Over 200 people on April 23 gathered in Amherst Town Common to protest employee positions being laid off without severance and call upon the other colleges in the consortium to assist the Hampshire College community, after the announcement of closure on April 14.
“In this moment of enclosure and austerity, we call on the four colleges and five colleges incorporated to do their job, live up to their name as a consortium and to consort, take us in,” Sarah Jenkins, assistant professor of animation at Hampshire and Hampshire Workers for Just Closure member, said.
The Hampshire Board of Trustees voted to permanently close the college at the end of the Fall 2026 semester. As a result, a majority of the staff and faculty’s positions will be terminated by mid-June, with the rest laid off in December, without severance pay.
The college is working on a teach-out plan that includes two pathways: Division III completion or transfer. Division III students can choose to stay enrolled at Hampshire in the fall to finish their studies, while other students who wish to continue their education will have to do so elsewhere.
Hampshire students, staff and faculty, as well as community members from surrounding towns and colleges such as Mount Holyoke College and the University of Massachusetts, came to support Hampshire and speak out.
Speeches given at the rally consisted of demands for the now four-college consortium assistance in Hampshire’s time of need and emphasized the value of their community.
“All students, faculty and staff who would like to remain in the four colleges be enabled to do so. What this means is students should be able to transfer to one of the four colleges, proportional to their resources,” Jenkins said.
Jenkins added that in addition to providing Hampshire students with a new home for academics, all faculty and staff should be granted a one-year bridge position at one of the four consortium colleges while they search for new jobs.
“The four colleges must take meaningful action to ensure that none of us are homeless, without insurance or access to medication, without childcare or paychecks,” Jenkins said.
The rally was organized by Hampshire Workers for Just Closure. The group had set up an emergency relief fund to support the employees not likely to receive severance pay. QR codes leading to the relief fund were handed out throughout the rally.
“My heart in the past week has swollen, has grown intense sizes, because I’ve seen the speed at which staff, faculty and students have mobilized to hold each other,” Tyler Parks, a Hampshire student who spoke at the rally, said.
While employees of Hampshire asserted the need for bridge positions, and students for transfers to other colleges, there were also calls for mirrored financial promises.
Rosa Sullivan-Merrick, a Hampshire student, said that a significant reason she chose to attend was because of the perk that her mother’s employment at Hampshire offers, tuition remission.
Merrick’s mother, Michelle Sullivan, has worked as an infant co-teacher at the Hampshire College Early Learning Center (ELC) for 15 years, and took the job because of the tuition remission benefit, Merrick explained.
Sullivan described how the ELC has been a major part of the five-college community, and that its employees should be treated in a way that reflects all the meaningful work they have done.
“I want the commitment that I received from Hampshire College for full tuition remission for my child,” Sullivan said. “I don’t think it’s that big of an ask.”
Mia Sanghvi, a Hampshire student in her final year, described the generosity of the Hampshire community, despite it being a small and underfunded college. They host the Collective Power for Reproductive Justice conference, hosted the Five-College Pan Asian Network conference this year and took in 35 students from New College in Florida, she explained.
“We start movements, we lead them, we finish them,” Sanghvi said. “Whoever else is here [not] from Hampshire College, I hope you know just how good our community is.”
Rosemary Slack, a Division I Hampshire student, also pointed to the lack of support from the other four colleges in the consortium.
“They have let us die and they do not even have the conscience to clean up the body,” Slack said.
Sanghvi also questioned what will happen to Hampshire’s first-generation students and undocumented students when transferring to other institutions.
Parks echoed that concern by asking, “How will [Hampshire’s] resources for students of color be allocated to partnering institutions?”
“I trust not in that f*ck a** administration. I don’t trust in the Board of Trustees. I don’t trust in a floating $100 bill in the sky, but I trust in all of you, in this community, to ensure that all employees of Hampshire College are fairly and well compensated,” Parks said.
Once the rally ended, rock music was played and everyone present was encouraged to dance. Some students began standing with signs on the sidewalk, gesturing cars passing by to honk their horns for Hampshire and for the payment of the terminated faculty.
Norah Stewart can be reached at [email protected]. Pearl Davis can be reached at [email protected].
