NOTE: Even as MC2.1 circulates ever more widely, in many ways it remains a work in progress. I look to the community for corrections, suggestions for improvements, feedback – in other words, responses of all sorts. I have already profited from discussions at the Board of Trustees retreat and October faculty meeting, from small meetings with students and staff, and from written comments by a number of faculty. I anticipate additional rewarding discussion sessions involving members of the Hampshire family both on- and off-campus. Comments and suggestions will always be welcome, because the development and refinement of MC 2.1 will continue through the year even after this document is released formally at Family, Alumni and Friends. A web site to carry on the conversation on-line will soon be up, but in the meantime responses are best received via
[email protected] or at the President’s Office. -- Ralph Hexter Making of the College 2.1 (Version of October 9, 2007, 5 p.m.) I am more than ever mindful that in sending into the public realm documents with titles like “Making of the College 2.0” or “2.1,” I am guilty of no little overreaching. Twenty months ago I shared with the community “Making of the College 2.0,”1 referring in the title to Franklin Patterson and Charles R. Longsworth’s The Making of a College. A New Departure in Higher Education,2 and the world of successive software releases. The latter has suggestive value, for we have embarked on a journey of ongoing improvement that may be virtually without end, but the analogy is not perfect.