Growing Seasons at Thoreau College is a 9-month residential program for young adults seeking to challenge and cultivate themselves through an immersive holistic curriculum designed to engage each participant as a whole human being. Each Growing Season is organized around a distinct theme of broad contemporary and perennial significance, this year’s being HUMANS & NATURE. Although thematically diverse, each season incorporates the same core elements of rigorous engagement with great works and natural phenomena, immersion in nature, artistic practice, community living, shared labor, inner development, and self-governance. A year ago we welcomed the Founding Fellows to Viroqua, a group of courageous collaborators willing to spend a year co-creating Thoreau College. Over the course of the program we explored different organizational models, engaged and collaborated with community partners, and learned from the diverse life experiences and perspectives of the fellows. In the spring we completed a comprehensive strategic plan and formed a new Stewarding Circle, including our board members Jacob Hundt, Robert (Karp) Karbelnikoff and Liz Franklin, and welcoming former fellows Bryan Heystek and Magdalena Bermudez, to work together on the next phase of college development. During the summer months we presented at the Thoreau Society Annual Gathering, a meeting place for Thoreau scholars and enthusiasts to share their research and ideas. In September we began a thorough revisioning process, delving back into our core mission and vision for the college, creating our first small staff, and laying the framework for the next program, Growing Seasons at Thoreau College. Since then, we have been hard at work creating a new website, planning curriculum around the theme Humans & Nature, collaborating with community partners, fundraising, and reaching out to the world to find those young people seeking and searching for this immersive, transformative program! More ...
