Niche Hippie Schools

[Mobius]

Reed College and Prescott College come to mind out West. Deep Springs College is a two-year school in California.

Out East, you have Berea, Alice Lloyd, and Warren Wilson that are work colleges.

[Wahoo Redux]

I was just going to post Reed College. 

These are the most obnoxious hippy-wanna-be students you would never want to meet.  They have hurt Reed's reputation at least locally.

[no1capybara]

I'd strongly consider Antioch of Ohio, in any case...

M.

Antioch!  That's the one I was thinking of, thanks.

[no1capybara]

Deep Springs College is a two-year school in California.

Holy cow, I looked up Deep Springs, that is quite a place.  I've never heard of it before: 30 students, 1:5 faculty student ratio.  I might just have to inquire about a visiting position there. https://www.deepsprings.edu/

[no1capybara]

My experience at BC is that it is no way a hippie school.

If we want a Massachusetts school, I would say Hampshire.

(I am not 100 per cent sure what we mean by "hippie," since music, sex, drugs, and "progressive" politics are present at most places. Hippie is sort of a historically-specific term.)

Fair enough, I stand corrected on BC - I only have secondhand knowledge of it.

Oh, Hampshire is good one!

Yeah, I'm not clear on whether "hippie" is the right term either, but couldn't think of anything better.

[Hibush]

Yeah, I'm not clear on whether "hippie" is the right term either, but couldn't think of anything better.

Calling it a "hippie school" is recognizing how the term is used today. It alludes to the hippies of San Francisco in the summer of 1967 looking for peace, love and understanding, and looking more colorful and hairy than their establishment contemporaries. But they are not that.

Reed sounds like a good place to study the spectrum of legacy hippie, contemporary hippie, hippie-wannabe, and hipster-wannabe. So many ways to annoy the neighbors!

[jerseyjay]

Calling it a "hippie school" is recognizing how the term is used today. It alludes to the hippies of San Francisco in the summer of 1967 looking for peace, love and understanding, and looking more colorful and hairy than their establishment contemporaries. But they are not that.

Fair enough, but I still don't know what we talk about when we talk about hippies. (As a historian, I think we are probably wrong when talk about hippies in the 1960s and 1970s. I mean, only a small number of people actually "dropped out" and joined the "counterculture". But a large number were influenced by the counterculture in terms of dress, hair style, sexual attitudes, music, politics, drugs, etc. In this case, almost every school in the 1960s was to some degree a hippie school, and every school (especially the sports, business, and fraternity components) was an anti-hippie school.)

That said, the one time I visited Hampshire, I got a certain vibe--a combination of chemical, social, political, and economic--that "hippie" seemed like a good description. Something that I did not get at Smith or Amherst College.

[Hibush]

Calling it a "hippie school" is recognizing how the term is used today. It alludes to the hippies of San Francisco in the summer of 1967 looking for peace, love and understanding, and looking more colorful and hairy than their establishment contemporaries. But they are not that.

Fair enough, but I still don't know what we talk about when we talk about hippies. (As a historian, I think we are probably wrong when talk about hippies in the 1960s and 1970s. I mean, only a small number of people actually "dropped out" and joined the "counterculture". But a large number were influenced by the counterculture in terms of dress, hair style, sexual attitudes, music, politics, drugs, etc. In this case, almost every school in the 1960s was to some degree a hippie school, and every school (especially the sports, business, and fraternity components) was an anti-hippie school.)

That said, the one time I visited Hampshire, I got a certain vibe--a combination of chemical, social, political, and economic--that "hippie" seemed like a good description. Something that I did not get at Smith or Amherst College.

That is exactly right. Thanks for the historian's context! The origin was iconic but a fleeting historic event that has echoes in something very real in contemporatry society. That must happen with other things.

[marshwiggle]

Calling it a "hippie school" is recognizing how the term is used today. It alludes to the hippies of San Francisco in the summer of 1967 looking for peace, love and understanding, and looking more colorful and hairy than their establishment contemporaries. But they are not that.

Fair enough, but I still don't know what we talk about when we talk about hippies. (As a historian, I think we are probably wrong when talk about hippies in the 1960s and 1970s. I mean, only a small number of people actually "dropped out" and joined the "counterculture". But a large number were influenced by the counterculture in terms of dress, hair style, sexual attitudes, music, politics, drugs, etc. In this case, almost every school in the 1960s was to some degree a hippie school, and every school (especially the sports, business, and fraternity components) was an anti-hippie school.)

That said, the one time I visited Hampshire, I got a certain vibe--a combination of chemical, social, political, and economic--that "hippie" seemed like a good description. Something that I did not get at Smith or Amherst College.

That is exactly right. Thanks for the historian's context! The origin was iconic but a fleeting historic event that has echoes in something very real in contemporatry society. That must happen with other things.

Despite the fact that many (most) of them became accountants and started driving Beamers.....

[mamselle]

I was and am probably somewhere very lightly placed on the hippie spectrum if a certain period in which my favorite jeans were patterned bell-bottoms, worn with a body suit and long beads, counts.

At the same time, I never did (still don't) do drugs, drink, or ride in fast cars--and only twice, I think, on a friend's motorbike (he wore a sheep's fleece vest, would that count?) to the beach.

At Ohio State in the 1970s, there was a wide blend of styles, attitudes, actions, and approaches to life. Friends in the Christian Fellowship where I lived on campus were heavily into veg/vegan cooking, as was a cousin of mine, and another on-campus friend, who made bean soup all the time--if you went to eat there, you already knew the menu, and to eat beforehand so as not to go hungry. (His homemade whole-wheat bread was VERY good, though...)

I learned to make sprouts spout for my salads, and even had a sort of sprout-spread for sandwiches that was very tasty; hoummus and tahini took off then, as did all kinds of weird but supposedly healthful shakes (which are still with us...). I never did get into eggplant and its various derivatives.

When I moved away in the late 1970s/early 1980s, those things were even more in view in the larger cities I was near. Bagels had become a thing, with all kinds of toppings--they still are. Clothes started to morph away a bit but granny dresses and bells were still around, and now they're back as some kind of 'retro' gear; I pulled out the one I made for my sister as a birthday present the other day and thought it still had some wear in it, but by now it doesn't fit either of us...

But a lot of the theological and philosophical development of that period had a strong impact on my work then and now, and at large as well. I don't disown or disregard it because, underneath all the Age of Aquarius hype, there were some home truths brought forward and incorporated into civil, religious, and artistic practice that continue to bear fruit.

So, all that to say, I guess I don't think of 'hippie' as a derogatory term, necessarily, at all.

M.

[mahagonny]

During the late 1960's and the 70's I was a non-conformist. Everybody was doing it. I wasn't going to be left out.

[apl68]

Deep Springs College is a two-year school in California.

Holy cow, I looked up Deep Springs, that is quite a place.  I've never heard of it before: 30 students, 1:5 faculty student ratio.  I might just have to inquire about a visiting position there. https://www.deepsprings.edu/

I first encountered it in an article in Smithsonian (IIRC) in the 1990s.  It seemed like a fascinating place.  I've read some more about it over the years.

I guess for purposes of this thread "Niche Hippie School" means any secular niche SLAC that is not an HCBU or single-sex campus, and has a reputation for encouraging nonconformity among its student body.  It could be a school like Bennington, with its reputation for debauchery (I read Donna Tartt's Secret History back in the day.  Didn't like it.), or Deep Spring, with its rural setting and do-it-yourself ethos, or maybe even St. John's, with its unusual Great Books program.  Assorted Bible colleges, and secular SLACs that don't really stand out in any way apart from maybe offering an unusual major or two, would not qualify.

[secundem_artem]

Grinnell College.  Not all that niche maybe, but kinda hippy-ish

[mamselle]

I've never been to Bennington but some of the members of their dance department created some exceptional works and did some in-depth dance pedagogy studies that are still useful, as well.

So maybe some departments are/were more hippy than others?

(Although the OSU dance department had some fringes of that when I was there, too....)

M.

[Mobius]

Yeah, I'm not clear on whether "hippie" is the right term either, but couldn't think of anything better.

Calling it a "hippie school" is recognizing how the term is used today. It alludes to the hippies of San Francisco in the summer of 1967 looking for peace, love and understanding, and looking more colorful and hairy than their establishment contemporaries. But they are not that.

Reed sounds like a good place to study the spectrum of legacy hippie, contemporary hippie, hippie-wannabe, and hipster-wannabe. So many ways to annoy the neighbors!

Steve Jobs dropped out from there. I know of one professor in my field who teaches there, but does not strike me as the counterculture type.