What educational opportunities are there for my children at Deep Springs?

Deep Springs’ faculty and staff members generally send their children to public schools in the Bishop Unified School District, located about one hour from campus. Deep Springs and Bishop are both located in Inyo County, so school tuition is free.

Although Deep Springs’ students may offer to tutor children in some subjects, this is not expected of students, and student tutoring should not be treated as a substitute for accredited schooling.

What is my relationship to the labor pillar?

Faculty: Deep Springs’ faculty members are encouraged but not obligated to participate in labor at the college. Students often spend more than twenty hours each week laboring around the campus, and faculty who educate themselves in the labor aspect of students’ lives often find the work to be illuminating and rewarding. Students generally welcome faculty involvement.

Occasionally faculty or staff will cook a meal for the community, screen a movie, or organize a festive event. Again, such involvement is encouraged but not obligatory.

Staff: For staff members, participating in the labor pillar is an integral part of the job. The dining operations manager oversees student cooking and cleaning, the garden manager oversees student labor in the garden, the mechanic teaches the student assistants, the ranch manager is responsible for student work on the ranch and recreational horseback riding, the bookkeeper oversees student office work, and the farm manager directs students as they irrigate, maintain, and harvest the college’s alfalfa fields. Not only do staff maintain the college, they enable student success in the labor pillar. Staff are expected to help students learn to do their jobs well and to provide constructive feedback where applicable.

What sort of internet access is available at the college?

Deep Springs has a wireless network available in staff/faculty homes and offices, but due to our remote location, our internet access is slow by modern standards and occasionally unreliable. Email, web browsing, and audio-only services like Skype are generally not an issue. However, bandwidth-heavy activities such as downloading and uploading large files, streaming video, or using cloud backup services may not be possible from campus.

How will my application be reviewed?

The Curriculum Committee (CurCom), made of student and faculty members as well as the Dean, handles all faculty applications. For staff, generally speaking, an ad-hoc committee of several students and community members will participate in reading applications, then invite finalists out to conduct interviews on campus. That committee will then make their recommendation to the Operations Manager and the college President for hiring. Just as with student applicants, experience shows that it’s important to find individuals who feel a good “fit” with the college, its methods, and its goals.