| Overall Rating | Gold |
|---|---|
| Overall Score | 67.18 |
| Liaison | Weston Dripps |
| Submission Date | Aug. 19, 2024 |
Amherst College
EN-8: Shared Facilities
| Status | Score | Responsible Party |
|---|---|---|
|
2.00 / 2.00 |
Weston
Dripps Director of Sustainability Sustainability |
8.1 Publicly shared facilities
Does the institution provide free or low cost access to the meeting or event space?:
Description of the institution’s publicly accessible space for meetings or events:
The Powerhouse
The Powerhouse is a converted old “powerhouse” that is currently used on campus as a campus and community gathering space. It regularly features live student and professionally contracted performances and events, but also serves the greater Amherst College community as a venue for meetings, movie screenings, art exhibits, panel discussions, workshops, and conferences. The space is available to many of our close community partners for use at a reduced cost. The reduced rates are decided on a case by case basis depending on the organization, their ability to pay, and their status as an NGO or private entity.
Does the institution have at least one on-site facility that helps people meet their basic needs and is publicly accessible?:
Does the institution provide free or low cost access to the basic needs facilities?:
Description of the institution’s publicly accessible facilities that help people meet their basic needs:
Book and Plow Campus Farm
https://www.amherst.edu/about/sustainability/book-plow-farm
The college’s Book and Plow farm provides a free U Pick Community garden and a low-cost organic Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. The CSA is intended to give community members access to the locally grown food, grown by students. The CSA welcomes campus and community members of all economic backgrounds to partake. The program accepts SNAP benefits for those eligible and for those not on SNAP it uses a sliding scale pay what you can model to allow for inclusive participation. A portion of the farm’s produce is also given as donation to a number of local food pantries.
Woodside Children’s Center
https://www.woodsidechildrenscenter.org/
The Woodside Children's Center provides childcare and early education for infants, toddlers and preschoolers with admission priority for the Amherst College community. The center has offered childcare for Amherst College and the Greater Amherst community for more than 25 years.
Does the institution have at least one on-site facility that provides cultural services and is publicly accessible?:
Does the institution provide free or low cost access to the cultural service facilities?:
Description of the institution’s publicly accessible facilities that provide cultural services:
Museums - Museums | Amherst College
Amherst College is home to several publicly accessible, free museums and galleries, including the Mead Art Museum and the Beneski Museum of Natural History, among others.
The Mead Art Museum houses the art collection of Amherst College, spanning 5,000 years and encompassing the creative achievements of many world cultures. The Mead is celebrated for its American and European paintings, Mexican ceramics, Tibetan scroll paintings, English paneled room, ancient Assyrian carvings, Russian avant-garde art, West African sculpture and Japanese prints. The museum serves as a laboratory for interdisciplinary research and innovative teaching involving original works of art. Eight galleries feature regularly changing exhibitions and installations spanning a wide range of historical periods and artistic media.
The Beneski Museum of Natural History is one of New England’s largest natural history museums, featuring three floors of exhibits with more than 1,700 specimens on display, and tens of thousands of specimens available for use by scholars and researchers from across campus and around the world. The museum houses the most extensive collection of fossil dinosaur tracks in the world.
The college is also home to the Emily Dickinson Museum, which is free to members of the Five Colleges and open to the public. The museum comprises two historic houses in the center of Amherst, Massachusetts associated with the poet Emily Dickinson and members of her family during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Frost Library - Library Services for Visitors
Dedicated in 1963 by President John F. Kennedy in one of his last public appearances, the library is named in recognition of poet Robert Frost’s 40 years of service and teaching at Amherst. Serving as both a college library and a Federal Depository Library, Frost contains more than 1.5 million volumes and more than 130,000 electronic and print journal titles, as well as extensive and varied holdings of rare and historical materials housed in the library’s Archives and Special Collections. The Library welcomes all visitors.
Does the institution have at least one on-site facility that provides recreational services and is publicly accessible?:
Does the institution provide free or low cost access to the recreational service facilities?:
Description of the institution’s publicly accessible facilities that provide recreational services:
The 500+ acre Amherst College Sanctuary includes a wide variety of walking paths and land covers including open fields, wetlands, woods, and ponds. It is a popular site for both recreation and research on campus. Trail maps are available online and at the trail heads. The trails and space are open to the public dawn to dusk.
Norwottuck Rail trail
The rail trail is an 11-mile paved trail, which connects Amherst to Northampton and goes through the campus. This easily-accessible trail is ideal for walking, biking, running, and even cross country skiing in the winter! The trail can be accessed behind the outdoor tennis courts and is a popular spot for a relaxing bike ride, a fun good workout, or efficient transportation between Amherst, Hadley, and Northampton.
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Additional documentation for this credit:
The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.