Pilot Program Revives 1960s Experimental College at SF State

KQED (SAN FRANCISCO) -- The pilot program is expanding rapidly, as there are currently 24 students slated to teach Experimental College classes in the spring. “It’s really directly empowering the students to study, or to gain knowledge or expertise, in areas that simply are not offered at SF State,” said Ray Larios, a student teacher this semester of “Cybersecurity, World Affairs and Social Implications in the Digital World.” His course will be used as a framework to develop a class in the International Relations Department. When Ex Co began 52 years ago, it was in the midst of the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War and a few years shy of the campus strike of 1968. “The students were the only ones on campus who really had thought deeply about pedagogy because professors had never thought about how they teach, and not just what you teach, but how you teach,” said Kathy Emery, a faculty coordinator for the program and lecturer in the Political Science Department.