I am not a politician, an administrator, or a financial aid manager, but I am a Hampshire College student. Every day I live in a land of Hampshire magic. A kind of magic that is so specific that it can’t possibly be felt anywhere else.
It is a small community with large minds. On Monday, I’m splurging on crepes with two faculty members, and we will talk about screenwriting and podcasts with a splash of a past century’s humor from Will and a young vibrant laugh from Yasotha. I won’t be able to leave the breakfast joint until Will has indulged in a rant about a 1980s movie that I need to see or Yasotha has asked me whether I have read a memoir that she’s sure I would like. On Tuesday, I will attend an intermediate Spanish class where there is a total of seven students — six who have been journeying through the Spanish language together for three semesters. When the semester is beginning and the get-to-know-you games roll around once again, we all eye each other with a half-smile covering our faces because we know the game will be easy — we know each other too well. We know that the person to our left loves dogs and went to Disneyland twice and that the person to our right grew up in Denver and is a companion of the natural world. On Tuesday night, I will walk into the Robert Crown Center, where depending on the day, six to 26 other people will be frolicking on the basketball court while chasing Frisbees and commenting on a class about brewing beer — it’s a science, after all.
There are students of every year at Ultimate practice, some in their sixth years and others in their first, but all of them find comfort and friendship in one another. We speak of absurdities, but the game and the people never fail to bring returners back year after year. On Wednesday, I’ll wake up to my mod mates mixing oils and natural ingredients for their business Simply Smooth — they are entrepreneurs who believe in the world and who believe in themselves. The oils have a smell that has seeped under my bedroom door and into my lungs and has brought me the passion and excitement that they so effortlessly bear. Later, I will attend a class titled “Loveable Runaways.” Admittedly only a Hampshire class would be titled this, as everyone else in the community would be oblivious to what the class is actually about. But in a sense, it doesn’t matter. It is a class filled with people who care — who speak about how loneliness can infiltrate our hearts and whether runaways ever return to their homes.
On Thursday, I will run between classes. It only takes 12 minutes to get from one side of campus to the other, but in those 12 minutes I see at least 10 people who each in the busyness and richness of their lives will stop their music and ask an intimate question in a way that seems so carefree that you wonder if this is the reality of the world. On Friday, I will sit in a yurt where, if you are lucky, the microphones will work. But it’s not about the microphones in the yurt, it is about the space — the homey cove that brings souls together. Sometimes, as you are sitting there dealing with technology malfunctions, you will receive a call on the yurt phone asking questions as if they are talking to someone who knows the answers.
I am not a politician, an administrator, or a financial aid manager, but I am a student so invested in the character and education model of Hampshire that I am asking for everyone to help save it. Hampshire College is far too special for it to be lost.
Luke Gannon is a student studying film and creative writing at Hampshire College.