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On
the last day of the conference, we challenged the participants to
be creative and design a liberal arts college for the twenty-first
century.Each participant was assigned to a breakout group. The groups
worked together to draft the mission statement for a new liberal
arts college. They were charged to describe the best small college
you can imagine. The statements did not have to be approved by trustees
or a faculty committee, money was no object, and they didn't have
to worry about turf battles, so they could think big. Here is what
they came up with.
Communitas
College
An
opportunity for open and developmental learning for both students
and faculty:
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Meeting students and faculty where they are and taking them in
their appropriate direction developmentally
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Learning community spaces, including spaces for contemplation
and reflection
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Spaces and times for student and faculty growth and learning
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Importance of out of classroom learning experiences
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Synthesis and unity of the liberal arts ideals
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Guidance from faculty in terms of creation of learning themes
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Seniors mentoring first year students
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Possible more open time frame in terms of student population
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Peer teachers as models for first year students
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"Mentoring for credit" by faculty and senior students
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First year faculty teach only one course and use additional time
to observe senior faculty and learn teaching and scholarship protocols
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Consensus decision making model of faculty governance
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Enable support for academic freedom
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Personal qualities of faculty to include an intentional sense
of civility and collegiality
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Flexible and reasonable standards of scholarship
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Economic justice for all faculty and staff
Open
College: A Liberal Arts College for Everyone
In a highly technological and fast-changing world, a liberal education
must not be limited to a narrow segment of the population. Open
College serves a global student body of all ages, ethnic heritages,
socio-economic backgrounds, and spiritual values. Ours is an inquiry-based
curriculum that seeks to develop in our students the willingness
to transform knowledge and imagination into positive ethical actions
extending beyond the classroom and local community. Open College
encourages insubordinate habits of mind that become embodied challenges
to the status quo.
Group
Three College
Group Three College is committed to providing an educational life
of collaboration, service, and learning that fosters student ownership
for social, intellectual, and personal development. Key priorities
are preparedness, interconnected communities, and student ownership.
Swell
College
Swell College educates students to become critical and creative
thinkers and productive, informed and ethical citizens. We inculcate
in our students an appreciation for the significance of diverse
views, values, cultures and bodies of knowledge. We engage students
in collaborative processes of discovery and invention that provide
a basis for a prosperous and meaningful life in a changing world.
Why
College
The goal of Why College is to develop inveterate questioners. We
seek to prepare students to think critically about an ever-changing
world. We aim to cultivate the habit of questioning answers and
answering questions with more questions. To this end we seek to
create an interdisciplinary frame of mind. We provide a curriculum
that emphasizes connections among distinct disciplines. In this
context we support students in developing increased autonomy as
learners and thinkers.
Open
Turf College
Graduates from our college are able to identify local and global
problems from a variety of scholarly perspectives, address them
in socially responsible and ethical ways and articulate solutions
in a variety of media. Our students explore the world with curiosity
and respect as individuals and as members of larger communities.
College
of the World
The college embraces the following goals:
- Create
an inclusive and engaged learning environment for the college
community (really). Explore opinions from diverse perspectives
and create opportunities for productively experiencing success
and failure.
- Learn
to be active and responsible global citizens. Negotiate other
cultures and develop and communicate informed opinions about global
relations.
- Cultivate
leadership in ourselves and others. Facilitate change and Collaborate.
- Balance
the life of the mind with the physical, social, and spiritual.
We expect all participants in the college community to embody
these goals and to be "lifelong learners."
Group
Nine College
[Group Nine opted to list a set of characteristics]
Interdisciplinarity: Would interdisciplinary majors become the new
disciplines? What do we mean by disciplines? Can students learn
interdisciplinary stuff without learning disciplinary stuff first?
Focus on what people become - but it's just 4-5 years. We want to
set them up with the proper attributes of mind for the long haul.
Do away with traditional majors - we all become "liberal arts majors"
How do students learn about things in depth in a project-based environment?
"Tracks" (problems, issues, topics…) Groups of, say, 50 on a track
(say, "water") and subgroups work on specific aspects of the topic
(chemistry, art, etc.) Students get the option to go off on their
own, to work in small groups, present to each other, critique each
other…
Students learning how to learn - and how to learn what they have
to learn.
How concerned are we about the solitary student? We have to offer
them the opportunity to participate in a group - group work turns
out to be important.
We're concerned with what each individual makes of a life. Individuals
have to offer their own contributions - but contribution is expected
and appreciated.
Opportunities for interaction with the entire community - trading
specialties with other groups.
Faculty surrounding the groups to provide expertise, guidance, "classroom-like
experience" focused on specific learning needs
Helping students learn to ask good questions, design a good experiment,
find information, find a mentor
"You don't start thinking until there's a need"
Curriculum: earth, air, fire, water
Self-directed groups ("learning communities") - start with a topic
that would grow, change, then morph into something else.
Fostering appreciation for different approaches and achievements
Will students get tired of topics at different rates? Students go
off and work on different aspects, come back, tackle a different
aspect…
Faculty still have to evaluate levels of achievement and competency,
"setting the bar"-in consultation with the students - amounts of
learning will vary depending on needs at specific times for specific
projects.
Projects are never finished
Projects also need experiential, service, global, travel components
Student as driver; faculty as navigator - requires discussion.
How does this play out over the four year period? Members join each
"learning community" as they enter the school as others graduate
out…
Topics changing over time - but there isn't an end to any of the
projects.
Moving students toward independence…
The Library as physical space in which the group works and from
which they jump off to different specific topics/skills/places…
How does the academic support stuff work in this model?
Skill-based stuff takes time: math, languages, music, art…
What levels of these skills do people need? What are the things
we wish we knew about? Are there general education sorts of things
implicit here?
No departments, no majors, no semesters, no "courses" that have
beginnings and endings…
We value interdisciplinarity, intellectual curiosity, initiative,
good citizenship, self-directed learning…
Our
College
As a community of diverse, smart, and interesting individuals, Our
College is distinct amongst liberal arts colleges. Our faculty and
students converse - inside of classes, in office meetings, over
coffee in our water-side café - about the ambiguities, spiritual
and philosophical mysteries, and scientific quandaries which often
characterize our lives in the twenty-first century. By helping our
students master oral and written communication skills as well as
helping them understand the necessity and joys of quantitative analysis,
Our College encourages an imaginative interaction with the world
around them. Our students soon come to understand that a well-designed
experiment and a student-choreographed ballet are both creative
acts, based in content knowledge but driven by the curiosity and
insights of the individual student. Unfettered by traditional time
limits, our students can explore, accommodate and use new ideas,
including historical consciousness -- of religion, of discipline,
of social issues, of global concerns -- drawing on the resources
of our dedicated faculty and staff mentors. Nestled into the mountains,
prairies and waters of our home state and close to a major cultural
hub with easy public transportation to and fro, there is simply
no better location, and no better program, to learn for the rest
of our born days.
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