And now for something completely different

Our car insurer, USAA, junk-mails us a magazine for teens that gets pitched in the recycling. (Our teen doesn't drive yet, something for which everyone on the road should shower us with thanks.) But I glanced at the cover this month on the way to the bin, and the feature "Quirky Colleges" caught my eye. So USAA, of all things, gets credit for this post, not to mention for replacing the window that a smash-n-grab thief broke on the Caravan just last month.

Most colleges made the list for some goofy tradition or other (and they left out the Juniata College scholarship for left-handers). But some are genuinely unusual.

Deep Springs College, Deep Springs, Calif.

Deep Springs is an all-male liberal arts college located on a cattle-ranch and alfalfa farm in California’s High Desert. Electrical pioneer L.L. Nunn founded the school in 1917 on the three pillars of academics, labor, and self-governance in order to help young men prepare themselves for lives of service to humanity. The school's 26 students, along with its staff and faculty, form a close community engaged in this intense project.

Deep Springs operates on the belief that manual labor and political deliberation are integral parts of a comprehensive liberal arts education.

Each student attends for two years and receives a full scholarship valued at over $50,000 per year. Afterwards, most complete their degrees at the world's most prestigious four year institutions.

(In other words, it's free. But undoubtedly weird.)

Bard College at Simon's Rock, Great Barrington, Mass.

No other college in the country does what we do.

We’re a small, selective, supportive, intensive college of the liberal arts and sciences in the middle of the Berkshires, one of the nation’s cultural and natural treasures. All of our 400 students come to us after 10th or 11th grade in high school. We give them a broad-minded, paradigm-shifting education; faculty trained in the country’s best universities; inspired and inspiring classes; first-class facilities for the sciences, the arts, and athletics; and an astonishing range of opportunities for conducting specialized research and gaining hands-on experience. We offer 43 concentrations, many of them interdisciplinary; our academic program leads to an A.A. or a B.A.

Simon’s Rock was founded by Elizabeth Blodgett Hall in 1966. In 1979 we became part of Bard College (established in 1860), one of the country’s outstanding (and most innovative) liberal arts colleges, located 50 miles away, in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.

(I have a young relative who attended Simon's Rock, after what the family viewed as dropping out of high school. He's in med school at Columbia University now.)

College of the Atlantic, Bar Harbor, Maine

COA is a small school, but with a major difference — literally. All students major in Human Ecology, the study of our relationship with our environment. This major gives you the flexibility to design your own course of study. It's all about creativity, investigation, engagement, and community.

As a COA student, you work closely with faculty, take interdisciplinary classes, explore your own creative work, and immerse yourself in a diverse community of learners to discover and pursue your passions. You also complete independent study projects and internships, participate in campus life, and have unique opportunities to study abroad.

Before graduating, all seniors create an original project that represents the culmination of their work here. It might be a novel or a scientific research paper. An art show or a new non-profit. It's up to you, as you can see from these senior projects.

Ultimately, our mission is not only to understand our relationships with our environment, but also to do something to improve them. A degree in Human Ecology enables you to make a difference, in your own way, whether you love science or the arts, education, public policy, or any other field.

University of Redlands Johnston Center for Integrative Studies, Redlands, Calif.

In 1969, a group of faculty members created an alternative learning environment at the University—a true living-learning community where students would be responsible for their own education.

Today, some 200 talented and passionate Redlands students live and learn together in the Johnston complex, which includes two residence halls and a number of faculty offices. Students can design their own majors in consultation with faculty, and they write contracts for their courses and receive narrative evaluations in lieu of traditional grades. It’s innovative, challenging and inspiring.

St. John's College, Annapolis, Md.

St. John's College is a co-educational, four year liberal arts college known for its distinctive "great books" curriculum.

* The all-required course of study is based on the reading, study, and discussion of the most important books of the Western tradition. There are no majors and no departments; all students follow the same program.
* Students study from the classics of literature, philosophy, theology, psychology, political science, economics, history, mathematics, laboratory sciences, and music. No textbooks are used. The books are read in roughly chronological order, beginning with ancient Greece and continuing to modern times.
* All classes are discussion-based. There are no class lectures; instead, the students meet together with faculty members (called tutors) to explore the books being read.