Jacob Hundt Receives Award for Master’s Thesis
On June 10, 2005, YIHS graduate and current faculty member Jacob Hundt was awarded the Earl S. and Esther Johnson Prize by the University of Chicago for his Master’s thesis paper entitled “Potluck Schools: Alternative Education and Civil Society in Viroqua, Wisconsin.” The Johnson Prize is awarded annually to that student in the University of Chicago’s Master of Arts Program in the Social Sciences (MAPSS) whose paper “best combines high scholarly achievement with concern for humanistic aspirations and the practical applications of the Social Sciences.” Jacob was one of three 2005 winners of this award, each of whom will receive $1000.
MAPSS is a one-year interdisciplinary program of graduate studies at the University of Chicago leading to an M.A. degree in the Social Sciences. In addition on taking an array of courses, all MAPSS students are required to complete a thesis paper that advances scholarly research in the social sciences. Jacob completed his course work and 70 page thesis and received his M.A. in June, 2004 before moving back to Viroqua to teach history, English, Earth science, and social studies at the Youth Initiative High School.
“Potluck Schools,” the paper for which Jacob received the Johnson’ Prize, consists of a comparative history of six private and charter schools in the Viroqua area, including Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School, the Cornerstone Christian Academy, the Youth Initiative High School, the Kickapoo River Institute, the Better Futures High School charter, and the Laurel High School charter. These comparative histories, which are based on interviews with founding parents, teachers, and administrators of the six schools, on archival research, and on personal experience, draw attention to the unusual educational diversity of Viroqua and outline some of the ways in which the schools have interacted to foster a vibrant civic and cultural environment in Viroqua.
Jacob is an alumnus of Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School andas one of the eleven founding students at the Youth Initiative High School, from which he graduated in 1998.