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An Amherst Timeline. Cornerstone laid for South College, first College building. College is founded as Amherst Collegiate Institution. § Zephaniah Swift Moore, clergyman and former president of Williams College, begins term as first president (1821-23). First College Catalog issued — a single sheet.
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Founding and 19th century
Founded in 1821, Amherst College developed out of the secondary school Amherst Academy. The college was originally suggested as an alternative to Williams College, which was struggling to stay open. Although Williams survived, Amherst was formed and diverged into its own institution. In 1812, funds were raised in Amherst for a secondary school, Amherst Academy; it opened December 1814. The academy incorporated in 1816. The institution was named after the town, which in turn had been named aft...
Establishment
Moore, then President of Williams College, 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 Coll...
Development and academic reform
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. Amherst's hoods are purple (Williams' official color) with a white stripe or chevron, said to signify that Amherst was born of Williams. Amherst records one of the first uses of Latin honors of any American college, dating back to 1881. The college was an all-male school until the late 1960s, when a few female studen...
Since the inception of the U.S. News & World Report rankings in 1987, Amherst College has been ranked ten times as the first overall among 266 liberal arts colleges in the United States, and in 2016 ranked second, behind Williams. In 2018, Amherst was ranked as the best liberal arts college in the country by The Wall Street Journal. In 2018, Forbes...
Amherst has been dubbed one of the "most selective" liberal arts colleges in the United States; the Carnegie Foundation classifies Amherst as one of the "more selective" institutions whose first-year students' test scores places these institutions in roughly the top fifth of baccalaureate institutions.For the class first enrolled in Fall 2017, Amhe...
Amherst College offers 36 fields of study (with 850 courses) in the sciences, arts, humanities, mathematics and computer sciences, social sciences, foreign languages, classics, and several interdisciplinary fields (including premedical studies) and provides an unusually open curriculum. Students are not required to study a core curriculum or fulfil...
Amherst College is located in the town of Amherstin Western Massachusetts. Amherst College has a total of 34 residence halls, seven of which are strictly for first year students. Following their first year, sophomores, juniors, and seniors have the choice to live off campus and are offered options of Themed Houses including Arts House, Russian Hous...
Amherst's resources, faculty, and academic life allow the college to enroll students with a range of talents, interests, and commitments. Students represent 49 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and fifty-four countries. The median family income of Amherst students is $158,200, with 51% of students coming from the top 10% highest-earnin...
Amherst participates in the NCAA's Division III, the Eastern College Athletic Conference, and the New England Small College Athletic Conference, which includes Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Connecticut College, Hamilton, Middlebury, Trinity, Tufts, Wesleyan, and Williams College. Amherst is also one of the "Little Three," along with Williams and Wesleyan....
Although a relatively small college, Amherst has many accomplished alumni, including Nobel, Crafoord Prize and Lasker Award laureates, MacArthur Fellowship and Pulitzer Prize winners, National Medal of Science and National Book Award recipients, and Academy, Tony, Grammy and Emmy Award winners; a U.S. President, the current Sovereign Prince of Mona...
William S. Tyler, A History of Amherst College(1894).Debby Applegate, The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher(Doubleday, 2006)."Amherst College" . Encyclopedia Americana. 1920.Amherst College began in 1821 to educate “indigent young men of piety and talents.” From its start, Amherst enrolled students who might not commonly have had access to higher education. Some “Firsts” at Amherst Mission Statement. An Amherst Timeline. See a timeline of Amherst College milestones and notable moments, in our Bicentennial section.
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Songs of Amherst Published. March 1, 1860: After a committee from the class of 1862 is organized to address the matter, the College releases the first issue of Songs of Amherst. This 75-page volume contains lyrics for 62 songs, all but eight written especially for Amherst.
From the laying of the South College cornerstone in 1820, to a threat to remove the class of 1838 from campus, to the 1974 vote in favor of coeducation, learn about key moments in the College’s history. An Amherst Timeline.
See a timeline of Amherst College milestones and notable moments, in our Bicentennial section.
About Amherst Profile of Amherst. Amherst College prepares students to use ideas to make a difference in the world. Since its founding in 1821 in Western Massachusetts, Amherst has demonstrated steadfast confidence in the value of the liberal arts and the importance of critical thinking.
