Amherst College

Since its founding in 1821, Amherst College has become one of the premier liberal arts colleges in the nation, enrolling some 1,700 talented, energetic and diverse young men and women. This section of the Web site provides a general introduction to the college.

Amherst College is located in Amherst, Massachusetts, a town of 35,000 people in the western part of the state. The college’s 1,000-acre campus is adjacent to downtown Amherst.

Noah Webster, already well known from his textbooks and dictionaries, played a vital role in fundraising and in shaping the institution. He had served as a trustee of Amherst Academy since its incorporation in 1815, and was president of its board of trustees during the critical 1820-21 period, when Amherst College was formed.

Webster had been on the committee formed in 1818 by the Academy’s trustees to call a regional convention regarding founding a new educational institution — that which eventually materialized as Amherst College.

Amherst College first admitted women in 1975. Today the diverse and international student body includes men and women from a wide variety of ethnic, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds from all over the United States and more than 40 other countries.

Mission
Amherst College educates men and women of exceptional potential from all backgrounds so that they may seek, value, and advance knowledge, engage the world around them, and lead principled lives of consequence. Amherst brings together the most promising students, whatever their financial need, in order to promote diversity of experience and ideas within a purposefully small residential community. Working with faculty, staff, and administrators dedicated to intellectual freedom and the highest standards of instruction in the liberal arts, Amherst undergraduates assume substantial responsibility for undertaking inquiry and for shaping their education within and beyond the curriculum.

Courses Offered

• Undergraduate Programs
• Graduate Programs

Departments & Centers

• Astronomy
• Dance
• Center for Crossroads in the Study of the Americas (CISA)
• Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS)
• Five College Center for the Study of World Languages
• Five College Women’s Studies Research Center

Contact Details
Amherst College
Amherst MA 01002-5000
(413) 542-2000
Official Website: https://www.amherst.edu/