The campus also houses the National Yiddish Book Center and Eric Carle Museum, and hosts the annual Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics.

The college utilizes an alternative curriculum, with an emphasis on progressive pedagogy and self-directed academic concentrations, a focus on portfolios rather than distribution requirements, and a reliance on narrative evaluations instead of grades and GPAs.

With a matching grant from the Ford Foundation, Hampshire's first trustees purchased 800 acres (3.2 km2) of orchard and farmland in South Amherst, Massachusetts, and construction began.

[12] For several years immediately after its founding in the early 1970s, the large number of applications for matriculation caused Hampshire College to be among the most selective undergraduate programs in the United States.

In recent years its financial stability has relied on fundraising efforts led by its seventh president, Jonathan Lash.

In the mid-1990s, the college began establishing a "cultural village" making possible the residence of independent non-profit organizations on its campus.

The appointment made Hampshire one of a small number of colleges and universities in the United States with an openly gay president.

Jonathan Lash was named the sixth president of the College in May 2011, joining Hampshire as an internationally recognized expert on global sustainability, climate change, and environmental challenges and solutions.

Lash served until 2018 and was followed by the college's seventh president, Miriam Nelson, who began her appointment in July 2018 but resigned in April 2019 after the failure of her plan for Hampshire to merge or partner with another institution.

[22] On January 15, 2019, president Miriam Nelson and the Board of Trustees announced that the college was planning to seek a strategic partner to ensure long-term sustainability due to financial instability and small endowment.

[30] Shortly afterwards, the board announced the decision to prioritize remaining independent through a capital campaign led by alumnus Ken Burns.

[33][34] By August, emails were released stating that, UMass was considering the idea but only if Hampshire would be closed entirely and there were massive layoffs of its faculty.

[38] In November 2020, Hampshire received its largest single donation since its founding, $5 million, by alumnus James S. Crown and his wife, Paula H.

[40] In January 2022, The College received an anonymous gift of $5 million to fund the Ken Burns Initiative to Transform Higher Education.

[42] In 2020, continuing its legacy of innovation, Hampshire did away with departmental structures, reorganizing around urgent, global challenges like climate change, white supremacy, and life in a "post-truth" era.

[43] Delayed a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Hampshire celebrated its 50th anniversary over the weekend of October 15–17, 2021, welcoming back to campus almost 900 guests, among them alums, families, community friends, donors, and former presidents and faculty members.

[44] On March 9, 2023, "in response to the continuing attacks on New College of Florida intended to limit intellectual exploration, turn back progress toward inclusion, and curtail open discussion of race, injustice, and histories of oppression," Hampshire College extended an invitation of admission to its students, matching their current cost of tuition.

Hampshire competes in eight intercollegiate varsity sports, including basketball, cross country, soccer, and track & field.

[56] The national reproductive rights organization Civil Liberties and Public Policy (CLPP) operates on Hampshire's campus, where they host an annual conference.

[64] Currently, the Kern Center houses Admissions and financial aid offices as well as classrooms, student lounges, and a coffee shop.

The solar panel array is a part of the college's main goal - to be climate-neutral by 2020 according to their extensive Climate Action Plan developed in April 2012.

The 4.7 megawatts of solar power avoids 3,000 metric tons of greenhouse-gas emissions per year, equivalent to 650 fewer cars on the road.

"[70] In February of 2023, The College announced that it had achieved its 2022 goal of carbon neutrality for all campus emissions, including electricity and natural gas heating.

They also stopped mowing dozen acres of lawns in hopes of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, saving landscaping expenses and creating wildlife and plant habitats.

Beginning in the Fall of 2002, the requirements for passing Division I were changed so that first-year students no longer had to complete independent projects (see Curriculum above).

[citation needed] The Re-Radicalization of Hampshire College assisted the administration in launching a pilot program known as mentored independent study.

[91] In November 2001, a controversial All-Community Vote at Hampshire declared the school opposed to the recently launched War on Terrorism after 9/11, another national first that drew national media attention, including scathing reports from Fox News Channel and the New York Post ("Kooky College Condemns War").

Saturday Night Live had a regular sketch, "Jarret's Room", starring Jimmy Fallon, which ostensibly takes place at Hampshire College but is instead a composite of several schools.

It refers to non-existent buildings ("McGuinn Hall", which is actually the Sociology and Social Work building at fellow cast member Amy Poehler's alma mater, Boston College) and features yearbooks, tests, seniors, fraternities, three-person dorm rooms, and a football team—none of which the school has ever had.

In another SNL episode aired on December 14, 2002, host Al Gore plays Dr. Ralph Wormly Curtis, a professor at Hampshire College.