“Institutions change and pass; the spirit lives.”

     The faculty involved in our study described the unrealized potential of the great vision as tied to the nature of contemporary education and a phenomenon experienced by most institutions. Nonetheless, what is unique to the context of CGU and the Claremont Colleges is that “Hope springs eternal” according to Professor Dale Berger. It is because of the history of Claremont and Blaisdell’s vision for willing collaboration of the individual colleges, that there is hope that the organization will continue to strive to provide a forum for these conversations.

     The hope, indeed, is that although as Teresa Shaw Vice Provost of CGU lamented,” …there’s not a structure to make sure that we run into each other. There is no forum, unless people create it, unless people create it and sustain it, it’s as strong as the people involved. [and that ] It really takes certain people in the organization to make the weekly or monthly lunch to create the space for the conversation” the people involved in the organization will continue to fight for Blaisdell’s vision to endure. Janet Brodie Professor in the History Department optimistically explained that “The hope is very strong at CGU. The hope that we can get together is sustaining, if we had the time and the energy to create something to foster that conversation, there are no obstacles other than our own energy and our lack of time and that’s a huge difference from other institutions.” It is because of Blaisdell’s enduring vision that the colleges would be a forum where, “Scholars live and think together” that the participants in our study echoed his hope for such conversation and believed this organization is unique in its ability to continue the sturggle. As Brodie described,”…because that’s the great idea here at Claremont to have stimulating exciting interesting conversation with people and its possible but nobody has time.”

     The reality of the state of contemporary institutions of higher learning is that there is so much emphasis on research and publishing that the idyllic organization set up by Blaisdell has not come to complete fruition as it might have when first envisioned. “Most academics around the country will say that they are not having those conversations because of the work load” according to Wendy Martin Chair and Professor of American Literature and American Studies, and Shaw agreed, “…maybe it’s a modern a more contemporary problem in colleges.” Institutions are so focused on research which is supposed to be the scholarly work of the mind that in this unique Claremont context, it has ironically hindered the conversations between faculty and schools which Blaisdell so earnestly aimed to create. Yet this organization set up to collaborate from its inception, which fervently holds on to the vision of its founder and thus the organizational structure, has as a result been able to utilize the structure to rebel against the hindrances faced by contemporary scholarly institutions. Its desire to continue to have its faculty work on committees as well as maintain the Transdisciplinary courses and transdisciplinary work are reasons why the Claremont conversation continues to evolve. Berger explained that , “Sustaining Intellectual conversation I have had with others from outside my own school has come from working on some kind of proposal funding which has gone beyond the task [of committee work]. That has created some powerful intellectual sharing. There are two examples of structures that facilitate that process. Teresa Shaw finishes with “…the hope of the Transdisciplinary course was that the students in any given Tcourse would get to know each other and start to form learning communities that would last beyond the course…that just seems the great promise of the T approach and I hope that there’s a way that that can be sustained. “

     David Drew Professor School of Education Studies also sheds a ray of light upon the mired vision for collaboration and conversation in a contemporary setting as he describes a, “Natural science joint science project in Harvey Mudd and another colleges to bring together all of the people in Claremont interested in math and science education [is in the works]” and comments that it is because colleges, while established on the principal of inter-college communication, I think often function independently as sylos [that this happens rarely].”  With people like Drew, Shaw, and Brodie, as well as Transdisciplinary courses such as this one, which provided a forum for this project, the conversation at CGU and possibly across the sylos continues to be work in progress. As Blaisdell put it, “Institutions change and pass; the spirit lives.”