Jennifer Chrisler Selected to Lead Hampshire College’s Next Bold Chapter

An accomplished higher education administrator and leader, LGBTQIA+ advocate and non-profit executive, Chrisler’s 30+ year career has spanned the fields of private and public education, electoral politics, and national public policy advocacy. A longtime resident of western Massachusetts, Chrisler is a Smith College alumna and the mother of three sons. Chrisler assumes the presidency after serving as interim president for three months, continuing her duties without interruption. 

“I believe in Hampshire’s promise, and I believe in its people,” said Chrisler. “The College’s creation required a radical rethinking of how to approach the liberal arts, and we’ve been pushing higher education forward ever since. Hampshire’s purpose is reinvention, which is a vital capacity in the current moment. Now is the time to supercharge our work to envision a 21st-century education that prioritizes student agency, adaptability, and real-world impact. The key to all of this is to lay the groundwork for transformative growth with the Hampshire community while ensuring Hampshire’s operational health.”

I believe in Hampshire’s promise, and I believe in its people.

“Jennifer Chrisler's exemplary leadership has already proven essential for the College, with a combination of vision and resilience that makes her a perfect fit for us as an experimenting institution,” said Jose Fuentes, chair of Hampshire’s board. “In her, we have a steady and savvy financial hand, as well as a strategist who can see the macro trends in higher education and forge an innovative future for both Hampshire and the liberal arts.” 

“I can’t think of a better person to take the reins at Hampshire College right now than Jennifer Chrisler,” said filmmaker Ken Burns 71F, an alum of the College and cochair of its Change in the Making campaign. “She has lived our recent past and knows the workings and the secret sauce of the College at every level. I look forward to working with her over the coming months and years as Hampshire continues to be the groundbreaking laboratory of higher education in the country.”

About Jennifer Chrisler

Chrisler joined Hampshire in 2019, at a critical moment in the College’s history, when the board and community committed to Hampshire as an independent, autonomous institution delivering on its distinctive mission. This followed a period in which the College reversed its decision to seek a merger partner and not to admit a class that fall.

As chief advancement officer, vice president of institutional support and interim president, Chrisler was responsible for much of the College’s external presence and revenue generation, including fundraising, enrollment, and auxiliary enterprises. She rebuilt the advancement and development operations, securing more than $52 million in unrestricted operating support for the Change in the Making campaign, including three $5 million gifts and a total of seven donations of $1 million or more. These gifts represent the second, third, and fourth largest gifts received by the College since its founding in 1970, and seven of the 12 seven-figure gifts in Hampshire’s history.

She led Hampshire’s rebranding, which included new print materials, a website overhaul, and internal and external messaging platforms. Coupled with a data-driven digital and print marketing strategy, the College enjoyed strong application growth, increasing enrollment from a low of approximately 450 to nearly 800 full-time enrolled students. Additionally, she supported our innovative and values-driven decision to create an easy path to enrollment for New College of Florida (NCF) students when that institution was under attack for its own distinctive and progressive approach to education. This effort resulted in more than 50 NCF students transferring to Hampshire.

Previously, as vice chancellor for advancement at UMass Dartmouth, a Tier 1 national research university, she was responsible for fundraising, alumni relations, family and community engagement, public affairs, marketing and conferencing, and events.

As vice president of alumnae relations at Smith College, she was responsible for the full breadth of alumnae engagement programming delivered to more than 55,000 alumnae worldwide: presidential and all-alumnae events, supporting 120 global Smith clubs, partnering with annual fund staff to increase participation, producing two reunion weekends a year, volunteer training and stewardship, young alumnae and alumnae of color engagement, career support, communications and digital engagement, and a robust travel and education program.

Chrisler has been an advocate and frequent speaker on issues of LGBTQIA+ equality. From 2005 to 2013, she led the Family Equality Council, one of the foremost national advocacy organizations dedicated to full equality for modern American families. In that role, she worked to support, represent, and connect the one million families in the U.S. with parents who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender and their two million children. During her tenure, Family Equality Council raised nearly $3 million annually, expanding its major donor program, securing foundation grants and large corporate sponsors as it grew into the leading policy advocate on federal and state issues that impact today’s families. The organization mobilized hundreds of LGBT-headed families to participate in the White House Easter Egg Roll in Washington, D.C., a groundbreaking event that not only received unprecedented national attention from the media and the public, but represented the single largest example of LGBT family visibility in American history. She also routinely appeared on television and in print media as an advocate for family equality and expert on parenting and family policy issues.

She is currently the chair of the board for Fenway Health, which advocates for and delivers innovative, equitable, and accessible healthcare, supportive services, and transformative research and education, centering on LGBTQIA+ people, BIPOC individuals, and other underserved communities.