MICROCOLLEGE: The Thoreau College Podcast

Reyn Hutten, Lulah Entwistle - Outer Coast, Sitka, Alaska

On this episode of the Microcollege Podcast we return for an update from one of the most inspiring success stories of the emerging microcollege movement. Rooted in the beautiful island community of Sitka, Alaska among the fjords and temperate rainforest of the southeastern panhandle of Alaska, Outer Coast is inspired by Deep Springs College and nourished by the unique cultural heritage of the Tlingit people of that region. Since 2015, Outer Coast has been developing as a peer and fellow traveler of Thoreau College, and now has launched a full 2-year undergraduate program granting academic credits through the University of Alaska Southeast suitable for an Associates Degree or transfer to a 4 year school. Join me as I speak with Outreach Lead Reyn Hutten and pioneer 2nd Year student Lulah Entwistle about entering higher education after growing up in a rural place, about the role of service learning in the context of tight knit local community, about the value of robust student self-governance, and about the impact of incorporating indigenous languages, storytelling, and culture into a full microcollege curriculum. Reyn Hutten is the Outreach Lead and periodic Summer Seminar Program Director at Outer Coast and has been in Sitka at Outer Coast for nearly 3 years. Hailing from the small island community of Wrangell, AK, Reyn is a long-time believer in (and beneficiary of) holistic, community-based, in-situ learning in southeast Alaska. She has focused on community building and education from many angles, including through her B.A. in ecology with a focus on the Arctic at Dartmouth College, as a field program coordinator, and as a ski and sea kayak coach. Reyn finds vibrance in many of life’s little moments but especially when moving her body outside, cooking, tinkering and connecting with people. Lulah Entwistle grew up homeschooled on a biodynamic farm in Middle Tennessee, where her family grew food to sustain themselves and ran a small CSA. When she is home, Lulah likes to ride her horses, play with the goats, and help on the farm. She is currently studying at Outer Coast and is in the process of finding a place to go next. For the past two years she has been walking around Sitka, listening to music and watching the mountains.

Antón Barba-Kay - Microcollege Education Against Digital Dehumanization

In this episode of the podcast, I spoke with Antón Barba-Kay, a philosopher and scholar whose life includes time as a student at St. John's College and as a professor at Deep Springs College. As a scholar, Antón has focused on exploring how the internet and digital technology in general have come to shape our inner lives and our experiences of reality. Rooted in classical and German philosophy, Dr. Barba-Kay engages with questions of aesthetics and interior formation as he articulates a view of digital technology as a "natural technology" - i.e. "a technology so intuitive as to conceal the extent to which it transforms our attention" and our sense of self. This has obvious implications for the design and practice of education, which Dr. Barba-Kay is uniquely placed to explore. Antón Barba-Kay is a fellow at the Carr-Ryan Center at the Harvard Kennedy School, a senior fellow at the Institute for Practical Ethics at UC San Diego, and a distinguished fellow at the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law. He received a B.A. from St. John’s College, a B.A. in classics from Cambridge University, and a PhD from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago; he has been (tenured) Associate Professor of Philosophy at Catholic University and taught at Deep Springs from 2020-24 (two of those years as Robert B. Aird Chair of Humanities). In addition to his scholarly publications in nineteenth-century German philosophy, his essays about culture and technology have appeared in The New Republic, The Atlantic, The New Atlantis, Dissent , The Hedgehog Review, and The Point, among other magazines. A Web of Our Own Making: The Nature of Digital Formation –his book about what the internet is and what a difference it makes–was published in 2023 by Cambridge University Press. A Web of Our Own Making: The Nature of Digital Formation - https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/web-of-our-own-making/92F7F830EBEC409F05A526E64DDD1D9D [https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/web-of-our-own-making/92F7F830EBEC409F05A526E64DDD1D9D] Deep Springs College: https://www.deepsprings.edu/ [https://www.deepsprings.edu/] St. John's College: https://www.sjc.edu/ [https://www.sjc.edu/]

Troy Vine - Masters in Transformative Learning, Ruskin Mill Centre, United Kingdom

On this episode we chat with Dr. Troy Vine with the Ruskin Mill Centre for Practice in the United Kingdom about a new Master of Arts program in Transformative Learning that will be launching this fall, offering a unique opportunity to explore the contemplative model of science pioneered by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and practiced by Henry David Thoreau, Rudolf Steiner, and other out-of-the-box thinkers. Not only is this a different, more holistic way of doing science - it is also a pathway to inner transformation. After gaining a doctorate in particle physics from University College London, Dr. Troy Vine became interested in Goethe’s theory of colour. Studying with leading authorities on the topic, he has published extensively on Goethe’s colour science, both as writer and as editor. With artist Nora Löbe and physicist Matthias Rang he wrote the book Seeing Colour: A Journey Through Goethe’s World of Colour, published by Floris Books in 2022. Troy is in the final stages of a second doctorate, this time in philosophy, at the Humboldt University of Berlin, with a thesis focusing on the history and philosophy of Goethe’s colour science. Troy has taught Goethean colour science and the history and philosophy of holistic science more generally for over two decades, including at Schumacher College, where he was programme lead for MSc Holistic Science. Troy has recently drawn on this experience to design a MA programme in Transformative Learning for the Ruskin Mill Centre of Practice, that will begin this coming autumn. MA in Transformative Learning - https://rmcp.org.uk/ma-in-transformative-learning/ [https://rmcp.org.uk/ma-in-transformative-learning/] Seeing Colour: A Journey Through Goethe's World of Colour: https://www.florisbooks.co.uk/blog/2024/02/19/seeing-colour-a-journey-through-goethes-world-of-colour/ [https://www.florisbooks.co.uk/blog/2024/02/19/seeing-colour-a-journey-through-goethes-world-of-colour/] Thoreau College: https://thoreaucollege.org/ [https://thoreaucollege.org/]

A Public Affair w/ Douglas Haynes on 89.9 WORT FM -- The State of the Microcollege Movement

This is the 80th episode of the Microcollege podcast! To celebrate this milestone, we would like to do something a little different. For this episode we will be sharing an interview that took place live on WORT 89.9 FM, Madison, Wisconsin’s community radio station. On February 2, Douglas Haynes, host of the WORT show “A Public Affair," interviewed me and Grace Greenwald of the Springboard Foundation about the state of the microcollege movement, including the origins and development of Thoreau College. Douglas was a great interviewer and this conversation serves as a reintroduction for myself and Thoreau College, as well as a status update on how things have changed in the past 3 and a half years, since the Microcollege podcast started on Henry David Thoreau’s birthday in July 2022. This podcast has proven to be an fun and amazingly effective way to explore, articulate, and promote this emergent model of education and the people and organizations who are making it happen. I have made connections with people and ideas that have informed my practice as an educator and organizational leader. The podcast has helped Thoreau College connect with new students, instructors, funders, and collaborators and has contributed to the formation of networks and gatherings of allied organizations, scholars, and educators, such as the International Folkmode for Educators in Denmark in 2025 and the now annual summits of the Nunnian Consortium, most recently here in Wisconsin in January 2026. Most exciting of all, I have increasingly begun to hear from ambitious educators and dreamers who tell me that the stories and examples shared on the Microcollege podcast are helping to inspire and inform their own plans to establish new holistic, humanly scaled educational programs on the microcollege model at locations around the world. This is so exciting and it makes this work seem ever more important and timely. In the past three and half years the sense of crisis in higher education and beyond has accelerated and deepened. Many legacy liberal arts colleges and smaller public campuses have closed, merged, or dramatically restructured during this time and the rapid emergence of Artificial Intelligence and other powerful digital technologies have cast many aspects of education, culture, and life in general into disarray. I feel so grateful to have this outlet as a platform for thinking about these complex times alongside creative and inspiring people who are crafting ambitious and original responses. Thank you to everyone who has been listening to these conversations - and also thank you to Liam McGilligan, the faithful producer of this show. To mark this 80th episode, please take a moment to leave a comment on the platform you use to listen to the show or send an email to me at admin@thoreaucollege.org [admin@thoreaucollege.org] to say what you appreciate about the show and/or what you would like to hear more about. That would be so exciting and inspiring for us! WORT FM: https://www.wortfm.org/ [https://www.wortfm.org/] Springboard Foundation: https://www.springboardlife.org/ [https://www.springboardlife.org/] Thoreau College: https://www.thoreaucollege.org/ [https://www.thoreaucollege.org/]

Matt Voz & Shawn Lavoie - Youth Initiative High School

In this episode I speak with Matt Voz and Shawn Lavoie, two leaders of the Youth Initiative High School, one of the key local partners of Thoreau College here in Viroqua, Wisconsin. This is a special conversation, as I participated in the founding of YIHS in 1996 when I was a teenager and subsequently returned to teach there for over 15 years alongside Matt and Shawn as we learned how to be teachers and build community together. Today, 30 years after it began, YIHS remains an unique and exemplary school and has served as a key influence on the development of Thoreau College. Founded as a Waldorf-inspired initiative, YIHS has remained connected with this global educational movement while taking the curriculum in distinct and innovative directions. YIHS students actively collaborate with faculty and parents as full citizens and stakeholders to staff committees and make decisions, to fund and represent the school to the public, and to clean and maintain the school. YIHS has also crafted a way to survive and thrive as an independent school in a small rural community while offering a dynamic and broad curriculum by welcoming a large number of part time teachers, supported by an experienced core staff. The school has also developed a profound expeditionary learning curriculum to support the cultivation of character and wisdom in the context of community. Matt Voz is the Administrator of the Youth Initiative High School, as well as a teacher of humanities, automechanics, and physical education and one of the house parents of the YIHS Boarding House. Hailing from western Minnesota, Matt holds a BA in History from the University of Minnesota-Morris and a MA in Agrarian History from Iowa State. Shawn Lavoie is the YIHS Faculty Chair, as well as a teacher of humanities, Spanish, and circus arts. He grew up in Massachusetts and received a BA in Anthropology from the University of Chicago and an MA in Arts Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Today, Shawn also teaches aspiring and practicing Waldorf high school teachers through the Great Lakes Waldorf Institute. Youth Initiative High School - www.yihs.net [http://www.yihs.net] Great Lakes Waldorf Institute - https://www.greatlakeswaldorf.org/ [https://www.greatlakeswaldorf.org/] Kaleidoscope - the YIHS Podcast - https://www.wdrt.org/kaleidoscope/ [https://www.wdrt.org/kaleidoscope/] Thoreau College - https://thoreaucollege.org/ [https://thoreaucollege.org/]