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Where the Football Field Is Now a Farm: What an ‘Urban Work College’ Looks Like

From This Week with EdSurge · Hosted by Ira Apfel

January 9, 2018·24:07

Episode summary

In this episode of This Week with EdSurge: When Michael Sorrell took over as president of Paul Quinn College in 2007, the place was nearly broke and faced a possible loss of accreditation. Sorrell wasn’t interested in following the usual playbook for running a college, so he took unusual steps right from the start. He cut the football program, for instance, and turned the playing field into an urban farm.

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Original publisher description

When Michael Sorrell took over as president of Paul Quinn College in 2007, the place was nearly broke and faced a possible loss of accreditation. Sorrell wasn’t interested in following the usual playbook for running a college, so he took unusual steps right from the start. He cut the football program, for instance, and turned the playing field into an urban farm. It's part of a model of a "modern work college," which mixes work-readiness with expanding minds, and at a price that more students could afford. EdSurge recently talked with Sorrell his model, and he shared the roundabout way that this college got into farming.