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Afterward

I have been asked by my Division 1 committee to make some more social-sciency analysis. I have chosen not to make this my conclusion, however, for two main reasons. First, the reason why I did not originally include this in my conclusion, I feel that my research has been too limited to feign a real conclusion on the matters I will address here. Second, I intend the document to be generative, and fear that including this as a genuine chapter would be attempting to begin a discussion about which ideas may be right when I am still trying to sort out what the ideas are.[SEE FOOTNOTE] Not to mention (or only in passing) the problem of whether objective questions and answers exist at all.

There are a number of parts of this paper that feel incomplete to me, simply in terms of knowing about Johnston, before I can even get into the issue of having only two examles upon which to base my possible ideas about institutional reform. My data first of all falls short on two main counts: cross-cultural experience, and classes. I only had three weeks to do this research, and therefore it had to fall short somewhere. One thing I have realized through this project has been the pandoras box every research project must deal with. Perhaps another study will deal with cross-cultural experience. Actually, there are a number of Johnston self-studies that do. Likewise with classes -- I would have liked to be able to attend curriculum building and studied both University and Johnston classes. I am frankly embarassed that with such a formidable document I was unable to be more thorough in my research and analysis. Of course there is always much one would like to be able to do. Right now I would like to begin. So then, let us begin!

We noted in the conclusion that the History suggests that ``the Johnston experience makes clear that separatism within a small institution [the University] finally fails.'' My main task in this afterward ought probably to be a grappling with the question of what caused the failure (or watering-down, or loss of enthusiasm) of every alternative institution in this country.

The Making of a College sums up a provisional set of base-points for its academic planning. They include some ideas that are very relevant here:

How can it be that ideas that seem to have been this fundamental to the design of Hampshire College and Johnston College are now occasional ideas, rather than remaning fundamental themes? Perhaps the design was wrong, and we have really achieved a nearly ideal structure. Or perhaps the nature of four-year institutions simply cannot coexist with innovation and experimentation.

This impossibility of coexistence could stem from the way students feel about changing their school. For example, an entering class might take one year to get used to the environment, then the next year a movement might bring about a new academic program within the school. But now, they feel like the school is theirs, like the big changes have been made, and that the school is the way it should be. Then the next classes come along and realize some problems that exist, and they go about trying to change them. Yet now they are against the older students, who do not want to alter the ideal environment they have created.

Another possibility is that the alternative-pressure that came from a drawn-out conflict with the foreign policy of the country was the catalyst for the alternative movement, and that temporary alternative movement was the source of the energy that allowed the colleges to start and be successful. (So the reasonable foreign policy response, of course, is never to have a long-term war that could spur a counter-culture: ``If it gets bad, men, let's leave, and say we've won.'') This suggests that within the context of the sixties and seventies, experiments could have continued indefinitely; yet with a changing world those institutions would necessarily change (or change to stop changing, as the case may be).

Grant and Riesman, in their seven-year-work, The Perpetual Dream, fail to tackle -- even to approach the question I am wrestling with in this afterward. Their work is a study of a number of alternative schools, from St. Johns to Evergeen and the College for Human Services, and could have functioned as a context in 1978 as much as this document is intended to for 1995. They make some suggestions for ideas an alternative college's movement might employ in order to be successful. Interestingly, some of their suggestions could have been lifted almost verbatim from Making of a College, and expanded upon.[8][SEE FOOTNOTE]

One area of further study that I would like to propose is the subject of breadth in an education. As Grant and Reisman point out, individualized educations nearly always turn out to be narrow educations, playing on a student's strengths. This subject brings up an enormous number of questions for me, questions which are really essential ones, questions that could be the material of learning activites at Hampshire College, of studies about Hampshire, historical studies...all with a purpose. Let me propose some of these questions:

And so here ends what might be the last of the ``Division 3 Division 1s''. With Hampshire's new policies, division 1s have been reframed (perhaps back into their original purpose) of being the process through which one learns the basics of four fields, or four ways to think. We will eventually lose with that change the kind of projects that I would like to have been able to do, namely, five theses in five separate fields. We have already lost some of that; I myself have only been able to partially fulfill that goal. Likely, for at least some period of time, some enlightened students and faculty will have the insight to not need the structure of ``Division 1s'' to achieve their goals. And they will succeed.