Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,795 students in the fall of 2010. Students choose courses from 35 major programs in an unusually open curriculum.
Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its President Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher education in Massachusetts. Amherst remained a men's college until becoming coeducational in 1975.
Amherst has historically had close relationships and rivalries with Williams College and Wesleyan University which form the Little Three colleges. It is also a member of the Five College Consortium.
- Zephaniah Swift Moore, 1821—1823
- Heman Humphrey, 1823—1845
- Edward Hitchcock, 1845—1854
- William Augustus Stearns, 1854—1876
- Julius Hawley Seelye, 1876—1890
- Merrill Edward Gates, 1890—1899
- George Harris, 1899—1912
- Alexander Meiklejohn, 1912—1924
- George Daniel Olds, 1924—1927
- Arthur Stanley Pease, 1927—1932
- Stanley King, 1932—1946
- Charles W. Cole, 1946—1960
- Calvin Plimpton, 1960—1971
- John William Ward, 1971—1979
- Julian Gibbs, 1979—1983
- Peter R. Pouncey, 1984—1994
- Tom Gerety, 1994—2003
- Anthony Marx, 2003—2011
- Carolyn Martin, 2011—