Dive Temporary:
- Hampshire Faculty President Ed Wingenbach is ready to depart the personal nonprofit after his time period is up in June, in line with a information launch Monday.
- Wingenbach is departing to grow to be the president of the American Faculty of Greece. Hampshire’s board plans to launch a seek for a brand new president in February. If a successor isn’t named by July, Jennifer Chrisler, vp for institutional assist, will step in as interim president, the faculty stated.
- After becoming a member of Massachusetts-based Hampshire in 2019, Wingenbach led the faculty by means of a turnaround effort that included a fundraising push and curriculum overhaul.
Dive Perception:
In saying Wingenbach’s deliberate departure, Hampshire famous that purposes have doubled, rising to 2,286 in 2024, and whole enrollment has grown by 60% since 2020.
By fall 2024, it reached 844 college students and anticipates it will enroll 1,000 by 2026-27 — that’s up from 500 roughly two years in the past.
The school additionally fundraised $47 million in direct working assist.
Throughout Wingenbach’s time, the faculty remodeled its method to curriculum, reached carbon neutrality, and launched a division of Justice, Fairness, and Antiracism.
Arguably an important achievement of the faculty was its monetary turnaround, as all different efforts hinge on the establishment’s survival. Hampshire’s turnaround comes at a time when different small personal establishments within the East are struggling and a number of have shuttered.
In 2019, Hampshire’s funds have been in such straits that it opted solely to confess a partial incoming class that fall. By June 2020, the faculty had racked up a whole working deficit of $7.1 million, greater than double the 12 months earlier than.
Even with enrollment progress and record-making donations for the faculty, Hampshire has made painful cuts not too long ago to remain on prime of its price range.
Final summer season, it introduced it will reduce 9% of its worker ranks after it fell wanting enrollment projections. Officers additionally made the cuts to make good on a pledge to steadiness Hampshire’s price range by the 2026-27 educational 12 months.
“We’re nonetheless rising, enrollment remains to be growing,” Wingenbach advised Greater Ed Dive on the time. “That is actually extra about guaranteeing that we are able to proceed to achieve success because the parameters of that progress change.”
Hampshire is presently on observe to attain a balanced price range by 2027, the faculty stated in Monday’s launch.
“Hampshire has a robust basis for a profitable future, proving that this extraordinary imaginative and prescient of schooling can endure and flourish,” Wingenbach stated in a press release.
