Community Rallies to Support Hampshire College Refugees

About 250 Hampshire College faculty, staff, students, and allies rallied on the Amherst Town Common on Thursday to protest the imminent layoffs of 200 faculty and staff members and to call out the other four colleges in the Five College Consortium — Amherst, Mount Holyoke, Smith, and UMass Amherst — for not doing more to support the Hampshire community.

Hampshire College announced last week that it will close permanently at the end of the fall semester. This week, the college announced that 200 faculty and staff members would be laid off without severance on June 16, and the remaining roughly 50 employees would be terminated by year’s end.

Each speaker at the rally drew on personal experience to describe the rich and distinctive education Hampshire offers. Nearly all referenced the combined endowments of the other four institutions, which total nearly $8 billion. Speakers expressed frustration that the four colleges had not done more to help Hampshire pull back from the brink, and urged them to do more for displaced Hampshire community members.

Students noted that while they may gain admission to the other four colleges, their financial aid would not transfer with them. Some said those colleges were erecting barriers to transfer admissions.

Faculty and staff described the financial hardship of facing layoffs with only seven weeks’ notice and being weeks away from being unable to pay their bills. Faculty members pointed out that academic hiring season has concluded, leaving little chance of finding new positions at this point in the year.

Sarah Jenkins, a professor of animation at Hampshire and moderator for the event, told those assembled that all Hampshire students, faculty, and staff who wish to remain affiliated with the consortium should be able to do so. Jenkins read a statement from ri Goldberg, an assistant professor of queer studies at Hampshire, who said, “This doesn’t have to happen. The other schools have the means to keep us here.”

Goldberg called on the consortium colleges to create one-year bridge positions for Hampshire faculty and staff, providing temporary employment for all who want to remain. The cost of such a program, Goldberg noted, would amount to less than one-tenth of 1% of the four colleges’ combined endowments. “We do not want to lose this community of learners, artists, makers, and activists,” Goldberg said. “We are at Hampshire because we believe a different world is possible.” Goldberg challenged the other consortium members: “Live up to your name as a consortium and consort! Let us together show how another world is possible — one that privileges learning, collaboration, and solidarity across difference, not financialization.”

Some of the signs held by students took aim at the other consortium schools for being fair-weather partners.

Gaurav Jashnani, a professor of psychology, Black studies, and disability studies, said Hampshire deserves better. “We deserve a just closure,” Jashnani said, adding that the other colleges must translate words into action. “This doesn’t have to be a neoliberal dumpster fire,” they said. Jashnani, who identifies as a queer, neurodiverse person of color, said Hampshire has been more welcoming to them than any other campus might have been. “I am heartbroken this is all ending,” they said.

Following the formal rally, an open-mic session lasted about 30 minutes. Among the speakers, two Mount Holyoke students expressed solidarity with Hampshire, recalling that when a dorm fire left them displaced, Hampshire provided them with housing. They also noted that they look to Hampshire for courses that they are unable to find at Mount Holyoke, and they called on their own college to be a genuine partner.

Will Chaney, a graduate student in economics at UMass Amherst who studies worker-owned enterprises, urged the Hampshire community to stay and transform the college into the first collectively owned, democratically run institution of higher education in the country.

During the event, organizers of the Hampshire Workers’ Emergency Relief Fund distributed leaflets soliciting donations. “The mission of Hampshire will never leave our hearts,” the leaflet read, “but many of us will need our community’s support as we find our way forward.”

After the open mic, many of those gathered remained on the Common for a dance party.