The conclusion of wilderness solos meant that it was time to embark on our final academic unit in food systems: small-scale sustainable agriculture. There is no better place than Polyface Farm to start the discussions that this unit warrants. From Virginia we drove to Allentown, PA to challenge ourselves physically by running a 10K. And then it was on to Lake Taghkanic State Park in Upstate NY where we camped while visiting farms in the beautiful Hudson Valley.
During a visit to the Dartmouth Entrepreneurship (DEN) for Project Period, Dartmouth’s Director of Entrepreneurship,Jamie Coughlin, described innovation and entrepreneurship as THE 21st century skill students must possess as they enter the workforce. Over the past three years, Proctor has taken Jamie’s advice and run with it through the development of new courses in Social Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship, the adaptation of existing courses to focus heavily on hands-on innovation projects, and the introduction of semi-annual Innovation Nights to showcase student projects each fall and spring.
Proctor's Mountain Classroom program set our sights on Salina, KS as we departed South Dakota. We visited The Land Institute to learn about their plant breeding programs as a part of our food systems curriculum. From Salina, we drove due east to Green Sulphur Springs, WV where we hiked into the hills for our wilderness solos.
I think that I speak for all of us when I say I was a little hesitant to travel to Lisbon, Portugal. After studying the language for a handful of days, the only thing I could confidently say was "Uma mulheres esta nadando" (the women are swimming) and "ola!" (Hello!). Soon though, when our plane our plane flew over Lisbon and started to descend and touch down, all my worries about the language flew away and I was left with excitement and anticipation for the week ahead of me.
Proctor's Mountain Classroom program turned our focus to Colorado's grasslands as we drove to Chico Basin Ranch to study rotational grazing and ranch management. Our experience was facilitated by Lee Derr, a local bird banding expert and grassland ecologist. The next stop was St Francis, SD, on the Rosebud Reservation. There we spent time with the White Hat family, whose longstanding relationship with Proctor has been a fixture of Mountain Classroom for years.
Proctor math teachers, Kristen Martin and Chris Farrell, joined Mountain Classroom in Salida, CO for a weekend of hiking, soaking in hot springs, seeing downtown, and mountain biking. From Salida we drove southeast to the beautiful Beulah Valley where we were hosted by Linda and David Overlin. The Overlins have a wealth of knowledge on ranching and the surrounding grasslands and are skilled craftspeople. They welcomed us to camp in their backyard while guiding us through projects in their wood and metal shop.
Shortly after the first nationwide Earth Day celebration on April 22, 1970, Proctor launched its own Earth Day tradition of dedicating one academic class day each spring to reaffirming our deep commitment to environmental stewardship through hands-on workshops. Today, more than fifty small, faculty sponsored workshops allowed the entire community to pause from the breakneck pace of the Spring Term in order to reconnect with the natural world that surrounds us.
It was the beginning of a very typical week, we had just gotten back from Granada and were just getting back into our daily routine. But walking back to our homestay on that Tuesday night was different. There was an unusual sound of heavy drumming in the air and crowds were filling the street. Upon getting closer you see the hooded capes of all different sizes slowly marching up to the Cathedral walls. First you would see two lines of these figures filing up the streets with large metal staffs, followed by hooded children. Then comes the incense swinging side to side and introducing the large “float” of a religious figure. Each float comes from a church and is typically either carried or pushed throughout the narrow streets to the Cathedral in the Plaza Mayor.
