“This is an incalculable loss, the reverberations of which will be felt in ways none of us can imagine,” Burns said in statement shared with with CBS Boston about the school’s closing. “But at the same time I know that Hampshire’s ethos and probing way of seeing the world doesn’t disappear when a campus goes quiet.
“The thousands of lives transformed by this miraculous, improbable place will carry its revolutionarily generative spirit forward for generations to come,” he continued.
Other graduates reminisced about everything from dinner with professors to movie nights on the lawn to “Hampshire Halloween” — memories that future generations will never have.
“There’s a part of me that was really hoping we could make it through, or that if this day were to come, it wasn’t going to be for a long time,” said Daily Miyamoto, 26, who entered Hampshire in fall 2018. “Hampshire was such a special school.”
Mirman, known for his role voicing Gene Belcher in the “Bob’s Burgers” franchise, told the Globe he adored his time at Hampshire, adding that he owes the college for providing “the space, mentorship and practical blueprint to pursue an unorthodox career.”
“I made some of my closest friends there. It will be greatly missed,” Mirman, who grew up in Lexington, said in a statement. “Still, I hope some kind-hearted billionaire buys it and turns it into a confusing Museum To Individuality and Socialism.”
Brit Williams, who entered the college in fall 2008, said a world without Hampshire “is a poorer place, a less critical place, a less thoughtful place, because the nurturing that Hampshire gives you will not be able to exist anymore.”
“This is just another in a long line of colleges that will unfortunately fall,” said Williams, an associate professor of education at the University of Vermont.
She is devastated by the closure of a school that she considers a part of her.
“Hampshire allowed me to become exactly who I was meant to be,” Williams said through tears.
Hampshire is part of the Five College Consortium, alongside the University of Massachusetts and Amherst, Mount Holyoke, and Smith colleges.
The private college said it will be forced to close after the fall semester after it was unable to fulfill its five-year plan that included increasing enrollment and fundraising. The school also failed to meet its enrollment goal by nearly half this year.
Unconventional curriculums, a lack of standard “grades,” and access to professors were among the features that alumni say made a Hampshire education unique, and exceptional.
“I’ve got a skillset, a toolbox, that I can take anywhere in life,” said Justine Lyons, 51, a biologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Lyons said she struggled in high school with sit-and-listen style learning, but she was thrilled to take part in Hampshire’s individualized, project-based curriculum when she arrived there in fall 1993.
She was most fond of working with professor Raymond Coppinger, one of the founding members of the college’s teaching staff, to develop a better system for using wheelchair assistance dogs, saying the collaboration had a “profound impact” on her life. Lyons recalled another memory of Coppinger picking up students across campus during a major snowstorm and hosting dinner for them at his home.
“I remember every year so vividly, because it all just meant so much to me,” Lyons said.
Geo Interiano, 36, who attended Hampshire beginning in 2007, said he took on his first leadership roles there, opportunities he doesn’t “think a small kid from Providence would have had anywhere else.”
The school doesn’t offer standard majors; students design their own curriculums and receive faculty evaluations. But Lyons said when she applied to master’s and doctoral programs, her eventual employer said reading her Hampshire transcript “was like reading 10 letters of recommendation.”
Helen Murray, 27, a children’s librarian in Cambridge who entered Hampshire in fall 2016, remembered the atmosphere in 2019, when first threat of closure surfaced.
She commended the “incredible organizing” of the student body to keep the school open, including a 75-day, sit-in demonstration at the president’s office.
Murray recalled the fear at that time, which led her to question whether she made the right choice. But “it could only be Hampshire,” she realized after the school persevered. Now, Murray aches for the future generations of students who won’t be able to enroll.
“I just feel an overwhelming sense of loss,” Murray said. “And it feels like a lot of my memories, I’m not going to be able to go back and relive them.”
Lauren Albano can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X @LaurenAlbano_.
