What does it mean to inhabit a place well? And what approaches to education might best enable young people to grapple with this question for themselves—on Martha’s Vineyard or anywhere? These issues are never far from the surface of debates over the Island’s past, present, and future.

Since its founding in 2022, the Gull Island Institute has placed the first question at the center of an innovative approach to undergraduate liberal arts learning. Programs by this Falmouth-based educational nonprofit organization, which have run on islands in Buzzards Bay and campuses across the Northeast, train students to take responsibility for their communities and the places that sustain them, through a place-based liberal arts curriculum, physical labor, and self-governance. A model that seeks to reinvent higher education during this time of crisis for American universities and democracy, it has taken root here and is catching on across the nation. 

Join Gull Island Institute Co-Executive Directors and Co-Founders Ana Isabel Keilson and Justin Reynolds, along with Alexandra Styron and Juli Vanderhoop, for a conversation about the organization, the state, and future of American higher education, and what it might mean to inhabit a place well.

Space is limited; please RSVP to secure your spot.