Word count is one of the surest indications of a newspaper’s sense of importance, so the paper should be commended for this coverage. In the five days since the news at Hampshire surfaced, the Boston Globe has published a flurry of articles. has no finer example of what can be achieved when educational institutions work together in synergy, no more visible emblem, nationally and internationally, of its success.” Though I still believe that a magazine of literature, the arts, and public affairs makes its founding institutions visible in ways not otherwise achievable, clearly this sentence from our self-study would be best applied to the single most innovative, radical, and enduring accomplishment of this collaboration, Hampshire College itself. The origins of Hampshire College, however, predate our founding: in 1958, the presidents of Amherst, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges, along with the University, appointed a committee that drafted a “New College Plan.” Somewhat immodestly, our self-study claimed that “Five Colleges, Inc.
When we began, back in 1959, there was no Five College Consortium though we did quickly have the backing of the original four. It is relevant, though, that, we subtitled that self-study “A Five College Production,” and also that we argued the Massachusetts Review was itself an “early force in bringing UMass faculty members together with those from Amherst College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and beyond.” In any case, I write today, not in order to rehearse this history, but to speak about our shared future, and, in particular, the future of one of our partner institutions. Since you’re reading this post, you know we’re not toast, and that it all worked out for the best. Since then, various administrators have come and gone at least now we have a paper trail, and a document that can function as institutional memory. Eventually, with the help of our friends, we put together the first self-study of our then fifty-year-old magazine, and we followed that up by organizing an external review. I quickly cobbled something together, of course, but also immediately began doing some serious spadework.
Shortly after I got anointed or conned into taking the job as MR editor, I received an email from my Dean at UMass, asking me to give her a few talking points about the history and importance of the magazine, in order to prep the Provost for a meeting with the Deans Council. The Hampshire College Seal and Motto ("to know is not enough")įrankly, when I read the shocking news from Hampshire College this week, it brought back memories.
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