Hampshire College: Diversity without Depth?

Accuracy in Academia ^ | October 2, 2015 | Malcolm A. Kline

[Academiadotorg]

As we noted in a previous post, when Hampshire College became the first institution of higher learning in the United States to shun SAT scores as an admissions requirement, the school’s president waxed rhapsodic about the diversity the change engendered.

As it happens, Hampshire’s course catalogue is also rather diverse. Here is a sampling:

• The emergence of literacy;

• Philosophy of Education;

• Intro to Tabletop Game Design;

• Apprenticeship in Animal Communication Research;

• The Social Psychology of Building Peace in the Context of Violent Intergroup Conflict;

• Women in Game Programming;

• Animal Behavior Theory;

• Critical Pedagogy of Place: A Tool for Environmental Action and Social Change;

• Pixelbending: Under the Hood of Modern Filmmaking;

• Words, Faces and Other Minds; and

• Research Seminar in Linguistics and Philosophy: Performative Utterances;

And that’s just in the Cognitive Sciences. Here’s what the Humanities has to offer:

• Introduction to Painting on Paper, Board, Canvas, and Wall;

• The Anatomy of Pictures;

• Dancing Modern I;

• The Language of Architecture;

• The Politics of Popular Culture;

• Writing from the Diaspora: Readings in Contemporary Women's Fiction;

• Color Foundations in Paint and Pixels: The Sun's Not Yellow It's Chicken;

• Sex, Science, and the Victorian Body;

• Making an Argument that Matters; and

• Feminist Philosophy: the Mysterious, the Playful, the Funny, the Useless, the Intimate, and the Indifferent

[Academiadotorg]

I guess I shouldn't be surprised but still find it startling how many college course catalogues look like Modern Language Association programs-

[2banana]

As we noted in a previous post, when Hampshire College became the first institution of higher learning in the United States to shun SAT scores as an admissions requirement, the school’s president waxed rhapsodic about the diversity the change engendered.

We lowered the standards and got what we wanted! What could go wrong?

[ConservativeDude]

philosophy of education, the language of architecture and modern dance (for PE credit, or fine arts credit if the dance department is built out) could all be important classes, IF they were substantive.....

but yeah, the others are pretty bad....

[proxy_user]

Hampshire College was found in the 1970 by hippies “as an experiment in alternative education”. What do you expect?

[allendale]

Only a complete fool would pay $60,000/year to attend Hampshire College.

[babble-on]

Hampshire College is a special case among special cases. A one-of-a-kind freakshow.

[babble-on]

And apparently no one does. They have a 70% admission rate, basically meaning they’ll take all comers, and they have to give huge financial incentives to get students. 91% of the campus receives “grants” to reduce tuition, and the average grant is said to be 23,000. So basically it’s a 40k winter camp for wealthy kids who are too odd to be able to function even at a normal American college.

[allendale]

Love that term “winter camp for wealthy kids”. Wonder if those kids have a clue that they will be living off what is left of their family’s wealth for the rest of their not so special lives.