admissions header
Home / Admissions / Facts, Figures, and Faces / 25+ examples of excellence
 

25+ examples of excellence

  Did You Know?
  Alum who is a veterinarian
  Half of Hampshire graduates go on to achieve advanced degrees and one in seven holds a Ph.D. or terminal degree in her or his field. Learn more >>
   

Hampshire is one of 40 colleges profiled in Colleges That Change Lives for "developing potential, values, initiative, and risk-taking" in students. CTCL says of Hampshire that "no college has students whose intellectual thyroids are more active or whose minds are more passionately engaged."

Hampshire is among the top 50 schools whose graduates went on to receive a Ph.D. in science or engineering, according to a report by the National Science Foundation. Read more >>

Hampshire is number 10 on Sierra Magazine’s 2011 list of the nation’s “coolest” schools, selected for their efforts to stop global warming and operate sustainably. Hampshire is also featured in the 2011 Princeton Review Guide to 311 Green Colleges.

The 2010 Best 371 Colleges guide by Princeton Review lists Hampshire among the top 20 gay-friendly colleges, as identified by surveyed students. Campus Pride’s LGBT-Friendly "Campus Climate Index" scores Hampshire at 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Hampshire is one of 45 colleges and universities selected for the Bringing Theory to Practice Project, a national leadership coalition of schools committed to becoming models for what liberal education can offer—and most effectively deliver.

A National Science Foundation grant awarded to Hampshire in 2010 supports women, minority, and first-generation transfer students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

Hampshire is number one in the percentage of its graduates who have earned Ph.D.s in history, when figures are adjusted for institutional size, according to the most recent national Weighted Baccalaureate Origins Report. Read more >>

PROGRAMS

  Integrating Languages
  Two students speaking a foreign language
  Hampshire is becoming a "language learning community." Students can integrate study of world languages into the topics and questions of most interest to them, while professors incorporate languages into their scholarship and teaching.
   

Hampshire creates innovative programs that don’t just combine, but transcend, traditional academic disciplines: Culture, Brain, and Development (CBD) looks at human behavior and interactions from neurological, biological, environmental, psychological, and cultural frameworks.

Design, Art, and Technology: Innovation Synergy (DART) supports work by student and faculty artists, computer scientists, designers, architects, animators, engineers, inventors, and innovators.

Hampshire is on Princeton Review and GamePro magazine’s list of the Top 50 Undergraduate Game Design Programs, in which students can study video game design.

Students interested in architecture and design can do hands-on work through a program Hampshire and the Five College Architecture Program have with the New York Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies (NYIAUS). Professors liken the studio immersion experience at NYIAUS to "an architecture boot camp."

The Civil Liberties and Public Policy (CLPP) program at Hampshire is celebrating its 30th anniversary during 2011, an occasion marked by a $1 million anonymous gift to the program. A new Ford Foundation grant provides support for CLPP's work to educate, mentor, and inspire new generations of reproductive rights and health advocates and leaders.

STUDENTS

  Leaders of Tomorrow
  Lee Morgan
  Lee Morgan was invited to participate in the Ninth Annual Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Colloquium, presenting work from his Division III thesis on "The Nature and Process of Metaphorical Interpretation."
   

Marian Schmidt received the 2011 Raymond W. Sarber Award. Funded by the American Society for Microbiology, the national award goes annually to one undergraduate and one graduate candidate who show research excellence and potential.

Zilong Wang was one of 40 students selected from nearly 1,000 applicants for the 2011 Student Freedom Ride, sponsored by PBS's American Experience. The Student Freedom Riders retraced the journey of the original 1961 Freedom Rides, an important chapter in the history of the struggle for racial justice.

Leticia Contreras was selected by Campus Compact as a Newman Civic Fellow, nominated by college and university presidents as "the best of the best: promising college leaders who have demonstrated an investment in finding solutions for the challenges facing communities throughout the country."

COLLABORATION WITH STUDENTS

  Collaborative Work
  incident at tower 37 still
  The Incident at Tower 37, an animated film written and directed by Professor Chris Perry and collaboratively created with his students over four years, has shown in more than 60 festivals and won 20 awards. View film >>
   

Students work alongside computer science professor Lee Spector on his research projects, including National Science Foundation-funded research on development of software that can possibly learn and evolve through processes similar to those of biological evolution.

Professor Paul Dickson teaches his students fundamental computer science skills as they build video games from scratch on iPhones.

Chemistry professor Dula Amarasiriwardena and his students wanted to solve the mystery of what killed the ancient Chinchorro mummies of Chile. By performing laser analysis on hair and teeth samples taken from village residents, they discovered indications that the area’s drinking water contains dangerously high levels of heavy metals, particularly arsenic.

FACULTY

  Hands-On Research
 
 

Earth and environmental science professor Steven R. Roof is co-principal investigator in an international climate change study funded by the National Science Foundation. It involves student summer research examining evidence of climate change above the Arctic Circle. Related video >>

   

Professor of Integrated Science and Humanities Salman Hameed is director of Hampshire's new Center for the Study of Science in Muslim Societies. Professor Hameed received a $372,500 National Science Foundation grant for a study of the perspectives of evolution held by physicians and medical students in the Muslim world.

For more than two decades, Professor of Literature and Gender Studies Jill Lewis has used education as a powerful tool in the international fight against the devastating spread of the HIV epidemic. Approaching the issue from cultural and gender-focused perspectives, she has developed and implemented HIV-awareness and -prevention initiatives in parts of North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.

Professor of Peace and World Security Studies (PAWSS) Michael Klare is the author of 13 books on geopolitical topics and a frequent media commentator on international issues of energy and stability.

Dean of Faculty and Professor of Biological Anthropology Alan Goodman is past president of the American Anthropological Association and co-directs the largest public education project on race, entitled "RACE: Are We So Different?"

Poetry professor Aracelis Girmay received a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Literature Fellowship.

Humanities Professor Robert Meagher was appointed as a commissioner for the Truth Commission on Conscience in War, a national coalition of religious, academic, advocacy, and veterans groups with the goal of honoring and protecting “freedom of conscience for our nation’s service members.”

Professor of Physics Herb Bernstein is a co-founder of the Anacapa Society, a new national organization of theoretical and computational physicists working in primarily undergraduate institutions.

 

Contact Us

Admissions Office
Hampshire College
893 West Street
Amherst, MA 01002
877.937.4267 (toll free)
413.559.5471
Fax 413.559.5631
admissions@hampshire.edu
 

© 2012 Hampshire College 893 West Street Amherst, MA 01002 . 413.549.4600