Amherst College
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Template:Infobox University2 Amherst College is an independent liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts, USA. It is the third oldest college in Massachusetts. It has been coeducational since 1975.
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History
Founded in 1821, Amherst was intended to be a successor to both Williams College, which was then struggling to remain open, and Amherst Academy, a secondary school which educated, among others, Emily Dickinson.
Origin of name
Amherst Academy and Amherst College were both named for the town of Amherst, which in turn was named for Lord Jeffrey Amherst, commanding general of British forces in North America during the French and Indian War. Lord Jeffrey Amherst is now notorious for his comments, in a letter to a peer, about spreading smallpox-infected blankets among native Americans.
Amherst Academy
"Amherst Academy was the mother of Amherst College," according to William S. Tyler, who wrote two comprehensive histories of Amherst College. Funds were raised for the Academy in 1812, and the Academy went into operation in December 1814.
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
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 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 [near to the town of Amherst]. 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))
Moore, however, still believed that Williamstown was an unsuitable location for a college, and with the advent of Amherst College, was elected its first president on May 8, 1821.
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.
For two years in the mid-1830's, Amherst was the second largest college in the United States, second only to Yale. In 1835, Amherst attempted to create a course of study parallel to the classical liberal arts education. This parallel course focused less on Greek and Latin, instead focusing on English, French, Spanish, chemistry, economics, 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 Henry Payne declared the story false, but it continues to propagate.
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. Williams' official color is purple (its teams are called "The Purple Cows"), where Amherst's are purple with a white stripe or chevron, it is said to signify that Amherst was in some way born of Williams.
Presidents of the College
- Zephaniah Swift Moore, 1821-1823
- Heman Humphrey, 1823-1845
- Edward Hitchcock, 1845-1854
- William Augustus Stearns, 1854-1876
- Julius Hawley Seelye, 1876-1890
- Merrill Edwards Gates, 1890-1899
- George Harris, 1899-1912
- Alexander Meiklejohn, 1912-1924
- George Daniel Olds, 1924-1927
- Arthur Stanley Pease, 1927-1932
- Stanley King, 1932-1946
- Charles W. Cole, 1946-1960
- Calvin Plimpton, 1960-1971
- John William Ward, 1971-1979
- Julian Gibbs, 1979-1983
- Peter R. Pouncey, 1984-1994
- Tom Gerety, 1994-2003
- Anthony W. Marx, 2003-
Academics
Amherst is a member of the Five Colleges consortium, which allows its students to attend classes at four other Pioneer Valley institutions.
Athletics
The school's 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 women's volleyball team calls itself the Firedogs, the men's ultimate frisbee team calls themselves Army of Darkness, and the women's ultimate frisbee team is called Barely Legal.) The school participates in the NCAA's Division III, the New England Small College Athletic Conference, and the Eastern College Athletic Conference.
Amherst is also one of the "Little Three", along with Williams and Wesleyan.
Amherst has one of the best Division III athletic programs in the country, placing in the top ten of the NACDA Director's Cup five of the last ten years.
- The first intercollegiate baseball game was played between Williams and Amherst on July 1, 1859. Amherst won, 66-32.
- The first Harvard College 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.
- Amherst College had an official mascot on the sidelines from 1999 until 2003. Tripp Whitbeck 2003 played "Lord Jeff" for all four of his years at Amherst College. The official mascoting tradition began and ended with Whitbeck. An earlier portrayer of Lord Jeff, John Whitney, acted as an unofficial mascot in the early 1980s.
- 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. It was the second National Championship for Amherst (in all sports).
Amherst trivia
- The first black student to attend Amherst College, Edward Jones, was in the class of 1826. He was later a missionary to Sierra Leone.
- The Amherst Alumni Society was founded in July 1842.
- Amherst records one of the first uses of Latin honors of any American college, dating back to 1881. Contemporaneous writings stated that the system was new.
- An asteroid, 516 Amherstia, is named after Amherst College. The name was given by its discoverer, Raymond Smith Dugan in honor of his alma mater.
Notable alumni
Notable alumni of Amherst College include:
College founders and Presidents
- William S. Clark 1848, second president of the Massachusetts Agricultural College
- Reverend Daniel Bliss 1852, founder of American University of Beirut
- Francis Amasa Walker 1860, third president of MIT
- Joseph Hardy Neesima 1870, founder of Doshisha University in Japan
- David Truman 1935, president of Mt. Holyoke College
- Colin Diver 1965, current president of Reed College
- Richard L. McCormick 1969, current president of Rutgers University
Academics
- Biblical scholar Horatio Balch Hackett 1830
- Historian Herbert Baxter Adams 1872
- Librarian Melvil Dewey 1874, of the Dewey Decimal System
- Astronomer Raymond Smith Dugan 1899
- Mathematician Stephen Cole Kleene 1930
- Political Scientist David Truman 1935
- Scientist David Suzuki 1958
- Computer Scientist David S. Johnson 1967
Men of the Cloth
- Preacher Henry Ward Beecher 1834
Politicians
- President Calvin Coolidge 1895
- Speaker of the House Galusha A. Grow 1844 (24th Speaker)
- Speaker of the House Frederick H. Gillett 1874 (37th Speaker)
- Speaker of the House Henry T. Rainey 1883 (40th Speaker)
- Senator Dwight Morrow 1895 ( also Ambassador to Mexico, Secretary of the Navy, Partner at J. P. Morgan and Company )
- Representative Julius H. Seelye 1874 (also president of Amherst College from 1877 - 1890)
- Representative Charles H. Allen 1869
- William Estabrook Chancellor 1889, nemesis of Warren G. Harding
- John J. McCloy 1919, Military Governor of Germany (1949-1952), Assistant Secretary of War (1941-1945)
- Thomas F. Eagleton 1950, one-time running mate of George McGovern
- Representative Thomas M. Davis III 1971
- David D. Freudenthal, governor of Wyoming
- Giorgios A. Papandreou 1975, former Foreign Minister of Greece
- Albert II of Monaco 1981
- Francisco G. Flores 1981, former president of El Salvador
Lawyers and judges
- William Henry Lewis 1892 and Charles Hamilton Houston 1915, two of the first black men to argue and win cases before the U.S. Supreme Court
- Harlan Fiske Stone 1894, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court
- Donald G. Murray 1934, plaintiff in Pearson v. Murray
- Joseph H. Hartzler 1972, lead U.S. attorney for the Oklahoma City bombing trial
- Patrick Fitzgerald 1982, investigator of the Valerie Plame scandal, prosecutor of former Illinois governor George Ryan
Businesspeople
- Henry Clay Folger 1879, former Standard Oil president, Folger Shakespeare Library founder
- Charles E. Merrill ex 1908, the founder of Merrill Lynch & Co.
- Clarence Birdseye ex 1910, food preservationist and founder of Birds Eye Foods
- John J. McCloy 1919, Chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank (1953-1960) (Also see Politicans and Other)
- Hugh B. Price 1963, former president of the National Urban League
- Daniel F. Duquette 1980, former General Manager of the Red Sox
- Sung Joo Kim 1981, director, Sung Joo International
CIA Directors
- Stansfield Turner ex 1945 (1977-81)
- William H. Webster 1947 (1987-91)
- John M. Deutch 1960 (1995-96)
Nobel Prize winners
- Henry W. Kendall 1950 (1990, Physics)
- Harold E. Varmus 1961 (1989, Medicine)
- Joseph E. Stiglitz 1964 (2001, Economics), former Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank
Doctors
- Dr. Walter Wyman 1870, Surgeon General of the United States from 1891-1911
- Dr. Charles R. Drew 1926, blood bank pioneer
- Talk show host D. Drew Pinsky 1980
Astronauts
- Robert A. R. Parker 1958
- Jeffrey A. Hoffman 1966
Entertainers
- Actor Emery B. Pottle 1899
- Actor Fred Everett Glass 1914
- Actor Burgess Meredith 1931
- Actor Stephen Collins 1969
- Magician Raymond J. Teller 1969, of Penn and Teller;
- Composer James R. Steinman 1969
- Comedian and actor Lawrence J. Miller 1975
- Director David O. Russell 1981E
- Writer and director Victor Levin of Mad About You 1983
- Susannah R. Grant 1984, screenwriter of Pocahontas, Ever After, Erin Brockovich, etc.
- Musicians Jonatha Brooke Mallet 1985 and Jennifer Kimball 1986
- Actor Jeffrey C. Wright 1987
- Actor John Cariani 1991, on Law and Order
Authors and artists
- Architect William Mead 1867, of McKim, Mead, and White
- Sculptor Edward C. Potter ex 1882, of the New York Public Library lions
- Children's author Philip D. Eastman 1933
- Poet Richard P. Wilbur 1942
- Poet James I. Merrill 1947
- Novelist Scott F. Turow 1970
- Cullen Murphy 1974, managing editor of the Atlantic Monthly and writer, "Prince Valiant" comic strip
- Novelist Chris Bohjalian 1982
- FoxTrot cartoonist William J. C. Amend III 1984
- Novelist Harlan F. Coben 1984
- Novelist David Foster Wallace 1985
- Novelist Daniel G. Brown 1986
- Poet Rafael Campo 1987
- Get Fuzzy cartoonist Darby N. Conley 1994
- Novelist Jonathon S. Keats 1994
- Novelist Calvin Lamark Baker 1994
Other notables
- Phrenologist Orson Squire Fowler 1834
- Amiel Weeks Whipple ex 1840, surveyor of the First Transcontinental Railroad
- Joseph B. Eastman 1904, Interstate Commerce Commissioner
- John J. McCloy 1919, 2nd President of the World Bank
- Dwight D. Eisenhower II 1970
- Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Richard Read, 1980
- John Cerutti, major-league baseball pitcher and broadcaster, 1982
Some better-known professors who taught at Amherst are Robert Frost, Archibald MacLeish, Henry Steele Commager, Anthony Lake, and Stark Young.
External links
- Amherst College (http://www.amherst.edu/)
- A History of Amherst College (1894) (http://www.amherst.edu/~rjyanco/amherst/history/1894tyler-ws/toc.html)
- Amherstiana (http://www.amherstiana.org/)
- The New Athenian (http://www.note.amherst.edu/)
- The Daily Jolt (http://amherst.dailyjolt.com/)
- Am'erst: Amherst College News and Discussion (http://www.amerst.com/)