Hampshire

     Trying to juggle a ton of medical appointments and a lot of clients in crisis, I haven’t had time to let the announcement of Hampshire College’s closing really sink in until now.  It’s a huge loss, not just for me personally – which is especially painful because I met Kate S there – but also for all the queer kids and the oddballs who need a safe place to land.

    Hampshire was the only college that was willing to look past my strange high school transcript, where the grades were all over 90 or failing in what looked like a completely random pattern.  My grades were a barometer of each teacher’s feelings about the importance of physically being in their class.  Some teachers were OK with the fact that I was busy going to protests and speaking at hearings and doing press interviews, as long as I could pass the tests.  Other teachers could not imagine anything being more important than being in their class, not even a deadly epidemic and those were the classes I failed.

    And when I failed the physics regents my senior year because there was no way I was getting to an 8am class after being in activist meetings late into the evening, I knew Hampshire wouldn’t care that I didn’t actually graduate. 

     Ironically, I took two semesters of physics and one of quantum mechanics at Hampshire with Herb Bernstein, a typically quirky professor who illustrated the third dimension by drawing on the carpet.  Herb gave me one of the worst evaluations I got in my time at Hampshire, and I was so upset I balled it up in my fist only to have to flatten it out for my advisor to read.  “Actually,” she said, “From Herb that’s a good evaluation.”

    I found out about Hampshire from Jessie, a counselor at my high school’s SPARK program, who had gone there in the 70s.  There was always kind of a secret handshake, it takes one to know one vibe -Jessie not only told me about Hampshire, she and her boyfriend drove me up there and showed me around.  Years later, I would send two of my clients there, both trans young adults. 

    V. had come to NYC to attend the School of Visual Arts and transitioned once he got here.  When his parents found out, they cut off his support for school and he had to leave the dorm with nowhere to go.  When he showed up at New Alt back when we were in the east village, he was in a state of despair.  We got him into an LGBTQ youth shelter and worked on restoring his sense of hope.  

    When it was time for him to leave for Hampshire, I didn’t want him to repeat my own awkward first day there – I showed up completely alone with just whatever fit in my backpack, and opened my dorm to find a lack of furniture.  I don’t know if is still this way, but back then the dorm furniture consisted of a pile of variously sized boards in the closet that you could configure however you wanted. As many interesting set ups as that allowed for, it was difficult to manage on your own.  Kate and I took V. up there in a car we rented and got him settled into his dorm.  The next time we went up was for the final show of his sculptures, one of which hangs in my office, and graduation.

     Now my third client, who was planning to apply this year, won’t get the chance.