Five Colleges

Sponsorship the way you would do it

The Five Colleges are affiliated colleges in the Connecticut River valley of Western Massachusetts, belonging to a consortium called Five Colleges, Incorporated. The members are:

The Five Colleges are geographically close to one another, and free shuttle buses run between the campuses. Students at each of these schools often take classes at the other colleges ("cross-registration" is permitted and often encouraged). student groups and organizations often draw participants from all five campuses. The colleges' libraries participate in an interlibrary loan program, allowing students and faculty to take advantage of all five campuses' collections. In addition, several academic programs (for example, astronomy, dance, some foreign languages, and women's studies [1]) are run by the Five Colleges jointly for the benefit of all five institutions.

Two of the Five Colleges, Mount Holyoke and Smith, are women's colleges and members of the Seven Sisters.

The flagship Amherst campus of the University of Massachusetts system is the only public university among the five; the other four are private liberal-arts colleges.

Five-College folklore

A popular urban legend among Five College students holds that the characters on the show Scooby Doo represent the five colleges. The legend has Fred representing Amherst College, Daphne as Smith College, Velma as Mount Holyoke College, Shaggy as Hampshire College, and Scooby as UMass Amherst. Hanna-Barbera, creator Fred Silverman, and some of the show's writers say that this is false, and that the show was based on the radio program I Love a Mystery and the TV sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.

Note: The transformation of Smith College from a finishing school for upper-class women to a bastion of feminism has led to a reversal of the original myth. Many now believe Velma represents the heavily lesbian Smith population, and Daphne represents Mount Holyoke.

Five Colleges

Five-College folklore

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