Goddard College

Goddard College is a low-residency college with three locations in the United States: Plainfield, Vermont; Port Townsend, Washington; and Seattle, Washington. The college offers undergraduate and graduates degree programs. With predecessor institutions dating to 1863, Goddard College was founded in 1938 as an experimental and non-traditional educational institution based on the ideas of John Dewey: that experience and education are intricately linked.

Each Goddard student designs their own curriculum in accordance with their program's degree criteria.

In addition to fulfilling academic criteria in the subjects of the arts, the humanities, mathematics, natural sciences and social sciences, undergraduate students must also demonstrate critical thinking and writing, understanding of social and ecological contexts, positive self-development and thoughtful action within their learning processes.

The college uses a student self-directed, mentoring system in which faculty issue narrative evaluations of student's progress instead of grades. The intensive low-residency model requires that students come to campus every six months for approximately eight days when students engage in a variety of activities and lectures from early morning until late in the evening and create detailed study plans.