Jonathon Podolsky

Hampshire College. Photo: hampshire.edu

On January 6 of this year, President Ed Wingenbach announced his resignation as leader of Hampshire College. He had led the institution through a seemingly miraculous rebound since 2019. Behind the handshakes and smiles, a complex reality exists, and the community must rally once again to save the college. High-stakes questions about a potentially important bond issue loom large.

Flashback
Rewind to January of 2019: President Mim Nelson made the bombshell announcement that Hampshire was seekin...

A proposed apartment complex is planned for the area behind Atkins Market, which would involve the sale of land by Hampshire College. According to President Wingenbach’s comments at the Amherst Planning Commission meeting on March 19, the sale is the final part of Hampshire's financial stabilization plan, and any delays would cause significant hardship.

I have been unafraid to criticize Hampshire College, as shown by articles I have written in the past, but sensational accounts I have read in other publications lack grounding in Hampshire’s history, financial recovery path, and today’s higher education landscape. Recent reports have mentioned that enrollment came in under projections, and one story speculates on increased staff turnover. In actuality, it was Hampshire leadership’s decision to reduce non-faculty staffing levels and their own pay...

Why did Hampshire College, an iconic progressive institution saved from closure in 2019, outsource information technology (IT) service to a national for-profit and lay off dedicated employees, some of whom had been there for decades? Back in 2019, the former administration declined to accept that year’s incoming class of new students to make Hampshire easier to acquire by another college. The community revolted, top leaders resigned and the board committed to fundraising to keep Hampshire indepe...

On Nov. 5, I attended an informational meeting at the Marlboro Community Center run by Brian Mooney, director of Potash Hill, the subsidiary of Marlboro Music Festival in charge of renting out the campus.
I was very impressed by his understanding of the values held by various stakeholder groups that have overlapping histories and are affected by what will happen there: alumni and others who cared about the college, the music festival, and the town, region, staff, etc.
I see in him strengths that...

Hampshire College, which nearly closed in 2019, just welcomed its largest entering class since 2018. The film “Unmaking of a College,” which documented the crisis, recently became widely available on streaming platforms and DVD.

The film provides a launching point for understanding the factors that affect Hampshire and other small liberal arts colleges around the nation. However, there is a context beyond the film we need to understand better.

Colleges that don’t deal robustly with core issues arrive at existential crises that can quickly become insurmountable. For over two years, I have been an activist, writer and researcher in save-college movements for schools listed in the book “Colleges that Change Lives.” I also worked early on as an adviser to Save Guilford, a group formed to fight the cuts and restore Quaker processes that had been integral at Guilford. Through a deep dive into various schools and stakeholder groups in crisis...

Jonathon Podolsky is the moderator of Hampshire College Alumni of Western MA, Director of the non-profit Re-envisioning Marlboro College Corporation, and runs a Hampshire College/Sweet Briar Facebook group. He has been involved in save college movements for two years. Podolsky advised Save Guilford leadership during the group’s formation. He can be reached at www.Podolsky.cc

The light at the end of the tunnel could be an oncoming train.

Save Guilford is a group mainly of alumni that has emerge...

Seth Andrew is adept at using words that evoke the democratic ideals of our country. However, it is by no means clear that he delivers on these lofty ideals. As reported in the article, there have been questions raised about Seth Andrew's organization. The email quoted in the article appears to dodge the question asked, instead asserting that the community is “confused.” According to a letter to the Vermont Attorney General, Democracy Builders Fund, Inc. is seeking to buy the campus. According...

Marlboro College held its annual meeting May 16 in which they overrode term limits and ignored a petition with more than 800 signatures calling on leadership in favor of closure, to resign. Their plan to give away millions of dollars to Emerson College, while taking on new debt, $1M in Paycheck Protection Program funds from the federal government and $1.5M to build a new dorm this year, lacks judgement. The trustees voted to give another term to Chairman Richard Saudek, who has been on the board...

Marlboro College held its annual meeting May 16 in which they overrode term limits and ignored a petition with more than 800 signatures calling on leadership in favor of closure, to resign. Their plan to give away millions of dollars to Emerson College, while taking on new debt, $1M in Paycheck Protection Program funds from the federal government and $1.5M to build a new dorm this year, lacks judgement. The trustees voted to give another term to Chairman Richard Saudek, who has been on the board...

by Jonathon Podolsky For months now, I have watched and worked with others to engage like-minded individuals in support of the continued operation of Marlboro College with some success. Much to my amazement, many think that saving Marlboro is a lost cause--I know it is not. I was deeply involved with the Save Hampshire College movement. Why? Because I understood the importance of offering alternative educational opportunities to students interested in a smaller, more flexible learning environmen...

For months now, I have watched and worked with others to engage like-minded individuals in support of the continued operation of Marlboro College with some success. Much to my amazement, many think that saving Marlboro is a lost cause — I know it is not. I was deeply involved with the Save Hampshire College movement. Why? Because I understood the importance of offering alternative educational opportunities to students interested in a smaller, more flexible learning environment.After having been...

Editor’s note: This commentary is by Jonathon Podolsky, of Northampton, Massachusetts, who is an active participant of I Believe in Marlboro College and in Mobilize Marlboro. He is an alumus of Hampshire College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He was active with organizations that worked to save Hampshire College.For months now, I have watched and worked with others to engage like-minded individuals in support of the continued operation of Marlboro College with some success. Much to...

The leadership of Marlboro College claims their proposed "merger" (which would actually close Marlboro) will preserve the college's ethos. However, during recent Marlboro events, the administration has damaged their credibility by violating the core tenets of their own institution, even before the finalized agreement has been signed.Marlboro's DNA centers around the small town democratic ideals students can learn (and practice) in Town Meetings, created by the college even before it had a facult...

Jonathon Podolsky is the moderator of Local Frogs: Hampshire College Alumni of Western MA and has been very active in the saving Hampshire College movement. If you would like to send a letter to The Beacon please email [email protected]. Letters for print must be sent by Wednesday, 6 p.m. EST and not exceed 200 words. 
Marlboro College’s proposed “merger” with Boston’s Emerson College would spell the end of the small Vermont college forever. Despite this grim news, growing resistance to the merg...

Marlboro College's proposed "merger" with Boston's Emerson College would spell the end of the small Vermont college forever. Despite this grim news, there is growing resistance to the merger and clarity that other options can be considered. "Marlboro's curricular and pedagogic experiences are profoundly linked to and influenced by the Vermont rural landscape. Its setting is the raison d' tre — the animating spirit that brings to life, in full measure, the teaching and learning that takes place o...

On Jan. 15, Hampshire College President Miriam Nelson dropped a bombshell announcement: Hampshire was seeking a strategic partner and would announce, by Feb. 1, if it would accept incoming students for next fall.

According to reporting in the Gazette, few outside of the president’s office and top trustees knew about the announcement before the day it was made. The community was blindsided and felt betrayed.

Two weeks later, Gaye Hill, chair of the board of trustees, made the announcement before a gym full of people who love the college. She began to read the trustees’ decision to admit only 77 new students for the fall but was unable to complete her remarks, as the four walls of the gymnasium were lined with students and allies who held hands and shouted in unison: “Hampshire, united, we’ll never be divided!” The ongoing student sit-in that began on Jan. 31 at the Dean of Students Office and the Office of the President is still going.

Staff and faculty are expecting up to 50 percent layoffs in the coming months. The first round of staff layoffs will be announced with staff members privately on Tuesday. Staff have no contracts and know that they will be the first to go as has happened in the past. The loss of additional staff could make the difference for certain students continuing in college, especially for those who are first-generation, neurodivergent, students of color, chronically ill, or who have mental health challenges. Current students are afraid of losing professors with whom they work closely. Faculty members could lose their jobs at a time of year when it is nearly impossible to find a job elsewhere.

President Nelson portrays the college’s financial crisis as being the result of a perfect storm of tapped-out donors, inescapable demographic trends, and ominous regulation. There is substantial reason to think that there were false assumptions or misunderstanding of proposed regulations. As reported by The Boston Globe, “The fact that Hampshire cited the stress test surprised Chris Gabrieli, the chairman of the state Board of Higher Education.” As he told the Globe: “Our goal is not to put people out of business ... And not to make anyone take an action before it’s necessary.”

The best way to clear up the contrary reports is with a public forum where the state Board of Higher Education, attorney general, New England Commission of Higher Education, and the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, can explain their plans to more closely monitor and regulate colleges in financial difficulty.

Smith College’s Chapter of AAUP, Hamp Rise-Up (the student coalition), 107 faculty from Mount Holyoke College, and 137 faculty from Amherst College have expressed similar desires for transparency and criticized the administration’s imposition of non-disclosure agreements, a radical departure from the model of shared governance common in higher education, and especially prized at Hampshire. President Nelson and Kim Saal, vice-chair of the board, spoke during a webinar on Jan. 21. They dismissed questions about the petition signed by almost 2,000 staff, faculty and alumni.

Why didn’t the president and top board members announce the level of financial urgency sooner, given that Nelson thought the college was facing an existential crisis as early as May of last year, according to her interview with The Boston Globe? Why didn’t they mention their search for a strategic partner back in the fall?

Hampshire was created to change higher education, as outlined in the book, “The Making of a College.” The model is founded on active participation and critical inquiry; thus its community is bold, imaginative and collaborative. These principles and strengths exist deep in the bones, run in the blood, and are part of the DNA of the college, but they haven’t been recognized during the current crisis.

It is time to do better. We could have formed a consensus on whether to seek a strategic partner or reinvent the college and keep it independent while raising enough money to approach either possibility from a position of strength.

Activist alumni recently raised a quarter of a million dollars in only three days, and Professor Margaret Cerullo confirmed with me that she received almost a half million dollars in pledges in several days even while busy traveling outside of the U.S. Secrecy and over-reliance on the smallest subsets of decision makers preclude the robust involvement of groups that are ready to make a positive change, like the alumni that recently saved Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Hampshire itself has previously weathered seemingly impossible demographic and financial challenges. But time is running out. Top leaders: Please soul-search right away and figure out why you are holding back the innovation that is the strength of Hampshire. If you can’t change, please step aside.

Jonathon Podolsky is moderator of Hampshire College Alumni of Western Massachusetts and organizer of Western Mass Filmmakers.