About

This intentionally designed institution aims to provide an optimum college experience. From academics to free-time, we keep questioning the historical beliefs and practices. 

Not much has changed in nearly one-thousand years of higher education.  Blackboards replaced by white-boards and projectors. Pencils and typewriters for buttons and electronic documents. 

Staying in the same place for four years, neither enhances diversity nor accomplishes other institutions marketing claims of students being globally educated.  Even with the advent of long distance travel, and world wide instantaneous communication capabilities, institutions still remain geo-locked. 

The cohort of 64 candidates are organized in eight (8) person groups that will be shuffled around to increase connections with all the cohort members.  This organization is based on the Boy Scouts (I'm an Eagle Scout) model of patrols.  The patrols will occasionally spend time working together academically, in addition to individually or as a cohort.  Patrols set camp together, cook and clean together, budget, set menus, as well as other tasks.  Each candidate will take turns being the patrol leader, who is responsible for assigning and supervising the aforementioned activities.  I personally feel this may be one of the long-lasting memories of candidates.  I have fond and funny memories of getting camp set up in the rain, a breakfast we did not plan for enough milk requiring us to use water for our cereal, hikes together - a scary one where we saw a bear cub, and hanging around a campfire and all that goes with that.

The college, is actually one boutique cohort at a time - synchronous learning for 64 candidates towards a specific degree.  Asynchronous learning is not effective in creating meaningful connections in a degree program, and ignores the power of a group on a mission towards the same ends.

In other institutions your child may be taking classes on a schedule that is not related to other degree candidates.  This practice does not allow for deeper or more complete conversations regarding an individual course or the degree in general.  Additionally, it results in less meaningful relationships in general with their peers.

The MAC strategy affords our candidates the opportunity to belong to an unprecedented, powerful, mastermind consortium.

The cohorts are self-supporting.  The budget is designed in such a way that relies entirely on enrollment.  Many institutions operate in the same manner - and it contributes to the increased closings of colleges and universities because of the large numbers of students they need to enroll.  Unlike other institutions, we only need 64 candidates to be enrolled in a cohort - I can say, and I'm sure you are beginning to understand, that this will be an easily accomplished goal.

The cohorts are self-contained.

Cohort leaders fulfill roles normally ascribed to many different levels of administration and the related supporting employees.  Cohort leaders will rotate, or specialize, in maintaining academic oversight, budget supervision, and other levels of administrative roles.

Cohort leaders lecture, instruct, correct, supervise, advise, and provide support in all matters not otherwise listed.

This significant strategy allows us to operate without unnecessary or excessive staffing costs.

For example, I will reuse a typical Advising Department in other institutions.  There is the Director, the executive secretary, multiple advisors, and other clerical support staff, and even the likelihood of student employment.  Actual time spent with ones advisor (maybe two to three times a semester, maybe), is primarily focused on picking courses, staying on track, and suggestions of experiences or resources.

Meanwhile, our  cohort leaders acting as advisors are continuously interacting with the candidates.

For topics outside the cohort leaders specialization we will outsource lectures, using educators and industry professionals. 

We will utilize consultants to provide the necessary adherence to internal and external standards and requirements.

And we welcome peer reviews and regulatory bodies to scrutinize, or more likely praise, our organization.

Be Amazing. Do Amazing. Kaizen.

A good mission statement should be elaborately concise – on top of mind and tip of tongue. Any need to explain it at length, clouds or distorts the ability to live it on a daily basis.

Our mission isn’t just a statement for employees or candidates – it is a challenge to live up to beyond graduation. 

This is the beginning. There is no ending. Only onward and upward. 

The vision that matters most, is the vision to see each active cohort live up to the challenge.

The program is intelligently designed, and I can see it increasing in quality even as the cohorts progress. 

The college's long-term vision includes special projects working towards national aims.  The projects - Tuition Tribe, The Second Order, and The Learning Hostel, are future endeavors of the MAC, and more still as the financial means allow.

I would not prescribe a definitive vision, as that would limit our imagination. 

The founder earned a Masters of Higher Education Administration degree.

During this process it became very clear, during the course work,  the amount of defects and/or limitations in post-secondary education - and well, that's why the MAC!

Many of our components and strategies will start a new history, but you can’t make history without evolving from it. And our lack of history means we are not beholden to outdated philosophies, the stranglehold of bureaucracy, or as you have learned – time and space.

We don’t have what other schools have when it comes to history, but at least we are not stuck in history. 

When I came to believe that there were many ways  colleges could be working better to educate students, I just kept asking "how else could it be better".  A long the way I decided I didn't just want to design a better college, or otherwise referred to as a tier one institution.

What would make this college amazing?  Obsessively I asked over and over again, "how else can it be amazing?"

Along the way I guess I started to think, If it is going to be amazing, why not just call it the Most Amazing College, this made be think of how other institutions that are more commonly referred to by a shorter reference e.g. University of Pennsylvania as UPENN, and that became - the MAC: the Most Amazing College.

The deal was sealed when I thought back to these two teen rappers in the 90s, Kris Kross, and their song "Jump". 

In the song one line of the song is, "I'm the mac and I'm bad and I'm something that you never had" - no one has had this type of college to attend.

And I like how another lyric is "... I'm the DAWMAC".

The thing about naming the institution the MAC is you have to be DAWMAC.

My name is Jeff. I will be the Founder, President, and Chairperson of the Board of Directors - my official title will be Chief Dreaming Officer.

I am a “jack-of-all, master of none”. I do not have a storied history of post-secondary involvement (although i did attend colleges in my teens, 20s, 30s, and 40s), rather a long list of disparate jobs and endeavors - and I take great solace that in an interview with Steve Jobs (paraphrasing), he said he wished he had hired more Liberal Arts centered employees for their ability to see the complexity and connectivity of life and creativity to continue to build better products.

I have an alphabet soup of seven mental issues.

(P.S.A. - If you suffer from mental illnesses, please utilize all the professional help you can access - with therapy and a medicinal prescriber, your struggles can be mitigated or "cured".)

While many days can be dark and hopeless, at times these mental issues can operate as a blessing for my endeavors, a complete escapism from this time and place - to dream bigger and better - to dream the MAC: The Most Amazing College. 

Most importantly, I hold the vision and ambition to catapult our institution to the top of lists judging colleges and universities.