Hampshire College

Hampshire was founded as an innovative institution within a consortium setting. The Five College Consortium, one of the oldest and most successful consortia in the country, provides an extraordinarily rich set of academic and cultural resources, as it connects the Valley's 30,000 undergraduate students. Its academic structure encourages use of the vast curriculum, faculty, and library resources offered by Amherst, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges and the University of Massachusetts. Each year more than 6,000 courses are available to students in the Five College system at no extra charge; a convenient free bus system provides transportation among the campuses.

Along with the course interchange program, the Five Colleges jointly sponsor faculty exchanges, visiting lecturers, a public broadcasting radio station, and an interlibrary network. All students have open stack access and borrowing privileges at Five College libraries, which collectively house almost nine million volumes. In addition, the collective resources of the five institutions allow interdisciplinary study in many areas, including environmental studies, film, legal studies, and neuroscience.