at Hampshire for a number of years and has done a good job creating and organizing the archives. The archives are currently located on the third floor of the library, and can be accessed through the archivist. Available in the archives are Hampshire College publications of all kinds, including catalogs and course guides, newsletters, and bulletins, student-produced newspapers and magazines, college governance committee minutes and reports, planning material from the early years of the college, photographs, transcripts of interviews and speeches, and correspondence files from college offices.

The archives web site has online documentary histories of Hampshire College, created by the archivist, Susan Dayall. In addition to being on line, all the volumes are available in the library. Each volume contains a number of edited documents that trace the history of the college.

People
Faculty and staff are also great places for support, especially if this is going to be Divisional work. Some wonderful faculty I have found are David Kerr, Lynn Miller, Aaron Berman, Penina Glazer, Mike Ford. There are a number of faculty and staff alumns, as well as people who have been at Hampshire for a while. Almost everyone I have talked to are happy to share their memories of Hampshire. The Dean of Faculty’s office should be able to tell you which faculty and staff are alumns and how long people have worked at Hampshire.

Community Council
Community Council has records of meetings, motions, actions, and correspondences from 1972 to the present, as part of the binder project. All of the records are cataloged up through 1991, as part of Tim Shary’s project he created a data base for the records. The catalog of the records should be available in the Council office as well as in the archives. Many of the records are also available in the archives.