World College West

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World College West was an undergraduate liberal arts college in Marin County, California. Founded by Dr. Richard M. Gray, it offered a unique program that integrated a grounding in the liberal arts with a required two-semester "World Study" period in a developing country. It opened with its first seven students on September 17, 1973.

Fully accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, World College West had programs in International Studies, Environmental Studies, Arts, and "Meaning, Culture, and Change". Study programs were established in China, Mexico, Nepal, and Russia. The college placed a special emphasis on work-study, where all students learned about the world of work, because the founders of the college believed that learning occurred best as "disciplined reflection on experience."

During its first few years, it leased space on the campus of the San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo, followed by several years in surplus army barracks at Fort Cronkhite on the Pacific Ocean. In the early 1980s the college moved to a permanent campus off U.S. Highway 101 in the rolling hills of northern Marin County, between Novato and Petaluma (now the home of the Institute of Noetic Sciences).

World College West closed due to inadequate funding in 1992 due to difficulties in succession after its founding president retired. The spirit of WCW lives on in Dick Gray's successor institution Presidio World College[1], and in the hundreds of WCW alumni ("Westies") who continue to help change the world as "reasonable adventurers."