艾姆赫斯特学院|Amherst College

校训: Terras Irradient ( Let them give light to the world ) -- 让他们给这个世界带来光明.

建立时间: 1821

现任主席: Anthony W. (Tony) Marx

所在地: 艾姆赫斯特, 马萨诸塞州 (Amherst, Massachusetts)

类别：私立

图书馆馆藏:1,003,887本图书, 575,177 非图书音像资料

学生组织: 100

学校代表颜色: 紫色和白色

学院概况

艾姆赫斯特学院（Amherst College）,昵称安城学院,始建于1821年, 历史上曾经的曾经是美国颇有名气的贵族男校，素有 小常青藤 之称，不过学院从1980年起开始招收女生。其964平方英亩的校园是由著名设计师Frederick Olmsted设计的，此人还设计过为人称道的纽约中央公园、斯坦福大学校园及新泽西州的樱花公园。 今天的艾姆赫斯特学院（Amherst College）现有约1600名学生,有800多门课程,在33个领域的学科里有颁发学士权。

学院特点

艾姆赫斯特学院（Amherst College）为全美国最富有的学校之一,每学年由18000名著名校友(其中包括诺贝尔奖提名者,普里策奖金获得者,美国最高法院法官,还有一位美国前总统)捐赠的总资金能够达到接近9亿美元.优良的资金后备保障了学院的正常运行和可持续发展. 虽然学院大多数的建筑都有过百年的历史,但是其现代化功能是美国其它很多学院望尘莫及的.而且学院为美国为数不多的仍保持 非按需供给 制度的学校,这个制度是说其在录取过程中不考虑学生的家庭收入和能否负担起高昂学费,学生一经录取,学校则根据家庭实际情况给与适当的学费减免,助学金,助学贷款,和勤工俭学等等来保证每一名来学院上学的学生不会为无法负担高昂的学费而辍学,以真正做到 一个都不能少 的结果. 根据2003年统计,此学院给外国学生发放全奖百分比为全美国之首,达到了82.7%。

学院以人为本,注重人才个性化的培养,并且很注重学生体系的综合性,每年从美国和世界各地招收大量的学生,今天的艾姆赫斯特学院有来自美国每个州和其他30多个国家的学生.由于学生教授比率非常的低,(12学生:1教授)学院平均课堂人数仅为19人,每名学生都可以获得教授的个人关注和因材施教。

艾姆赫斯特学院(Amherst College)的英语、历史、政治、心理和经济系都非常著名，在2004年的美国文科大学综合排名为全美国第一. 综合教育入门 课是每个学生的必修课，旨在让学生从不同领域学习传统正规的思考与研究方式。这里的学生可在 五学院联盟 (史密斯女子学院[Smith College], 蒙特荷约科女子学院（Mt. Holyoke College）, Hampshire Colleges[汉普郡学院], 麻省州立大学艾姆赫斯特本部[University of Massachusett Amherst]以及艾姆赫斯特学院[Amherst College]) 中的其他4所学校自由选课。每届毕业生中有70%的学生进入其他美国高等研究生学院深造, 其学士证明在美国就业市场上也是一块不小的金字招牌。

专业

美国文化学 American Studies, 考古与社会学 Anthropology and Sociology, 亚洲语言及文化学 Asian Languages and Civilizations, 天文学 Astronomy, 生物学 Biology, 美国黑人文化学 Black Studies, 化学 Chemistry, 传统经济学Classics, 经济学 Economics, 英语 English, 欧洲文化学 European Studies, 艺术 Fine Arts, 法语 French, 地理学Geology, 德语 German, 历史 History, 法学 Law, 数学/电脑学 Mathematics and Computer Science, 音乐 Music, 神经学Neuroscience, 哲学 Philosophy, 体育 Physical Education and Athletics, 物理学 Physics, 政治学 Political Science, 心理学 Psychology, 神学 Religion, 俄语 Russian, 西班牙语 Spanish, 剧场与舞蹈 Theater and Dance, 女性及性别学 Women s and Gender Studies.

英文补充

Academics and resources

Reputation

Amherst has tied for first in the academic reputation category among schools whose highest degree awarded is a bachelor s degree each year that U.S. News World Report has produced a survey, sharing that honor with rival Williams College. According to current U.S. News and World Report rankings, Amherst and Williams tied for the number one spot among all liberal arts colleges. Amherst has been ranked the number one liberal arts college in the country ten times since the inception of the U.S. News rankings.

Amherst is ranked second overall according to the fifth annual report by the National Collegiate Scouting Association which ranks colleges based on student-athlete graduation rates, academic strength, and athletic prowess.

Amherst ranked ninth in a 2004 Wall Street Journal survey of the feeder schools to the top fifteen business, law, and medical schools in the country.

Amherst is ranked ninth in the 2007 Washington Monthly rankings,which focus on key research outputs, the quality level and total dollar amount of scientific (natural and social sciences) grants won, number of graduates going on to earn Ph.D. degrees and certain types of public service.

According to The Princeton Review, Amherst ranks in the Top 20 among all colleges and universities in the nation as the Best Overall Academic Experience for Undergraduates, The Toughest to Get Into, Professors Get High Marks, Students Happy with Financial Aid, School Runs Like Butter, and Happiest Students.

Amherst also participates in the University and College Accountability Network (U-CAN) developed by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU).

Admission

Admission to Amherst College is among the most competitive in the country. In 2008, Amherst College received about 7,700 applications and admitted 1,096 for an acceptance rate of 14.2 percent, an all-time low.For the class of 2011, the middle 50 percent of admitted students received an SAT score of 1360-1570 (Critical Reading and Math only) and about 90 percent of admitted students were in the top decile (10 percent) of their high school classes.

Academic program

Amherst offers 33 different areas of study and an unusually open curriculum. Students are not required to study a core curriculum or fulfill distribution requirements. Beyond courses for their majors and the First-Year Seminar, students are free to design their own curricula. First year students can take advanced courses and seniors can take introductory courses (such as beginning study of a foreign language).

During the first year, the only course requirement mandated by the registrar is one of the roughly twenty First-Year Seminars. Each class is limited to no more than 15 students.Although topics for the seminars vary, they share a common focus on critical analysis and development of argument in writing and speaking.

The other 31 courses (usually four per semester) that must be completed in order to graduate can be elected by the individual student. Faculty advisors guide students through the process. Each faculty advisor works with no more than five first-year students to ensure a course of study that has breadth and depth and is both integrated across disciplines and intellectually fulfilling. Faculty advising continues for the remainder of each student s undergraduate career.

However, students must adhere to departmental course requirements to complete their major, including satisfactory performance on comprehensive examinations in their major field. Thirty-five percent of Amherst students in the class of 2007 were double majors.A small number triple major and many create, with faculty advice, an interdisciplinary major. Fifty percent write theses during their senior year.[citation needed] Those students who choose to write a senior thesis have additional faculty advisors whose areas of expertise mirror each thesis topic. Within five years of graduation, seventy-four percent of Amherst alumni attend graduate school.

Teaching

Amherst places a high priority on meaningful interaction between students and their professors. Faculty are leading scholars and researchers in their fields, as well as fective teachers. The historic guiding principle is the Amherst dialogue between professor and student. Amherst classes are characterized by interchanges among students and faculty skilled at asking challenging and probing questions and offering alternative points of view. Professors are accessible and responsive to their students (both inside and outside the classroom) and build face-to-face, professor-to-student learning into the campus culture. To this end, professors serve as mentors and advisors, as well as teachers.

Traditionally, Amherst has made intensive writing for students a priority for all four years of study at all levels of instruction, throughout the curricula, and across disciplines. As a result, over the course of their undergraduate careers, students are expected to rine the form, logic, depth, and substance of their writing for a variety of audiences (in the sciences, arts, social sciences, and humanities). Amherst also has as priorities an emphasis on quantitative analysis across the disciplines and fostering global comprehension. The faculty always is striving to develop better and more innovative ways to teach and for students to learn, discover, and create. Professors find that their research often sheds new light on how they teach their classes.

Students are encouraged early to undertake independent or small group research or creative work, mentored by a faculty member, that results in an original scholarly work or other product. Professors also draw students into faculty research. In the sciences, students participate in sophisticated research, using state-of-art equipment and facilities. Students collaborate with professors and are listed regularly as co-authors on faculty articles. Students often present the findings of their work, whether self-directed or in collaboration with faculty, at regional or national conferences.

Amherst maintains a student-faculty ratio of 8:1 and has an average class size of fifteen students. The curriculum is remarkably diverse. Amherst offers 33 areas 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 ), plus the possibility of creating one s own unique interdisciplinary major.A substantial number of faculty hold appointments in two departments, a traditional academic discipline and one of many interdisciplinary programs. Amherst pioneered the interdisciplinary fields of American Studies; Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought; and Neuroscience. The American Studies department at Amherst College is the oldest department in the United States. Amherst created the interdisciplinary study of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought. In 1973, Amherst became the first institution to offer an undergraduate major in Neuroscience. Amherst helped pioneer many other interdisciplinary programs, including Asian languages and civilization. With such academic and professorial resourses, students and their advisors can tailor a program of study to a student s specific academic interests. As evidence of students satisfaction with the fective teaching of Amherst professors, nearly seventy percent of alumni financially support Amherst annually through the Amherst annual fund (which supports financial aid, among other things).

Notable faculty members include, among others, modern literature and poetry critic William H. Pritchard, Beowulf translator Howell Chickering, Jewish and Latino studies scholar Ilan Stavans, novelist and legal scholar Lawrence Douglas, physicist Arthur Zajonc, Pulitzer Prize-winning Khruschev biographer William Taubman, African art specialist Rowland Abiodun, Chemist David Hansen, Natural Law expert Hadley Arkes, Mathematician Daniel Velleman, and law and society expert Austin Sarat. (See List of Amherst College people.)

Students

Amherst s outstanding resources, accomplished faculty, and rigorous academic life allow the college to enroll students with an extraordinary range of talents, interests, and commitments. Students represent all fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, fifty countries, a variety of tastes, sensibilities, and political ideologies, and a broad mix of socioeconomic, ethnic, national, racial, and religious backgrounds, thus ensuring a diversity of viewpoints -- essential to developing the ability to listen to and evaluate the positions of others. Students varied experiences and backgrounds enrich discussion, debate, conjecture, broaden learning, and make life at Amherst more interesting. Ninety-seven percent of students live on campus. Ninety-seven percent of Amherst freshmen return for their sophomore year; ninety-six percent graduate, among the highest retention and graduation rates in the country.

Five College Consortium

Amherst is a member of the Five Colleges consortium, which allows its students to attend classes at four other Pioneer Valley institutions. These include Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, Hampshire College, and the University of Massachusetts. In addition to the 850 courses available on campus, Amherst students have an additional 6,000 classes to consider through the Consortium (without paying additional tuition) and access to 8 million library volumes. The Five Colleges are geographically close to one another and are linked by buses which run between the campuses. The Five Colleges share resources and develop common programs, including the Museums10 program. The Consortium has two joint academic departments, Astronomy and Dance. The Dance department is one of the largest in the nation. The Astronomy department is internationally renowned. (See Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory) The Pioneer Valley schools proximity to Amherst adds to its rich extracurricular and social life.

Five College Coastal Marine Sciences Program

Among other common programs developed by the Consortium, Amherst students can take classes in The Five College Coastal Marine Sciences Program. The program offers an interdisciplinary curriculum to undergraduate students in the Five Colleges. Through active affiliations with some of the nation s premier centers for marine study, students engage in hands-on research to compliment course work. Faculty from the natural and social sciences teach courses in the program. The disciplines represented include biology, botany, chemistry, ecology, geology, physics, wildlife management, and zoology in the sciences, and economics, government, and public policy in the social sciences. Many students in the program go on to advanced study or professional work in various areas of marine science.

Resources

Among the resources on the 1,000-acre (4.0 km2) campus at Amherst College are more than 100 academic and residential buildings, athletic fields and facilities, a wildlife sanctuary, a forest for the study of ecology, and trails and areas for walking and cycling. Notable resources include the Mead Art Museum (with over 16,000 works); the Amherst Center for Russian Culture; four libraries (the main Robert Frost Library -- having one million plus volumes, nearly 400,000 media materials, extensive Archives and Special Collections, and a media center and language lab, as well as separate libraries dedicated to science, math, and music); the Amherst College Museum of Natural History (including the Hitchcock Ichnological Cabinet); the Basset Planetarium; the Wilder Observatory; state-of-the-art science facilities (including the Merrill Science Center and the 50,000-square-foot (4,600 m2) McGuire Life Sciences Building); the Quantitative Skills Center; the Writing Center; the Career Center; well-equipped art studios; ample rehearsal and performance facilities for music, theater, and dance (including the Amherst College Arms Music Center, the Kirby Memorial Theater, and the Holden Experimental Theater); the Center for Creative Writing; the Center for Community Engagement; and a student run radio station (WAMH 89.3 FM). Nearly every academic building and all residential buildings have been renovated or constructed in the past three years.

Internet access is available in all student residences (one connection for each student in every room), and wireless access is available almost everywhere on campus. There are thirty-seven residence buildings, nine theme houses, and two language houses (supporting four languages). Just off campus, Amherst is caretaker and owner of the Emily Dickinson Museum in downtown Amherst, in addition to about half of the poet s manuscripts. Amherst maintains a relationship with Doshisha University in Japan, which was founded by Amherst alumnus Joseph Hardy Neesima. In accordance with the will of Amherst alumnus Henry Clay Folger, Amherst College is charged with the governance of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.; Amherst maintains a close relationship with the Folger.

Student groups

Students can pursue nearly any interest through more than one hundred autonomous, student-led organizations funded by the student government, including a variety of student groups, cultural and religious groups, publications, fine and performing arts and political advocacy and service groups. In that there is approximately one group for every 16 students at Amherst, leadership opportunities abound. Numerous forms of community service exist at Amherst, and community service (locally - through the Center for Community Engagement, nationally, and internationally) is a priority at Amherst and for President Anthony Marx (who helped start a secondary school for black students in apartheid South Africa).

Study abroad and off-campus

Forty-two percent of Amherst students, usually juniors, study abroad and can select from more than 260 study-abroad programs in countries including Argentina, Egypt, England, France, India, New Zealand, Spain, and Senegal, as well as Japan where Amherst maintains a special relationship with Doshisha University, founded in 1875 by an Amherst alumnus.

Off-campus, Amherst students have the opportunity to study at a number of institutions, from the National Theater Institute in Connecticut to Amherst s own Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. The Twelve College Exchange program, of which Amherst is a member, has special exchange arrangements with Bowdoin, Connecticut, Dartmouth, Mount Holyoke, Smith, Trinity, Vassar, Wellesley, Wheaton and Williams Colleges and Wesleyan University for programs not available in the Five College area.

Folger Shakespeare Library

Amherst s relationship with the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. offers various opportunities for students and faculty to study and learn and engage in cultural and arts programs. The Folger, a primary repository of rare materials from the modern period (1500-1750), holds the world s largest collection of the printed works of William Shakespeare, as well as collections of other rare Renaissance books and manuscripts. The Folger is an internationally recognized research library and center for scholarship and learning. The Folger is also an innovator in the preservation of rare materials and an award winning producer of cultural and arts programs, including theater, early music concerts (performed by the Folger Consort), poetry, exhibits, lectures, and family programs. Each year, more than 200,000 visitors attend events and exhibitions at the Folger. Millions visit its website (), which includes event listings, virtual exhibitions, access to an on-line catalog of the collection, and teaching plans for educators. The Folger produces its own scholarly journal, Shakespeare Quarterly, and the Library continues to publish the Folger Library Shakespeare editions, which outsell all other editions of the bard s plays.

Fellowships and internships

The Amherst Tom Gerety Fellowships for Action and the Winternship program allow more than 100 students to receive funding from the college each year to do public service work around the country and the world. Students also can select internships beginning as early as the first year, opting from among 15,000 opportunities nationwide through the Liberal Arts Center Network, as well as the Amherst 100 internships that are sponsored by alumni.

In the spring 2008, the College s Center for Community Engagement launched the Active Citizen Summer Program. This opportunity allows rising freshmen, sophomores, and juniors to participate in a summer internship with a local, national, or international not-for-profit organization while receiving housing, food, and transportation funding, as well as a modest salary paid by the Center for Community Engagement.

Amherst students and alumni have also received external scholarships including Fulbright scholarships, Goldwater scholarships, Rhodes scholarships and Watson fellowships.