Program Overview
Robert Heinlein once wrote that “specialization is for insects.” We agree. In a world facing unprecedented crises – of democracy and justice, climate and environment, meaning and purpose – we need leaders who can think and act beyond the silos into which higher education so quickly shunts us. At the Glacier Bay Semester, you’ll learn how to deliver a speech and splint an ankle, paddle a kayak and run a meeting, build a shed and parse a text, catch a wild salmon, test a hypothesis, and build community. But beyond these skills, you will learn to think deeply, creatively, and empathetically about some of the greatest challenges that face our society in the years to come.
The Glacier Bay Semester is open to students 18-23, and is an 18-week program based out of Tidelines’ twin campuses along Alaska’s Inside Passage. Students may enroll in the program as a “study away” semester or as part of a gap year experience. A full semester’s worth of college credit is available. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, with each batch reviewed every 4-6 weeks beginning in November.
Program Structure
As our flagship program, the Glacier Bay Semester in Civic & Environmental Leadership brings twelve students into an immersive study away experience in the heart of Southeast Alaska. Students will live, study, and work together for four months as they consider how to be better leaders, community members, and citizens of the world.
The program is built around three central pillars:
- Academic work in the liberal arts and sciences. All students take five classes while in Alaska. The first four are taught on the block system, and focus on the four great contemporary crises: the crisis of democracy & governance, the crisis of equity & justice, the crisis of climate & environment, and the crisis of meaning & purpose. The final course, the Nature & Culture of Southeast Alaska, is taught primarily over two field trips: a 9-day paddle in Glacier Bay, and a weeklong visit to the Alaska Native community of Hoonah.
- Labor performed in service of campus and community. At Tidelines, you'll be involved daily in the labor of a working homestead: from planting carrots to splitting firewood, repairing fences to fileting salmon. Don't worry: most of our students are new to working with their hands! Our expert staff are here to teach you these new skills.
- Democratic self-governance. We believe in student agency. You'll form a political community with the other members of your cohort, helping hire faculty and set curriculum, admit new students, assign leadership positions, and spend your student budget.
Close-knit community life and wilderness exploration round out the experience. Based primarily at our Good River Campus, students will explore mossy old-growth forest, paddle through icy fjords, and climb the rugged alpine summits of Glacier Bay National Park and the Tongass National Forest.
