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Amherst College

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Amherst College



 
 
Amherst College is a private
Private university

Private universities are not operated by governments though they may or may not receive funding . Depending on the region, private universities may be subject to government regulation....
 liberal arts college
Liberal arts colleges in the United States

Liberal arts colleges in the United States are undergraduate institutions of higher education in the United States. The Encyclop?dia Britannica Concise offers the following definition of the liberal arts as a, "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing general intellectual capacities, in contras...
 in Amherst
Amherst, Massachusetts

Amherst is a New England town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States in the Connecticut River valley. As of the 2000 census, the population was 34,874....
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a U.S. state located in the New England region of the Northeastern United States United States. It borders Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north....
, USA
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
. Founded in 1821, it is the third oldest college in Massachusetts
List of colleges and universities in Massachusetts

The following is a list of colleges and universities in the U.S. state of Massachusetts....
, and has been coeducation
Coeducation

Mixed-sex education , is the integrated education of males and females in the same institution. The opposite situation is described as single-sex education....
al since 1975.

Amherst is ranked first among liberal arts colleges by U.S. News and World Report, tied with rival Williams College
Williams College

Williams College is a private Liberal arts colleges in the United States located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, Massachusetts.Williams was established in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams as a men's college, located in the Berkshires in northwestern Massachusetts, at the foot of Mount Greylock....
 and is classified as a more selective institution by the Carnegie Foundation
Carnegie Foundation

The Carnegie Foundation is an organization based in The Hague, The Netherlands. It was founded in 1903 by Andrew Carnegie in order to manage his donation of $1.5 million, which was used for the construction, management and maintenance of the Peace Palace....
.

ded in 1821, Amherst College developed out of the secondary school Amherst Academy.






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Encyclopedia


Amherst College is a private
Private university

Private universities are not operated by governments though they may or may not receive funding . Depending on the region, private universities may be subject to government regulation....
 liberal arts college
Liberal arts colleges in the United States

Liberal arts colleges in the United States are undergraduate institutions of higher education in the United States. The Encyclop?dia Britannica Concise offers the following definition of the liberal arts as a, "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing general intellectual capacities, in contras...
 in Amherst
Amherst, Massachusetts

Amherst is a New England town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States in the Connecticut River valley. As of the 2000 census, the population was 34,874....
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a U.S. state located in the New England region of the Northeastern United States United States. It borders Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north....
, USA
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
. Founded in 1821, it is the third oldest college in Massachusetts
List of colleges and universities in Massachusetts

The following is a list of colleges and universities in the U.S. state of Massachusetts....
, and has been coeducation
Coeducation

Mixed-sex education , is the integrated education of males and females in the same institution. The opposite situation is described as single-sex education....
al since 1975.

Amherst is ranked first among liberal arts colleges by U.S. News and World Report, tied with rival Williams College
Williams College

Williams College is a private Liberal arts colleges in the United States located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, Massachusetts.Williams was established in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams as a men's college, located in the Berkshires in northwestern Massachusetts, at the foot of Mount Greylock....
 and is classified as a more selective institution by the Carnegie Foundation
Carnegie Foundation

The Carnegie Foundation is an organization based in The Hague, The Netherlands. It was founded in 1903 by Andrew Carnegie in order to manage his donation of $1.5 million, which was used for the construction, management and maintenance of the Peace Palace....
.

History

Founded in 1821, Amherst College developed out of the secondary school Amherst Academy. The college was originally suggested as a successor to Williams College
Williams College

Williams College is a private Liberal arts colleges in the United States located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, Massachusetts.Williams was established in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams as a men's college, located in the Berkshires in northwestern Massachusetts, at the foot of Mount Greylock....
, which was struggling to stay open. Although Williams remained open, Amherst was formed, and diverged from its Williams roots into an individual institution.

Amherst Academy

In 1812, funds were raised in Amherst for a secondary school, Amherst Academy. The institution was named after the town, which in turn had been named after Jeffery Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst, a veteran from the Seven Year's War and later commanding general of the British forces in North America. On November 18, 1817, a project was adopted at the Academy to raise funds for the free instruction of "indigent young men of promising talents and hopeful piety, who shall manifest a desire to obtain a liberal education with a sole view to the Christian ministry." This required a substantial investment from benefactors.

During the fundraising for the project, it became clear that without larger designs, it would be impossible to raise sufficient funds. This led the committee overseeing the project to conclude that a new institution should be created. On August 18, 1818, the Amherst Academy board of trustees accepted this conclusion and began building a new college.

Williams College debate regarding removal

According to Tyler:

As early as 1815, six years before the opening of Amherst College, the question of removing Williams College to some more central part of Massachusetts was agitated among its friends and in its board of trustees. At that time Williams College had two buildings and fifty-eight students, with two professors and two tutors. The library contained fourteen hundred volumes. The funds were reduced and the income fell short of the expenditures. Many of the friends and supporters of the college were fully persuaded that it could not be sustained in its present location. The chief ground of this persuasion was the extreme difficulty of the access to it.

At the same meeting of the board of trustees at which Professor Moore was elected president of Williams College, May 2 1815, Dr. Packard of Shelburne introduced the following motion: "That a committee of six persons be appointed to take into consideration the removal of the college to some other part of the Commonwealth, to make all necessary inquiries which have a bearing on the subject, and report at the next meeting." The motion was adopted, and at the next meeting of the board in September, the committee reported that "a removal of Williams College from Williamstown is inexpedient at the present time, and under existing circumstances."

But the question of removal thus raised in the board of trustees and thus negatived only "at the present time and under existing circumstances," continued to be agitated. And at a meeting on the 10th of November, 1818, influenced more or less doubtless by the action of the Franklin County Association of Congregational Ministers, and the Convention of Congregational and Presbyterian Ministers in Amherst, the board of trustees resolved that it was expedient to remove the college on certain conditions. President Moore advocated the removal, and even expressed his purpose to resign the office of president unless it could be effected, inasmuch as when he accepted the presidency he had no idea that the college was to remain at Williamstown, but was authorized to expect that it would be removed to Hampshire County. Nine out of twelve of the trustees voted for the resolutions, which were as follows:

"Resolved, that it is expedient to remove Williams College to some more central part of the State whenever sufficient funds can be obtained to defray the necessary expenses incurred and the losses sustained by removal, and to secure the prosperity of the college, and when a fair prospect shall be presented of obtaining for the institution the united support and patronage of the friends of literature and religion in the western part of the Commonwealth, and when the General Court shall give their assent to the measure."


In November, 1819, the trustees of Williams College voted to petition the Legislature for permission to remove the college to Northampton. To this application, Mr. Webster says, "the trustees of Amherst Academy made no opposition and took no measures to defeat it." In February, 1820, the petition was laid before the Legislature. The committee from both houses, to whom it was referred, after a careful examination of the whole subject, reported that it was neither lawful nor expedient to remove the college, and the Legislature, taking the same view, rejected the petition. ... Thus the long and exciting discussion touching the removal of Williams College and the location of a college in some more central town of old Hampshire County at length came to an end, and the contending parties now directed all their energies to building up the institutions of their choice. (William S. Tyler, A History of Amherst College (1895))


Opening of Amherst College

Moore, however, still believed that Williamstown
Williamstown, Massachusetts

Williamstown is a New England town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, in the northwest corner of Massachusetts. It shares a border with Vermont to the north and New York to the west....
 was an unsuitable location for a college, and with the advent of Amherst College, was elected its first president on May 8, 1821. Amherst was founded as a non-sectarian institution "for the classical education of indigent young men of piety and talents for the Christian ministry." (Tyler, History of Amherst College)

Amherst College College Row
At its opening, Amherst had forty-seven students. Fifteen of these had followed Moore from Williams College. Those fifteen represented about one-third of the whole number at Amherst, and about one-fifth of the whole number in the three classes to which they belonged in Williams College. President Moore died on June 29, 1823, and was replaced with a Williams College trustee, Heman Humphrey.

Amherst grew quickly, and for two years in the mid-1830s it was the second largest college in the United States, second only to Yale
Yale College

Yale College was the official name of Yale University from 1718 to 1887. The name now refers to the undergraduate part of the university. Each undergraduate student is assigned to one of 12 residential colleges....
. In 1835, Amherst attempted to create a course of study parallel to the classical liberal arts education. This parallel course focused less on Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
 and Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
, instead focusing on English
English studies

English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language , English linguistics , and English sociolinguistics ....
, French
French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
, Spanish
Spanish language

Spanish or Castilian is a Romance languages that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade....
, chemistry
Chemistry

Chemistry is the science concerned with the composition, structure, and properties of matter, as well as the changes it undergoes during chemical reactions....
, economics
Economics

File:Ballard Farmers' Market - vegetables.jpgEconomics is the Social sciences that studies the Production theory basics, Distribution , and Consumption of Good and Service ....
, etc. The parallel course did not take hold, however, until the next century.

Williams alumni are fond of an apocryphal story ascribing the removal of books from the Williams College library to Amherst College, but there is no contemporaneous evidence to verify the story. In 1995, Williams president Harry C. Payne declared the story false, but the legend is still nurtured by many.

Academic hoods in the United States are traditionally lined with the official colors of the school, in theory so watchers can tell where the hood wearer earned his or her degree. Amherst's hoods are purple (Williams' official color) with a white stripe or chevron, said to signify that Amherst was born of Williams.

Presidents of the college

  1. Zephaniah Swift Moore
    Zephaniah Swift Moore

    Zephaniah Swift Moore was a United States Congregational clergyman and educator. He taught at Dartmouth College during the early 1810s and had a house built in Hanover, N.H....
    , 1821–1823
  2. Heman Humphrey
    Heman Humphrey

    Heman Humphrey was a 19th century United States author and minister who served as 2nd academic administration of Amherst College for 22 years....
    , 1823–1845
  3. Edward Hitchcock
    Edward Hitchcock

    Edward Hitchcock was a noted American geologist and the third President of Amherst College .Born to poor parents, he attended newly-founded Deerfield Academy and in 1821 was ordained as a Congregational church pastor....
    , 1845–1854
  4. William Augustus Stearns, 1854–1876
  5. Julius Hawley Seelye
    Julius Hawley Seelye

    Julius Hawley Seelye was a missionary, author, United States Representative, and former president of Amherst College. The system of Latin Honors in use at many universities worldwide is said to have been created by him....
    , 1876–1890
  6. Merrill Edward Gates, 1890–1899
  7. George Harris
    George Harris (theologian)

    George Harris was an United States College president. He was born at East Machias, Maine, and graduated from Amherst College in 1866 and from Andover Theological Seminary in 1869....
    , 1899–1912
  8. Alexander Meiklejohn
    Alexander Meiklejohn

    Alexander Meiklejohn was a philosophy, university administrator, and free-speech advocate. He served as dean of Brown University and president of Amherst College....
    , 1912–1924
  9. George Daniel Olds, 1924–1927
  10. Arthur Stanley Pease
    Arthur Stanley Pease

    Arthur Stanley Pease was a professor of Classical studies, a respected amateur botany, and the tenth Academic administration of Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts....
    , 1927–1932
  11. Stanley King
    Stanley King

    Stanley King was the eleventh president of Amherst College. He held that position from 1932 to 1946....
    , 1932–1946
  12. Charles W. Cole
    Charles W. Cole

    Charles W. Cole was academic administration of Amherst College from 1946 to 1960. Cole was also involved with the Committee on the National Security Organization, American Cancer Society, U.S....
    , 1946–1960
  13. Calvin Plimpton
    Calvin Plimpton

    Calvin Hastings Plimpton was an American physician and educator, who served as president of Amherst College and American University of Beirut. He is known for appointing a commission in 1970 whose findings resulted in the admission of women to Amherst in 1975....
    , 1960–1971
  14. John William Ward
    John William Ward (professor)

    John William Ward , was a Professor of English and History at Princeton University from 1952 to 1964 and a Professor of History and American Studies at Amherst College from 1964 to 1971....
    , 1971–1979
  15. Julian Gibbs
    Julian Gibbs

    Julian Howard Gibbs was an American educator and the fifteenth President of Amherst College.Gibbs graduated from Amherst College in 1947. He earned his master?s and Ph.D....
    , 1979–1983
  16. Peter R. Pouncey, 1984–1994
  17. Tom Gerety
    Tom Gerety

    Tom Gerety, a lawyer, philosopher, and self-proclaimed "Counterculture of the 1960s", was academic administration of Amherst College for nine years before leaving become executive director of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law....
    , 1994–2003
  18. Anthony Marx
    Anthony Marx

    Anthony W. Marx is the current president of Amherst College, in Amherst, Massachusetts. He was inaugurated on October 26, 2003. Prior to assuming the post, Marx was Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies of Political Science at Columbia University....
    , 2003—


Academics and resources

Amherst College Johnson Chapel

Reputation

Amherst has tied for first in the "academic reputation" category among schools whose highest degree awarded is a bachelor's degree each year that U.S. News & World Report has produced a survey, sharing that honor with rival Williams College
Williams College

Williams College is a private Liberal arts colleges in the United States located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, Massachusetts.Williams was established in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams as a men's college, located in the Berkshires in northwestern Massachusetts, at the foot of Mount Greylock....
. According to current U.S. News and World Report rankings, Amherst and Williams tied for the number one spot among all liberal arts colleges. Amherst has been ranked the number one liberal arts college in the country ten times since the inception of the U.S. News rankings.

Amherst is ranked second overall according to the fifth annual report by the National Collegiate Scouting Association which ranks colleges based on student-athlete graduation rates, academic strength, and athletic prowess.

Amherst ranked ninth in a 2004 Wall Street Journal survey of the "feeder schools" to the top fifteen business, law, and medical schools in the country.

Amherst is ranked ninth in the 2007 Washington Monthly rankings, which focus on key research outputs, the quality level and total dollar amount of scientific (natural and social sciences) grants won, number of graduates going on to earn Ph.D. degrees and certain types of public service.

According to The Princeton Review
The Princeton Review

The Princeton Review is an United States educational preparation company. It offers test preparation for standardized aptitude tests such as the SAT and advice regarding college admissions....
, Amherst ranks in the Top 20 among all colleges and universities in the nation as for Students Satisfied With Financial Aid, School Runs Like Butter, and Top 10 Best Value Private Schools.

Amherst also participates in the University and College Accountability Network
University and College Accountability Network

The University and College Accountability Network provides information for prospective students and their parents to compare private colleges and universities across a wide variety of characteristics....
 (U-CAN) developed by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities
National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities

Founded in 1976, the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities is an organization of private US colleges and universities. NAICU has over 1,000 United States independent higher education institutions....
 (NAICU).

Admission

Admission to Amherst College is among the most competitive in the country. In 2008, Amherst College received about 7,700 applications and admitted 1,096 for an acceptance rate of 14.2 percent, an all-time low. For the class of 2011, the middle 50 percent of admitted students received an SAT score of 1360-1570 (Critical Reading and Math only) and about 90 percent of admitted students were in the top decile (10 percent) of their high school classes.

Academic program

Amherst is known for its unparalleled commitment to quality teaching, with rigorous professor-student interaction. It has been said that Harvard looked to Amherst when reviewing its teaching program in 2007.

Amherst offers 33 different areas of study and an unusually open curriculum. Students are not required to study a core curriculum or fulfill distribution requirements. Beyond courses for their majors and the First-Year Seminar, students are free to design their own curricula. First year students can take advanced courses and seniors can take introductory courses (such as beginning study of a foreign language).

During the first year, the only course requirement mandated by the registrar is one of the roughly twenty First-Year Seminars. Each class is limited to no more than 15 students. Although topics for the seminars vary, they share a common focus on critical analysis and development of argument in writing and speaking.

The other 31 courses (usually four per semester) that must be completed in order to graduate can be elected by the individual student. Faculty advisors guide students through the process. Each faculty advisor works with no more than five first-year students to ensure a course of study that has breadth and depth and is both integrated across disciplines and intellectually fulfilling. Faculty advising continues for the remainder of each student's undergraduate career.

However, students must adhere to departmental course requirements to complete their major, including satisfactory performance on comprehensive examinations in their major field. Thirty-five percent of Amherst students in the class of 2007 were double majors. A small number triple major and many create, with faculty advice, an interdisciplinary major. Fifty percent write theses during their senior year. Those students who choose to write a senior thesis have additional faculty advisors whose areas of expertise mirror each thesis topic. Within five years of graduation, seventy-four percent of Amherst alumni attend graduate school.

Teaching


Amherst places a high priority on meaningful interaction between students and their professors. Faculty are leading scholars and researchers in their fields, as well as effective teachers. The historic guiding principle is the Amherst dialogue between professor and student. Amherst classes are characterized by interchanges among students and faculty skilled at asking challenging and probing questions and offering alternative points of view. Professors are accessible and responsive to their students (both inside and outside the classroom) and build face-to-face, professor-to-student learning into the campus culture. To this end, professors serve as mentors and advisors, as well as teachers.

Traditionally, Amherst has made intensive writing for students a priority for all four years of study at all levels of instruction, throughout the curricula, and across disciplines. As a result, over the course of their undergraduate careers, students are expected to refine the form, logic, depth, and substance of their writing for a variety of audiences (in the sciences, arts, social sciences, and humanities). Amherst also has as priorities an emphasis on quantitative analysis across the disciplines and fostering global comprehension. The faculty always is striving to develop better and more innovative ways to teach and for students to learn, discover, and create. Professors find that their research often sheds new light on how they teach their classes.

Students are encouraged early to undertake independent or small group research or creative work, mentored by a faculty member, that results in an original scholarly work or other product. Professors also draw students into faculty research. In the sciences, students participate in sophisticated research, using state-of-art equipment and facilities. Students collaborate with professors and are listed regularly as co-authors on faculty articles. Students often present the findings of their work, whether self-directed or in collaboration with faculty, at regional or national conferences.

Amherst maintains a student-faculty ratio of 8:1 and has an average class size of fifteen students. The curriculum is remarkably diverse. Amherst offers 33 areas of study (with 850 courses) in the sciences, arts, humanities, mathematics and computer sciences, social sciences, foreign languages, classics, and several interdisciplinary fields (including premedical studies ), plus the possibility of creating one's own unique interdisciplinary major. A substantial number of faculty hold appointments in two departments, a traditional academic discipline and one of many interdisciplinary programs. Amherst pioneered the interdisciplinary fields of American Studies
American studies

American studies or American civilization is an Interdisciplinarity dealing with the study of the United States. It incorporates the study of Economy of the United States, History of the United States, American literature, art of the United States, Mass media, American cinema, urban studies, women's studies, and culture of the United St...
; Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought; and Neuroscience
Neuroscience

Neuroscience is a field devoted to the scientific study of the nervous system. The Society for Neuroscience was founded in 1969, but the study of the brain started a long time ago....
. The American Studies department at Amherst College is the oldest department in the United States. Amherst created the interdisciplinary study of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought. In 1973, Amherst became the first institution to offer an undergraduate major in Neuroscience. Amherst helped pioneer many other interdisciplinary programs, including Asian languages and civilization. With such academic and professorial resourses, students and their advisors can tailor a program of study to a student's specific academic interests. As evidence of students' satisfaction with the effective teaching of Amherst professors, nearly seventy percent of alumni financially support Amherst annually through the Amherst annual fund (which supports financial aid, among other things).

Notable faculty members include, among others, modern literature and poetry critic William H. Pritchard, Beowulf
Beowulf

Beowulf is an Old English language heroic Epic poetry of unknown authorship, dating as recorded in the Nowell Codex manuscript from between the 8th to the early 11th century, and relates events described as having occurred in what is now Denmark and Sweden....
 translator Howell Chickering, Jewish and Latino studies scholar Ilan Stavans
Ilan Stavans

Ilan Stavans is a Mexican-United States intellectual, essayist, lexicographer, cultural commentator, translator, short-story author, TV personality, teacher and man of letters known for his insights into American, Hispanic, and Jewish cultures....
, novelist and legal scholar Lawrence Douglas
Lawrence Douglas

Lawrence Douglas is the James J. Grosfeld Professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought at Amherst College. He received his A.B. in 1982 from Brown University, M.A....
, physicist Arthur Zajonc, Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize is an United States award regarded as the highest national honor in newspaper journalism, literary achievements and musical composition....
-winning Khruschev biographer William Taubman
William Taubman

William Chase Taubman is an United States political scientist. His biography of Nikita Khrushchev won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 2004 and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography in 2003....
, African art specialist Rowland Abiodun, Chemist David Hansen, Natural Law expert Hadley Arkes
Hadley Arkes

Hadley P. Arkes is a conservative political scientist and the Edward N. Ney Professor of Jurisprudence and American Institutions at Amherst College....
, Mathematician Daniel Velleman, and law and society expert Austin Sarat
Austin Sarat

Austin Sarat is William Nelson Cromwell professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. He is also a Five Colleges Fortieth Anniversary Professor....
. (See List of Amherst College people
List of Amherst College people

This is a list of some notable people affiliated with Amherst College....
.)

Students

Amherst's outstanding resources, accomplished faculty, and rigorous academic life allow the college to enroll students with an extraordinary range of talents, interests, and commitments. Students represent all fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, fifty countries, a variety of tastes, sensibilities, and political ideologies, and a broad mix of socioeconomic, ethnic, national, racial, and religious backgrounds, thus ensuring a diversity of viewpoints -- essential to developing the ability to listen to and evaluate the positions of others. Students' varied experiences and backgrounds enrich discussion, debate, conjecture, broaden learning, and make life at Amherst more interesting. Ninety-seven percent of students live on campus. Ninety-seven percent of Amherst freshmen return for their sophomore year; ninety-six percent graduate, among the highest retention and graduation rates in the country.
Kirby Amherst

Five College Consortium

Amherst is a member of the Five Colleges
Five Colleges (Massachusetts)

The Five Colleges comprises four Liberal arts colleges in the United Statess and one university in the Connecticut River Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts, belonging to a consortium called Five Colleges, Incorporated, which was established in 1965....
 consortium, which allows its students to attend classes at four other Pioneer Valley
Pioneer Valley

The Pioneer Valley is a region consisting of the three county in Western Massachusetts through which the Connecticut River passes, and especially those towns that are in the lowlands of the Connecticut River Valley....
 institutions. These include Mount Holyoke College
Mount Holyoke College

Mount Holyoke College is a highly selective Liberal arts colleges in the United States Women's colleges in the United States in South Hadley, Massachusetts, Massachusetts....
, Smith College
Smith College

Smith College is a Private university, Independent school Women's colleges in the United States Liberal arts colleges in the United States located in Northampton, Massachusetts....
, Hampshire College
Hampshire College

Hampshire College is a private Liberal arts colleges in the United States located in Amherst, Massachusetts, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1970 as an experiment in alternative education, to be in association with four other colleges in the Pioneer Valley: Amherst College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, and the University of Massachu...
, and the University of Massachusetts
University of Massachusetts

The University of Massachusetts is the five-campus public university system of the Massachusetts.The system includes University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Massachusetts Boston, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth , University of Massachusetts Lowell, and the University of Massachusetts Medical School....
. In addition to the 850 courses available on campus, Amherst students have an additional 5,300 classes to consider through the Consortium (without paying additional tuition) and access to 8 million library volumes. The Five Colleges are geographically close to one another and are linked by buses which run between the campuses
Pioneer Valley Transit Authority

The Pioneer Valley Transit Authority oversees and coordinates public transportation in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts. Currently the PVTA offers fixed-route bus service as well as paratransit service for the elderly and disabled....
. The Five Colleges share resources and develop common programs, including the Museums10
Museums10

Museums10 is a consortium of art, science, and history museums in Western Massachusetts. It is composed of museums from the Five Colleges and Historic Deerfield....
 program. The Consortium has two joint academic departments, Astronomy and Dance. The Dance department is one of the largest in the nation. The Astronomy department is internationally renowned. (See Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory
Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory

The Five College Radio Astronomical Observatory was founded in 1969 by the Five Colleges Astronomy Department . From its inception, the observatory has emphasized research, the development of technology and the training of students—both graduate school and undergraduate....
) The Pioneer Valley schools' proximity to Amherst adds to its rich extracurricular and social life.

Five College Coastal & Marine Sciences Program

Among other common programs developed by the Consortium, Amherst students can take classes in The Five College Coastal & Marine Sciences Program. The program offers an interdisciplinary curriculum to undergraduate students in the Five Colleges
Five Colleges

Five Colleges may refer to:*Five Colleges *Five Colleges of Ohio* The Claremont Colleges in Claremont, California....
. Through active affiliations with some of the nation's premier centers for marine study, students engage in hands-on research to compliment course work. Faculty from the natural and social sciences teach courses in the program. The disciplines represented include biology, botany, chemistry, ecology, geology, physics, wildlife management, and zoology in the sciences, and economics, government, and public policy in the social sciences. Many students in the program go on to advanced study or professional work in various areas of marine science.

Resources

Among the resources on the campus at Amherst College are more than 100 academic and residential buildings, athletic fields and facilities, a wildlife sanctuary, a forest for the study of ecology, and trails and areas for walking and cycling. Notable resources include the Mead Art Museum
Mead Art Museum

Mead Art Museum is an art museum associated with Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts and is a member of Museums10.The Mead Art Museum has a wide ranging collection of over 16,000 items, with a particular strength in American art, including notable works of the Hudson River School and woodcut artist J....
 (with over 16,000 works); the Amherst Center for Russian Culture
Amherst Center for Russian Culture

The Amherst Center for Russian Culture was created by Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts after the gift of a major collection of Russian books, manuscripts, periodicals and ephemera by Thomas P....
; four libraries (the main Robert Frost Library -- having one million plus volumes, nearly 400,000 media materials, extensive Archives and Special Collections
Special collections

In library science, special collections is the name applied to a specific repository or department, usually within a library, which stores materials of a "special" nature, including rare books, archives, and collected manuscripts....
, and a media center and language lab, as well as separate libraries dedicated to science, math, and music); the Amherst College Museum of Natural History (including the Hitchcock Ichnological Cabinet
Hitchcock Ichnological Cabinet

The Hitchcock Ichnological Cabinet is a collection of fossil footmarks assembled between 1836 and 1865 by Edward Hitchcock , noted American geologist, state geologist of Massachusetts, and President of Amherst College....
); the Basset Planetarium; the Wilder Observatory
Wilder Observatory

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; state-of-the-art science facilities (including the Merrill Science Center and the McGuire Life Sciences Building); the Quantitative Skills Center; the Writing Center; the Career Center; well-equipped art studios; ample rehearsal and performance facilities for music, theater, and dance (including the Amherst College Arms Music Center, the Kirby Memorial Theater, and the Holden Experimental Theater); the Center for Creative Writing; the Center for Community Engagement; and a student run radio station (WAMH
WAMH

WAMH is a radio station broadcasting a Alternative rock format. Licensed to Amherst, Massachusetts, USA. The station is currently owned by Amherst College....
 89.3 FM). Nearly every academic building and all residential buildings have been renovated or constructed in the past three years.

Internet access is available in all student residences (one connection for each student in every room), and wireless access is available almost everywhere on campus. There are thirty-seven residence buildings, nine theme houses, and two language houses (supporting four languages). Just off campus, Amherst is caretaker and owner of the Emily Dickinson Museum
Emily Dickinson Museum

The Emily Dickinson Museum is a historic house museum consisting of two houses: the Dickinson Homestead and the Evergreens. The Dickinson Homestead was the birthplace and home from 1855-1886 of 19th-century United States poet Emily Dickinson , whose poems were discovered in her bedroom there after her death....
 in downtown Amherst, in addition to about half of the poet's manuscripts. Amherst maintains a relationship with Doshisha University
Doshisha University

, or is a private university in Kyoto, Japan. It has 24,000 students on three campuses, in faculties of theology, letters, law, commerce, economics, policy, and engineering....
 in Japan
Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....
, which was founded by Amherst alumnus Joseph Hardy Neesima
Joseph Hardy Neesima

was a Japanese educator of the Meiji era, the founder of Doshisha University and Doshisha Women's College of Liberal Arts.Neesima was born in Edo , the son of a retainer of the Itakura clan of Annaka Domain....
. In accordance with the will of Amherst alumnus Henry Clay Folger
Henry Clay Folger

Henry Clay Folger was president and later chairman of Standard Oil of New York, a collector of Shakespeareana, and founder of the Folger Shakespeare Library....
, Amherst College is charged with the governance of the Folger Shakespeare Library
Folger Shakespeare Library

The Folger Shakespeare Library is an independent research library on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC in Washington, DC. It has the world's largest collection of the printed works of William Shakespeare, and is a primary repository for rare materials from the early modern period ....
 in Washington, D.C.; Amherst maintains a close relationship with the Folger.

Student groups

Students can pursue nearly any interest through more than one hundred autonomous, student-led organizations funded by the student government, including a variety of student groups, cultural and religious groups, publications, fine and performing arts and political advocacy and service groups. In that there is approximately one group for every 16 students at Amherst, leadership opportunities abound. Numerous forms of community service exist at Amherst, and community service (locally - through the Center for Community Engagement, nationally, and internationally) is a priority at Amherst and for President Anthony Marx
Anthony Marx

Anthony W. Marx is the current president of Amherst College, in Amherst, Massachusetts. He was inaugurated on October 26, 2003. Prior to assuming the post, Marx was Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies of Political Science at Columbia University....
 (who helped start a secondary school for black students in apartheid South Africa).

Study abroad and off-campus

Forty-two percent of Amherst students, usually juniors, study abroad and can select from more than 260 study-abroad programs in countries including Argentina
Argentina

Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic , is a country in South America, constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city....
, Egypt
Egypt

Egypt is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Covering an area of about , Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west....
, England
England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
, France
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
, India
India

India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, the List of countries by population country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world....
, New Zealand
New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous Islands of New Zealand, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands....
, Spain
Spain

Spain or the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in Southern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though Espa?a , Estado espa?ol and Naci?n espa?ola are used interchangeably....
, and Senegal
Senegal

Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal, is a country south of the S?n?gal River in West Africa. Senegal is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Mauritania to the north, Mali to the east, and Guinea and Guinea-Bissau to the south....
, as well as Japan
Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....
 where Amherst maintains a special relationship with Doshisha University
Doshisha University

, or is a private university in Kyoto, Japan. It has 24,000 students on three campuses, in faculties of theology, letters, law, commerce, economics, policy, and engineering....
, founded in 1875 by an Amherst alumnus.

Off-campus, Amherst students have the opportunity to study at a number of institutions, from the National Theater Institute in Connecticut to Amherst's own Folger Shakespeare Library
Folger Shakespeare Library

The Folger Shakespeare Library is an independent research library on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC in Washington, DC. It has the world's largest collection of the printed works of William Shakespeare, and is a primary repository for rare materials from the early modern period ....
 in Washington, D.C. The Twelve College Exchange program, of which Amherst is a member, has special exchange arrangements with Bowdoin, Connecticut, Dartmouth, Mount Holyoke, Smith, Trinity, Vassar, Wellesley, Wheaton and Williams Colleges and Wesleyan University for programs not available in the Five College area.

Folger Shakespeare Library

Amherst's relationship with the Folger Shakespeare Library
Folger Shakespeare Library

The Folger Shakespeare Library is an independent research library on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC in Washington, DC. It has the world's largest collection of the printed works of William Shakespeare, and is a primary repository for rare materials from the early modern period ....
 in Washington, D.C. offers various opportunities for students and faculty to study and learn and engage in cultural and arts programs. The Folger, a primary repository of rare materials from the modern period (1500-1750), holds the world's largest collection of the printed works of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English people poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist....
, as well as collections of other rare Renaissance
Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe....
 books and manuscripts. The Folger is an internationally recognized research library and center for scholarship and learning. The Folger is also an innovator in the preservation of rare materials and an award winning producer of cultural and arts programs, including theater, early music concerts (performed by the Folger Consort), poetry, exhibits, lectures, and family programs. Each year, more than 200,000 visitors attend events and exhibitions at the Folger. Millions visit its website (www.folger.edu), which includes event listings, virtual exhibitions, access to an on-line catalog of the collection, and teaching plans for educators. The Folger produces its own scholarly journal, "Shakespeare Quarterly," and the Library continues to publish the Folger Library Shakespeare editions, which outsell all other editions of the bard's plays.

Fellowships and internships

The Amherst Tom Gerety Fellowships for Action and the Winternship program allow more than 100 students to receive funding from the college each year to do public service work around the country and the world. Students also can select internships beginning as early as the first year, opting from among 15,000 opportunities nationwide through the Liberal Arts Center Network, as well as the "Amherst 100" internships that are sponsored by alumni.

In the spring 2008, the College's Center for Community Engagement launched the Active Citizen Summer Program. This opportunity allows rising freshmen, sophomores, and juniors to participate in a summer internship with a local, national, or international not-for-profit organization while receiving housing, food, and transportation funding, as well as a modest salary paid by the Center for Community Engagement.

Amherst students and alumni have also received external scholarships including Fulbright scholarships
Fulbright Program

The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright-Hays Program, is a program of Grant for international educational exchange for scholars, educators, graduate students and professionals, founded by United States Senator J....
, Goldwater scholarships, Rhodes scholarships
Rhodes Scholarship

The Rhodes Scholarship named after Cecil Rhodes is an international award for study at the University of Oxford and was the first large-scale programme of international scholarships....
 and Watson fellowships
Thomas J. Watson Fellowship

The Thomas J. Watson Fellowship is a grant that enables graduating seniors to pursue a year of independent study outside the United States. The Fellowship Program was established by the children of Thomas J....
.

Tuition and financial aid

Amherst's total tuition, fees, room, and board for the '06-07 academic year was $43,360. About half (49%) of students receive scholarship aid, with 64% receiving some form of financial aid.

In July 2007, Amherst announced that scholarships will replace loans in all "need based" financial aid packages beginning in the 2008-09 school year. Amherst had already been the first school to eliminate loans for low-income students, and with this announcement it joined Princeton University
Princeton University

Princeton University is a private university university located in Princeton, New Jersey, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League and has the largest per-student Financial endowment in the world....
 and Davidson College
Davidson College

Davidson College is a private Liberal arts colleges in the United States in Davidson, North Carolina, North Carolina. Both the town and college were named after Brigadier General William Lee Davidson, a Revolutionary War commander....
 as the only colleges to completely eliminate loans from need based financial aid packages.

Athletics


Varsity athletics

Although Amherst has always been a rigorous liberal arts college, Amherst's athletic program (founded in 1860) is the oldest in the nation. One-third of the student body participates in sports at the intercollegiate level, and eighty percent participate in intramural and club sports teams. The school's twenty-seven intercollegiate sports teams are known as the Lord Jeffs; women's teams are sometimes referred to as "Lady Jeffs", though the official title covers all teams.

The school participates in the NCAA
National Collegiate Athletic Association

The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a voluntary association of about 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and University in the United States ....
's Division III
Division III

Division III is a division of the National Collegiate Athletic Association of the United States....
, the Eastern College Athletic Conference
Eastern College Athletic Conference

The Eastern College Athletic Conference is a college athletic conference comprising schools that compete in 35 men's and women's sports. It has 317 member institutions in National Collegiate Athletic Association Divisions I, II and III, ranging in location from Maine to North Carolina....
, and the New England Small College Athletic Conference
New England Small College Athletic Conference

The New England Small College Athletic Conference is an athletic conference consisting of eleven highly selective liberal arts colleges located in New England and New York....
 (NESCAC), which includes Bates
Bates College

Bates College is a highly selective, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States located in Lewiston, Maine, in the United States. The college was founded in 1855 by Abolitionism....
, Bowdoin
Bowdoin College

Bowdoin College , founded in 1794, is a private Liberal arts colleges in the United States located in the coastal New England town of Brunswick, Maine, Maine....
, Colby
Colby College

Colby College, founded in 1813, is an American private university Liberal arts colleges in the United States located on Mayflower Hill in Waterville, Maine....
, Connecticut College
Connecticut College

Connecticut College is a highly selective coeducational private Liberal arts colleges in the United States located in New London, Connecticut. It is located on the Thames River , on which the College's crew and sailing teams practice....
, Hamilton
Hamilton College

Hamilton College is a private, independent, Liberal arts colleges in the United States located in Clinton, Oneida County, New York, New York. In 2007, U.S....
, Middlebury
Middlebury College

Middlebury College is a private Liberal arts colleges in the United States located in Middlebury , Vermont, Vermont, United States. Drawing 2,350 undergraduates from all 50 United States and over 70 countries, Middlebury offers 44 majors in the arts, humanities, literature, foreign languages, social sciences, and natural sciences....
, Trinity
Trinity College (Connecticut)

Trinity College is a private, Liberal arts colleges in the United States in Hartford, Connecticut. Founded in 1823, it is the second oldest college in the state of Connecticut after Yale University....
, Tufts
Tufts University

Tufts University is a private research university in Medford, Massachusetts/Somerville, Massachusetts, near Boston, Massachusetts, United States....
, Wesleyan
Wesleyan University

Wesleyan University is a private university Liberal arts colleges in the United States founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut, Connecticut....
, and Williams College
Williams College

Williams College is a private Liberal arts colleges in the United States located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, Massachusetts.Williams was established in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams as a men's college, located in the Berkshires in northwestern Massachusetts, at the foot of Mount Greylock....
.

Amherst is also one of the "Little Three
Little Three

The "Little Three" is an unofficial athletic conference of three elite liberal arts colleges in New England. The "Little Three" are:* Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts...
," along with Williams and Wesleyan. This rivalry, over one hundred years old, can be considered the oldest athletic conference in the nation. A Little Three champion is informally recognized by most teams based on the head-to-head records of the three schools, but three-way competitions are held in some of the sports.

Amherst has placed in the top ten of the NACDA Director's Cup in the NCAA Division III in seven of the last ten years, including second in 2007 and 2008 . The 2007 "National Collegiate Scouting Association's Collegiate Power Ranking" ranked Amherst College second "overall", ahead of Duke, University of California, San Diego (UCSD), Notre Dame, Stanford, Northwestern, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and MIT.
  • The first intercollegiate baseball
    Baseball

    Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport of nine players each. The goal of baseball is to score run by hitting a thrown Baseball with a baseball bat and touching a series of four markers called base arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot square, or diamond. Players on one team take turns hitting against...
     game was played between Williams and Amherst on July 1, 1859. Amherst won, 73-32.
  • The first Harvard College
    Harvard College

    Harvard College is the undergraduate section and oldest school of Harvard University, a private university in the United States founded in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature....
     loss on Soldiers Field was in 1903. They lost 6-0 to Amherst.
  • The last tie in an NCAA football game was on November 11, 1995, when Amherst and Williams tied 0-0 on Weston Field in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
  • In 1999, the Amherst Women's Tennis team won the Division III National Championship, by a score of 5-2, over arch-rival Williams College. It was Amherst's first team National Championship.
  • In 2003, the Amherst Women's Lacrosse team won the Division III National Championship, by a score of 11-9, over NESCAC rival Middlebury College.
  • In 2007, the Amherst Men's Basketball team won the Division III National Championship
    2007 NCAA Men's Division III Basketball Tournament

    The 2007 NCAA Men's Division III Basketball Tournament involved 59 schools playing in a single-elimination tournament to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division III college basketball....
    , by a score of 80-67, over Virginia Wesleyan College
    Virginia Wesleyan College

    Virginia Wesleyan College is a small Methodist liberal arts college on the border of Virginia Beach, Virginia and Norfolk, Virginia offering a Bachelor of Arts in many disciplines and has added Bachelor of Science programs as well....
    .
  • In 2007, the Amherst Women's Cross Country team won the Division III Cross Country National Championship.


Club and intramural athletics

Amherst fields several club athletic teams, including Rugby union
Rugby union

Rugby union is a competitive outdoor contact sport, played with an oval ball, by two teams of 15 players. It is one of the two main codes of rugby football, the other being rugby league....
, Water Polo
Water polo

Water polo is a team water sport. It is the oldest continuous Olympic team sport. The playing team consists of six field players and one goalkeeper with a maximum of six substitutes....
, Ultimate
Ultimate (sport)

Ultimate is a Contact sport team sport played with a 175 gram flying disc invented by Laura Hinz. The object of the sport is to score points by passing the disc to a player in the opposing end zone, similar to an end zone in American football or Rugby football....
, Equestrian
Equestrianism

Equestrianism refers to the skill of riding or driving horses. This broad description includes both use of horses for practical, working animal purposes as well as recreational activities and animals in sport....
, Mountain Biking
Mountain biking

Mountain biking entails the sport of riding bicycles off-road, often over rough terrain, whether riding specially equipped mountain bikes or hybrid road bikes....
, Crew
Crew

A crew comprises a body or a class of people who work at a common activity, generally in a structured or hierarchy organization. A location in which a crew works is called a crewyard or a workyard....
, Fencing
Fencing

Fencing is a family of sports and activities that feature armed combat involving cutting, stabbing, or slapping Club ing weapons that are directly manipulated by hand, rather than shot, thrown or positioned....
, Sailing
Sailing

Sailing is the art of controlling a boat with large pieces of canvas cloth called sails. By changing the rigging, rudder, and dagger or centre board, a sailor manages the force of the wind on the sails in order to change the direction and speed of a boat....
 and Skiing
Skiing

Snow skiing is a group of sports using skis as primary equipment. Skis are used in conjunction with ski boots that connect to the ski with use of a ski bindings....
. Intramural sports
Intramural sports

Intramural sports or intramurals are recreational sports organized within a set geographic area. The term derives from the Latin words intra muros meaning within walls, and was used to indicate sports matches and contests that took place among teams from "within the walls" of an ancient city ....
 include soccer, tennis, golf, basketball, volleyball and softball.

The sport of Ultimate Frisbee was started at Amherst College in the late 1960s by Jared Kass '69.

Music at Amherst

Nicknamed "the singing college," Amherst has many a cappella
Collegiate a cappella

Collegiate a cappella ensembles are student-run and -directed singing groups that perform entirely without instruments. Such groups can be found at many colleges and university in the United States, and increasingly worldwide....
 and singing groups, some of them affiliated with the college music department, including the Concert Choir, the Madrigal Singers, the Women's Chorus, and the Glee Club, which is the oldest singing group on the campus. The a cappella groups include the Zumbyes, the Bluestockings, Route 9, the Sabrinas, the DQ, and Terras Irradient (the co-ed Christian a cappella group). Amherst's symphony orchestra with more than 70 members and no hired professional musicians is the only one of its size among national liberal arts colleges. A variety of other instrumental groups also rehearse and perform regularly and include: Javanese gamelan, chamber music, South Indian, and jazz. The Amherst College Arms Music Center has 25 listening and practice rooms (thirteen of which are equipped with pianos), an electronic and recording music studio, separate rehearsal space for instrumental and vocal groups, classrooms, a library, and a 500-seat recital hall that serves during the year as a performance venue for students and visiting artists.

Miscellaneous facts

  • Amherst records one of the first uses of Latin honors
    Latin honors

    Latin honors are Latin phrases used to indicate the Grade with which an academic degree was earned. This system is primarily used in the United States, though some institutions also use the English translation of these phrases rather than the Latin originals....
     of any American college, dating back to 1881. Contemporaneous writings stated that the system was new.
  • An asteroid
    Asteroid

    Asteroids, sometimes called minor planets or planetoids, are small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun, smaller than planets but larger than meteoroids....
    , 516 Amherstia
    516 Amherstia

    516 Amherstia was the 8th asteroid discovered by Raymond Smith Dugan, and was named after Amherst College, his alma mater. Amherstia is a large M-type asteroid, with an estimated diameter of 73 km....
    , is named after Amherst College. The name was given by its discoverer, Raymond Smith Dugan
    Raymond Smith Dugan

    Raymond Smith Dugan was an American astronomer and a graduate of Amherst College in Massachusetts .He did his Masters Degree at Amherst College in 1902, and then did his Ph.D....
     in honor of his alma mater
    Alma mater

    File:Alma_Mater,_Lorado_Taft.jpgAlma mater is Latin for "nourishing mother". It was used in ancient Rome as a title for the mother goddess, and in Middle Ages Christianity for the Virgin Mary....
    .


Alumni

Although a small college, Amherst has many accomplished alumni, including Nobel
Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize , established in the 1895 will of Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel; it was first awarded in Nobel Prize in Physics, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Nobel Prize in Literature, and Nobel Peace Prize in 1901....
, Crafoord Prize
Crafoord Prize

The annual Crafoord Prize is a science prize established in 1980 by Holger Crafoord, a Swedish industrialist, and his wife Anna-Greta Crafoord....
 and Lasker Award
Lasker Award

The Albert Lasker Medical Research Awards have been awarded annually since 1946 to living persons who have made major contributions to medical science....
 laureates, MacArthur Fellowship and Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize is an United States award regarded as the highest national honor in newspaper journalism, literary achievements and musical composition....
 winners, National Medal of Science
National Medal of Science

The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral science and social sciences, biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics and physics....
 and National Book Award
National Book Award

The National Book Awards are among the most eminent literary prizes in the United States. Started in 1950, the awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the prior year, as well as lifetime achievement awards including the "Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters" and the "Literarian Award"....
 recipients, and Academy, Tony
Tony Award

The Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Awards, recognize achievement in live United States theatre and are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City....
, Grammy Award
Grammy Award

The Grammy Awards ?or Grammys?are presented annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States for outstanding achievements in the music industry....
 and Emmy Award
Emmy Award

The Emmy Award, also known as the 'Emmy', is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards....
 winners; a U.S. President, the current Sovereign Prince of Monaco, a Chief Justice of the United States
Chief Justice of the United States

The Chief Justice of the United States is the head of the United States federal courts and the chief judge of the Supreme Court of the United States....
, three Speakers of the U.S. House of Representatives, a U.S. Poet Laureate
Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress

The Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress serves as the nation's official lightning rod for the poetic impulse of Americans....
, legal architect of Brown v Board of Education, and inventor of the blood bank
Blood bank

A blood bank is a cache or bank of blood or List of human blood components, gathered as a result of blood donation, stored and preserved for later use in blood transfusions....
; leaders in science, religion, politics, the Peace Corps, medicine, law, education, communications, and business; as well as acclaimed actors, architects, artists, astronauts, engineers, human rights activists, inventors, musicians, philanthropists, and writers.

There are approximately 20,000 living alumni, of which 70 percent make a gift to Amherst each year— the highest alumni participation rate of any college in the country.

Bibliography

  • W. S. Tyler
    William Seymour Tyler

    William Seymour Tyler was the Amherst College historian during his tenure as professor of Latin, Greek language, and Greek literature from 1832-1893....
    , History of Amherst College during its first half century, 1821-1871 (C. W. Bryan, 1873).
  • (1871).
  • William S. Tyler, (1894).
  • Debby Applegate, The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher (Doubleday, 2006).
  • Nancy Pick and Frank Ward, Curious Footprints: Professor Hitchcock's Dinosaur Tracks & Other Natural History Treasures at Amherst College (Amherst College Press, 2006).
  • Passages Of Time, Narratives in the History of Amherst College, edited and with several selections by Douglas C. Wilson, son of William E. Wilson (Amherst College Press, 2007).


External links