The Monson Seminar
is a three-week residential course for highly-motivated Pell-eligible and first-generation college students pursuing creative and research-based projects. The Seminar is offered through MonsonArts, an artist residency in Monson, Maine, and accredited through the University of Southern Maine. Accepted students receive fellowships funding the full cost of their tuition, room, and board.
About the Seminar:
The Monson Seminar, a three-week, residential course in beautiful Monson, Maine, seeks to extend the high-impact educational experiences associated with liberal arts education to students for whom such experiences are often out of reach. We also seek to provide students with the space, time, and support necessary to produce advanced creative and scholarly work. Our aim is for every student to discover a greater capacity for independent work than they had coming into the seminar.
High-impact practices are key college experiences that have been shown to facilitate deep-level processing and increase student engagement, retention, and success. The Monson seminar is designed around the following high impact practices: common intellectual experiences, learning communities, undergraduate research, community-based learning, and capstone projects. In targeting high-need students, the Seminar addresses inequalities resulting from the exclusivity of most high-impact experiences, which often cost students more in terms of both time and money.
Seminar students participate in an honors-level interdisciplinary course and work with an advisor on an independent creative project. Students received full tuition fellowships, three meals a day, and both studio and living space for the duration of the Seminar.
A Four Part Recipe for Student Success
HOLISTIC SUPPORT. Students do their best work when they are cared for at every level. The Monson seminar is designed to support students physically, intellectually, creatively, and emotionally.
UNWAVERING BELIEF. We believe in the infinite capacity of our students. The Monson seminar is designed to help them develop this belief in themselves by encouraging internal motivation and the cultivation of creative and intellectual agency.
AUTHENTIC BELONGING. Our students students face many challenges that can be mitigated or eliminated by cohort effect. Community is integral to every aspect of the seminar, from meals to work shares.
DEEP WORK. The Monson Seminar is dedicated to helping students discover and develop their capacity for deep work: focused, distraction-free cognitive and creative labor that allows students to exceed their own sense of what is possible.
