Our Programs
The Open Academy provides pervasive opportunities for students to build foundations, expand capabilities, and develop mastery of each of our commitments. As a campus-wide initiative, this learning happens across all spheres of the student experience: curricular, co-curricular, and extra-curricular.
Here are just a few of the many opportunities, initiatives, courses, and centers tied to The Open Academy:
The Athenaeum
On any given night during the academic year, the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum serves as an exemplar for how scholars, public figures, thought leaders, artists, and innovators engage with an eager campus audience on a range of important topics and diverse viewpoints. Whether it’s student fellows who are hired each year to steward programming and discussion, or attending students who excitedly socialize and share insights over lunch or dinner multiple times a week, the goal is to encourage life skills including leadership, dialogue, respect, and empathy.
Explore Athenaeum Speakers ios_share
“I want to do everything I can to support the Ath in its crucial mission of promoting constructive dialogue and intellectual curiosity. Many institutions of higher education purport to challenge their students to think critically and engage with ideas on the cutting edge, but the Ath is one place where this is done in practice.”
—Adrian Flynn ’25, Woolley Athenaeum Fellow
Saturday Salons
These small gatherings of faculty and students encourage discussions on topics curated by professors and research institutes. Topics have included criminal justice reform, teaching race and ethnicity in American high schools, the war in Ukraine, cryptocurrency, and the promise/limits of neoliberalism. The informal gatherings, which continue with dinner at a CMC professor’s home or in Claremont Village, help broaden views and create stronger bonding experiences.
Teas and Flipped Ath
The Open Academy has designed programming to take advantage of the Ath’s existing, daily tea time to offer students a more intimate conversation with faculty. To deepen dinner table conversation at the Ath, some Open Academy programs have also featured a “flipped” structure with the main discussion or panel program taking place before dinner. This allows students, faculty, and staff to have conversations about what they just heard while sharing the Ath meal.
Open Dialogue
Open Dialogue is a casual opportunity to gather, connect, and engage in meaningful conversation with others on campus. Join your peers for thoughtful discussions on current controversial topics in a welcoming, respectful, and inclusive environment.
Whether you’re passionate about politics or simply curious, these conversations offer a chance to share ideas, hear different perspectives, and learn from one another. Come grab a snack, connect with others, and be part of the conversation!
Support The Open Academy
We seek strategic, programmatic, and philanthropic partners to advance the promise and potential of The Open Academy. Your partnership and support make this possible. Together, we can overcome what divides us and solve the world’s most challenging problems.