Using innovative ideas such as extended foreign study, community-based active research, and authentic assessment, a portfolio-based undergraduate learning curriculum was developed which rejected traditional summative grades or the accumulation of credits as the basis of degree completion.

The nationally acclaimed New College would close within seven years under the pretext of financial hardship over the protestations of some of the country's leading academic, political, and social figures of the era.

In reality, the school was closed because the students followed the ideals of the New College program which promoted participation in the creation of a “new social order” at the grassroots classroom level using the Concept of Community as a framework.

The educational philosophies of New College, developed by Alexander, encouraged students to think critically, solve problems, and later, question the ruling hegemony and the status quo of the dominant social structure.

He laid out his curricular philosophy at the opening meeting of the convention of the New York State Association of Teachers College and Normal School Faculties, declaring that more emphasis should be given to the objectives of life and less upon the stereotyped processes of teaching, such as those embracing psychologically scientific methods.

Alexander added, "Young teachers in training should be required to participate actively in some walks of life, and it would be extremely educative for them to pass a semester in a factory, on a farm, or in some industry.

Alexander had the revelation that regardless of culture, social standing, religion and nationality that every person, every human on earth faced the same problems, in varying degrees in his journey down life's path.

In order to expand the breadth and depth of the knowledge that comes with experience, as part of the New College program, Alexander created three required elements.

[6] The persistent problems of living that form the basis of such commonality through relevancy with both student and teacher have been around for most of human history, are trans-generational, and affect everyone on the planet.

They were articulated and defined as the guiding force behind the core curriculum of New College by Dr. Alexander and his first faculty in 1931, then revisited in 1935 by Alexander, Dr. Florence Stratemeyer and Dr. William Scott Gray in the Twenty-third Yearbook of the National Society of College Teachers of Education as the third principle in their work entitled Principles of Curriculum Construction for the Education of Teachers.

[8] In this influential textbook, Stratemeyer states that students develop understandings from facing recurring situations of everyday living, events she called “Persistent Life Situations.” The original problems, as first determined by Dr. Alexander and the New College curriculum planners in 1931 were: In order to develop an effective curriculum pattern for New College, Alexander knew that the nature of society and of the learner had to be considered as critical factors.

For the curriculum to be effective learners of any age must see the relevancy of the instruction to themselves and that in some form or fashion; it will prove of some benefit or forestall some calamity.

To be the most effective and to reach the widest student audience acceptance the curriculum content in any subject must be presented in terms that every person understands.

One of the most innovative aspects of the New College philosophy was the requirement for students to spend a substantial amount of time overseas in a foreign country.

Additionally, the development of an appreciation of another country through foreign study would help the student better understand his own civilization in the mirror of thought of another people.

While direct contact would benefit a further linguistic capability it would also serve to extend studies in literature appreciation, art, human relations, and social and economic problems.

The main work of the eight-month stay, student studies overseas would revolve around the New College curriculum pattern of a Central Seminar.

The remaining three months was spent back at the host country's university where the student would develop and compile the research collected, analyze it and study further.

This phase of study may represent a period of work in a factory or cotton mill, on a farm, in an office, in a department store, or in a building trade.

Its purposes are to develop an effective and functional appreciation and understanding of the economic and social order as related to the problems of living and working together".

[9] The Period of Industry was another major experience of the New College program with the intent of giving the prospective teacher the insight of what a working member of the community went through during the course of his life.

For instance, in consideration of the potentiality of industrial production for individual and social welfare (i.e. making buttons for garments), actual experience in a shop or factory gives a better understanding to the theories of supply and demand.

In many cases, these discussions took a political tone and the general topic of social justice and labor relations overwhelmed specific concerns.

Now here was a program in place where a balance between theory and practice could be achieved resulting in a state of informed action, or praxis as theorized years later by Paolo Freire.

[13] Alexander knew that teachers had to be prepared to participate actively in the communities in which they would work and assume educational leadership so the idea of a New College Camp, a microcosm of society where the Persistent Problems of Living, in the most basic sense, were presented to a group of students in a rural isolated setting who then had to work together and in turn learn from each other.

The initial purpose of the plan was to have all accepted students enroll with the understanding that they would spend three months, June to August, at the Camp so that their suitability to continue at New College could be determined.

[14] The spring of 1933 found Alexander and Dean Russell together on a trip when they began to plan along the lines of setting up such a learning community.

They presented Alexander with the idea to have a community also address the financial difficulties of attending New College in the height of the Great Depression.

Whether or not Alexander knew fully of the Trustees wishes on the matter, he pressed on with the idea of a year-round camp presence as called for in Locke and Taylor's plan.

The place chosen, deep in the Appalachian Mountains in the western part of the state, was a farm of 1,800 acres near the town of Canton, about thirty-five miles southwest of Asheville.