In the series “Student Voices,” current students write about the reasons they chose Hampshire and how our educational model works from their perspective.
As my peer Brigid wrote in a previous post, our school received the 2015 Community Engaged Classification from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. This selective classification is awarded to colleges and universities that instill the importance of working and engaging with local communities through various curricula, programs, and pedagogical philosophies.
I believe this honor is well deserved. From our first week as Hampshire students we were introduced to the program of CEL-1, or Campus Engaged Learning, a requirement every student must complete during Division I centered upon campus-community work. This encourages new students to join student groups, help put on a play, aid in research, and become immersed in the broad array of opportunities at Hampshire. Students then write a reflection at the completion of their first year documenting their progress and showing how the engaged learning helped them grow as a student and community member. After this is completed, students are assigned CEL-2, or Community Engagement and Learning during Division II, where students find innovative ways to build community both within and beyond the campus. This is most usually fulfilled with internships, apprentices, teachers assistant positions, leadership in campus groups, and many more — all personally designed by each student.
For me, my CEL-1 work showed me the direction I want to take in my studies at Hampshire and beyond, a part of my time here that I am undeniably grateful for. I became an active member of Hampshire’s Climate Justice group, where I began to pull together the strong intersections of social justice and environmentalism, and honed in on my own area of study. In the club we attended protests both locally and nationally, became active members of the Massachusetts student climate movement, and worked on various statewide campaigns that connected us to local leaders. It was through this student group that I found my niche at Hampshire, developing great friends and my own sense of purpose in my studies. Fulfilling the requirement was all but forgotten; I was in it for my own passion.
My immersive involvement in this student group for CEL-1 led me to find my CEL-2 opportunity — an intensive program called Climate Summer. With a group of other college students, I biked over 700 miles across New England while working on climate change campaigns, particurlarly on stopping the proposed fracked gas pipeline slated to run across Massachusetts and New Hampshire. It was an experience brimming with personal growth, and it helped me become the confident organizer I am today. I’m now connected with students all over the country and local organizations and groups that I’m now fully a part of. I’ve continued my work organizing against the pipeline in an independent study and revel in the great connections I’ve made in this community. After the summer, I strongly feel like the local area here is my home, and I spend a great deal of my time working to build change in the outside community.
As a leader of our campus’s Climate Justice group, I find it important to bring outside community events to our group to ignite the importance of building coalitions and being inspired by our local leaders. Especially with a topic as globally systemic as climate change, it’s crucial that we work alongside other regional groups and truly engage ourselves with our neighbors.
I see the engrained desire to reach out to the broader community in many Hampshire students. In November, after the failed indictment against the killer of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, that has since sparked the Black Lives Matter movement to end police brutality against people of color, a walk-out and march was led by the student group Decolonize Media Collective. Many Hampshire students took part. It was emphasized that marches on our own campus are simply not enough, and do not help create the social, systemic change that the movement needs. For weeks after that, the group led students to marches and rallies in Northampton, Holyoke, Springfield, and to the Millions March in New York City.
Community Partnerships for Social Change (CPSC) is also a helpful resource on campus dedicated to empowering students to create social change. CPSC offers organizing positions based in Holyoke, Springfield, and other surrounding cities where students can learn from leaders in low-socioeconomic areas about creating economic change.
Community: it’s engrained in the basic philosophy of Hampshire College, which helps students be leaders and drivers of change during college and throughout their lives.
