9/1/1976, Burlington Free Press

GODDARD SEEKS THE ROOTS OF GOOD EDUCATION

PLAINFIELD -- Many significant contributions to education have been made by Goddard College, a small experimental and progressive institution.

The college is radical in the most fundamental sense of the word: it has sought the roots of good education, finding them in the processes of human learning and the stages of human development. From these roots have grown a variety of programs for younger and older adults, combining in different ways the resources of the small resident educational community and the world away from the campus; the reading and discussion of theoretical materials and the practical testing of idea in action; formal research and writing and the informal following of interests and curiosities.

The work is in three major areas: human services broadly understood, including the life sciences which underlie them; the creative arts, fine and practical; the societies and cultures, as contemporary phenomena and as the framework for an understanding of the past. Many studies are planned about problems needing resolution or questions demanding answers.

Goddard does not make use of letter or number grades, nor does it employ a pass-fail system. Evaluation is through extesive drscussion between student and teacher, the outcome of which is a thorough written report of what was studied, how it was studied and what were the outcomes of the study. The Goddard Records Office prepares a narrative transcript from these written reports.

The Resident Undergraduate Program is planned for persons of usual college age but also admits adult students. Of eight semesters required for graduation, two must be and three may be nonresident terms, usually internship, or apprenticeship, occasionally study in another institution in this country or abroad. Progress through the program is by stages, based on the student's demonstration of readiness for increasingly advanced and focused work. Graduation involves a full-semester independent study resulting in a major product (thesis, book, exhibit, performance, etc.) Counselling is important in a program with no required courses but strong expectations about the responsible use of freedom in learning and living.

Students live in small houses (16 to 24 students in each), many of which provide for cooperative food-buying and cooking. They are represented in all parts of the college government, and each contributes eight hours a week to the work of keeping the community operating (in the library, in the administrative offices, the college kitchen and dining room, or in maintaining buildings and grounds).

The Adult Degree Program, one of the first of its kind, was a major model for the Union's University Without Walls. Planned for mature persons who wish to complete undergraduate study begun some years ago, ADP also accepts persons who have had no previous college work. The minimum age is 23; the median at enrollment in the middle 30s, and the enrollment over the program's 13-year history has included a number of persons in the 60s and 70s.

ADP students come to Goddard for day resident periods every six months. (One group of students has its residencies in California.) Resident groups -- from about 40 to about 70 students each -- have their campus meetings spaced throughout the year, one scheduled in December and June, another in January and July, and so on. During the resident periods, the students evaluate work done the previous six months, and make detailed plans for the coming six months. They also attend an intensive program of short courses, lectures, films, discussions, and workshops led by faculty, and presentations made by fellow students.

The format for study is a large-scale individually planned project, designed to be equivalent in the work required and the expected outcomes to a semester of full-time college study. Individual study projects vary greatly but must be of such a nature as to make possible faculty supervision through the mail.

As in the Resident Undergraduate Program (from which the Adult Degree Program evolved), progress is by stages, with advancement depending on a demonstration of readiness for more advanced and focused study.

Because the program deals with adults many of whom have rich professional backgrounds and much self-education, provision is made for the granting of limited credit towards the degree for superior performance on the general tests of the College Level examination program (chosen as less "coursebound" than many achievement tests) and for the documentation of learning from important nonacademic life experience.

The Goddard Graduate Programs grant the master of arts or master of fine arts degrees. Graduate Program Division 1 has faculty outposts across the country to help students plan individual independent study and find qualifies field faculty to serve them as tutor-consultatnts.

Division II makes use of faculty associates in several parts of the country and in Europe to work with small student groups in studies which may be wholly individual or many involve group learning and individual projects. The Goddard-Cambridge Graduate program in Social Change brings students in the greater Boston area into small study-and-action groups planned about significant contemporary issues. In each of these programs, earning the master of arts degree involves a minimum of 12 months of enrollment. The Goddard Writing Program, an outgrowth of the Adult Degree Program following ADP's residency format, grants the master of fine arts degree for work in literature, criticism, and the writing of poetry, fiction, or drama. Minimum enrollment is 18 months.

The Goddard Experimental Program in Further Education began as a supplementary training program for Head Start teachers but has evolved into a semi·residential undergraduate program for working adults who live near enough to Goddard (or to GEPFE's sister program in Washington, D.C.) to attend 18 resident weekend study sessions each year. Independent studies are carried on between the weekend residencies.

The Summer Programs are 12-week intensive studies of particular areas: Social ecology, involving both political philosophy and many experiments in ecologically sound agriculture and energy production; theater music dance, with a number of visiting artists who are exploring the interrelation of those arts: new artisians, with practical and theoretical work in the arts and the crafts; community media, aimed al helping persons discover and become skilled in the uses of low-cost radio, TV, film, and newspaper techniques; and professionally oriented training courses in learning disabilities, with an associated skills oriented training courses in learning disabilities, with an associated skills center for young persons and adults who experience learning difficulties, and in art therapy. The art therapy program leads to the master of arts degree; graduate and undergraduate credits may be earned in the other programs.

The Program in Integral Education, an undergraduate program planned for persons from 20 to 26 but open to others, draws on the various summer programs; it also includes an ongoing human issues seminar planned each year about some central topic (currently views of the future). Students in this program are on campus during the summer and do independent study the other nine months of the year except for a week-long residency in midwinter.

Admission to all Goddard programs is based on the best estimate possible of the fit between the student and the program. Admission tests are not required, but students are asked to fill out a variety of forms, write at some length about their interests and abilities, and are urged to visit the college for interviews. A substantial financial-aid budget helps most serious applicants enroll, whatever their finances. All programs are coeducational. All are open without quotas or other artificial restrictions to persons of all races, colors, nationalities, and ethnic backgrounds.