Sterling College

“Concern for the environment is central to everything we do—how we teach, how we evolve, and how we live. Sterling strives for sustainability and community is vital. Environmental stewardship combined with innovative academics help students learn how they can make positive differences in the world and our environment.”— John Zaber (’85), Dean of Students

To understand Sterling College you may have to suspend some of your ideas about higher education, about how people learn, and how communities function. There is no other college quite like Sterling.

To begin with, almost all academics at Sterling combine theory and practice. Here, as elsewhere, traditional academics employ books and computers, writing and thinking, classrooms and labs, pop quizzes and essay questions. At Sterling, that amounts to half an education. The other half is experiential academics, the “practice” in theory and practice.

Lifelong learners benefit from doing what they study, and from experiencing what they are taught and what they are thinking. At Sterling we use experiences like hiking and observation, journal keeping and reflection, group dynamics and public speaking, as well as plain hard work.

Sterling is one of only seven Work-Learning-Service colleges in the nation. Those three words define how Sterling views the world close by and far away, how we judge ourselves and how we wish to be judged by others.

Visit About Sterling on our website.