Rochdale College was way ahead of its time.

     The college's curriculum and New Age philosophy were too avant garde for the 1970's.
My personal experience with Rochdale College.
My first impression of Rochdale was negative. Two of my brothers happened to live on the sixth floor of the college in 1970; one night my mother received a frantic phone call from one of my brothers, apparently he was being held against his will, and needed my mother's help to escape. The next morning my mother and I traveled from Brockville, Ontario to Toronto on a Canadian National Railway train. My mother was quite confrontational at Rochdale's front desk, she demanded to see "her boys" and said that she would contact "a higher authority" if her boys were not presented. Suffice to say, my mother, brothers and I trooped back to Union Station to begin the endless train journey to Brockville, the trip was a milk run that stopped at every village, town and city between T.O. and Brockville. I am sure that Rochdale College was more than happy to release "the boys" to their long-suffering mother.

     Only recently have I rediscovered Rochdale, the dream that turned into nightmare. The units were given names:
The Ashram Suites
Franz Kafka Units
Gnostic Chambers
Aphrodite Suites
Zeus Suites
"There are carpets in the halls of each floor...The carpets are yellow-flecked orange, thick and woolly."
"The drapes are beautiful orange, red, orange-yellow striped things, in a fairly heavy material."
College courses
The Sociology of Phenomenology, or the Phenomenology of Sociology
Utopian International Communities - Theoretical and historical treatments.
Contemporary Poetry in Canada
Systematics: The works of J. G. Bennett, Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, I-Ching and Astrology.
Matrix - a corporation established with the aim of researching and developing the geodesic dome as low cost housing.
Designers Co-op - for architectural and interior designers.
The Rochdale Institute for Indian Studies.
Communication, Dance and Liturgy.
Primitive culture and survival skills - Rochdale College owned a 410-acre tract of land in Northern Ontario, where the following skills were taught:
logging
maple tapping
driftwood and soapstone carving
cooking by woodfire
farming
------------------------------------------
History of the free school - Books by Homer Lane, Makarenko.
Modern philosophy and psychiatry.
Drama and community theatre.
Metaphysical and Medieval 19th and 20th century philosophy and sensitivity training.
Photography and film studies
Crafts-leather goods, candles, ceramics, posters.
------------------------------------------
A Canadian science fiction writer named Judith Merril lived at the college, and she also produced documentaries for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
In my opinion, Rochdale was comparable to the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. Esalen is a non-profit retreat that focuses on humanistic and alternative education. Guest teachers who lectured at the Esalen Institute:
Joan Baez
Ray Bradbury
Joseph Campbell
Carlos Castaneda
Deepak Chopra
Richard Feynman
Buckminster Fuller
Abraham Maslow
Linus Pauling
Robert Anton Wilson

Friends of my brothers in Yorkville, Toronto.

One of my brothers during the year 1970.

My stepmother in front of the American pavilion, Expo 67. The geodesic dome was designed by Buckminster Fuller.