Project and Program Support for Experimental College

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About SFSU Experimental College

Location:

1600 Holloway Ave., San Francisco, CA 94132, US

Mission Statement

SF State Experimental College fosters self-empowerment by promoting student-run, co-learning environments driven by critical, non-authoritarian, intersectional pedagogy; resistance to white supremacy; and, caring for the community.

Description

Since 2012, SFSU students have been interested in reviving the '65-69 SFSU Experimental College. In 2015, Kathy Emery started teaching a political science course partly based upon the Experimental College archives in our library (PLSI 395). The students in the Spring 2017 semester of PLSI 395 opened up student class presentations to the public and an SFSU professor, Chris Bettinger, attended some of the presentations. Chris was inspired to convene four faculty - Kathy Emery, Trevor Getz, Chris Bettinger and Phil Klasky - for the purposes of discussing the possibility of reviving SFSU’s Experimental College. These four faculty worked on a proposal for a pilot program for the Fall 2017 semester that was approved by the Division of Undergraduate Education and Academic Planning. During the fall of 2017, four students designed and taught their courses to other students (Noam Chomsky, Cybersecurity, Syrian Refugees, and Digital Technology and Social Movements). Nineteen courses were offered in the spring of 2018. This fall 35 courses are being taught by students for students. There are 38 proposed courses for the spring of 2019.