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The University of Wisconsin Experimental College was a two-year college designed and led by Alexander Meiklejohn inside the University of Wisconsin–Madison with a great books, liberal arts curriculum. It was established in 1927 and closed in 1932. Meiklejohn proposed the idea for an alternative college in a 1925 ''Century'' magazine article. The magazine's editor-in-chief, Glenn Frank, became the University of Wisconsin's president and invited Meiklejohn to begin the college within the university. Despite pushback from the faculty, the college opened in the fall of 1927 with a self-governing community of 119 students and less than a dozen faculty. Students followed a uniform curriculum: Periclean Athens for freshmen and modern America for sophomores. The program sought to teach democracy and to foster an intrinsic love of learning within its students. The college's students became known as free spirited outsiders within the university for their different dress, apathetic demeanor, and greater interest in reading books. The college's demographics were unlike the rest of the university, with students largely not from Wisconsin and disproportionately of Jewish and East Coast families. The college developed a reputation for radicalism and wanton anarchy, especially within Wisconsin. The students lived and worked with their teachers, called advisers, in Adams Hall, away from the heart of the university. They had no fixed schedule, no compulsory lessons, and no semesterly grades, though they read from a common syllabus. The advisers taught primarily through tutorial instead of lectures. Extracurricular groups, including philosophy, law, and theater clubs, were entirely student-led. The Great Depression and lack of outreach to Wisconsinites and UW faculty led to the college's slow decline. Enrollment decreased every year since the program began, which its statewide reputation exacerbated. After his son was expelled in 1931 by dean and Experimental College critic George Sellery, Meiklejohn recommended the college's dissolution. Public criticism of the college included student radicalism, lack of discipline, administrative issues, and financial issues. Meiklejohn wrote a retrospective of the college, which philosopher John Dewey reviewed favorably and noted for its contribution to educational philosophy. University of Wisconsin faculty and regents voted to dissolve the college in May 1932. Some advisers stayed to teach in the university, and Meiklejohn remained briefly before moving to Berkeley. The Experimental College influenced programs internal to the university, and was the precursor to its Integrated Liberal Studies undergraduate program. == Background == In June 1923, Alexander Meiklejohn had been asked to step down as president of Amherst College. He was recruited specifically to revitalize the college a decade earlier with the views on education for which he was known. Meiklejohn announced curriculum reform with a singular focus on "understanding human life as to be ready and equipped for the practice of it", and subsequently made the humanities coursework more interdisciplinary, added social sciences courses, and attracted new faculty members interested in the Socratic method. Meiklejohn had student support, but clashed with senior faculty and alumni, and was ultimately removed due to his administrative mismanagement and not his educational reforms. Meiklejohn resolved to open a new, experimental liberal arts college in late 1924, but struggled to find funding. Seeking $3 million for the venture, he was rejected by Bernard Baruch and Abraham Flexner but through support from ''The New Republic'' Herbert Croly was offered planning funds from the magazine's main benefactor. The planning team included journalist Mark Sullivan, New School professor Alvin Johnson, and ''The Century Magazine'' editor-in-chief Glenn Frank. Frank had previously published Meiklejohn's work and was sympathetic to his cause. In January 1925, ''Century'' published Meiklejohn's plan for a new and "experimental" college, "A New College: Notes on a Next Step in Higher Education". The proposed college would have a "unified" two-year curriculum and closer ties between faculty and students, who were to be "coequal partners". Meiklejohn called for a small school with a maximum of 35 professors and 300 students, with tutorial as the chief means of instruction. The planned program eschewed division by academic discipline and preferred holistic study of human civilization, particularly ancient Athens and the contemporary United States. The school sought to foster students who understood themselves in the context of their surrounding society as a "total human undertaking". Meiklejohn wanted students who would independently volunteer to live in self-governance. Meiklejohn biographer Adam Nelson wrote that for the 1920s, this idea of voluntary interest in study "seemed almost laughable". The augmented liberal arts program was a departure from vocational education trends of the time, as was its emphasis on smaller classes in a time of large lectures for burgeoning college populations. Frank stepped down from the magazine in May 1925 to become the incoming president of the University of Wisconsin (UW). He invited Meiklejohn to open his school there and offered him a distinguished professorship. Meiklejohn planned the experimental college in secret and moved to Madison in January 1926 to teach in the philosophy department. Meiklejohn finished his experimental college proposal by April 1926. It was similar in style to his ''Century'' article and became codified as the Experimental College based on its colloquial reference in correspondence between Meiklejohn and Frank. Meiklejohn presented his proposal to the All-University Study Commission convened by Frank "to investigate the first two years of liberal college work". The university faculty received the proposal apprehensively, and criticized its vagueness, lack of control group, costliness, and effect on their livelihoods. It was eventually approved on the condition that the faculty could review its details and regular progress. The Wisconsin legislature approved two years of funding, and the Experimental College was scheduled to open in fall 1927. Meiklejohn prioritized compatibility in his staff selection, and so hired ten of his friends who could work in "intimate fellowship". The college received hundreds of faculty applications in the summer of 1926, and the final makeup included six from Amherst, two from Brown, and one from Scotland, mostly in idealist philosophy and labor economics disciplines. The team met through the winter and into the 1927 spring to plan the program. They received 119 applications even though the program was unadvertised. Half of the applicant pool was interested in working with Meiklejohn specifically, and he was excited to work with "an entirely self-selected and therefore truly democratic community of learning." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「University of Wisconsin Experimental College」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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