This book catalogues the free university/alternative school movement's exploration of ways education can be organized, directed, evaluated, and modified by its consumers. Emphasis is placed on the purpose of free universities, unlearning, course organizing, credit, the mechanics of organizing courses for credit, publicity, funding, bureaucracy,…

This book explores the history and evolution of six innovative colleges, examining how these institutions have adapted and transformed themselves in today's social, political, and economic environments. The book contends that these institutions, which emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, can serve as models today. Case study chapters describe the…

This history of Goddard College (Vermont) and its founder and first president, Royce S. Pitkin, discusses the founding, growth and success of the college. The hypothesis for this experimental college was that the education necessary to a civilized society is a process of dealing with the growth and realization of potential in the context of the…

The five essays of this book focus on educational reform in higher education and are based on several persistent themes: that there is a fatal conflict between the graduate school and the undergraduate college; that "liberal" education is in a fundamental sense "politics", therefore, an education needed by everyone for all in a…

This basic aim of this paper is to explore and describe how the results of experimentation are transmitted from the "laboratory" campus to other campuses and to propose ways of improving and expanding the dissemination process. Chapters cover: (1) New College as a model, (2) "new" elements in New College's program, (3) the…

This guide to institutions that offer academic degrees through nontraditional means has four parts. Part 1 addresses issues in nontraditional education, such as degree requirements and transcripts, whether a degree is worth the effort, how to evaluate a school, accreditation, and financial aid. Part 2 specifically addresses alternative methods of…

In the early twentieth century, Alexander Meiklejohn believed the undergraduate college must teach students how to think. He aspired to make students into thinking, caring, active citizens with the intellectual skills to participate in a democratic society. In 1927, with the founding of the Experimental College at the University of Wisconsin, he…

The 1966 Master Plan of the State University of New York decreed the establishment of the State University College of Old Westbury. This new college was to be known as the "experimental" college of S.U.N.Y. The goals expressed by this new college are exciting, inspiring, and due to the system which promulgated them, inherently…

"The Experimental College" tells the story of a 4-year academic experiment at the University of Wisconsin established by Alexander Meiklejohn. Aimed at finding a method of teaching that would help students develop "intelligence in the conduct of their own lives," the Experimental College discarded major requirements,…

The history and philosophy of the free university, defined as an organization that offers noncredit classes to the general public in which "anyone can teach and anyone can learn," is explored. Offered is practical advice for starting a free university center or exchange and ensuring its success. Three contemporary versions of free…

The philosophy and structure of programs of coordinated study at Evergreen State College from 1970 to 1980 are discussed, and comparisons are made to the experiment at the University of California, Berkeley, promoted by Joseph Tussman. Both programs are based on ideas suggested by Alexander Meiklejohn and his Experimental College at the University…

Although a number of Chicano colleges were founded during the 1970s, none of them survive today. This book provides an institutional case study of Colegio Cesar Chavez (Oregon), the first independent four-year Chicano college with accreditation candidacy. The study examines Colegio's founding, institutional mission and philosophy, campus…

This work, designed as a sequel to "A Constant Variable" (Cohen and Associates, 1971), is intended for the same audience--administrators, trustees, counselors, and instructors in community colleges, university professors of higher education, and graduate students preparing for work in community colleges. The book describes the external and…

It is argued that in an age of decelerated expansion, cultural values must replace consumption; that the local, small, and organic must replace the international, large, and synthetic. One radical college is proposed as a center for this kind of change. Its inspiration is seen in the past: stable primitive communities, classical treatises,…

The final report of a 2-year study by the Commission on Non-Traditional Study (sponsored by the College Entrance Examination Board and the Educational Testing Service), the book deals with lifelong learning, external degrees, institutional reshaping, and educational alternatives. Suggestions and recommendations of the commission reflect the…