Monday, March 30, 2009

St. John's College, Santa Fe

While I have heard of St. John's College in Santa Fe before, I never knew where it was located or anything about it. I figured it was a very small institution somewhere in the middle of the city.

When we were driving the other day taking snow pictures, we came across the campus of St. John's; it was entirely different than I expected and in a gorgeous location high up in the Sangre de Cristo foothills, with amazing views.

St. John's has two locations, one in Annapolis, Maryland, and the one here in Santa Fe. The school is a four year liberal arts college, and the two campuses share an identical curriculum; both schools limit their enrollment to under 500 students, and the faculty student ratio is 8:1. There are no majors; all students pursue the same program; the required course of study is based on the reading, study, and discussion of the most important books of the Western tradition. All classes are discussion-based. There are no class lectures; instead, the students meet together with faculty members (called tutors) to explore the books being read. That seems very unusual among modern colleges. The school is expensive: (tuition is $40,000 per year, with room and board at almost $10,000). But that location - WOW!





One of the dormitories:



Information from St. John's College website.

4 comments:

Michael Schneider said...

It's not a big deal, but that last photo isn't a dorm. The buildings at the very top of Campus Drive are apartments for married students or students with families; if they're not full, sometimes seniors or even instructors are housed there, too.

The two photos above it are of dorms, though.

Towanda said...

Hi M.

Thanks for your comment and your correction.

As you can see by my post, I am no expert on St. John's College. I really knew nothing about it until a few days ago, and most of the information I got came from the school's website and the signs posted around the campus. I thought we saw signs that said upper dorms and lower dorms, which is what I thought the last picture was, one of the lower dorms. I mostly wanted the picture for the GREAT VIEW anyone living there would have .... and because I like the territorial architectural atyle of the building.

Are you a student at St. John's?

Val said...

Nice images of the campus!

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