GODDARD STUDENTS 'A LIFE TO BE LIVED'

By Sally Pollak - Free Press Staff Writer

Goddard calls itself the college for "plain living and hard thinking."

It grew out of Goddard Seminary chartered in 1863 as an independent boarding high school with a commitment to social welfare.

When enrollment at the seminary decline during the Depression, the trustees asked Royce "Tim" Pitkin, a seminary graduate and Marshfield native, to organize a junior college.

Pitkin, a University of Vermont graduate, became president of Goddard Seminary and Junior College and began to think about founding a college based on the progressive educational principles of John Dewey. Goddard College was founded in 1938; Pitkin, its first president, served 31 years.

Goddard has been committed to progressive education and a democratic style of governance, with weekly campus-life meetings and monthly meetings of the community -- forms for discussion and decision-making.

Students receive no grades but are evaluated "holistically" by faculty advisers with whom they design their own course work. Practical and field work, as well as lessons gained from life experience, are a vital part of a Goddard education.

"The good school sees the student as a life to be lived," said Pitkin at the 1962 commencement. "And this makes all the difference in the world."

Students in 1951 are shown at a Goddard community meeting, where faculty, staff and students share in the business of governing the school.