A Puget Sound education isn't something you get. It's something you do. We provide immersive educational experiences, paired with active reflection, that prepare students to be effective global citizens and to engage in meaningful work both during and after their college careers.
Discovering a Passion
"I spent my summer suspended in a tree. As a student researcher in the Woods Lab, I got to collect moss samples, survey bryophyte species, and hang lines in the canopy as part of my fieldwork in the Hoh Rainforest on the Olympic Peninsula. Every day was challenging and exciting.
I worked hard to earn this opportunity. In the spring I took a research class that guided me through writing an extensive grant proposal, guided by professors who genuinely wanted me to succeed. It has been an incredible experience to design my own research project and to learn from biology professor Carrie Woods, an expert in the field of epiphyte community ecology.
Amidst the focus of the work and the adrenaline of the climbing, I felt another emotion—belonging. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life."
McKinley Nevins '18
Extending the Classroom
"This summer I lived and worked with 11 current and former students during a 17-day residency on campus with ARTBARN, an immersive, site-specific theater company I founded in 2013. Many of the students had taken my class on the dramaturgy of sites and site-specific theater, and so this residency was a natural extension of the classroom.
Over the course of those 17 days, we collectively researched, wrote, designed, installed, and performed a new play inspired by the dystopian context of The Handmaid's Tale, imagining a time after outrage and revolt in which apathy has set in. A band of women organize a compassionate resistance, creating a refuge to care for each other and to preserve the stories of the women who came before them. Students were involved in every step of the process, from research and writing, to design and performance, putting an education that emphasizes cross-disciplinary work into action within a professional context. Being so deeply collaborative with my students was incredibly rewarding.
Our students spend a lot of time working in the academic sphere; I don't think we can give them enough opportunities to work in the professional sphere. The learning is so much deeper and faster because it's embodied, and it can only happen in spaces like this."
Jess K. Smith '05, assistant professor, theatre arts