Trust & the educational journey

Here at the Beverly Ann Miller Institute for Civic Biodesign, fellows are not merely expected to learn and apply new skills and concepts. Instead, we are trusted to use a huge variety of resources to craft a deeply personal journey of self-improvement and community development. In other words, the conventional power imbalances between teachers/administrators and students begin to shift as students claim more and more autonomy in their education.

This is profoundly different from my previous experiences in grad school. In the traditional model, graduate programs provide a rigid structure of support to nudge students toward a specific model of intellectual expertise and career readiness. The built-in assumption is that survey courses and dissertation writing are essential rites of passage for high-status professionals. Students trust that their program mentors and administrators won’t lead them astray.

The BAM model places trust in the students. We eschew rigid, semester-oriented pacing, pre-set educational outputs, and a conventional career-building mindset, because we trust ourselves to find our way to personal and vocational satisfaction without these limitations. We don’t need traditional classrooms, because we now perceive our homes, our relationships, our communities, and our society as a classroom.

Without sacrificing high standards of attainment and intellectual development, BAM deploys a network- and project-based approach that holds each fellow responsible for co-creating their educational journey and embarking on it at their own pace. For me, this means I can pursue the most enjoyable research and publication goals of a traditional graduate program, but with an added emphasis on community engagement, entrepreneurial challenges, and artistic achievement. Other fellows will forego the traditional academic route completely.

There’s room for all of us.

And whether we spend two years launching a business, ten years writing a book series, or four years tackling twenty different projects … at the center of it all is this commitment to self-determination—the strength of character to hold yourself accountable for all that you aspire to do.

Do you trust yourself to make the world a better place?