As I prepare to leave Viroqua, I wanted to reflect on the past two years teaching at Thoreau College.

Teaching at Thoreau College has been one of the most educationally invigorating experiences of my life. One of the most meaningful parts of teaching at Thoreau has been the wide range of experiences of the student body.Despite being a small microcollege in a rural corner of Wisconsin, in the time I’ve taught at Thoreau, we’ve had students from every region of the country – from the deep south to the west coast, from east coast metropolises to midwestern farms – as well as students from four other continents.

This wide range of student backgrounds is part of what makes teaching at Thoreau such a pleasure. Much of my work as a teacher, both inside the classroom and outside it, is in helping students listen to each other and understand perspectives and experiences that can be radically different from their own.

Part of what allows Thoreau College to create and cultivate such a unique student body is that all admissions at Thoreau College is needs-blind. One group of students and faculty interviews students and makes admissions decisions, all without knowing prospective students’ financial needs. Once a student is admitted, no student is turned away for lack of funds.

I’ve been fortunate to teach at -and attend- many excellent universities, all of which have budgets and endowments many thousands of times larger than Thoreau College. None of those schools have an admissions policy as inclusive as Thoreau’s. The admissions and financial policy at Thoreau College is just one example of how Thoreau College models its values -in this case, that higher education should be accessible to anyone, regardless of means.

You can help Thoreau College maintain this exceptional position by making an end-of-year donation today. Your donation will go to funding a full semester for one student.

-Benjamin Bernard-Herman

PhD Candidate in Anthropology

University of Illinois-Chicago