Jon Krakauer pens New York Times op-ed on his New England alma mater with an uncertain future
The acclaimed author of “Into the Wild” questioned whether Hampshire College’s “iconoclastic educational model” can survive.
As Hampshire College weighs whether it will accept a new class of students for the fall, a prominent alumnus of the liberal arts school is questioning whether the institution’s “iconoclastic education model” can survive as it grapples with its financial difficulties. Jon Krakauer, author of “Into the Wild” and “Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town,” reflected on his time at Hampshire College in a Thursday New York Times op-ed. Krakauer described how when he enrolled in the school in 1972, two years after it was founded, his father stopped talking to him, he was so angry. And when he first went to the Amherst campus, he drove by the entrance, mistaking it for a farm. His classes were “lively, challenging and intimate,” he wrote:
Creative problem solving was emphasized. Our professors encouraged us to consider the big picture and the long view, and embrace risk as a life strategy. Failing spectacularly in pursuit of an ambitious goal was thought to be salutary, and the shellacking instilled some humility. Whatever success I’ve had is rooted in those lessons. (Though even at Hampshire, one of my final academic projects — a four-week expedition to Alaska to attempt a very difficult peak in Denali National Park — provoked a fierce debate with the dean.)
In mid-January, the college announced that “challenges” from under-endowment were forcing the administration to consider whether a new freshman class could be admitted for the fall. College President Miriam Nelson said Hampshire would also be seeking a “strategic partnership” to help keep the college’s doors from closing, as has been the case for similar small institutions. “We have great resources in our people, in our pedagogy that has had outsize influence on higher education, and in our reputation for imaginative and forward thinking,” she said. “By moving ahead so forthrightly now, we also have perhaps the most important resource of all—time. We have the time to undertake the awesome, exhilarating responsibility of evolving education at Hampshire.”New England Public Radio reports the school has been in talks with UMass Amherst about creating a “deeper collaboration.” Both schools are already part of the Five College Consortium, which also includes Amherst, Mount Holyoke, and Smith colleges. In his op-ed, Krakauer debated whether the core of the college’s mission will survive as the administration seeks to resolve the institution’s financial difficulties. “Hampshire’s iconoclastic educational model is widely admired and deservedly praised,” he wrote. “Given what lies ahead, however, it is not at all clear how much of the Hampshire philosophy — to say nothing of the Hampshire soul — will survive.”Read his full piece at The New York Times.
