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Corvid college
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Corvid College is an 'anarchic' college based out of the Boston-Cambridge-Somerville area of Massachusetts. Organized around competencies, projects, independent studies, and curiosity, the college offers an education that is not structured by bureaucracy, or the type of university education commonly referred to as "grade-labor". According to the college's website, there are "no grades, no majors, no degrees, no tenure, no rankings, no administration, no hiring, and no admission", but, rather, documents the student's work by compiling portfolios and final projects. Name The word corvid is applied to the Corvidae family of birds that includes crows, ravens, jays and others. The name symbolizes the non-hierarchical but still diversely social nature of Corvid College. History Eric Buck and a group of anarchist and anti-authoritarians began organizing "The College for a New Society" in Boston in the fall of 2009, after Buck left a position as professor of philosophy at a Montana university. The first course was held beginning in March 2010, with only two students, but in a representative field: economic alternatives. The first term with multiple courses was the summer trimester of 2010. Philosophy It describes its educational model as 'Anarchic', which it defines as 'self-managed in spirit, horizontal in structure, inventive in economics, self-replicating. A place where you can experiment with and experience do-it-yourself community.' Corvid College represents one solution to the crisis in educational systems and institutions in the US today. Unlike reformist efforts that remain within the parent institution, in its founding, it constitutes a secessionary-constructive effort to undertake social life in a new key. And unlike true autodidactic movements, in its core of teachers it takes seriously the educative impulse that holds between and among individuals. Corvid is the inheritor of multiple traditions in alternative education, including Black Mountain College, 1933-1957, Goddard College, Summerhill School, the Highlander Folk School (now the Highlander Research and Education Center), and the spirit of numerous short-lived efforts by anarchists, free-thinkers, anti-authoritarians to conduct their lives differently. Economic Distinctives In terms of tuition, all of the classes are offered on a mutually agreed-upon financial basis. Construing economics differently in the college is almost as important as the alternative pedagogy and the non-standard course offerings. Course Offerings The 'anarchic' structure of the college allows faculty members to offer courses on topics of their choosing. The lack of disciplinary constraint has fostered the study of a number of unorthodox fields and topics. According to the college's website the 'Warming Term' semester begins on May 15, 2010 with the following course offerings: Spinoza. Punk Philosopher Anarchy and Daoism Seeing Reality Philosophy of The Coming Insurrection Coffee. Phenomenology, Sociality, Virtuosity The Dark Arts- Anarchism and Occultism in Graphic Novels Green Anarchism The Art of Traveling- Urban Sojourns Everyday Autonomy and the Temporary Autonomous Zone Food We Have Never Eaten and Movies We Have Never Seen A Tour of Natural Science Deleuze's "Difference and Repetition" Looking At The Sacco Vanzetti Case The uses and meaning of history for anarchists Real Writing, Wild Writing Alternative Structure In its mission statement, Corvid describes itself as 'A college whose processes are the embodiment of a society of autonomous and co-autonomous people. Students direct their own educational processes with teachers as educational friends. Teachers and students run their own lives. The teachers and students do not await a new society; they are already the members of a new sociality.' <references/> See Also
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