“If you build it, they will come.”
I had the pleasure last weekend of attending the dedication and ribbon-cutting ceremony at the brand new Nicole Goodner MacFarlane Science, Technology and Innovation Center at Landmark College in Putney, Vermont. Landmark (featured here on The PediaBlog) is a small college that specializes in teaching students with learning differences differently, using evidence-based, practical, and technologically integrated approaches to learning.
The 28,500 sq. ft. Science, Technology and Innovation Center cost $10 million to build. The classrooms and labs for the study of natural and life sciences are state-of-the-art. It is an extraordinary facility that sits on one side of a beautiful rural campus at this remarkable school where college students, who never gave up despite their learning inefficiencies and disabilities, come to live, learn, and earn their college degrees.
One can only dream of what happens next. This how I think it goes down:
Not too long from today — this year, maybe next; five years, maybe ten — a Landmark student (a very smart young woman or young man with a challenging learning disability, maybe even someone on the “spectrum”) will look at a problem from an unusual and wholly unique angle and, from its solution, change the world. Everyone will know about this student and their discovery — and the discovery of the gift inside all of us. And everyone will know about Landmark College.
“If you build it, they will come.”
Now might be a good time to plan for some new dorms!
(Dr. Ketyer’s son attends Landmark College.)