Background on Dwight William Allen
Dwight W. Allen in hot air balloon, ca. 1973
Dwight William Allen was born in Stockton, California in 1931, a son of John and Valera Allen. While his parents were not professional educators (his father ran a car business in San Francisco), they were committed proponents of the Baha’i Faith, a spiritual philosophy that would critically inform their son’s approach to his work in education. The Baha’i Faith, founded in Persia in the nineteenth century, centers on a belief in the fundamental unity and inherent value of all human beings, and a consequent embrace of cultural and racial diversity.
As a young man, Allen enrolled at Stanford University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in History with Honors in Humanities in 1953, and master and doctoral degrees in Education in 1957 and 1959, respectively. While at Stanford Allen married classmate Carole Swall, with whom he raised a family of three sons and two daughters. After earning his doctorate, Allen transitioned from the role of student to that of instructor at his triple alma mater, serving as Assistant Professor of Education at Stanford from 1962 to 1965, and as Associate Professor from 1965 to 1967.
From the earliest days of his work in the field of education Allen was committed to a socially progressive perspective on teaching and learning. While at Stanford, he spoke and wrote of the need to view education as a vehicle for students’ holistic development as human beings, and as a resource grounded in mindful learning outcomes tailored to the needs and strengths of individual pupils. Allen’s opposition to a one-size-fits-all approach to education was critically linked to his commitment to combating institutional racism and the marginalization of socioeconomically underprivileged students. Allen asserted that many K-12 teachers throughout the United States were not attuned to the specific challenges facing racial minority and impoverished students, and did not understand how to revise their approaches to help these children meet their potential.
Another integral component of Allen’s educational philosophy was his belief that learning should, quite simply, be a source of enjoyment, creativity, and discovery, rather than an uninspiring chore that stripped young people of their natural curiosity. To realize this vision, Allen committed himself to helping teachers develop curriculum that could truly resonate with students and connect to their lives outside the classroom. While at Stanford, he pursued his overarching philosophical goals in his own research and teaching, and through his innovative work as the developer of Microteaching Clinics. Microteaching is a program concept which encourages educators to critically reflect on their approaches to instruction by viewing video footage of their own classroom teaching.
After several years at Stanford, Allen decided that he needed a new challenge, as he believed his educational philosophy had the potential to make a more significant impact elsewhere. This conviction led Allen to accept the position of Dean of the School of Education at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Amherst in 1968. For the next seven years, Allen pursued a vision that placed UMass on the map as a premier institution for the training of innovative, socially progressive educators. Allen mounted an energetic campaign to recruit faculty and graduate students who shared his commitment to promoting a “humanistic” approach to education and to combating institutional racism and barriers to the success of low-income students. Allen also sought to cultivate a culturally and ethnically diverse student body, hoping it would begin to compensate for the overall lack of diversity at UMass Amherst. In his first year the size of the faculty at the School of Education more than doubled, the school catalog and constitution were revised, a “planning year” in partnership with doctoral students was declared, and the school moved to a non-departmental structure of clusters and centers around common interests.
Under Allen’s leadership, the UMass School of Education implemented several specific programs and policies in an effort to achieve its overarching goals. For example, the School promoted “reality-based education” experiences such as internships and fieldwork for their undergraduate and graduate students in order to encourage these prospective instructors to meaningfully connect educational theory and practice. Allen encouraged doctoral students to make hands-on work a key component of their studies, and to facilitate this goal and promote his overall support of open curriculum, he terminated course requirements for doctoral students, requiring only that these scholars produce a dissertation.
Allen also oversaw the development of several specific institutions within the School of Education, including a Human Relations Center (to train future educators in providing humanistic counseling support to students), a Center for International Education (to promote thinking about teaching in a global perspective), and a Center for Urban Education (to prompt thinking about the unique challenges and opportunities of instruction in urban settings). Under Allen’s leadership, the School of Education also became known for hosting biannual, week-long “Marathon” sessions in which educators, graduate students, and others from within and outside of UMass were invited to deliver lectures and presentations on any aspect of their philosophy of education. During Marathon Weeks, all classes were cancelled in the School of Education to provide faculty and students with the opportunity to attend the sessions, an administrative decision that highlighted Allen’s belief in the value of learning experiences outside of the traditional classroom.
In reflecting on the intellectual and psychological landscape of the UMass School of Education during Allen’s tenure, Juan Caban, a School of Education faculty member under Allen, drew a connection between the School’s emphasis on humanistic education and the spirit of progressive activism that shaped many social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Caban noted that he saw a clear parallel between the principles and idealism found in Allen’s School of Education and those which motivated many social activists during that same period. In Caban’s view, in the years following Allen’s departure in 1975 the spirit of daring and of unlimited possibility at the School of Education began to diminish, partly as a result of Allen’s absence and also partly because of society’s move away from the ideals found in the activism of the previous decades.
Caban was one member of a substantial group of individuals within the School of Education who viewed Allen’s leadership and philosophy with great admiration and respect. Allen’s bold innovations inspired the fierce loyalty and passionate approval of many faculty and students. At the same time, his innovations also served to alienate him from some in the educational community, who believed that he had gone too far or that his vision for enlightened education did not leave room for those who did not concur with his ideas. For example, while many applauded Allen’s championship of the idea that education in its purest form could not be quantified, some opposed his decision to dismantle the existing School of Education grading system in favor of a Pass/Fail method of evaluation. Allen also received criticism for requiring only a dissertation and no set coursework from his doctoral students, as his detractors contended that this lack of fixed requirements diminished the degree.
In 1975, after eight years in the position of Dean at the UMass School of Education, Allen resigned during a financial scandal at the School of Education. He would go on to work as a UNESCO Policy Advisor in Africa, and in 1978 as University Professor for Urban Education and Eminent Scholar for Education Reform at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. Allen served in this position until 2008, and then held the post of Eminent Scholar Emeritus at Old Dominion, where he remained committed to innovative education. He is the author of nine books about educational theory and practice, has participated in a number of initiatives in the areas of International Education Reform, and also focused on the power of technology to transform the educational landscape. Allen died October 16, 2021 at the age of 90.
