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Deep Springs College: Reading Hegel, Cutting Hay

courtesy of Deep Springs College

Nearly one hundred years ago, L.L. Nunn, an electrical pioneer and the manager of a Colorado power company, founded a two-year college for young men in California's Deep Springs Valley. Deep Springs College isn't the typical American junior college: it's tiny, with just twenty-six students. No one pays tuition or fees.  It's located on a remote cattle ranch and alfalfa farm. The student-faculty ratio is 5:1. Students admit other students to the program; they hire faculty; they govern the ranch and farm operations; they wash dishes, deliver calves, till the garden. In addition to a required twenty hours a week of manual labor and plenty of time devoted to committee work, students still carry a full academic load. Brian Kahn talks with three Deep Springs students about self-governance, labor, community - and the school's recent decision to admit women.

(Broadcast: "Home Ground Radio," 11/4/14. Listen weekly on the radio, Tuesdays at 1:00p.m., or via podcast.)

Beth Anne Austein has been spinning tunes on the air (The Folk Show, Dancing With Tradition, Freeforms), as well as recording, editing and mixing audio for Montana Public Radio and Montana PBS, since the Clinton Administration. She’s jockeyed faders or "fixed it in post” for The Plant Detective; Listeners Bookstall; Fieldnotes; Musicians Spotlight; The Write Question; Storycorps; Selected Shorts; Bill Raoul’s music series; orchestral and chamber concerts; lecture series; news interviews; and outside producers’ programs about topics ranging from philosophy to ticks.
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