Where we are

For the MFAIA-WA, we gather twice a year, at the start of each semester, where students attend an intensive eight-day residency at the Goddard College, Port Townsend, Washington campus. Residencies are a rich time of exploration, connection, and planning.

The Port Townsend, Washington campus is the traditional home of the Hoh, Quileute, Jamestown S'klallam, Port Gamble S'klallam, Makah, Quinault, and Lower Elwha Klallam and is located at the edge of Puget Sound in Fort Worden State Park and nearby the town of Port Townsend.

We acknowledge we are visitors to the Quimper Peninsula:

Words from the S'Klallam People

Acknowledgement of Land in Port Townsend
The land that we know as Port Townsend was once a thriving village of the nəxʷsƛ̕ay̕əm̕ ("new-skl-eye-emm"), or S'Klallam, People. The name of the S'Klallam village was called qatáy ("kuh-tai"), which was a word that originated from the Chimacum Tribe, and was adopted by the S'Klallam. There are S'Klallam citizens that still reference Port Townsend by its original name to this day. The S'Klallam's infamous chief, čičməhán ("cheech-muh-hann"), or Chetzemoka, was born in qatáy in 1808. We take a moment to acknowledge the land that we hold events on once belonged to the S'Klallam People, and that the three S'Klallam/Klallam Tribal Governments still have ties to this area. This acknowledgement is a respect to the S'Klallam People and their history.

*Permission by the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe to Goddard College to use at educational events.

The MFAIA program is committed to acting as accomplices in Indigenous resurgence and the return of Indigenous people to their land. In support of the revitalization of Indigenous language and culture, we honor the present day S'Klallam/Klallam Tribes from whom we continue to learn how to be in right relationship with the land that is their home.

For information about Goddard College located in Plainfield Vermont, please visit https://www.goddard.edu/  

For more information about the MFAIA, please visit
https://www.goddard.edu/academics/mfa-interdisciplinary-arts/ 

*   *   *

Who we are

The Goddard of today took shape in earnest in 1938, when a group of educators led by Royce "Tim" Pitkin proposed a Vermont "College for Living" to be located on a Plainfield sheep farm purchased from the Martin family. This new college would provide the environment for students and faculty together to build a democratic community featuring plenty of the "plain living and hard thinking" espoused in Goddard's early mission. The aims were far-reaching, radical. These aims still influence and, with some change in nomenclature and practice, aptly describe Goddard to this day. The original, 1938 Goddard College catalog described them this way:

• Education for real living, through the actual facing of real life problems as an essential part of the educational program.
• The study of vocation as part of living rather than as something different and an end in itself.
• The integration of the life of the College with the life of the community, and the consequential breaking down of the barriers that separate school from real life 
  

Contact an Admissions Counselor  https://www.goddard.edu/admissions/contact-admissions/