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JACOB
Founder and Director of Thoreau College
Teacher of Regenerative Agriculture Course
"A lot grows from finding a place that you’re willing to put down roots. You start to become aware of the ecology, the cycle of a year, when the birds migrate through, when particular plants and flowers bloom. You become aware of the local challenges and issues, the water issues, the economic issues, the political issues in a place."
Jacob discusses helping to found Youth Initiative High School, the Driftless Folk School and Thoreau College.
Jacob Hundt founded Thoreau College in 2015 and now serves as executive director, as a board member, and as a faculty member leading courses in literature, philosophy, and sustainable agriculture. Hundt grew up on a dairy farm and helped found a Waldorf school called Youth Initiative High School when he was a teenager. He then spent years learning at Deep Springs College, a microcollege established in 1917, the American University in Bulgaria, and the University of Chicago Master of Arts Program in the Social Sciences, earning a BA in History and an MA in Social Sciences. He then returned to his hometown to found Thoreau College and the Driftless Folk School. Thoreau College is now part of The Folk School Alliance, a network of over 70 schools across North America dedicated to the preservation and passing on of traditional skills.
"Throughout this semester, we’ve been visiting farms and doing some work in our own gardens and farm spaces: a combination of hands in the dirt practical activity and learning from people who are practitioners of different forms of agriculture."
Jacob tells about teaching a regenerative agriculture class at Thoreau College.
"Thoreau College is if you were to boil it down to one slogan, one motto, is higher education for the whole human being, a whole citizen, a person that is able to live a rich and meaningful and practically impactful life."
Jacob describes the values of Thoreau College, a microcollege he founded.
Thoreau College is a microcollege in Viroqua, Wisconsin, where artists and activists from ages 18 to 46 live and learn together in an intentional community. Thoreau College is working to create immersive, impactful, personalized higher education that is also financially accessible. The college currently has academic courses in regenerative agriculture, writing composition, political philosophy, and visual arts. In addition to internships and classes, each student and faculty participates in self-governance of all college programs including admissions, outreach, curriculum design, and operating the business aspect of a greenhouse called Thoreau’s Garden.
"In thinking about the curriculum of any of (Thoreau College’s) several programs, we’re trying to think about five pillars: academics, labor, community, nature and art."
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