Brève n° 101
Sur le site de TF1 :
http://videos.tf1.fr/video/news/0,,3906938,00-etudiants-coupes-monde-.html
Le site de l’université : http://deepsprings.edu/
Texte anglais de présentation pris sur : http://www.isi.org/college_guide/sample/aac/deepsprings.pdf
TF1 ne ment pas : "Des têtes bien
faites qui, après la traite [des 300 vaches du ranch] se plongent dans des
cours très pointus de sciences, de littérature ou de grec ancien"...
It’s a little misleading to say that this
school is “in” Bishop, California. In fact, it’s about an hour’s drive away,
situated in the midst of the pristine desert that joins New Mexico and
California. To put it in perspective, the nearest major airports (Los Angeles
and Reno, Nevada) are four to five hours away by car, and the closest tourist
attractions are Death Valley and UFO landing strip Area 51. The neighboring
counties of Nevada offer little except legal brothels, some of which double as
gas stations and the last place where a driver can buy water for the next one
hundred miles.
An oasis in these austere surroundings, Deep
Springs is one of the most high-minded colleges in the country—still animated
to a startling degree by the mission of its founder, L. L. Nunn. Mr. Nunn
was a pioneer in the electrification of the American West—an endeavor that made
him wealthy, but left him worried. When he was working with the scientists and
engineers who laid the infrastructure that transformed Califor- nia, Nunn was
profoundly impressed with their technical competence, but appalled at their
ignorance of the humanities. He decided to use some of his wealth to endow one
or more schools which would combine an emphasis on serving mankind with a rich,
humane education.
Himself a “Social Gospel” Christian, Nunn
created in Deep Springs a unique institution that would carry on his
vision : A two-year “working college” in the desert where some thirty
young men would isolate themselves from the world to study the humanities while
helping to support the school by operating a farm and cattle ranch.
Nearly all decisions would be made by student
vote, the better to prepare responsible citizens of a republic. Attendance at
the school would be free.
Despite all the changes that have swept
universities and colleges in this century— and despite its eventual
secularization—Deep Springs remains remarkably true to its founder’s intent. It
offers a unique educational opportunity for the young men who meet its
demanding admissions standards and are willing to spend their first two college
years studying Greek, roping cattle, and running a college. As one teacher
said, “This is a school for students who want to share deeply in a community,
think deep thoughts, and get their hands dirty.”
In the past thirty years, academic curricula
at schools from the Ivy League to the Southeastern Conference have been
dumbed-down and gutted, supposedly in answer to student demands for greater
“relevance,” turning what had once been carefully thought-out programs of
liberal education into take-out menus. At Deep Springs, something close to the
opposite has happened. The school, by its founding statutes, is not permitted
to impose a set curriculum ; Nunn was a convinced “small-d” democrat. The
only requirements are a single writing course, a public speaking class, and an
introductory,late-summer survey in Great Books and humanities to prepare
newcomers for college-level work. (By all accounts these courses are
excellent ; they differ in focus each year as the faculty varies.) Most of
the students, however, arrrive more than prepared. The selection process for
new admissions—conducted entirely bystudents—is rigorous and requires a series
of seven searching essays, high test scores, and a campus visit and interview.
Indeed, the process itself scares off many aspiring students who don’t share
the Deep Springs ethos. Those who are admitted are typically, according to one
professor, “students who have been heavily involved in volunteer or service
activities during high school.
The admissions committee is very interested in
finding students who are committed to the school’s ideal of service to mankind,
and have demonstrated that before they apply. Of course, they also must have
excellent academics.” The students at Deep Springs themselves decide through
their curriculum committee which courses are offered every year. These
decisions, like all others, are hashed out by the student body (SB) at one of
the contentious, high-minded meetings that take up every Friday night of the
school year, attendance at which is mandatory.
The type of students attracted to Deep Springs
are usually infused with a kind of intellectual curiosity and academic seriousness
that prevents them from asking for trivial, ideologically blinkered, or
hopelessly arcane courses. In fact, in recent years, the most frequently
requested and heavily subscribed courses, according to students and teachers,
were in classical Greek, ancient philosophy, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and (alas)
Lacan.
In lieu of a core curriculum—and this school,
unlike most, seems to be doing just fine without one—here is a listing of some
of the courses recently chosen by the student committee :
“The Problem of Historical Knowledge,” with
readings ranging from Giordano Bruno to Nietzsche
“Greek Tragedy”
“What is Justice ?”
“Accelerated Ancient Greek”
“Advanced Latin Poetry”
“Poetry Workshop”
“Emily Dickinson”
“The History of Religion in America”
“Myths, Fables, and History”
“African-American History”
“Appalachian History”
“Poetry and the Uses of History”
“Plato”
“Ecology”
“Tropical Biology”
“Evolutionary Theory”
“Piano Performance”
“Painting”
These students are not asking for fluff. The
classes we observed were small, intellectually intense, and conducted more like
graduate school seminars than freshman and sophomore humanities classes.
Students display a high level of responsibility in completing assigned
readings, and they frequently make polite interruptions to question particular
interpretations of a text—or to ask for details of its translation from the
Latin or Greek.
There are no majors. Students treat their time at
Deep Springs as a replacement for the first two years at another college. Nearly
all transfer to top-notch schools, where they complete standard courses of
study. Typical destinations for Deep Springs grads in recent years have been
the University of Chicago, Brown, and Harvard. In fact, Harvard has a
long-standing relationship with Deep Springs and works to accommodate
transfers.
DATE DE PUBLICATION EN LIGNE : 10 juillet 2008