Hampshire College’s New President Has a Mandate: Raise Money

Hampshire College, which enrolled its first students in 1970, has endured a tumultuous year. Miriam E. Nelson was named its new president in April 2018, but a month later she learned that the college would be underenrolled in the fall. In January, Nelson announced that the college was looking for a merger partner, a move that many students, alumni, faculty, and staff never endorsed. The college also opted to enroll only a small class this fall. By last Friday, Nelson, the college’s board chair, and its vice chair had all resigned.

Kenneth Rosenthal, one of Hampshire’s founders, its first treasurer, parent of a onetime Hampshire student, and a former trustee, was called in to take the helm, at least for now. The trustees also announced that the college would remain independent.

Rosenthal’s main job will be to raise money. To stay afloat and independent, Hampshire needs to raise $15 million to $20 million during the next year, and close to $100 million over the next five or six years. Already, it has received pledges of about $3 million.

In a message to the college on Thursday, Rosenthal said some faculty and staff members would be laid off at the end of April. But he asked the 600 students who are enrolled to stick with him.

Rosenthal spoke to The Chronicle on Thursday about the job he landed in this week.

Q. You’re in your fourth day as president, but at a college you’re very familiar with. What have you been up to this week?

A. I am trying to get reacquainted with a college that I’ve known very well. I first heard of Hampshire College in 1965, when I read about in on the front page of The New York Times, above the fold, as they say. I found that it had one employee and that it was a man that I’d worked with, fund raising at Amherst College for six months, before I went off to practice law. He took me on.

So I’ve been here on and off for over 50 years. But I don’t know the people here as well as I’d like to, so I’ve been spending the first part of this week getting to know them and also trying to raise some money.

We need to grow the college back to the size that makes sense for it academically, which has always been around 1,200 to 1,400 students. Next year we’re going to be about half the size of that, and that’s because we’re taking a very small class in September.

Q. So the plan is for an independent Hampshire College?

A. The resolution the trustees adopted reads: “To endorse the primary direction of moving forward in pursuit of keeping Hampshire College an independent entity and to engage fully in fund raising for that purpose.”

We negotiated a salary of a dollar year. I’ve already been paid in advance. It’s hanging up on the bulletin board right now. I’m expecting on July 1, I’ll get another dollar.

Q. Hampshire has always been dependent on tuition. Is the hope to change course and build up the endowment? Is there a plan to change the business model?

A. We’ve had an endowment since the days we opened. A part of our endowment is in a small family-held company that occasionally pays us a dividend. We’ve always wanted to grow the endowment but always needed money for operations.

The endowment as of last summer was about $54 million, which is not bad for a small college. And I say that because we’re a very young college. When Amherst College, one of our parents down the road, was the age we are, Emily Dickinson’s brother Austin Dickinson was the treasurer, and he was paying bills out of his own pocket. He almost bankrupted himself. The historian of the endowment at Amherst, a man named Stanley King, said that Amherst at that time was in serious condition and deeply in debt at 50 years.

Hampshire always knew it would be many decades before its alumni were old enough to be dying off and leaving money to Hampshire in their wills. Their average age is about 40. The oldest are about 66. So it’s a challenge for the alumni at this stage to support us in the amount they’d like to.

We need to recruit students because close to 90 percent of our revenue comes from tuition and fees. So the sooner we can get back to the normal size, the better.

Q. Is part of your job convincing people that things are stable again? I can imagine that the instability of the last year may have made it harder to attract students and donors who want to feel as if they’re investing in something that has a long future.

A. It is but it isn’t, in the sense that I’m not trying to persuade them. I’m trying to help them understand what the possibilities are.

The first president of the college, Franklin Patterson, said Hampshire was to be a place of successive approximations. Hampshire shouldn’t be static. It was designed to bring change to higher education. And at every generation or two, higher education does need to be reinvigorated and changed.

We’re just a small college in South Amherst, Mass., but I think we have an impact nationally.

Q. As is the case with several other small liberal-arts colleges that have financial difficulties, alumni groups have become very active in the college’s future. When the college was talking about a merger, many alumni started working against that. What role do you see the alumni playing? Is their involvement a challenge or a blessing?

A. I’ve only been in this role since the weekend, but back at the end of January, a group of alumni mostly, and I was one, began to raise money for what we said would be an independent, autonomous college. We sought pledges from people, and people sought us out. It’s called the Campaign for Hampshire.

We raised $2.7 million in pledges. We’re going to — with the blessing of that group — pull that into Hampshire so that we can coordinate our advancement. There’s another small group that’s done the same. So probably together we’ve raised over $3 million.

They include former presidents, as well as alumni, parents, and friends.

We’re going to try to incorporate all these disparate forces out there. We have a short-term challenge, and an intermediate, and then a longer-term challenge. Remaking the college is not going to be done in a few weeks. That’s really going to be part of next year. I don’t know how we’ll do it, but that’s where I want to harness these voices for change and improvement.

Q. My sense is that some alumni felt the crisis and merger were declared too quickly. Does it seem to you, looking at it now, as if the financial and enrollment situations were particularly bad last year?

A. It was not good, but it wasn’t particularly bad. For one thing, Hampshire isn’t a four-year college. It’s always been a college that could be a three-, or four-, or five-, or six-year college. When students come here, the numbers we attach to their name are not their assumed year of graduation, but the year they come here. So my daughter, who graduated in 2008, she was Hampshire College 04F, for fall 2004.

One of the things Hampshire might have recognized better last spring is that a shortfall in autumn didn’t have to carry forward. There are ways to admit people during the middle of the year, which we do every year anyway.

What may have triggered the deepest concern were the failures of several other New England colleges at the same time. Mount Ida and Wheelock got great attention here in Massachusetts. They’re close to home.

What is also close to home is the partnership we have with our four college parents. They’re going to be very helpful to us. They’ve already offered places on their faculty for some of our faculty who will be leaving, as visiting professors on their campuses. That’ll be great for keeping these very fine teachers in the valley, accessible to our students. And if they’d like, a couple of years from now when their visiting professorships are up and we are bigger than we are now, maybe they’ll come back to Hampshire.

Nell Gluckman writes about faculty issues and other topics in higher education. You can follow her on Twitter @nellgluckman, or email her at nell.gluckman@chronicle.com.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.