Hampshire College

Ralph J. Hexter is the fifth president of Hampshire College, having joined the college August 1, 2005.

President Hexter regards his role at Hampshire College as the culmination of a career dedicated to higher education and the liberal arts, both as professor of classics and comparative literature and college and university administrator. After earning degrees at Harvard, Oxford (Corpus Christi College), and Yale, he taught for a decade in Yale’s classics department before moving to the University of Colorado at Boulder, where, as professor of classics and comparative literature, his primary administrative assignment was to direct the graduate program in comparative literature. In 1995 he joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, again as professor of classics and comparative literature, with unexpected rapidity taking up posts as chair of Comparative Literature, dean of Arts & Humanities, and executive dean of the College of Letters & Science – for four years the last two concurrently. Author of several books and many articles, primarily on ancient and medieval literature, President Hexter continues to teach, lecture, and publish on the reception of classical literature and culture from the Middle Ages to modern times.

As President Hexter has said, what drew him to Hampshire College is its distinctive excellence as an innovative institution that challenges highly-motivated students to “become the entrepreneurs of their own education.” “It is a rare privilege,” he noted, ”to be able to talk to many of the actual founders and first students of a college and learn first-hand how they created a living institution out of a vision and a blueprint.” He has challenged the entire Hampshire College community to join him in a process of “revisioning” intended to sharpen and better communicate to audiences the college’s unique mission and vision in the world today, a process he launched with a white paper, “Making of the College 2.0,” he circulated midway through his first year on campus.

In his view, “when one thinks that Hampshire College admitted its first students in 1970, its tremendous strengths and remarkable track record are nothing short of phenomenal.” Its place as a member of Five Colleges, Inc., is certainly a signal advantage, but even more important are its unique pedagogy, to which a remarkable faculty is dedicated; bright, articulate, passionate, and creative students; and a universe of brilliant and successful alumni that are engaged in a breathtaking range of endeavors.

Also essential to Hampshire College, and part of the “fit” that convinced President Hexter that Hampshire was right for him (and vice versa), is its historical commitment to social justice and progressive causes, at home and abroad. As he sees it, everyone at Hampshire College – faculty, staff, students, alumni – strives to make a difference “in the world,” an intention that extends the meaning and impact of a traditional liberal arts education. President Hexter himself has, in his 2005 inauguration speech and on other occasions such as the annual convocations welcoming new and returning students to campus each September, connected contemporary dilemmas with some of the issues thinkers and writers have taken up over the centuries, for example, freedom and responsibility. Responsibility is also one of three values – the other two are community and well-being – that President Hexter has proposed the campus focus on as it revisions students’ experiences at Hampshire in support of which he is urging renewed investment.

President Hexter, his partner of 27 years, Manfred Kollmeier, and their several animals live in the Hampshire College president’s residence in Amherst. They also maintain a home in San Francisco. President Hexter serves on the board of trustees of the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley and the Christian Gauss Award Committee for Phi Beta Kappa, and has recently been appointed or elected to the board of advisors of the Center for Free Inquiry at Hanover College, the Professional Matters Committee of the American Philological Association, Phi Beta Kappa’s Council Nominating Committee, and the National Conference for Community and Justice.
 

 

The president oversees all functions of the college and works with the board of trustees and with student, staff, and faculty committees on governance, academic, and student life concerns.

Nancy L. Kelly: Secretary of the College and Senior Advisor to the President
nkelly@hampshire.edu

Jaime Dávila: Special Presidential Assistant for Diversity and Multicultural Education
jdavila@hampshire.edu

Steven Weisler: Dean of Enrollment and Assessment                                                                                                                                                                             
sweisler@hampshire.edu

Diana Henley-Fernández: Executive Assistant to the President
dfernandez@hampshire.edu

Marian M. MacCurdy: Special Projects Assistant to the President                                                                                                                mmaccurdy@hampshire.edu

Carol Trosset: Director of Institutional Research                                                                                                                                                                                    
ctrosset@hampshire.edu

Jacquelyn Jeffery: Administrative Assistant for Diversity and Multicultural Education
jjeffery@hampshire.edu

Ruby Larese: Administrative Assistant to the Senior Advisor to the President/Secretary of the College
rlarese@hampshire.edu

Brian J. Klitsch: Administrative Secretary to the President
bjklitsch@hampshire.edu