This Week’s College: Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota
Located in a large Midwestern city, Macalester College provides the comfort of a small liberal arts school, and the variety of an urban center. With a little over 2,000 undergraduates, Mac as it is referred to is dedicated to the goals of most liberal arts schools: creating discerning thinkers who can evaluate ideas, make informed decisions, think critically and analyze ideas, express themselves in writing and speaking and take responsibility for themselves and their actions.
But don’t stop with the mission statement. Because Macalester means what they say. They really do want you to think about things in a new and flexible way. Because if they didn’t they would not have classes like “Science Fiction from Matrix Baby Cannibals to Brave New World” or “Bodies and Minds: AI and Robotics” and “Pirates, Translators, and Missionaries: Between Atlantic Empires” or “Car Country: The Automobile and the American Environment.” They take their learning seriously and they want you to think in some new and unusual ways about it.
A lot of schools give lip service to the idea of undergraduate research, but at a place like Macalester, where there is no graduate school, the undergrads really are the ones who are doing the research with the professors. A whopping 59% of undergrads at Macalester graduate having done graduate level research with full time faculty during their time in college and a huge 29% of them had multiple experiences! Not all of this is on campus either. Some of it is in field work in places like Peru or China, in labs like the Minnesota Epilepsy Group, or in places like NASA, the Minneapolis Art Institute, and The Center for Victims of Torture. In a world where problem based learning and researched based answers are the way careers function, Macalester is making sure that they are producing students ready to perform in the tops of their fields.
Students at Macalester are diverse and have the interests to prove it. They come from 91 countries, 48 states and Puerto Rico and Guam. Twenty-four percent of the student body are people of color and 14% are international (not counting the US citizens who hold dual citizenships). This is reflected in student life. The clubs, groups, and associations reflect this interest as well with close to 30 groups that promote diversity, close to 30 classes that teach about US differences, and more than 15 different collectives students can be a part of that engage in dialog on these subjects.
There is no Greek life at Mac, but there are over 300 students involved in theater productions a year. Students are involved in musical ensembles (16 different ones), speech, debate, dance groups, religious groups, literary magazines, political groups, and more. You can play ice hockey (mens or womens), do martial arts, yoga, or Quidditch. Fifty per cent of the student body volunteers every semester and most of that is done in and around the Twin Cities.
Macalester is small, but it does field DIII sports teams. They have a football team and basketball is big as it is in most Midwestern schools. There’s also soccer and swimming (another mainstay of Midwestern schools) and women’s water polo (really good fun!) plus plenty of intermurals. And since you’re in the Twin Cities you’ve got major leagues to enjoy too.
All freshmen and sophomores live on campus, but after that it does change some. There are various themed houses (including Eco, Veggie, languages, Healthy Living) and there are residential dorms as well. What’s unique to Macalester’s residences is their Community Learning Model, which focuses on how learning and living work together and how to build, foster, and maintain relationships with the people we live with. It helps reinforce the ways in which a person is responsible for his role in society and that fulfilling her responsibilities is crucial to bringing about the kinds of social justice society needs to best function. Believe me when I tell you my first apartment would have been a happier place after this system for two years!
Pros:
Cons:
Located in a large Midwestern city, Macalester College provides the comfort of a small liberal arts school, and the variety of an urban center. With a little over 2,000 undergraduates, Mac as it is referred to is dedicated to the goals of most liberal arts schools: creating discerning thinkers who can evaluate ideas, make informed decisions, think critically and analyze ideas, express themselves in writing and speaking and take responsibility for themselves and their actions.
But don’t stop with the mission statement. Because Macalester means what they say. They really do want you to think about things in a new and flexible way. Because if they didn’t they would not have classes like “Science Fiction from Matrix Baby Cannibals to Brave New World” or “Bodies and Minds: AI and Robotics” and “Pirates, Translators, and Missionaries: Between Atlantic Empires” or “Car Country: The Automobile and the American Environment.” They take their learning seriously and they want you to think in some new and unusual ways about it.
A lot of schools give lip service to the idea of undergraduate research, but at a place like Macalester, where there is no graduate school, the undergrads really are the ones who are doing the research with the professors. A whopping 59% of undergrads at Macalester graduate having done graduate level research with full time faculty during their time in college and a huge 29% of them had multiple experiences! Not all of this is on campus either. Some of it is in field work in places like Peru or China, in labs like the Minnesota Epilepsy Group, or in places like NASA, the Minneapolis Art Institute, and The Center for Victims of Torture. In a world where problem based learning and researched based answers are the way careers function, Macalester is making sure that they are producing students ready to perform in the tops of their fields.
Students at Macalester are diverse and have the interests to prove it. They come from 91 countries, 48 states and Puerto Rico and Guam. Twenty-four percent of the student body are people of color and 14% are international (not counting the US citizens who hold dual citizenships). This is reflected in student life. The clubs, groups, and associations reflect this interest as well with close to 30 groups that promote diversity, close to 30 classes that teach about US differences, and more than 15 different collectives students can be a part of that engage in dialog on these subjects.
There is no Greek life at Mac, but there are over 300 students involved in theater productions a year. Students are involved in musical ensembles (16 different ones), speech, debate, dance groups, religious groups, literary magazines, political groups, and more. You can play ice hockey (mens or womens), do martial arts, yoga, or Quidditch. Fifty per cent of the student body volunteers every semester and most of that is done in and around the Twin Cities.
Macalester is small, but it does field DIII sports teams. They have a football team and basketball is big as it is in most Midwestern schools. There’s also soccer and swimming (another mainstay of Midwestern schools) and women’s water polo (really good fun!) plus plenty of intermurals. And since you’re in the Twin Cities you’ve got major leagues to enjoy too.
All freshmen and sophomores live on campus, but after that it does change some. There are various themed houses (including Eco, Veggie, languages, Healthy Living) and there are residential dorms as well. What’s unique to Macalester’s residences is their Community Learning Model, which focuses on how learning and living work together and how to build, foster, and maintain relationships with the people we live with. It helps reinforce the ways in which a person is responsible for his role in society and that fulfilling her responsibilities is crucial to bringing about the kinds of social justice society needs to best function. Believe me when I tell you my first apartment would have been a happier place after this system for two years!
Pros:
- Amazing research opportunities (real ones!)
- Up and coming city with great things going on
- Diverse, thriving community
- Talented, engaged faculty
- Small classes
Cons:
- It’s a long cold winter in Minnesota
- It’s small
- No Greek life if that’s your thing
- You can’t slack off here