"New College of Tahiti" or NCT is a fictional educational institution, and, accordingly, unaccredited – but not quite non-existent. We could say it is a "virtual college" in some suitably humorous sense.
Mission-wise, NCT is about facilitating free association, free thinking, and free education.
The founder and president (jcorneli) believes that it could serve a useful role for persons who find that traditional college education is either not what they want, not what they need, or just something that won't work for them. The project is somewhere in between GNU and Montessori. It's weird, it's wacky… maybe it will work, somehow?
After all, computer-based colleges actually exist - and other fictional institutions have historically had some success.
NCT makes no distinction between "teachers", "administrators", and "students". It is a student-run college. Some of the students may be older or more credentialized than others, but that isn't a big deal; learning is supposed to be a life-long thing. The details of the leadership structure of NCT are still up in the air, but there is a college president, who is right now also the only known student. If and when more people become involved in the college, the organization may become more developed.
I think that I learned about this after I invented NCT, but the principles are somewhat similar. I corresponded briefly with the author about his Grothendieck translation. It might be worth working on reestablishing contact.
This is a project by a fan (and friend?) of Robert M. Pirsig. I haven't had time to navigate the whole site (which isn't exactly structured in a Lynx-friendly way). I think one of the main pages is http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/ and it seems that the author has some interesting (and some very strange) ideas. Worth pursuing.
An "oversight" organization for eductation in the British Commonwealth ("The Commonwealth of Learning") has worked on a proposal for a virtual university to serve small states. i learned about the col because they are apparently also involved (somehow) with accreditation of educational institutions inside the Commonwealth. They also talk about some interesting-looking educational material. I haven't checked this out in complete detail, but they also provide contact info for their Knowledge Manager and Education Specialist on this page (Paul West, pwest@col.org). Could be worth asking for info and/or telling him about some of our Asteroid-affiliated projects.
The page also mentions the African Virtual University, which is a "live" project, based in Nairobi. I'm experiencing network problems trying to access their site, but the google cache reveals discussion of their digital library, and so on.
My big thought here is that PM (as the Asteroid's financial star player) may want to get in touch with the COL and/or the AVU (or similar organizations), and see about setting up a partnership (possibly including some funding for PM efforts).
Here is a great essay by William Upski Wimsatt, who already inspired me about this topic with a book he wrote on a different topic.
That was a somewhat old essay, this interview descibes is what came of it, and you can read more at http://www.selfeducation.org/index.html including various links. (I'm not sure how active these people are right now, but it could be worth trying to get in touch.)
The "Ooligan press", written up at http://www.apple.com/pro/design/ooliganpress/ (Baudelaire not Baudrillard… sigh.) --jcorneli
It was my intention ta make this section started into an inquiry into whether NCT should seek accreditation. Obviously I haven't gotten very far, and I'm certainly not sure what the answer is. The "pro" is that accreditation might make it easier to get money coming in, an would allow official degrees to be administered. The "con" is that (a) we almost surely couldn't get accredited without a bunch more work; and (b) it might not even be that great of an idea to get accredited anyway, since it would surely involve jumping through some bureaucratic hoops that could put a crimp in our style.
Especially since I'm not sure what use NCT has for money (yet), I think we should hold off on this.
But of course, money can be used for software development, infrastructure building, paying administrators, etc., etc. – I don't know if we need any of that. Any non-trivial course materials could be built by volunteers/students. We don't really need administrators (what good would they do anyway?). "Infrastructure" can probably be handled through existing no-cost resources, like this wiki.
Sure, I could use more financial support - but is NCT a good way to get it? One of the factors in considering this question is what other similar things are going on in the world already. Maybe there is no "need" for an NCT.
But let me note that NCT may fill a different niche from the one AVU or existing American distance/virtual higher educational and degree granting institutions. The main difference is that NCT has no fixed curriculum or even faculty. It exists (virtually) only as a name, so far. Maybe we should make an effort to have some actual events (college parties or something, to raise money?). Who knows. The basic point I'm making is that even if NCT was "real" - as opposed to virtual - it would be "weird". Maybe it is sufficiently weird that it couldn't actually be non-virtual. I.e., compared to having no curriculum, requirements, degrees, professors, etc. – having no physical location is a pretty minor detail!
Since NCT focuses on student-directed learning, things like reading groups may not make the most sense in the world, because different students may have very different reading interests. Besides, the student population is too low for such a thing to work right now.
Something like a "how to find educational materials you are looking for" Workshop could be good, though, because presumably all students are interested in educational materials.
Also, a "how to get funding as a student in a non-accredited, non-existent, virtual college" could be very helpful, since everyone in the college could use some funding. Presumably there are grants for individuals that can be sought regardless of ones academic affiliation, but learning how to find and win these grants could be tricky. (Unlike students at "normal" colleges or universities, NCT students don't pay - but, at least at present, there are no merit or need-based scholarships administered by the college either, either.) Note that it is all fine and good to get paid to do "entrepreneurial" things, but basic (as opposed to business-oriented) research is something that students and academics do. Besides, even entrepreneurs should have access to continuing education, IMO.
But note, of course, that many students actually have to work to put themselves through school. NCT students may be no different in that respect. Woah…
While I'm not sure what your ultimate goal is, I think the name has an image problem that might prevent people from ever taking it seriously. New College of Tahiti sounds like a joke (as you probably intended), conjuring images of lying in a hammock and reading a book while sipping pina coladas in a tropical breeze. None of the others you mention have great names either. How many "real" colleges have "New", "Virtual", "(some exotic or far away place)", "International", "Learning", or "(a philosophy)" in their names? Even "Institute" is marginal unless it is already well known - and I went to MIT. :)
Traditional places have names like "(rich-sounding person's name) University/College" or "University of (place)" or "(place) College" or (shudder) a religion-based name. E.g., Corneli University would sound good were it not for the fact that a misspelled version of that already exists. Or even Megill University. :)
If you think a traditional name is deceptive - encouraging people to make misleading claims on their resumes - some kind of non-traditional but still non-joke name might still be better if people are to take it seriously.
Or maybe you mean this whole thing to be only a joke, in which case my comments are of course inapplicable. I'm not sure whether by "fictional" you mean permanently so.
norm 5 Aug 2006
What's in a name?
I don't think of the thing as a permanent joke, but I do like the fact that the name raises eyebrows. It is an "artfully chosen" name - and in particular, NCT is something of a "conceptual art" project.
On the other hand, towards the concrete end of the spectrum, I've considered actually moving to Tahiti to start the college at some point. Of course, until otherwise stated this "concrete" idea is itself pure fantasy! But I've relatively recently learned that it is a good idea to "concretize" conceptual art projects – otherwise they really aren't as interesting.
The reason for choosing "Tahiti" is complex; it is evocative of the things you mentioned, yes, and other things. Tahiti is, in particular, an island – and separated from the resources of the mainland, including the "knowledge resources" you find in places like Cambridge, Mass. or even Minneapolis, Minn.
One of the main assertions underlying the project that one should be able get "full access" to knowledge resources even while situated in a remote, insular, location – and this is one of the objectives of HDM and related projects. The application here is that if there is no need to go to physical libraries or lecture halls, then the student is significantly less bound to Universities in their physical form. Perhaps a hammock is as suitable a base of operations as any other.
I'm entirely happy to be flexible on the name. At this point, spelling out a clear vision for the project seems to be a more important concern - if this is going to be anything more than an ambiguous metaphor for some vague sentiment.
--jcorneli
I currently envision the logo as follows:
A shield with three points on top and one point on bottom, divided into three sections, one with a star above palm trees on an ocean beach, one with a broken string of pearls and a sharpened pencil and other ephemera on a table-top, and one with a sheep at the bottom of a ha-ha. It is embedded in a ring with two phrases going around it separated by dots. Around the top is the college's name in latin, and around the bottom, its logo.
Semi-schematically:
novum collegium tahitia
. .. .
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..... .....
..... STAR .....
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.... ....
.... PEARLS ....
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... ...
... HAHA ...
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plus quam bibliotheca et gymnasium--jcorneli