Some time ago, I asked whether or not there were any universities (or programs within a university, for example a BA program) that used the so-called “Outcome Based Education” that gained a lot of popularity as well as controversy in US High Schools in the 1990’s.
I’m broadening the question. What are some universities that follow a distinctively nontraditional educational philosophy or have practices that are widely divergent from your average college/university? For example, is there a school where one can get a Montessori BA? We aren’t talking about getting a regular BA in Education with a specific concentration in Montessori techniques that prepares the student to become a teacher in a Montessori elementary or high school, but a BA that is actually taught using Montessori techniques. Can you do a MBA that is taught using Waldorf/Steiner principles? Can you homeschool an MA in History from your great-uncle the retired professor (with a PhD) and have that practically recognized for admission into a PhD program?
If not, why? Are alternate/nontraditional educational techniques like Montessori, Waldorf, Homeschooling, and Outcome-Based-Education simply not designed for university/tertiary education in the sense that the techniques are considered inapplicable? Is it primarily a matter of accreditation in that while many would say that there is nothing inherently inferior about a Montessori-taught college degree, the Powers That Be ™ will not accredit such a program or school and thus it is not done in real life because degrees would not be recognized?
There’s New College in Sarasota, Florida, which is where I got my undergraduate degree from:
All courses are graded satisfactory/unsatisfactory, and the unsatisfactory grades don’t appear on your transcript. You get a narrative evaluation (i.e., a written one that’s a page or so long) from the professor for each course that goes just to you and the college records. You have to do three independent study projects either during one of the Independent Study Periods (four weeks between the fall and the winter terms) or during the one of the summers and you have to do a senior thesis, which is expected to take up about a third of your time over your last year. Each term you create what’s called a contract with your academic advisor, where you agree on what a successful term is. You have to have seven successful terms. Because student independent study and research are considered so important at New College, New College students have won the third-highest number of Fulbright Fellowships (for grad school) per capita in the U.S.
Montessori and Waldorf are designed for children, not for adults, which is what university students are expected to be, so yes, those techniques are inapplicable. Homeschooling is not an educational technique. Plenty of people get educated to university levels at home, often without a teacher, but good luck with getting your dining room accredited as a degree granting institution.
Sarah Lawrence College does have grades, but you are given a narrative evaluation each term. Grades will appear on your transcript:
Here is a list of colleges with narrative evaluations. Note that only four of them actually have no grades. At the others, the grades will appear on your transcript:
That’s how it was when they were recruiting me in the mid-80s, or so all the brochures said. What really enticed me about them (though not enough to apply) was that they were happy to take me after my junior year of high school. Their argument was that once I had a bachelor’s (in 3 years, no less, IIRC), I could always get a GED if I really needed it and if my high school would not retroactively grant me a diploma. At the time, it seemed radical and dangerous.
Interesting responses so far. There seem to be a few schools that don’t have traditional grades or GPA’s as they are commonly known. Are there any programs/schools that have bachelor’s degree programs that do not have classes as they are commonly known (that is, discrete segments of education that have relatively fixed requirements and fixed schedules)? I have a close friend who is rather intelligent but has had some serious problems in “keeping up” with classwork to the extent that they end up doing poorly and end up needing to repeat the entire class. Are there any schools where the classes are of indefinite “until you finish the work” length, rather than of fixed length and if you fall behind then you get a poor grade? E.g. is there a school where you can simply ask for additional time to prepare for the Organic Chemistry final (instead of the final being on May 10 with no or little flexibility) maybe pay some additional tuition for the extra time, and then take the exam when you feel you are ready? This could be in combination with traditional grades (e.g. A-F with a cumulative GPA) or not.
Bard College at Simon Rock in western Massachusetts is somewhat similar. They accept applicants who have just completed the 10th or 11th grade of high school. They recruited me pretty heavily back in the day but I didn’t take the bait. In retrospect, I think I probably should have gone there.
Slithy Tove, interesting, and yet not surprising to me about Michael Richards. Evergreen State University in Washington State and New College in Florida would seem to be similar sorts of places, and yet the more or less famous graduates of the two colleges are rather different. The two schools both have no grades and allow the students to study in a wide-ranging and independent fashion. Oddly, though, Evergreen tends to produce oddball arty types who say off-the wall and sometimes offensive things, while New College produces academic types. This isn’t from any tendency of New College students to be straight-laced withdrawn sorts of people. The reputation of New College students is for being, in the words of the community around it, “hippie weirdo freak commie fag junkies.” (My apologies if anyone is offended by those words, but that’s exactly what we were called by the people of the surrounding community.)
And it looks like some of these “alternate” schools are having difficulty by the big Federal elephant in the room, Financial Aid. Seems that the financial aid that is subsidized by the US Government is heavily accounted for around the idea of the credit hour (which usually maps to “seat time”) and schools where you can race through Organic Chemistry in 3 weeks but take the next two years to get through World History just don’t match up with the government’s accounting methods for funding education. That is, the gov’t seems fine with funding you for “3 credit hours of History”, but doesn’t know what to do when you want to “study History until I pass all the tests and get all my research papers in, which could be next week or it could be on my deathbed with my great-grandchildren driving me back to campus to turn in the final paper”.
Interesting. Are there any good resources to understand why? I did some reading on Montessori and it seems that Montessori herself concentrated on very basic education like reading and basic arithmetic and educators have struggled to some extent to apply her techniques to high school, but it’s not exactly clear if the problem is a fundamental/fatal mismatch between curriculum/subject matter and the techniques or if is due to lack of interest, planning, investment, vision, or $. Has there ever been any substantial effort to establish a Montessori or Waldorf university where someone (e.g. an administrator or professor) reached an impasse where they found that an element of the college curriculum just didn’t translate and so the school floundered/shut down/failed to open/got eviscerated by your mom/whatever, or has nobody tried?
I’m an Evergreen grad (“What do you say to a Greener wearing a suit?” “Will the defendant please rise.”). Some notes about what makes it different:
-No grades, as stated before; only evaluations.
-Each course gets evaluated three ways. The prof evaluates the student; the student evaluates the prof; and the student evaluates the student. They’re all supposed to be narrative and several paragraphs long.
-The closest I ever came to a grade was in a course where the prof wanted to assign numbers 1-6 to essays based on a rubric. I led something of a rebellion–not because I was scoring low (I consistently scored 5-6), but because I felt that I wasn’t getting my money’s worth out of the prof, because I wanted good solid feedback, and a number felt like a copout.
-No majors. This one is difficult to explain, so I tend to fudge and tell people I have a BA majoring in political economy, which is what I’d have at another school.
-No required courses. Once you have 180 credits, you can get a BA; if something like 45 of those are in upper-level science courses, you can get a BS.
-No required advisor. I visited the advising office a few times, but many folks didn’t.
-Courses tended to be 16 credits: you’d take one class all quarter. For example, one course was called “Political Economy and Social Change,” and it incorporated economics, history, current events, political science, etc., and was taught to a cohort of 80 students by 4 professors. Another popular course was called “From Data to Information”; I never took it, but it was the go-to course for computer science folks, and it was 16 credits.
-That last point is a lie: a majority of course were actually 32-48 credits, lasting two or three quarters. Taking a class was a major commitment.
Note that I graduated 15 years ago, so some of this may have changed. Some of it was brilliant, some of it was not (the lack of required advisors was a mistake, IMO).
Speaking as someone who went to a Montessori pre-school, what I remember from the method and guidance is, at its basic, something that already happens in college. Namely, progress at your own pace, in what interests you. That is something that should come very much naturally at college level. I mean, I majored in what I wanted, look at the required courses and took the electives I wanted, and did independent study. You don’t need a specific different Montessory-type college because a lot of what at the end a Montessori student does is what an adult college student is supposed to do, anyways.
I went to a traditional college (UF), and seldom saw my advisor and/or administrative office (usually to ask them to increase my credit load per semester).