News and Events

December 9, 2024: With one exception, normal PVTA bus service will be available for travel among the campuses through the end of the 2024 fall semester exams. The  exception is final exams taking place at Amherst College on December 19 and 20. 

The third annual Five College Job Fair, taking place from 1 to 4 pm on May 29 at Smith College’s Indoor Track & Tennis Complex, will feature high-priority openings in a wide variety of departments. Attendees will be able to talk with campus representatives and explore job opportunities. Refreshments will be available and gift bags of campus souvenirs will be raffled off to attendees. 

April 5-6 at UMass’s Bezanson & Tillis Halls; Free and Open to the Public
The 2024 Five College Jazz Festival, the first since 2019, will feature performances from big bands, small combos, vocal ensembles, and improvising orchestras.

Ina Clark, a veteran nonprofit development leader, has been named the director of development and sponsored programs for the Five College Consortium. 

October 3, 2023: PVTA buses servicing Five College routes will follow the below schedules on October 9 and 10 of the mid-semester break.

August 28, 2023: Each of the regular Five College/PVTA bus runs will be operating during the fall 2023 semester. Students and employees of the Five College campuses–Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke and Smith Colleges, and UMass Amherst–may ride these buses fare-free when classes are in session.

June 14, 2023, 1:00 - 4:00 p.m., the Red Barn at Hampshire College, Rt. 116, Amherst

The Five College campuses of Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges and UMass Amherst are collaborating to offer job seekers one-stop shopping for hundreds of jobs at a June event in south Amherst. 

May 11, 2023: Following a national search, Five Colleges, Incorporated has named Tom Brennan its Director of Information Technology, effective May 8. Brennan, who has been serving as the interim director since January, boasts an extensive IT career in a wide variety of organizations, including his own consulting business, New York University, and serving as the national IT director for the Warren for President campaign. 

April 20, 2023: A major effort by a Five College-based museum collaboration to create a shared collections resource for students, researchers, and the general public has received a $350,000 boost from the National Endowment for the Humanities. 

“We have to create interventions that shift the whole culture of art history and museums,” says Kelli Morgan, the director of curatorial studies at Tufts University, who will speak at Hampshire College’s Franklin Patterson Hall on May 15 at 3 p.m.

A favorite cultural event of the area returns in March when some 275 students take part in the Five College Choral Festival at Smith College. The Choral Festival, which is presented every other year, will feature 11 different campus ensembles, each performing separately, and one final song that unifies the voices of the assembled students.

With the January 31 departure of Maria Toyofuku as Five College’s Director of IT and Enterprise Initiatives, Tom Brennan has assumed the role of interim director.

Students and employees at Five College campuses will see a continuation of bus service on all regular routes during the spring 2023 semester, with the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority (PVTA) resuming its 39 bus route between Hampshire and Smith.

Five College bus service will continue through the end of final exams, with some interruptions between the end of classes and start of exams. 

The Five College Jobs Fair, taking place from 2pm to 5 pm on October 6 at 400 Venture Way in Hadley, will feature high-priority openings in a wide variety of departments. Attendees will be able to talk with campus representatives and apply for positions on the spot. Refreshments will be available and gift bags of campus souvenirs will be raffled off to attendees. 

The Five College Consortium announces the adoption of FOLIO, an open-source library services platform, which will begin operation throughout the Five College libraries later this month.  The Five College campus libraries are among the first set of FOLIO adopters—and adapters. 

Five College Publishing Day 2022, a launch event for collaborative publishing programming among neighboring academic institutions, will take place via Zoom on Tuesday, May 17 from 9:00am to 2:00pm.  The event is free and open to all Five College faculty and aims to foster connections among attending editors and authors.

Five Colleges and PVTA have developed bus schedules to continue service among the campuses through the end of classes, and during final exams

April 8, 2022: Five Colleges is working to maintain the current levels of bus service among the Five College campuses for fall, 2022. Service on the 38 route from UMass to Mount Holyoke College, with stops and Amherst and Hampshire Colleges, is expected to remain at current levels, as is service on the B43 from Smith College to UMass and Amherst. 

The slogan of the Five College Center for World Languages is “meet the world on its own terms,” and by offering instruction in more than 60 less-commonly taught languages, the Center is working hard to help its students do just that. Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, the Center for World Languages was founded in 1991 to complement the existing language programs of the consortium campuses--Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Five Colleges has been awarded a $1.6 million grant by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to create programming that will develop faculty members’ administrative leadership skills. Entitled Building Academic Leaders in the Humanities, the grant will fund a three-and-a-half year program to prepare humanities faculty to take on leadership roles at Five Colleges’ member institutions. 

Students and employees at Five College campuses will see a return to bus service on all regular routes during the spring 2022 semester. Students, faculty, and staff at Five College campuses may ride Five College buses for free during the academic year, and should be prepared to show their campus ID if asked. 

Five Colleges, Incorporated has contracted with Michael’s Limousine Service to cover the route normally serviced by PVTA’s 39 bus for the spring 2022 semester. The route runs between Hampshire and Smith Colleges on weekdays, and between Hampshire College and nearby malls on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings. The schedule is now posted on the Five College website.

Students at Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges, and UMass Amherst may choose from thousands of courses to take at any of the campuses, at no additional charge, with credits easily transferred. Supporting this resource is a bus service connecting the campuses, as well as the downtowns and shopping centers of the area. Five Colleges offers an update on PVTA bus service for the spring. 

Hayden Gadd, a member of the Hampshire College class of 2021, has been awarded the Lorna Peterson Prize in acknowledgement of his extensive participation in multi-campus life and academics within the Five College Consortium.

Hayden studied American Sign Language (ASL) at the Five College Center for World Languages. Over the past two years he has collaborated with his ASL instructor, Dana Hoover, and the director of the Amherst College Choral Society, Arianne Abela, to provide simultaneous ASL interpreting for choir performances, including a performance of the John Legend/Common song Glory. with the Amherst College Glee Club. Hayden has also completed the Five College Cognitive Neuroscience certificate.

Five Colleges, Incorporated has hired two new staff members to help carry out a major effort to build a model of collaborative teaching and learning for Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) among the consortium’s member campuses. Titled Gathering at the Crossroads, the effort will allow the campuses to develop a set of new academic pathways for students interested in NAIS, as well as create new advising structures to guide students through these academic options. It is supported by a $2.5 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

A favorite cultural event of the area returns in March when some 275 students take part in the Five College Choral Festival at Smith College. The Choral Festival, which is presented every other year, will feature 11 different campus ensembles, each performing separately, and one final song that unifies the voices of the assembled students. March 4, 7:30 p.m., Smith College’s John M. Greene Hall, free and open to the public