Dive Transient:
- Hampshire School President Ed Wingenbach is about to depart the personal nonprofit after his time period is up in June, in accordance with a information launch Monday.
- Wingenbach is departing to change into the president of the American School 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, vice chairman for institutional assist, will step in as interim president, the school stated.
- After becoming a member of Massachusetts-based Hampshire in 2019, Wingenbach led the school via a turnaround effort that included a fundraising push and curriculum overhaul.
Dive Perception:
In asserting 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 faculty additionally fundraised $47 million in direct working assist.
Throughout Wingenbach’s time, the school reworked its method to curriculum, reached carbon neutrality, and launched a division of Justice, Fairness, and Antiracism.
Arguably an important achievement of the school 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 school had racked up a whole working deficit of $7.1 million, greater than double the 12 months earlier than.
Even with enrollment development and record-making donations for the school, Hampshire has made painful cuts not too long ago to remain on prime of its funds.
Final summer time, it introduced it might lower 9% of its worker ranks after it fell wanting enrollment projections. Officers additionally made the cuts to make good on a pledge to stability Hampshire’s funds by the 2026-27 tutorial 12 months.
“We’re nonetheless rising, enrollment continues to be growing,” Wingenbach informed Increased Ed Dive on the time. “That is actually extra about making certain that we are able to proceed to achieve success because the parameters of that development change.”
Hampshire is presently on monitor to realize a balanced funds by 2027, the school stated in Monday’s launch.
“Hampshire has a robust basis for a profitable future, proving that this extraordinary imaginative and prescient of training can endure and flourish,” Wingenbach stated in an announcement.
