Dive Temporary:
- Hampshire School President Ed Wingenbach is about to go away the non-public nonprofit after his time period is up in June, in response to a information launch Monday.
- Wingenbach is departing to develop 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, vp for institutional help, will step in as interim president, the school mentioned.
- After becoming a member of Massachusetts-based Hampshire in 2019, Wingenbach led the school by way of a turnaround effort that included a fundraising push and curriculum overhaul.
Dive Perception:
In saying 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 school additionally fundraised $47 million in direct working help.
Throughout Wingenbach’s time, the school remodeled 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 non-public establishments within the East are struggling and a number of have shuttered.
In 2019, Hampshire’s funds had 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 yr earlier than.
Even with enrollment progress and record-making donations for the school, Hampshire has made painful cuts just lately to remain on high of its funds.
Final summer time, it introduced it could lower 9% of its worker ranks after it fell in need of enrollment projections. Officers additionally made the cuts to make good on a pledge to steadiness Hampshire’s funds by the 2026-27 educational yr.
“We’re nonetheless rising, enrollment continues to be growing,” Wingenbach advised Larger Ed Dive on the time. “That is actually extra about guaranteeing that we are able to proceed to achieve success because the parameters of that progress change.”
Hampshire is at the moment on observe to realize a balanced funds by 2027, the school mentioned in Monday’s launch.
“Hampshire has a robust basis for a profitable future, proving that this extraordinary imaginative and prescient of schooling can endure and flourish,” Wingenbach mentioned in an announcement.