1982 Long Range Planning Committee

The Long Range Planning Committee was convened in order to make long term recommendations for the future of Hampshire College, at a time when Hampshire was facing a very difficult financial situation.

Short Summary of the Long Range Planning Committee Report
The Long Range Planning Committee said that the "basic tenet of the planning process [was] that Hampshire's mission as a distinctive, experimenting, high quality liberal arts college was to remain central."

They said that "Perhaps our greatest strength lies in an educational approach built around individualized student programs, an interdisciplinary academic structure, and progress by examination." They then outlined a series of problems with this approach, however, including one which is still viewed as a major problem: having a "clear sense of what constitutes 'enough' work or to know what counts as 'success.' "

They saw Hampshire's strengths as "its individualized programs, individualized patterns of student progress, flexible curriculum and enormously gifted faculty" but recognized that these same aspects were the source of many of Hampshire's problems.

So what did they recommend in 1982?

Improvements to student life in:
 * food services - Saga Corporation had a student advisory committee, "to assist with planning and to work for continued improvement"
 * women's athletics - "development of new programs designed to encourage women's participation in team sports"
 * community service - at the time the community service requirement was part of Division III< they recommended that it be earlier

Improvements to the academic program included:
 * Division I
 * requirement in basic verbal and quantitative skills, must be evidenced by students in final portfolio
 * Coordinated Basic Studies: "A Coordinated Basic Studies program consists of a group of three faculty and between forty and fifty first-semester students. The program constitutes the full academic workload of the students, and the full course-teaching load of the faculty. The goal is for each faculty member to combine all course-teaching, advising, and examining duties in work with the students in the program. [...] Programs will be organized around ideas and problems which are usefully approached in a multi-disciplinary way and which we are quite sure will interest a large proportion of our incoming first-year students."
 * College-wide writing program
 * faculty workload
 * eliminate the adviser's cover letter from student's transcript
 * faculty membership on exam committees should be limited to not more than two for Division II or III committees and not more than one for Division I committees
 * limit on the number of Division III committees any one faculty member may chair
 * reducing the student/faculty ratio from 14.5:1 to 12:1

Let us not forget, Hampshire was also a financial experiment when it was first conceived: "The main components of the College's financial experiment were a heavy reliance on tuition and fees as a source of income, a high student/faculty ratio, and a minimal commitment to financial aid. These components, moreover, assumed a large student applicant pool, low inflation, cheap energy, and a robust faculty job market that encouraged high faculty turnover. Each of these components and asumptions has been severely challenged since the College opened."

What did they recommend to do about the financial situation? They gave three options:
 * "continue current policies, cut expenditures to balance the budget, and slowly build annual giving and endowment in order to decrease tuition dependency"
 * "reduce expenditures dramatically by reducing the size of the College over the next five years to 1000 students"
 * "enhance the College in ways that contribute to improved admissions and retention"

This third option of enhancement is described in detail: "It would define and support areas of the curriculum that are particularly appropriate to meet the interests and needs of liberal arts education in the 1980s. This strategy has significant financial implications. It requires reinvestment by adding ten faculty over five years to relieve academic understaffing, and to sustain the vital functions of the advising system. Other areas of investment should include academic support such as equipment, classrooms and other instructional facilities, admissions, student life and physical plant."

Summary of the Long Range Planning Committee Report
This summary was written by Susan Dayall, and can be found in its original form here.

This Final Report of the Hampshire College Long Range Planning Committee represents the culmination of two years of painstaking work by the Committee and its sub-groups. The report ranges over a broad spectrum of concerns relating to the future of the College. Most members of the community will agree it is fitting that the bulk of the Committee's efforts--and consequently the major portion of this report--has focused on the core of the College's existence, the academic enterprise...

On September 9, 1980, President Simmons established the Hampshire College Long Range Planning Committee and charged it with the responsibility to "clarify the choices Hampshire faces in the coming decade and to make recommendations regarding long-term educational and financial policies."(p.1-2)

There was widespread agreement within the Committee that the College's mission, broadly defined, was clear and appropriate. Although there is a range of disagreement over details of that mission and how best to serve it, the Committee shared a sense of participating in a distinctive and common educational enterprise in whose aims and accomplishments they believe. There seemed neither reason nor sentiment for tampering with that mission. It seems clear that in the coming decade institutions with a credible and distinctive educational mission stand the best chance to survive and prosper...Thus it became a basic tenet of the planning process that Hampshire's mission as a distinctive, experimenting, high quality liberal arts college was to remain central.(p.3)

Demographic studies show a major decline in the traditional college-age population and an even greater decline in Hampshire's primary recruiting area. This fact may cause serious problems in the long run for admissions and raises questions about where future recruitment effort ought to be directed. A related concern is the maintenance of an academic program and living environment conducive to the retention of matriculated students. There is reason to believe that the current rate of student attrition at Hampshire is too high and can be reduced. In addition, as an experimenting college, Hampshire is committed to making continued improvements in the design and execution of its academic program.

Perhaps our greatest strength lies in an educational approach built around individualized student programs, an interdisciplinary academic structure, and progress by examination. However the individualized nature of the program generates a number of problems. It is difficult for Hampshire students (and faculty) to have a clear sense of what constitutes "enough" work or to know what counts as "success." Student projects vary so widely in form and in content that there is no applicable single standard by which to measure these things. Frequently, because of the lack of obvious signposts for success, first-year students have a feeling of floundering and react negatively to a lack of criteria for establishing a sense of their own progress. A lack of formal criteria for quality and a resultant variability in academic standards give rise to student uncertainty and anxiety and considerable pressure upon faculty members. Because the program lacks the standardized steps toward completion common to traditional academic programs and relies heavily on student initiative and drive, it is very much subject to the vagaries of students' personal lives. The structure of exam committees leads students to work closely with a few faculty members, and, as a result, the supporting environment on which students rely is relatively narrow and subject to the variability of faculty leaves and faculty loads. (p.4)

Individualized patterns of student progress give rise to more specific problems. There is no established time for beginning or completing Division I work, so students often have no reliable way of measuring their own progress against an established norm or well understood set of expectations. Nor is there any clear and well-established pattern for the transition to Division II...In fact, students are frequently still doing Division I work in one field while already working at very advanced levels in others...It is now widely agreed that adjustments can be made which would create a better environment for acquiring appropriate skills and for fostering adequate forms of engagement.

Another strength of the Hampshire curriculum is its provision of areas of interdisciplinary study and work in emerging fields not usually available to undergraduates. This, however, is also a source of some problems. Because there are no set requirements, there is limited stability in the curriculum, often making it difficult for students to plan a course of studies or for Admissions to communicate the Hampshire program to prospective students and parents...Another aspect of the Hampshire curriculum which poses some problems for faculty and students is the dual nature of the Hampshire system, dependent upon courses for a substantial portion of the total instruction which takes place, but determining progress through the system by means of "examinations."

Hampshire faculty, the College's most important resource, work in an environment which, while highly stimulating, is also highly pressured. Demands to stretch beyond areas of proven competence, variable and uneven workloads, tensions between Hampshire's interdisciplinarity and the professional interests of faculty, the fragmented character of faculty work and the relatively high student/faculty ratio are all contributing factors for faculty anxiety. These are further complicated by the vulnerability of a faculty subject to constant review for contract renewal.(p.4-6)

It is evident, then, that what may be seen as Hampshire's greatest strengths--its individualized programs, individualized patterns of student progress, flexible curriculum and enormously gifted faculty--are at the same time the sources of many of the problems faced by the College. The challenge to any task force charged with long range planning is to address and to remedy these problems without at the same time undermining the strengths.(p.7)

Retention of matriculated students is highly dependent upon the quality of the academic program, especially upon the engagement of the student in the first year, and upon the quality of student life. Of those who leave, our studies have shown that the majority are lost to Hampshire early in their careers, usually between the second and fifth semesters of study. This suggests that there may be problems with the way in which the College addresses these students early on. A study suggests that the difficulties experienced by these students is a lack of engagement with Hampshire life and Hampshire culture...(p.14)

Quality of Student Life Recommendations for improving the quality of student life have been separated into three broad areas: food services, women's athletics, and community service. After an extensive examination of the present food services arrangements at Hampshire and at other institutions, the Committee recommended that Hampshire remain with the Saga Corporation food services for the present. It was found that Saga provides a level of quality of food and service that was generally superior to what was available elsewhere and does so at a reasonable price. With a new manager on campus there seems to be an improvement in quality, and the Committee recommended that a regular student advisory committee be created to work with the manager of Saga to assist with planning and to work for continued improvement. This recommendation has been accepted by Saga and is now a part of their contract with the College...

The Committee recommends the development of new programs designed to encourage women's participation in team sports without placing a heavy emphasis on competitive sports. It will work with the new director of women's athletics to achieve that goal as well as to increase women's use of the Robert Crown Center.

A major proposal from the Committee recommends a change in the community service requirement, presently a part of Division III...Instead of the service being performed in a student's Division III, it is intended to engage students earlier in their Hampshire experience. The proposed requirement urges students to perform their service for the benefit of the Hampshire College community...(p.15-16)

The Academic Program Most of the recommendations from the Long Range Planning Committee are concerned with various aspects of the academic program: the structure of the divisional examination system, distribution requirements, the Schools, the curriculum, and other programs.

Students and Courses. The Committee strongly reaffirms the Hampshire system of progress by examination, experiments in pedagogy, and interdisciplinary learning. The Committee believes that there is an important role for courses at Hampshire as a forum for collaborative learning and for teaching students the value of sharing ideas and engaging in intellectual and artistic discourse. Although progress toward the degree at Hampshire is properly measured through divisional exams, courses should continue to play a major role in the transmission of knowledge and skills. Courses have a particularly important function at the beginning of a student's career as a means of introducing students to faculty, peers, and seminars on a wide variety of subjects. Some courses--proseminars--will emphasize examination skills; others give good instruction in writing, analytic reasoning, and so forth. Still others serve as an effective setting for the critical examination of ideas.(p.18)

Division I. The goals of Division I are a working introduction to the Hampshire concept of a liberal education. These goals include 1) breadth or scope in the distribution of studies, 2) the development of certain fundamental intellectual skills, 3) understanding of and practice in employing methods and assumptions of different areas of human knowledge, and 4) the development of abilities to do independent and self-initiated work. Division I provides students with general skills of defining and refining questions, developing critical thinking and the ability to challenge one's own and others' assumptions, and with the sense of accomplishment and serious engagement with academic life.(p.21-22)

Basic Skills and Distribution Requirement. To strengthen some of the elements of Division I, the Committee recommends the addition of a new requirement in basic verbal and quantitative skills. Each student would be required to show that he or she possesses the skills to design and write a major research paper and to demonstrate the possession of basic quantitative skills involving abilities such as the management of statistical data, use of mathematical tools in the conduct of research, and basic level of computer literacy...The Committee recommends that these requirements be fulfilled not by an additional piece of work beyond what is now expected, but rather that they be certified in the course of the students' classroom and examination work in Division I and II.(p.22)

Coordinated Basic Studies. As part of the effort to establish appropriate structures for entering students, the Committee proposes that for the fall of 1982 a limited, voluntary prototype of a Coordinated Basic Studies (CBS) model for Division I be implemented...A Coordinated Basic Studies program consists of a group of three faculty and between forty and fifty first-semester students. The program constitutes the full academic workload of the students, and the full course-teaching load of the faculty. The goal is for each faculty member to combine all course-teaching, advising, and examining duties in work with the students in the program...Program faculty will be drawn from three different Schools of the College, or from three intellectually distinct areas of the College...

Programs will be organized around ideas and problems which are usefully approached in a multi-disciplinary way and which we are quite sure will interest a large proportion of our incoming first-year students. Examples of program topics might be "Visual Arts and Popular Culture"; "The Sixties"; "Environmental Quality"; "Women in Modern Art, Literature, and History." Each program will have a number of components, including lectures, seminars, laboratory and studio work, field work, or whatever else the faculty wish to plan and supervise...(p.23-24)

Strengthened Proseminars. The Committee encourages efforts to strengthen the proseminar program as a key element in providing a more coherent early academic experience. The proseminars provide an introduction to the divisional examination system, a supportive environment and an excellent vehicle for developing ties with faculty, advanced students and other new students. Proseminars can function as a means for the diagnosis of problems and the development of basic skills, especially writing. The Long Range Planning Committee also endorses the development of a College-wide writing program together with basic skills diagnosis and skills improvement workshops providing an essential link with the proseminars program...

The Committee also recommends that the Schools be encouraged to develop Division I course offerings which are designed to facilitate the initiation of Division I examinations. These might include mini-courses or other non-standard devices in which students would be encouraged to work toward a Division I examination. Together with the coordinated basic studies program and the proseminars program, such courses would aid significantly in encouraging early engagement with the Hampshire academic program and the divisional examination system.(p.24)

The Faculty in the 1980s. In recognition of the fragmented character of faculty responsibilities at Hampshire and the great burdens placed upon them by the high student/faculty ratio in the context of individualized education, the Committee gave considerable attention to problems of faculty workload, and to the implications for faculty workload of its recommendations. Recognizing that any efforts to limit or reduce that burden would be likely to have the consequence of imposing limitations on student options and, in some cases, on faculty options as well, the Committee concluded that after ten years of virtually unlimited options, the College had developed a clear sense of their costs and was prepared to impose some limitations for the sake of improved quality of services. The Committee recommended, therefore, a series of steps which should be taken.

First, the College should review the form and structure of the student transcript in view of workload considerations and student needs. In particular, it should consider the costs and benefits of eliminating the adviser's cover letter from the transcript.

Second, the committee recommends that a student's advisor should normally be drawn from the membership of the examination committees for Divisions II and III. This would formalize an already widespread practice. Hampshire College simply does not have enough faculty advisers to permit any other practice to be the norm.

Next, the Committee recommends that Hampshire faculty membership on exam committees should be limited to not more than two for Division II or III committees and not more than one for Division I committees.

Fourth, the Committee recommends that a limit on the number of Division III committees any one faculty member may chair should be established as a guideline. It is expected that conformity with the established guideline will reflect the good judgment of the faculty member and will involve consultation with the school dean.

Finally, in order to improve the overall quality of Hampshire education, to enhance selected areas of the academic program and to add new areas where needed...the Committee recommends that the College give serious consideration to reducing the student/faculty ratio from 14.5:1 to 12:1 by adding sixteen faculty over a five-year period, and it endorses the aim of continuing to reduce that ratio if it is financially feasible to do so.(p.28-29)

Financing the College in the 1980s Although Hampshire was founded as a "new departure in higher education" emphasizing an alternative way to achieve the traditonal goals of a liberal arts education, the College was also a financial experiment. The goal was to start a college without a large endowment and to support its continuing operation primarily from tuition and other student fees. This high tuition dependency was thought to serve two purposes. The first was efficiency and economy in the operation of the institution; the second was independence from the vagaries and potential constraints of private philanthropy.

The main components of the College's financial experiment were a heavy reliance on tuition and fees as a source of income, a high student/faculty ratio, and a minimal commitment to financial aid. These components, moreover, assumed a large student applicant pool, low inflation, cheap energy, and a robust faculty job market that encouraged high faculty turnover. Each of these components and asumptions has been severely challenged since the College opened.

By 1977 it was clear that a number of the main components of the financial experiment could not be sustained and would have to be revised in order to provide for the financing of the College over the long run...

Three options have been considered in defining a strategy to deal with the realities of the College's finances. The first would be to continue current policies, cut expenditures to balance the budget, and slowly build annual giving and endowment in order to decrease tuition dependency. This strategy is not viable since both the threats to enrollment and inflationary pressures on expenses would produce large deficits even if the best estimates of increased income were correct.

The second strategy would be to reduce expenditures dramatically by reducing the size of the College over the next five years to 1000 students. This scenario would probably produce smaller deficits in the first few years than the first option, but would create new problems. Without a turnaround in the decline in full-pay students, the basic financial problem of the College would not be changed, and significant deficits would remain. In addition, there is a great danger that the transition to a college of 1000 would further accelerate the decline in full-pay students and result in a futher decline in total enrollment. Expenditure reductions would mean a loss of 16 faculty and 32 non-faculty, or 18 percent of total personnel. This would be bound to create internal disruption, have a negative effect on morale, and convey the message to critical constituencies that the College is in serious trouble...

The third option is to enhance the College in ways that contribute to improved admissions and retention. This strategy focuses on increasing income from student fees rather than on reducing the College's tuition dependency. It requires reinvestment in the College to improve areas that will lead to stabilizing enrollment, particularly of full-pay students.

An enhancement strategy would have several components. It would underscore the distinctiveness of the College and work to strengthen those aspects that affect perceived and real quality. It would define and support areas of the curriculum that are particularly appropriate to meet the interests and needs of liberal arts education in the 1980s. This strategy has significant financial implications. It requires reinvestment by adding ten faculty over five years to relieve academic understaffing, and to sustain the vital functions of the advising system. Other areas of investment should include academic support such as equipment, classrooms and other instructional facilities, admissions, student life and physical plant...The financing requirements for enhancement, approximately $1.5 to $2.0 million over five years, are considerable. The College does not have surplus resources to make that initial investment, and would have to spend beyond the levels of a balanced budget, either through increased fundraising, internal reallocations, spending assets, or some combination of these. However, if the strategy works, there is both a payback on the investment and a smaller deficit than if the current situation is allowed to continue.(p 30-33)

Implementation No one at Hampshire needs to be reminded that the Committee's recommendations are not a panacea for all the problems the College will face in the 1980s, nor is there a guarantee that the current strengths of the College will be sustained without effort, It is important to continue self-examination and self-study and to make planning an ongoing enterprise.

Hampshire is an experimenting college, and must maintain the flexibility to deserve that description. If it is to avoid rigidities and orthodoxies, it must be able to view itself objectively and to be responsive to the internal and external factors which give it its mission and will sustain its survival.(p.35)