Marlboro College

Marlboro College is a small, coeducational, alternative liberal-arts college in Marlboro, Vermont, USA.

History

Marlboro College was founded in 1946 by returning World War II veterans on Potash Hill in Marlboro, Vermont. The school's operation was initially financed using money received from the GI Bill. The campus incorporates the buildings of two old farms that once operated on the college site. Marlboro has grown slowly but steadily since its inception and about 330 students currently attend.

The Marlboro College campus has also been the summer home for more than 50 years to the renowned Marlboro Music Festival.

Academics

Marlboro College emphasizes a flexible, personal, and interdisciplinary approach to undergraduate education. Class sizes are small and the student-to-teacher ratio is low (10:1). Students are encouraged to take courses in a wide variety of subjects during their Freshman and Sophomore years. As students matriculate they work more closely with professors and create their own customized tutorial classes to facilitate more advanced and personalized studies. Because of the college's small size, most departments are very small, often consisting of only a single professor.

The Clear Writing Requirement

Freshman students usually take one or more classes designed to boost their writing skills to an acceptable undergraduate level. All Freshman must submit 20 pages (5,000 words) of nonfiction writing to the English Committee by the end of their second semester. If the committee decides that a student's writing skills need more work, they recommend a class to help, and the student must prepare another portfolio, at least 10 pages of which must be new, at the end of the next semester for re-evaluation. In the event that a student fails the writing requirement for three consecutive semesters, the school asks them to leave. However, almost all students pass the writing requirement within a few semesters.

The Plan of Concentration

Juniors and Seniors focus on developing a Plan of Concentration rather than on heavy coursework. "Plan" is a large self-designed project often involving a special and individualized combination of majors and minors. Juniors and Seniors focus on independent work and increasingly take tutorial classes (one or two students and an instructor). For most students Plan culminates in a written thesis, although art and science students may pursue other projects. However all Plans must include a written portion constituting at least twenty percent of the total plan work. In addition, all plans must include an independent project prepared without direct faculty input, also constituting at least twenty percent of the total plan. Plans that consist entirely of academic writing usually range from one hundred to two hundred pages double-spaced.

Marlboro College is a small, coeducational, alternative liberal-arts college in Marlboro, Vermont, USA.

History

Marlboro College was founded in 1946 by returning World War II veterans on Potash Hill in Marlboro, Vermont. The school's operation was initially financed using money received from the GI Bill. The campus incorporates the buildings of two old farms that once operated on the college site. Marlboro has grown slowly but steadily since its inception and about 330 students currently attend.