[2] Pitkin held a number of teaching positions and headmasterships at various places in New England before being invited to become the Director of Goddard Junior College (an outgrowth of the earlier Seminary) in 1935.

As a result, a conference was held in New York City under the chairmanship of Dr. William Heard Kilpatrick to design a radically different approach to education for this new college.

The campus was moved from Barre to Greatwood Farm in Plainfield, Vermont, that year and Pitkin remained as president of the college until his retirement in 1969.

At Columbia University’s Teachers College Pitkin had studied with Dr. William Heard Kilpatrick, who followed John Dewey’s progressive education philosophy.

Pitkin created an institution in which the students had a great deal of responsibility for maintaining the campus and for developing policies that directly affected their lives through community government and a daily work program.

[2] Pitkin wrote on various aspects of education and conservation in The Saturday Review, Parents Magazine, The Nation’s Schools, The NEA Journal, and The New York Times.