The Right Idea At The Right Time

The right idea (no matter how small) at the right time (no matter how difficult)—is still the right idea at the right time.

The “right idea” of Monticello College has something in common with many long-standing institutions of higher education such as Yale, Harvard, William and Mary, Hillsdale, Brigham Young University, Southern Utah University, and Thomas Aquinas College.

Monticello College shares a common beginning history with all of these institutions of higher education. All of these institutions started small, began virtually unknown, were supported only by a small group of enthusiasts, and faced plenty of distracters.

Take Harvard for instance, founded 1636, Harvard or the New College as it was first named, struggled right from the beginning and even temporarily closed its doors more than once during its first three decades.

Like those named above, it began under trying times, with only one mentor (professor) and 10 students.  Faced with constant financial uncertainty, but determined to fulfill its mission, Harvard’s leadership finally stabilized its financial base with small monthly donations from individuals and families who supported the school’s mission.

That is precisely what we are asking the supporters of Monticello College to do now.  We have stabilized our monthly overhead and salaries, but we still need help with building the actual campus, keeping in sync with our no-debt building plan. Over the next 6 years, we intend to build enough facilities to house and provide all academic needs for 128 students and 3 mentor families on campus.

This building plan consists of 4 phases:

Phase One (completed)

Purchase of 43 acres of undeveloped land

Phase Two (first building 95% completed)

The John Adams Village (construction began spring 2012)

The John Adams Village is designed to meet the full residential needs of up to 64 students and one resident mentor family.  

Phase Three

The Abigail Adams Village (Scheduled to begin spring of 2015)
The Abigail Adams Village is designed to meet the full residential needs of up to 64 students and one resident mentor family.  Once both villages are completed, all male students will reside at JAV and all female students here at AAV. 

Phase Four 

Monticello College Administration Building

One mentor residence
(Scheduled to begin spring of 2017)

Our curriculum is in place, the campus property is completely paid for, three mentors are currently teaching classes and three more are in training. The administration and faculty have been carefully selected and are men and women who have dedicated their adult lives to be instruments in the fulfillment of our mission:

Monticello College is dedicated to cultivating an education and environment that foster public virtue, induce moral character, and emulate the courage and foresight of the American founding period, preparing our graduates to guard the principles of liberty. 

Help us to establish a training ground for public virtue, moral character, courage, and foresight to guard the principles of liberty.

Liberty is our legacy.

Our initial funding goal or level one of this campaign is to secure 100 individuals or families who support Monticello College and are willing to donate $25 per month for 24 months.

We currently have $525 in monthly donations and we intend to increase that by January 1, 2013 to $3,025 per month.  This will completely fund one of the student cabins, which houses 16 students.

To join our monthly donation campaign, please go to Robert Morris Foundation. For other donations and to keep up with the Monticello Campus Building Project, go to Campus Building Project.*

 

 

 

* All donations to this campaign will be indentified as Robert Morris Foundation/MC contributions.  The Robert Morris Foundation is a 501 (c) (3) philanthropic organization that has partnered with Monticello College. Funds raised via this campaign may only be use to develop the campus of Monticello College.

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Krislyn Elliott & Lauren Swanepoel

Krislyn Elliott and Lauren Swanepoel act more like sisters than moms as they take really slow walks through the woods together, looking at and taking pictures of every plant they see & wishing they could remember their names and uses more thoroughly. They also like concocting herbal teas, salves, tinctures and strange drinks.

Krislyn is from Utah and has loved learning about plants since an unusually cool high school biology teacher took his classes on neighborhood botany walks. She has always been fascinated and constantly amazed at the power and beauty of plants.

Lauren is from South Africa, she and her family emigrated to Utah almost 10 years ago. They have fallen in love with the area and know more about this state & the great places to explore here than most Utah natives.

We both feel strongly about taking care of our families with natural methods and the abundant medicine we have growing right around us. We are trying to learn as much as we can about our magical local plants and are looking forward to sharing some of our favorites with you.

William DeMille

Director of Georgic Develeopment

William DeMille is a lifelong vegetable farmer. He studied Horticulture and Agronomy at Northwest Missouri University, Maryville. He holds a certificate in aquaponic engineering and production from Cornell University, NY, and another from GrowHaus Aquaponics in Denver, CO. He also studied soil regeneration and is a graduate of Dr. Elaine’s Soil Food Web School. He is the Director of Georgic Development for The Center for American Legacy Studies.

William is a farm consultant establishing several agricultural startups since 2005 in Missouri, Oregon, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada and he currently manages 2500 acres of grassland for the Ruby Mountain Foods Company.

His latest venture is a market gardening school called Georgic Revolution where he teaches a 17-week course onsite in Nevada covering soil health and vegetable production without the use of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, etc. and where he operated a soil lab.

William lives with his wife Vernie in the snow capped mountains of Northern Nevada.

Lloyd Nelson

World Renown BD Expert

Lloyd Nelson has been practicing the art of Biodynamic (BD) Agriculture for over twenty years. He is a BD preparation maker, builder, artist, farmer, arborist, BD educator & consultant. He is co-founder of Biodynamic Source – a Colorado based non-profit specializing in high potency BD preparations – and he owns and operates a Biodynamic spray, fertilizer and consultation service. He has worked with small and large scale farms, vineyards, and orchards to transition to sustainable Biodynamic land management and Demeter BD Certification.

Vern Cox, PhD

Educator

Vern Cox is married to Joyce Christensen and they have 8 children. He has 3 earned degrees, a BA in psychology, and both a Master’s degree and a Ph.D. in marriage and family therapy.

He has had a diverse and interesting career that started with the Bureau of Land Management, followed by a stint as a Learning Disabilities teacher, and finally a marriage and family therapist, working his way up to executive director of the High Country Counseling and Resource Centers that served two counties in Wyoming.

Dr. Cox served for several years on the board of a charter school. Dr. Cox remains heavily involved in his community and the home schooling movement.

He has extensive background in marriage and family counseling, having held a number of administrative positions during his first career. He holds a BA in Psychology and both a Masters and PhD in Marriage and Family Therapy. He lives with his wife and several married children on their multi-generation farm in Southern Utah.

Joseph Lofthouse

Educator

Joseph adopted the principles of landrace gardening in response to the harsh growing conditions in a high-altitude, short-season, desert garden. Instead of relying on expensive poisons, labor, and materials to coddle the plants, he encourages genetic diversity, cross-pollination, and survival of the fittest, allowing the plants to adapt themselves to the current and ever-changing ecosystem, thus simplifying gardening and seed saving. Joseph is the author of Landrace Gardening: Food Security Through Biodiversity and Promiscuous Pollination. Joseph loves eating, farming, swimming, hot-springs, sunbathing, bird-watching, running, yoga, leggings, kilts, playing guitar, singing, and living habitually barefoot.

Dan Brooks

Educator

Dan Brooks was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. During his first career, he spent 20 years working in and managing high-end restaurants and golf courses including extensive banquet/special events services and ice sculptures.

For the past 23 years, Dan has been a successful entrepreneur and family business owner in Las Vegas. He and his wife have 4 children and 11 grandchildren. He serves as a trustee for The Center for American Legacy Studies.

Shanon Brooks, PhD

Director

Shanon Brooks is the director of The Center for American Legacy Studies, an institution dedicated to helping families embrace and incorporate the Five American Ideals; Georgics, Liber, Providence, Public Virtue, and Liberty into their lives and communities. America exists because of Americans. Americans are the beneficiaries of a peculiar culture and way of living.

Over the past 75 years, that culture and way of life have been lost. Restore that culture and Americans will rebuild America to once again be worthy of John Winthrop’s 1630 admonition, “For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.”

Brooks has been a leader in alternative higher education for over 30 years, and is the author of two books: AMERICAN: Killing the American Dream and A Thomas Jefferson Education for Teens.

Dr. Brooks is a veteran of military service in the United States Submarine Fleet and holds a Bachelor’s degree in business administration, a Master’s degree in education, and a Ph.D. in constitutional law.

He and his wife Julia reside on the 80-acre conference facility of The Center for American Legacy Studies.