The Road Less Travelled: L.L. Nunn and the Birth of the Nunnian Microcollege

Abstract

This paper examines the historical roots of the microcollege movement focusing on the establishment of the first microcollege institutions: the Telluride Institute (1891), the Telluride Association (1910), and the Deep Springs College (1917). These microcollege-type institutions were founded by the eccentric Gilded Age energy tycoon L.L. Nunn. While Nunn’s educational ventures often reflected broad trends in higher education at the time, his core educational principles evolved over his career. This paper argues that the concurrent application of Nunn’s four primary principles of education (self-government, intellectual and academic rigor, physical work, and societal isolation), which evolved gradually to receive full expression at Deep Springs College, represents not only a divergence from higher education trends of the time, but also provides an opportunity for scholars of higher education today to reconsider the fundamental principles of higher education in a modern democratic setting.