FIVE COLLEGE CONSORTIUM: MID-MASSACHUSETTS’ ELITE COLLEGES IN COOPERATION

Centered around Amherst and Hampshire County in Massachusetts, the Five College Consortium is an association of some of the nation’s leading tertiary educational institutions with a history of cooperating of more than one hundred years. The four private liberal arts colleges and the one public research university that comprise its membership are amongst the best-known and most highly selective schools in North America and are first-choice destinations for the best and brightest applicants from around the world.

ABOUT

Punctuated by the Connecticut River, the Pioneer Valley region of mid-Massachusetts is celebrated as one of the most picturesque areas of the Northeast. With its clapboard sided houses, white picket fences, old churches and heavily forested landscape, the towns dotted around this region are quintessentially New England. This area of Massachusetts is within reach of the state’s third most populated city – Springfield, a thriving and expanding city to the south near the Connecticut border. Furthermore, the Pioneer Valley is within commuting distance of larger metropolitan hubs, including Boston, Hartford, New Haven, Providence and New York City, making it an attractive destination for homeowners, holidaymakers and students.

Indeed, so prominent are the region’s colleges and universities that the Pioneer Valley, more specifically the Hartford-Springfield Metropolitan Region (which includes Amherst, Hadley and other neighbouring towns), has come to be known as the “Knowledge Corridor”, with a service-based economy bolstered by the number of high-quality graduates who call these various educational institutions their alma mater. Some 65% of the population of Amherst and the wider Hampshire County are under the age of 24 with the median age being 21. These figures are skewed by the dominance of the tertiary education institutions which make up the Five College Consortium and which, collectively, are the region’s largest employer and primary economic contributor.

The Pioneer Valley education ecosystem includes a number of nationally renowned elementary and high schools, both public and private. Of particular note are schools like Eaglebrook School, established in 1922 and one of the most highly regarded and revered private, junior boarding schools in the country which has long-been viewed as a feeder to the top college-preparatory high schools in the Northeast; Eagle Hill School, an independent, college-preparatory, boarding, high school that, when founded in 1967, was an early pioneer in the education of children with disorders on the autism spectrum and related conditions; The Hartsbrook School, an independent, K-12, alternative school in the Waldorf-Steiner tradition that dates back to 1981; The MacDuffie School, a top-ranked private, college-preparatory, boarding school for grades 6-12 that was founded in 1890; the Campus School of Smith College, a private, laboratory, elementary school established under the auspices of Smith College in 1926; Wibraham & Monson Academy, founded in 1804, one of the best-known independent, boarding, high schools in America; and The Williston Northampton School, another well-known prestigious private boarding school offering a college-preparatory, high school program.

The towns and cities of this region include some of the oldest populated regions of North America, dating back to the earliest colonial settlers of New England. So too are some of the colleges that comprise the Five College Consortium, with Amherst College having been founded in 1821 when it co-opted the Amherst Academy secondary school, founded in 1814 and famously where Emily Dickinson once was a student. The college was intended to operate as a new location for the older Williams College which had been struggling. Amherst’s founders had envisioned absorbing the college at this new location but, ultimately, the two remained separate institutions albeit, close rivals. Amherst Academy eventually fell upon hard times and was forced to close in 1861.

Mount Holyoke College was founded in South Hadley in 1837, also located in Hampshire County. This redoubtable women’s college was established by noted educator Mary Lyon, who had also once attended Amherst Academy as a pupil.

University of Massachusetts, Amherst was established as the Massachusetts Agricultural College (MAC) in 1863, endowed under the Federal Morill Land-Grant Colleges Act which released funding for colleges providing instruction in agricultural studies, mechanical studies and military studies. The college, which has always been a public institution, struggled to find its footing in its early years and would undergo many changes before becoming a part of the state university system and growing to become the second largest university in Massachusetts today.

Smith College is a private liberal arts college for women that was founded in 1871 and which has established a reputation as one of the nation’s premier, selective women’s colleges and, alongside Mount Holyoke, is part of the prestigious Seven Sisters conference.

These four institutions began their cooperative relationship as far back as 1914 when they joined with Springfield College, a private university in Springfield, Massachusetts founded in 1885 (as YMCA College) to form the Committee on University Extension of the Connecticut Valley Colleges. In the years following, Amherst College, Massachusetts Agricultural College, Mount Holyoke College and Smith College began to collaborate more and more closely and were exploring avenues for greater cooperation and integration.

They agreed an inter-library program, the Hampshire Inter-College Library Center (HILC), in 1951 (which included the libraries of the four colleges and Forbes Library, a public library in Northampton, MA). They began a Committee on Cooperation in 1955 with the support of a grant to this end from the Ford Foundation’s Fund for the Advancement of Education (TFAE). The Committee submitted their first report to the presidents of the four colleges in 1956 recommending “increased cooperation in undergraduate education, in graduate work, in faculty utilization, in interchange of students, in teacher education, in campus-to-campus transportation, in area studies, in FM radio and educational television, in coordination of special events (lectures, concerts, art exhibits), in establishing a joint calendar, in studying the problem of remedial reading instruction, in providing speech therapy, in adult education, in audio-visual aids, in statistical services, and in cooperative recruitment of staff”. Furthermore, the Committee proposed establishing a separate legal entity as a corporation which would administer cooperation between the participating member schools as the most effective vehicle for delivering this agenda. In 1957 a new coordination office was created which would be tasked with implementing some of the Committee on Cooperation’s recommendations and start the process of formalising a consortium.

The first steps towards this new cooperative model were taken in 1957 with the inception of an interchange academic scheme allowing students to elect to undertake a course at any of the other respective colleges (subject to permission from the appropriate dean). The burgeoning consortium received further funding from the Ford Foundation in 1958 which would underwrite the next steps in the development of the consortium and helped finance research towards The New College Plan, a white paper which would pave the way for the creation of Hampshire College. The consortium began to operate under the name of the Four College Consortium with various interoperability arrangements and joint projects underpinning the association.

In 1959 a joint astronomy department was launched. Thereafter a number of other subsequent initiatives followed, including the establishment of a transportation network linking the four campuses in the 1965/66 academic year, the launch of a new joint calendar, and the consolidation of their respective college radio programmes into a single FM radio station.

Also, in 1965, the groundwork was laid for a new, more ambitious project. The Presidents of the four colleges had embarked upon a plan to commence a new model for liberal arts education, an alternative, more progressive programme that would allow them to experiment with educational delivery and methodologies. In 1970, the New College Plan would be realised in the formation of Hampshire College and the Four College Consortium would become the Five College Consortium. This new chapter in the history of the consortium is chronicled in detail in Peterson F. & Longworth C.R. (1966) ‘The Making of a College’ (Cambridge, M.I.T. Press) with the background to the consortium being detailed in the chapter ‘A Few Bold Institutions’, a moniker that these colleges have ascribed to themselves many times over the years since publication.

In the years since, the corporation advised by the Committee on Cooperation was established as Five Colleges, Incorporated (FCI). The corporation acts as the secretariat for the consortium and maintains a staff of approximately 40 people from its offices in Amherst.

Under the Five College Consortium, the schools continue to maintain an inter-collegiate exchange and cross-registration programme, a circuitous campus-linking transportation service, an integrated library programme, and a host of joint academic and research initiatives. In addition, students can participate in cultural, entertainment and co-curricular events and activities. The consortium oversees various graduate recruitment fairs to support upperclassmen with securing positions with leading employers.

Inter-collegiate training opportunities exist for staff and the consortium hosts various conferences and workshops to support executive and administrative staff. Opportunities for research projects and advanced academic initiatives are also facilitated by the consortium.

Whilst the colleges continue to operate as independent institutions, through the consortium, they are able to engage in joint ventures, common academic programmes and even joint faculty recruitment efforts. The consortium also provides for substituting faculty from one institution to another on a need-by-need basis.

The consortium’s secretariat further supports policy development in matters common to the five members, such as increasing diversity of faculty and the student body, embedding sustainability objectives into the respective colleges’ forward programmes, assessing risk and supporting the separate captive insurance vehicle founded by the colleges and maintaining common property used for research or administrative purposes. The secretariat also acts as a representative voice for the consortium members and as a contact point for common purchasing decisions and participation of the respective members in the Massachusetts Higher Education Consortium (MHEC), based at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

The five member schools of the consortium are nationally celebrated, often ranking amongst the top colleges in the country. All are highly selective attracting applications from only the brightest students nationally and internationally with extremely competitive admissions rates. All are accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE). University of Massachusetts, Amherst has the highest classification on the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, being recognised as having very high doctoral level research output. The other four colleges, all private institutions, are recognised as representing the top tier of liberal arts colleges in the United States and are members of the Association of Independent Colleges & Universities in Massachusetts (AICU Mass / AICUM) and the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU).

Amherst College, Mount Holyoke College and Smith College are all members of the Alliance to Advance Liberal Arts Colleges (AALAC), the Annapolis Group of Liberal Arts Colleges, the Oberlin Group of College Libraries, the 12 College Exchange Program and the Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges (CLAC). These three schools are commonly referred to as “Little Ivies” or “Hidden Ivies” – the small liberal arts colleges that offer an education comparable to the Ivy League universities and are a viable alternative for those seeking a similar college experience and academically rigorous course of studies. Hampshire College was a member of CLAC. Amherst College is also a member of The Boston Consortium for Higher Education and the 568 Presidents Group and Smith College was a member of the Selective Liberal Arts Consortium (SLAC). The University of Massachusetts, Amherst is a member of the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN), a network of globally recognised, prestigious research universities. Amherst, Mount Holyoke, and Smith are part of the wider “Ivy Plus” community and participate in various Ivy Plus initiatives under the Ivy Plus consortium banner, including the Ivy Plus Sustainability Consortium (IPSC) and the Ivy Plus Writing Consortium (IPWC).

Unlike some other consortia of colleges and universities across the United States, the Five College Consortium does not maintain any official athletic competition with the member schools participating in separate primary conferences. The University of Massachusetts, Amherst is the only Five College Consortium member that offers National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) Division I level sports programmes, competing in the Atlantic 10 Conference (A-10) and the Hockey East Association. It is also the only member of the conference that offers full athletics scholarships. Amherst College participates in the NCAA Division III New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC). Mount Holyoke College participates in the NCAA Division III Liberty League and the New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference (NEWMAC). Smith College also participates in the New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference. Hampshire College does not participate in NCAA aligned sports but is a member of the alternative United States Collegiate Athletic Association (USCAA) and competes in the Yankee Small College Conference (YSCC).

If you would like to find out more about the Five College Consortium or the work of its secretariat, Five Colleges, Incorporated, you can find their contact details here. Alternatively, you might like to reach out to your preferred member school listed below.

Did you attend any of the institutions that are members of the Five College Consortium? If so, we would be very keen to hear about your experience and very grateful for any insights that you might like to share with our readers, especially any details about how participation in the Five College Consortium benefitted you. Similarly, if you have any other thoughts or stories that might inform our readers we would love to read them in the comments below.