Submitted by Dan C.
Wendy had been looking forward to visiting Warren Wilson College (WWC)
since we first heard of it at a college fair last year. I described
it at the time as GWCS on steroids, and our trip bears that out.
WWC is a small liberal arts college, with about 850 students. The
school is based on what they call the Triad: Academics, Work, and
Service. Each student is required to provide 15 hours of work each
week supporting the running of the college. There are over a hundred
different crews covering everything from cleaning the dining hall to
running the school farm (which provides a lot of the food for the
college) to helping the Admissions office to working in the blacksmith
shop. The college has a very Green ethic. Composting and recycling
figure prominently in the dining hall. They have a new LEED
Gold-certified dorm that employs solar power and dry composting
toilets, if you’re into that sort of thing. The students are very
friendly and, like GWCS, very idiosyncratic in their dress and
interests.
If we were looking for a classic liberal arts school, I don’t think
we would look at any other schools. But Wendy wants to study art and
so is now focusing more on arts colleges. For our part, WWC’s Art
Department isn’t strong enough to warrant Wendy’s attendance. But I
heartily encourage GW students and parents to look into this school.
Filed under: Warren Wilson College
