The Summer Seminar is an immersive opportunity for rising high school juniors and seniors to get a taste of the college experience — and shape it for themselves.
Over the course of an intensive month, up to 32 students undertake fast-paced, intellectually rigorous academic coursework; engage in work-based service and meaningful labor in Sitka; and practice self-governance of key elements of Outer Coast. Through a small seminar, close-knit residential living, and involvement in the wider Sitka community, Outer Coast students learn how to identify, analyze, and address the challenges — both big and small — that face the world today. Rising high school juniors and seniors participate alongside high school graduates and build mutually beneficial near-peer mentorship bonds.
In the fast-paced Summer Seminar environment, students earn college credit, practice the mechanics of making change, and build meaningful relationships as part of an intentional learning community.
The Summer Seminar 2024 will run from June – July. Applications will open in January 2024.
Summer Seminar 2023 Faculty
Lizzie Krontiris received her PhD in Political Theory at Yale University in 2019. She wrote her dissertation on Hannah Arendt’s concept of “the common world” and the problem of building shared reality in politics. She is currently a faculty member in the Writing Program at Wellesley College and teaches first-year writing courses on topics including the problem of lying in politics, the purpose and social function of higher education, and the way that work gets valued and shaped by modern capitalism. She has also taught courses for Yale College, the Warrior-Scholar Project, Chicago’s Odyssey Project, and the GCE Lab School in Chicago.
Joel Alden Schlosser is Chair and Associate Professor of Political Science at Bryn Mawr College, where he has been a faculty member since Fall 2014. Prior to that, he held the Julian Steward Chair in the Social Sciences at Deep Springs College, where his teaching was featured in the CNN Documentary Film Ivory Tower (2014). He has published articles and chapters on topics ranging from ancient figures such as Thucydides, Herodotus, and Euripides to contemporary writers such as James Baldwin, Don DeLillo, Joan Didion, and Claudia Rankine in journals including Political Theory, Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, Theory & Event, Law, Culture, and Humanities, and Raritan. His first book, What Would Socrates Do?, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2014 and was featured in an interview by Andy Fitch in the Los Angeles Review of Books. His second book, Herodotus in the Anthropocene, was published by University of Chicago Press in 2020. His teaching ranges from classic texts like Plato’s Republic to current figures such as Angela Davis. At Deep Springs, he especially loved teaching Public Speaking, one of only two curricular requirements at the college. At Bryn Mawr, he has enjoyed interdisciplinary collaborative courses (called 360 Clusters) as well as first year writing courses, named for Bryn Mawr’s Nobel Prize recipient, Emily Balch. Summer 2023 will be Joel’s third time teaching during Summer Seminar and he’s thrilled to co-lead once more with Lizzie!
Justin Kim received his BA from Yale and his MFA from the American University in Washington, D.C. He currently teaches at Smith College and has previously taught at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, Yale, and Deep Springs College, where he served as dean for three years. He has also taught at both the University of Michigan and Cornell branches of the Telluride Summer Association Program. His seminar teaching focuses on the intersection of art and culture, and the reciprocal relationship between art and historical movements. Previous courses include Modernism Through Modern Art, Archetype and Contemporary Art, and Negative Capability in Art and Culture: Romanticism to the Present. A visual artist, his studio practice is based at The Elizabeth Foundation in New York City. He has exhibited in New York and across the Northeast and his work is included in public and private collections.
