published by:

Institute for
Social Ecology

popular education for a free society

A History of the ISE  |   Vol. 3, No. 1

Education & Community Action
A History of the Institute for Social Ecology’s Programs

By Michael Caplan¹

The Cate Farm Era

In 1975, the Institute moved onto a 40-acre farm at Goddard College. This farm served as a demonstration site for experimentation, teaching, research, and community outreach. The first solar building in Vermont was built there, as well as many other innovative technological systems. During the years spent at Cate Farm, the ISE researched and tested organic agriculture and aquaculture techniques, and published wind power designs. Bookchin recalls:

During the summer days, classes were conducted in nearly every dormitory and open area on Goddard’s campus. A visitor to the campus would have seen students sitting round in small circles discussing the history of hierarchy, various radical social ideas, the emergence and development of the state, radical anthropology, the changing status of women and other underprivileged strata, ecological economics—as well technological innovations in energy, diversified applications of machinery, the construction and multifaceted use of fish tanks, window heat-retainers, and so on. Students used the open fields in Cate Farm to study organic agriculture and experiment with different kinds of fertilizers. Others could study and actually make new composting toilets that allowed for the recycling of human wastes into agriculturally fertile compost, while more theoretically inclined students could explore ideologies such as socialism in its various forms, the history of radical movements, and utopian ideas… Free evenings were filled with study circles to follow up on the courses that had been given during the day.²

The Institute remained at Cate Farm for five years, offering a variety of programs in addition to its popular summer sessions. By 1976, the ISE’s summer program grew to accommodate approximately 180 students. The following year also saw the creation of a Masters of Arts in Social Ecology in collaboration with Goddard College, combining intensive on-campus course work with off-campus practicums.

The 80s

The eighties saw a major change in the ISE’s activities. Due to financial circumstances, Goddard College sold Cate Farm in 1981, forcing the ISE to reconsider how to host its summer programs. Without a home, the ISE started renting various campuses for a month each summer in 1983. In 1986, Chodorkoff, who had earned a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology at the New School for Social Research, resumed teaching at Goddard, giving the ISE’s programs a stable home for the next decade.

Other major changes took place as well. The ISE took the first step towards becoming a fully autonomous organization in 1981 when it was incorporated as an independent non-profit educational organization. In addition, Chodorkoff took over the directorship of the organization in 1978, as Bookchin stepped down for reasons of age and health. While Bookchin, then honored with the title “Director Emeritus,” maintained his involvement with the ISE as a teacher, it was under the leadership of Chodorkoff that the ISE grew—to this very day.

The focus of the ISE’s educational programs greatly expanded throughout the eighties. In 1984, the ISE sponsored an Urban Permaculture Design Course—a three-week intensive course created to educate people with a basic background in design, farming, gardening, community development or education, about the possibilities of urban permaculture. Taking place in New York City, students designed and created a permaculture program in conjunction with a community building. Completion in the course qualified the graduates as Apprentice Permaculture Designers in the International Association of Permaculture Design. The ISE also hosted study tours including a 15-day study tour of Mexico in 1986. This study tour was initiated to allow a dozen college students a unique look at a “developing” country, investigating the social roots of development patterns, the impact of both western style development and alternative ecological approaches.

The 1986 summer program, held at the Green Mountain Valley School, introduced two new curricula, Planning and Design for Sustainable Communities and Advanced Seminars in Social Ecology. In 1987, two more programs were started for the summer semester, Ecology and Community, and Sense of Self/Sense of Place-A Wilderness Experience.

The 90s

Throughout the nineties, in addition to its regular summer programs, the ISE continued to sponsor conferences and colloquia, both national and international, on topics ranging from alternative education and libertarian municipalism, to ecological activism and biotechnology.

The mid-nineties saw major changes to the ISE’s campus. In 1996, the ISE summer programs moved from Goddard College to the Maple Hill community in Plainfield, Vermont. The following year saw the purchase of a new campus on Maple Hill—the home of a defunct alternative school for children that featured a large land base, pond, farmhouse and schoolhouse. This new site became the focus for the ISE’s continued experimentation and education around issues of alternative technology and ecological land use. That same year, the ISE started offering a B.A. Degree in Social Ecology in cooperation with Goddard College.

During the first program on its new campus, students, faculty, and staff began planning and drafting designs of what the new campus would look like. In 1998, students constructed a solar washhouse and eco-campground, began a permaculture orchard and gardens, and created a master plan for the campus on Maple Hill as part of their work in the Planning, Design and Construction for Sustainable Communities program.

The Institute for Social Ecology celebrated its 25th Anniversary in the summer of 1999, commemorating a quarter century of activism and education for radical social change. In 2000, after the ISE began to pulled out of all relations with Goddard College, the ISE and Burlington College formed a relationship to accredit the ISE’s year round programs and a B.A. Degree in Social Ecology with both on- and off-site campus options. While the ISE gained a new B.A. program, the joint M.A. in Social Ecology with Goddard College was lost.

The ISE continues to offer its summer programs, workshops, forums, conferences, and degree program at the Maple Hill campus, including new programs such as Arts, Media, Activism, and Social Change and a year-round on-site degree program with tracks in Ecological Building, Ecological Land Use, and Social Theory and Action.

The social and ecological issues as explored by Bookchin and his colleagues over the span of his lifetime and the ISE’s are still as relevant today as they were fifty years ago. With the rejuvenated political awareness found within the Global Justice Movement, the ISE’s educational work has drawn the attention of a new generation of activists. As the anti-ecological trends of the 20th century become further entrenched within the 21st, this educational work serves multiple purposes. Now in his 82nd year, Bookchin reflects on the importance for such education:

But one proviso must be voiced: ideas are only true when they are rational. Today, when rationality and consistency are deprecated in the name of postmodernist chic, we carry a double burden of trying to sustain, often by education alone, reason against irrationalism, and to know when to act as well as how to do so. In such cases, let me note that education, too, is a form of activism and must always be cultivated as such.³

Social Ecology n 1: a coherent radical critique of current social, political, and anti-ecological trends. 2: a reconstructive, ecological, communitarian, and ethical approach to society.

Published by the Institute for Social Ecology