Hampshire Nominated for Webby Award for Best Mobile Site

Last year, more than 2.5 million votes were cast from some 200 countries and territories worldwide. The New York Times hails the Webbys as “the Internet’s highest honor.” Voting for People’s Voice closes on Thursday, April 21, 2016 at 11:59 PM/PST.

The redesigned Hampshire website was created by the College’s Offices of Communications, Admissions, and Information Technology, in partnership with Plain English, a design company in Watertown, Mass., and the Chicago web-development firm Palantir. The goal of the September 2015 relaunch was to better capture the compelling character of Hampshire College—its people and its learner-centered approach to education—and appeal more directly to prospective students who will thrive in its inquiry-based, experiential learning environment.

The five nominees for Mobile Sites and Apps, School/University category are:

• Hampshire College, Website
• University of San Diego, MySDMobile App
• The Monkeys, University of Sydney – Project Here
• Indiana University, Bloomington Campus gateway
• Molamil, Pass It On

In addition, Hampshire is being recognized as an Honoree in the Websites School/University category, among the top 15 Websites worldwide in this category. The Honoree distinction is awarded to the top 20 percent of the thousands of submissions sent in from across the US and 65 countries.

The Academy, which nominates and selects the Webby Award Winners, comprises web-industry experts such as Tumblr founder David Karp; Piera Gelardi, executive creative director at Refinery29; musicians Questlove and Grimes; Eva Chen, head of fashion partnerships at Instagram; Twitter cofounder Biz Stone; talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel; and creator of the GIF file format Steve Wilhite.

Winners will be announced on Tuesday, April 26, 2016, and honored at a star-studded ceremony on Monday, May 16, 2016, at Cipriani Wall Street, in New York City. There they will have the opportunity to deliver one of the Webby Awards’ famous 5-Word Acceptance Speeches, joining the likes of former winners Steve Wilhite: “It’s Pronounced ‘JIF, not GIF”; Stephen Colbert: “Me. Me. Me. Me. Me.”; and Björk: “A E I O U.”

About Hampshire

Hampshire, in Amherst, Massachusetts, is among the most innovative colleges in the country. It requires students to pursue their passions by designing their own programs of study and recruiting a faculty committee to guide them on a rigorous path of discovery. The environment fosters intellectual engagement, exploration, and a willingness to experiment, supported by narrative evaluations from faculty rather than grades. The model has been described as “graduate school for undergraduates,” with critical thinking a hallmark of Hampshire’s pedagogy.

Since it opened, in 1970, the success of the College can be measured by the mainstreaming of many of its experimental ideas in education and the achievements of its alums: Academy Award winners, Emmy Award winners, best-selling authors, scientists, historians, Peabody winners, MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” awardees, and more PhD candidates than any other school of its size. More than a quarter of Hampshire graduates have started their own venture or organization, which landed Hampshire on Forbes’s 2015 short list of most-entrepreneurial colleges.

Hampshire is also part of the Five College Consortium, through which students at Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst share classes, library systems, and other resources and facilities.