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MICROCOLLEGE: The Thoreau College Podcast: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Thoreau College
MICROCOLLEGE is an exploration of the crisis in higher education and the innovative projects and thinkers working to address it, with a special focus on the human-scaled, place-based, meaning-oriented learning communities we call "microcolleges."The podcast is hosted by Jacob Hundt, Founder of Thoreau College, a micro college rooted in the Driftless Region of rural southwestern Wisconsin, inspired by the model of Deep Springs College, Waldorf education, and Henry David Thoreau. This podcast is for thoughtful, motivated teenagers and young adults who are disappointed by the options available to them in post-secondary education, as well as their teachers, parents, counselors, and mentors, and anyone interested in the quality of higher education and its role within our culture.Listeners will be introduced to new ideas and alternative opportunities for post-secondary education, as well as thoughtful criticism of mainstream models and practices at colleges and
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- 5 days ago56 min
Curt Meine - Driftless Bioregion, Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold
In this special studio episode I was joined in the studio by my friend and Driftless Folk School colleague Julie Tomaro, who hosts the monthly "Folk School Radio Hour" on our local community radio station, WDRT-FM, Viroqua. Together, Julie and I had the honor of interviewing Curt Meine, the most eminent and decorated scholar of the Driftless Bioregion, the unique geological, ecological, and cultural niche we call home. Curt is a conservation biologist, environmental historian, and writer. He serves as Senior Fellow with the Aldo Leopold Foundation in Baraboo, Wisconsin, and with the Chicago-based Center for Humans and Nature. He is also a Research Associate with the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo and Associate Adjunct Professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology.Curt received his B.A. in English and History from DePaul University in Chicago, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Land Resources from the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His dissertation was published in 1988 as Aldo Leopold: His Life and Work (reissued in a new edition in 2010). This work, the first biography of Leopold, received a number of awards, including the Wisconsin Historical Society’s Award of Merit, the Wisconsin Library Association’s Outstanding Achievement Award, and the Forest History Society’s Book of the Year Award. As a teacher and advisor, Meine has worked with dozens of undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and other institutions. In his home landscape he is a founding member of the Sauk Prairie Conservation Alliance, which has worked for more than two decades to chart a shared community vision for the future of the former Badger Army Ammunition Plant property. In addition to his Leopold biography, Meine has written and edited a number of books on conservation and environmental history including editing the definite bioregional anthology The Driftless Reader (2017). Meine also served as narrator and on-screen guide for the Emmy Award-winning documentary film Green Fire: Aldo Leopold and a Land Ethic for Our Time (2011).Listen to Folk School Radio Hour: https://www.wdrt.org/folk-school-radio-hour/Curt Meine's Website: https://curtmeine.com/Buy "The Driftless Reader" and Curt's other Books: https://curtmeine.com/books/Watch "Green Fire" - https://www.pbs.org/video/green-fire-mzvnwt/The Aldo Leopold Foundation: https://www.aldoleopold.org/The Center for Humans and Nature: https://humansandnature.org/The International Crane Foundation: https://savingcranes.org/The Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies: https://nelson.wisc.edu/The Sauk Prairie Conservation Alliance: https://www.saukprairie.org/
- Sep 15, 202657 min
Gutenberg College - Charley Dewberry ~ Christian Liberal Arts & The Philosophy of Science
Gutenberg College, located in a former sorority house near the campus of the University of Oregon in Eugene, has been in operation as a microcollege for over 30 years. This gives it a unique place in the developing story of the micrcollege movement - either a late comer to the class era of new college creation in the mid-20th century era of higher education experimentation, or an early harbinger of the current flourishing of the 21st century. In either case, the story of Gutenberg College is a fascinating and highly personal one, intimately connected with the biography of my guest for this episode, Charley Dewberry, who has served as a tutor and academic dean since the college's founding in 1994. A native son of the upper Midwest, Charley got interested in science and ecology through an engagement with the complex field of stream restoration and a quixotic quest to restore a fish, the grayling, to its ancestral habitat in northern Michigan. This interest led him to work with salmon populations in the Pacific Northwest and a chance encounter with a book dealing with epistemology and the philosophy of science called Personal Knowledge by Michael Polanyi, which challenged everything he thought he knew about science and the scientific method and shook his worldview to its core. In fact, Dewberry credits Polanyi's "post critical" attack on reductionist materialist with his personal conversion to Christianity and for setting him on the path to founding a Great Books microcollege dedicated to the "Christian Liberal Arts" with generous helpings of classic ecological thinkers like Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, and E.F. Schumacher, all based in a conversation-rich lifesharing community housed under one roof. And they have a popular Irish ceilidh band to boot!One of the great things about microcolleges is they are impossible to pigeonhole! Enjoy this conversation with Charlie Dewberry.Gutenberg College - https://gutenberg.edu/Gutenberg College on "Oregon Grapevine" - KLCC Eugene Public Radio - https://www.klcc.org/podcast/oregon-grapevine/2026-04-07/oregon-grapevine-eugenes-gutenberg-collegeThoreau College - https://thoreaucollege.org/
- Sep 7, 20261h 3m
Hildegard College - Matthew J. Smith ~ The Great Books & Education for Entrepreneurs
In this episode, we continue our exploration of the landscape of educational initiatives inspired by the Great Books model of pedagogy with a look at Hildegard College, a young microcollege based in Orange County, California, with founder and President Matthew J. Smith. Named after the 12th century abbess, mystic, and polymath Hildegard of Bingen, Hildegard College combines a ecumenical Christian faith-based approach to the Great Books curriculum with a practical engagement with the world of entrepreneurship, marrying the life of the mind with the love of action in the world in the context of an intimate learning community in a unique way. Founder and president Matthew J. Smith has a degree in Shakespeare studies from USC and recently published an article in ARC magazine called "The Quiet Surge of Alternative Micro-Colleges" that offers a fascinating analysis of microcolleges as a business proposition within the disrupted landscape of higher education, as well well as one of the most comprehensive surveys of participants in this emerging field, including both religious and secular organizations from across the political and cultural spectrum. Matthew and Hildegard College were early adopters of the term "microcollege" (or "micro-college") so it was great to have him on the podcast!LINKS - Hildegard College - https://www.hildegard.college/Matthew Smith's Substack - https://matthewjamessmith.substack.com/ARC Magazine - The Quiet Surge Of Alternative Micro-Colleges https://arcmag.org/the-quiet-surge-of-alternative-micro-colleges/Thoreau College - https://thoreaucollege.org/
- Aug 31, 20261h 7m
Zena Hitz - The Catherine Project & St. John's College
On this episode of the Microcollege podcast, I spoke with Zena Hitz, one of the great contemporary advocates of the Great Books model of education and of the engaged intellectual life. Zena is a Tutor at St. John’s College and founder and president of the Catherine Project. She is the author of two books, "Lost In Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life" and "A Philosopher Looks At The Religious Life." Starting with an immersion in the life of the mind during a Telluride Association Summer Program (TASP) at St. John's college when she was 17, Zena has made a life of participating in and building communities through reading and conversation. In our conversation, Zena tells the story of how the Catherine Project took share during the COVID lockdowns as people all over the country reached out seeking community, connection, and an a place to examine core questions of life and meaning. Since 2020, the Catherine Project has grown from a handful of people discussing literature over Zoom to over 2000 readers meeting up virtually and in person in dozens of tutorials and discussion groups, with more joining every year. This is a phenomenon that challenges the prevailing narrative that reading and engagement with the classics is dead and I really appreciated Zena's passionate articulation of how this model of education is deeply egalitarian and liberating, as well has sharing much in common with the engagement with manual labor and the natural world as practiced at Deep Springs and here at Thoreau College. Zena's vision of human flourishing characterized by community, conversation, and intellectual riches for all is very inspiring!Links - The Catherine Project - https://catherineproject.org/St. John's College - https://www.sjc.edu/"Culture is What Preserves Difficulty: An Interview with Zena Hitz" - https://catherineproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/mika-bresolin-2024-culture-is-what-preserves-difficulty-an-interview-with-zena-hitz.pdf"Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of the an Intellectual Life" - https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691178714/lost-in-thoughtThoreau College - https://thoreaucollege.org/
- Aug 28, 202657 min
Rethinking "Mental Health" in Finland ~ Markus Raivio and the Kukunori Culture Houses
For this episode of the podcast I spoke with Markus Raivio, a social entrepreneur and Ashoka Fellow who is leading a groundbreaking re-imagination of mental health care in the context of community in Finland. In our conversation, we explore Markus' journey from being a high school dropout and aspiring young musician and early experiences as a music producer, nurse, and music therapist. Today, Markus is the co-founder and CEO of Kukunori, a "national association for culture and well-being" in Finland, which is leading the creation of a diverse network of "Culture Houses" that are meeting the crises of mental health and social isolation among young people and adults of all ages across Europe and beyond.At the heart of the Culture House movement is a model of mental and emotional well being called "Guided Functional Peer Support" (GFP), which Markus' website describes as "a new approach to mental healthcare that, by enabling those with moderate to severe mental health challenges to focus on skill-sharing and co-creation in the arts to build self-confidence, resilience, and community, severs the often-debilitating link between diagnosis, illness, and identity... An innovative combination of proven theories from occupational therapy, human development, and special education, GFP focuses first on hope and recovery by creating spaces called 'Culture Houses' in which clients, who are mainly transitioning from institutionalized to outpatient care, tutor and learn from each other based on personal strengths and interests. They create together, too, to strengthen a sense of agency and collaboration in a safe space. Trained mental healthcare professionals are present as facilitators and enablers – not therapists. Clients drive decisions such as (what) music is created or plays are written and performed."Thank you, Markus Raivio, for this conversation and your important work in this area, which everyone working with young adults knows is so urgently needed right now.LINKS - https://www.markusraivio.com/https://www.ashoka.org/en-nrd/fellow/markus-raiviohttps://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2022/06/07/in-the-happiest-place-on-earth-a-revolution-in-mental-health-care/https://thoreaucollege.org/
- Jul 27, 20261h 2m
Douglas Haynes - Teaching Toward Slow Hope
For this episode we welcomed Professor Douglas Haynes into the studio at WDRT in Viroqua to discuss his beautiful new book Teaching Toward Slow Hope: Place-Based Learning in College and Beyond, published this spring by Johns Hopkins University Press. Douglas teaches English at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and also hosts the Monday sessions of "A Public Affair" on Madison's community radio station, WORT-FM.Teaching Toward Slow Hope traces how students and educators across the Upper Midwest are remaking college into a place for connection, meaning, and collective resilience. In the book, Douglas talks about his own teaching experiences at a regional public university and also shares four inspiring examples of place-based education at different colleges and universities in Wisconsin and Michigan, three of them public institutions. These stories and Douglas’ reflections about the role of higher education in the lives of young people today make this book both moving and highly practical for anyone working on the revitalization of higher education, whether they are inside an existing organization or starting something new.Douglas Haynes is a nonfiction writer, poet, and teacher. In addition to Teaching Towards Slow Hope, his 2017 nonfiction book Every Day We Live Is the Future: Surviving in a City of Disasters is a cautionary tale of urban inequality and the climate crisis that recounts two Nicaraguan families’ quests to reinvent their lives in Managua, one of the world’s most disaster-prone cities. Douglas’s essays and journalism have appeared in Orion, Longreads, Michigan Quarterly Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Progressive, Civil Eats, Boston Review, North American Review and dozens of other publications.Douglas grew up in Iowa and Illinois and studied at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He went on to study literature and languages in Germany, Ireland, and Guatemala while working as a dishwasher, farmhand, freelance writer, and English teacher. He returned to WI to teach English at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, as well as creative writing and environmental humanities.Teaching Toward Slow Hope - https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/53868/teaching-toward-slow-hope"A Public Affair" on WORT-FM - https://www.wortfm.org/tag/douglas-haynes/Douglas' Personal Website - https://www.douglas-haynes.com/Jacob Hundt & Grace Greenwald about microcolleges on WORT - https://rss.com/podcasts/thoreaucollege/2599918/Driftless Field School on WORT - https://www.wortfm.org/teaching-eco-literacy-in-the-driftless-bioregion/Northland Collaborative - https://northlandcollaborative.org/
- Jul 14, 202653 min
Abby Falik - The Flight School
For this episode of the podcast it was my great honor to speak with Abby Falik, one of the most articulate and passionate proponents of non-traditional developmental pathways for young adults in our time. Abby is a founder and futurist re-imagining how we animate, liberate and co-create. For two decades she has been a leading advocate and architect of a re-invented "gap year." In 2008 she founded Global Citizen Year (now known as Tilting Futures) and in 2022 she joined the Emerson Collective as an Entrepreneur in Residence to design a blueprint for taking the model to scale. A globally-respected entrepreneur and thought leader, she thrives at the interface where inner growth drives societal change. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, NPR and PBS, and she serves as a Fellow at Stanford and Advisor at Harvard Business School.In this fascinating conversation, Abby problematizes the concept not only of a "gap year," but also the very notion of "education." Instead of a school in any conventional sense, the Flight School School offers a globally networked community mentors and young people engaged in a yearlong Fellowship which "reimagines the gap year as a Launch Year—a rebellious rite of passage," setting the stage for adulthood in a rapidly transforming world.In the words of the Flight School website, "Through inner work, wise accompaniment, and immersive travel, Fellows are seen, stretched, and supported in asking:Who am I beyond my achievements?What breaks my heart? What lights me up?How do we build what comes next? Our campus is in the cloud. Our community spans continents. Our curriculum is rooted in relationship, ritual, retreat, and reflection.The Fellowship is our lab – and just the beginning. As a convener and catalyst, we’re taking what we learn and offering it freely—to anyone ready to fly."The Flight School - https://theflightschool.org/Abby's Substack - "Taking Flight" - https://abbyfalik.substack.com/Tilting Futures (Formerly known as Global Citizen Year) - https://tiltingfutures.org/Thoreau College - https://thoreaucollege.org/
- Jul 9, 20261h 32m
Doomer Optimism - Ashley Fitzgerald
In this special episode of the Microcollege Podcast, Ashley Fitzgerald and I interview each other for our respective platforms. Ashley is an environmental sociologist from Chicago who is co-founder of Doomer Optimism, which is a podcast, a Substack, and a growing eclectic community of people interested in localism, regenerative agriculture, cultivating meaning and community in the midst of technocracy, and generally seeking ways to imagine and build a hopeful future in spite of all the gathering doom and gloom. Ashley is also an educator in the microcollege vein - after a diverse education and young adulthood, Ashley and her husband Patrick relocated to Uruguay where they started the Rizoma Field School, which introduced American university students to rural life and the practice of sustainable agriculture in that country. She is now back in her hometown of Chicago, where she is raising her three children and continuing the work of the Rizoma Field School with high school students at the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences.Thank you, Ashley for a lovely conversation and for sharing it on our podcast!Rizoma Field School - https://rizomafieldschool.com/Doomer Optimism Substack - https://substack.com/@doomeroptimismDoomer Optimism Podcast - https://doomeroptimism.substack.com/s/doomer-optimism-podcastThoreau College - https://thoreaucollege.org/
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About MICROCOLLEGE: The Thoreau College Podcast
MICROCOLLEGE is an exploration of the crisis in higher education and the innovative projects and thinkers working to address it, with a special focus on the human-scaled, place-based, meaning-oriented learning communities we call "microcolleges."The podcast is hosted by Jacob Hundt, Founder of Thoreau College, a micro college rooted in the Driftless Region of rural southwestern Wisconsin, inspired by the model of Deep Springs College, Waldorf education, and Henry David Thoreau. This podcast is for thoughtful, motivated teenagers and young adults who are disappointed by the options available to them in post-secondary education, as well as their teachers, parents, counselors, and mentors, and anyone interested in the quality of higher education and its role within our culture.Listeners will be introduced to new ideas and alternative opportunities for post-secondary education, as well as thoughtful criticism of mainstream models and practices at colleges and
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