A College Without Walls

A College Without Walls: The International College Model, the Hewitt-Gleeson/de Bono Collaboration, and the Origins of Applied Lateral Thinking

Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson de Saint-Arnaud
School of Thinking, Melbourne
michael@schoolofthinking.org

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Abstract

This paper examines the International College (Los Angeles, 1970–1986) as an experimental model of higher education, emphasizing its tutor-scholar design and influence on practice-based doctoral learning. Drawing upon the author’s doctoral project conducted under the tutorship of Dr Edward de Bono, it outlines how a large-scale cognitive training intervention—spanning 24 New York hospitals and 40,000 employees—became one of the earliest real-world applications of lateral thinking in organizational settings. It also situates the co-authored Learn-To-Think: Coursebook and Instructor’s Manual (1982) within this intellectual lineage, arguing that the International College approach anticipated later developments in distributed supervision, applied cognition, and innovation education.

1. Introduction

During the 1970s and early 1980s, higher education underwent a subtle yet profound metamorphosis. Dissatisfaction with the bureaucratic rigidity of campus universities gave rise to alternative, human-centred models of learning. Among the most radical of these was International College, founded in Los Angeles in 1970 by Linden G. Leavitt. Its motto, In Vestigiis Institutorum Antiquorum (“in the footsteps of the ancients”), encapsulated its purpose: to revive the Socratic and Oxbridge traditions of individual mentorship within a modern, global framework.

Rather than classrooms, timetables, and standardized curricula, the College offered individualized tutorial relationships between a scholar and an expert tutor, leading to a degree through demonstrated mastery and original contribution. The model was minimalist, transnational, and non-bureaucratic—an intellectual apprenticeship “without walls.”

It was within this environment that Dr Edward de Bono and Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson de Saint-Arnaud collaborated on one of the most ambitious practice-based doctorates of the era: the application of lateral-thinking methodology to large-scale institutional training in healthcare.

2. The International College Tutorial System

The International College system paired each student with a single tutor—an established authority in the student’s field. The tutor designed a bespoke program of reading, experimentation, and production, and ultimately judged whether the student had achieved the intellectual objectives.

There were no departments, no permanent faculty, and no physical classrooms. The “college” existed as a network of private scholarly partnerships across the world. Students and tutors interacted by correspondence, telecommunication, and face-to-face consultation when possible. The result was a genuinely distributed form of doctoral supervision—decades ahead of the online, distance, and professional-practice doctorates that would later become mainstream.

The structure was simple yet demanding:

  • The student proposed a real-world project or research question;
  • The tutor guided methodological design and critical analysis;
  • Progress was assessed through the tangible results of applied work;
  • The final dissertation or project report served as both evidence and artifact of mastery.

3. Edward de Bono and the Lateral Thinking Paradigm

By the late 1970s, Edward de Bono was already internationally renowned as the originator of Lateral Thinking—a discipline that reframed creativity as a cognitive process that could be taught, practiced, and measured. His books (The Mechanism of Mind, Lateral Thinking, Six Thinking Hats) had introduced systematic methods for idea generation and conceptual flexibility.

De Bono’s central claim—that thinking could be improved through deliberate training—placed him at the intersection of psychology, philosophy, and education. Within the International College model, this orientation found an ideal proving ground: a doctoral framework where “thinking about thinking” could be operationalized through direct experimentation rather than confined to theory.

4. The Hewitt-Gleeson/de Bono Doctoral Project

Under de Bono’s tutorship, Michael Hewitt-Gleeson undertook a major field project across 24 hospitals in New York City, involving approximately 40,000 staff members at all levels of the healthcare system.

The project’s purpose was to test whether structured cognitive training, based on lateral-thinking principles, could measurably enhance organizational performance, communication, and innovation in complex, high-pressure environments. The work was not limited to classroom exercises; it was an immersive, system-wide cognitive intervention.

Consultation with de Bono occurred through the International College’s method of sustained one-to-one dialogue—by correspondence, telephone, and in-person meetings. This iterative mentorship replaced the committee structure typical of conventional universities.

Methodologically, the project combined:

  • Experimental design: development of training modules rooted in de Bono’s thinking tools;
  • Implementation: coordinated rollout across hospital departments;
  • Measurement: analysis of performance indicators, qualitative feedback, and organizational outcomes.

The approach was empirical and applied—a true field laboratory in cognitive design. Its success provided practical evidence that “thinking as a skill” could be taught at scale, long before the widespread adoption of cognitive-skills programs in corporate or medical education.

5. The Learn-To-Think Collaboration (1982)

The intellectual partnership between Hewitt-Gleeson and de Bono culminated not only in the doctoral project but also in a co-authored text:
Learn-To-Think: Coursebook and Instructor’s Manual (New York: Price Stern Sloan, 1982, ISBN 978-0-88496-199-4).

This work codified the thinking curriculum that had been field-tested during the New York hospitals project. Designed as both a learner’s manual and a facilitator’s guide, it presented step-by-step cognitive exercises grounded in de Bono’s lateral-thinking framework, enriched by Hewitt-Gleeson’s applied research in organizational cognition.

The Learn-To-Think project extended the reach of the International College philosophy: it translated individualized tutoring into a replicable, scalable educational program. Schools, corporations, and training institutes adopted the manual in multiple countries, and it remains one of the earliest structured curricula for teaching creative and critical thinking as distinct, trainable skills.

6. Methodological Innovations

Several methodological features distinguished the Hewitt-Gleeson/de Bono collaboration:

  1. Applied Cognition at Scale – Instead of a laboratory study or theoretical dissertation, the project was implemented across tens of thousands of participants in real operational environments.
  2. Distributed Mentorship – The supervisory relationship was continuous, dialogic, and remote—a forerunner of modern digital supervision.
  3. Practice-Based Doctoral Structure – The “thesis” was embodied in measurable change within an organization rather than confined to a written manuscript.
  4. Integration of Thinking Tools and Systems Theory – The research combined de Bono’s cognitive design methods with Hewitt-Gleeson’s systems perspective on organizational learning.

These methodological innovations prefigured later paradigms in design thinking, knowledge management, and cognitive coaching, positioning the work as an early form of applied cognitive science in the workplace.

7. Impact and Legacy

Though International College ceased operations in 1986, its pedagogical DNA persisted. The model anticipated:

  • Individualized, competency-based doctoral programs,
  • Remote supervision and networked learning,
  • Practice-led research methodologies, and
  • Cross-disciplinary integration of theory and application.

The Hewitt-Gleeson/de Bono collaboration, in particular, demonstrated that cognitive-science research could achieve both intellectual rigor and practical social benefit through non-traditional structures.

Their joint publication Learn-To-Think became part of the intellectual foundation for later educational movements in critical thinking, creative problem-solving, and metacognition. It also influenced the founding of the School of Thinking in New York (1979), which Hewitt-Gleeson co-founded with de Bono, extending their partnership beyond academia into public education and corporate innovation.

8. Reappraising International College

With historical distance, International College can be reinterpreted not as a marginal experiment but as a precursor to the 21st-century knowledge university—a forerunner of today’s personalized, online, and global higher education ecosystem. Its “Guild of Tutors” model, once criticized for being unorthodox, now resonates with contemporary calls for mentorship-based, project-driven doctoral learning.

That archival traces are scarce should not obscure the fact that its influence survives through the work of its graduates and tutors. The Hewitt-Gleeson/de Bono collaboration exemplifies the intellectual spirit of IC: high-autonomy scholarship producing high-impact innovation.

9. Conclusion

The collaboration between Michael Hewitt-Gleeson and Edward de Bono stands as a case study in cognitive entrepreneurship and educational innovation. It demonstrated that a university without walls could still produce rigorous, world-scale research and that thinking itself could be both the subject and the instrument of inquiry.

Far from being an educational curiosity, the International College model anticipated a future in which individualized, practice-based, and globally networked learning would become the norm rather than the exception. The Learn-To-Think curriculum, the hospital intervention, and the doctoral mentorship together represent a bridge between the lateral-thinking revolution of the late 20th century and the emerging field of applied cognitive science.

References