East-West Psychology Community Life
Community building is central to the pedagogical approach of the Department of East-West Psychology. During the fall semester of each year, new students take the course EWP Community Retreat, where they meet and connect with their cohort's members. In addition, the department organizes a social gathering at the beginning of the fall semester for all students and faculty, as well as an End-of-the-Year Celebration and other social events (such as the Thanksgiving Dinner and MA Integrative Seminar presentations). EWP students and faculty come together for EWP Monthly Social Gatherings at different venues and actively interact through a EWP Chat Room, which is used also for housing opportunities and academic discussion. EWP students are also encouraged and supported to organize other community-building activities such as discussion groups (such as the ongoing doctoral colloquium) or student retreats (financial support from the department for student retreats is available).
EWP students are invited to attend doctoral dissertation defenses, as well as Special Evening Lectures sponsored by the department every semester. During the academic year of 2010-11, for example, the department invited Prof. Anne Carolyn Klein (Rice University) to speak on "How Wisdom Dawns: Stories, Images, and Illumination from Tibet," Dr. Michael Mayer on "Energy Psychology: An East/West Bodymind Healing Approach," Prof. Brian L. Lancaster on "Kabbalah, the Divine Feminine, and the Christian Shadow: Critical Phases in the Rise of Transpersonal Psychology," and the shaman therapist Francoise Bourzat on "Traditional Mushroom Ceremony in Transpersonal Counseling." In addition, during the last academic year the department coordinated a number of extra guest lectures from candidates for a core faculty position: Dr. Gregg Lahood on "Secreting Religion: Childbirth, Death, and Ritual," Prof. David Loy on "Healing Ecology: A Buddhist Response to the Environmental Crisis," and Prof. Craig Chalquist on "Jung's Red Book." (For video recordings, see MyCIIS EWP page).
EWP students and graduates are coached by the faculty to present at professional conferences and publish their work in scholarly journals and publishing houses. This year the department organized the First EWP Student Symposium: The Many Voices of East-West Psychology (to be offered every spring semester), which featured a dozen of students presentations. (For video recordings, see MyCIIS EWP page). In addition, during the academic year 2010-11, EWP students presented at the International Conference on the Teaching of Psychology, the CIIS Integral Consciousness Symposium, the International Conference on Expressive Arts (Lima, Peru), the Cosmology of Love Conference, the American Comparative Literature Association Conference, the Global Conference of the International Enneagram Association, and the Daimonic Imagination Conference (University of Kent, UK), among others.
In addition, during the year 2010-11, EWP students published articles in journals such as Journal of Humanistic Psychology, International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, Psychosis, ReVision: Journal of Consciousness and Transformation, Journal of Child and Family Studies, Somatics, as well as became Associate Managing Editors and Book Review Editors with the International Journal of Transpersonal Studies. For more information about our community's professional achievements, see the EWP Academic News and EWP Students and Alums pages on the CIIS web site, where this information is regularly posted and updated.
