March 29, 2001
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March 29, 2001 |
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In the Valley of the
Volcanoes
From July 1-14, Mutombo, an 'activist anthropologist', will lead a fourteen-day tour (academic credit available) to Quichua, Riobamba Province, Quito, and Otavalo). Travelers will look at local ecology, Indigenous culture, and the influence of the West. By conducting ecological impact studies in Indigenous contexts, they will learn specific research skills such as project analysis, planning and evaluation, and environmental impact analysis. Mutombo says, "I think it is extremely important to give students the opportunity to integrate what they learn in the classroom with work in the field. The direct experiencing of local and Indigenous cultures, witnessing sustainable development projects, and inquiring into the role of 'humanitarian aid' to foreign countries will be invaluable." If you are interested in meeting Indigenous people who are facing the challenges of life in remote Andean villages, and would like to learn more about the cultural, political, social, religious and economic realities of the region, this trip may be for you. Mutombo is conducting this research in association with several international development nonprofit organizations, including International Development Exchange (IDEX). The trip is being offered by CIIS and the international nonprofit organization World Neighbors (www.wn.org). Call 415-575-6277, or 415-648-9577 for details.
$261,000 in Financial Aid Authorized Financial Aid Office Director Michael Szkotak has announced that the U.S. Department of Education recently notified CIIS of its tentative expanded funding of $261,000 in new federal aid support for the 2001-2002 award year. Michael says, "This will allow the Institute to provide awards encompassing an array of sources, including the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (SEOG), work-study, Pell Grants, Institute scholarships, and Stafford subsidized and unsubsidized loans." The breakdown includes $32,000 in SEOG funds (for undergraduate students) and $229,000 in work-study funds (for both graduate and undergraduate students). Students must meet federal eligibility criteria, including demonstrated financial need, for each of these programs. The increase in funding will allow the Financial Aid staff to restructure next year's award packaging. Thanks to former Financial Aid Director Cathy Makunga for submitting the application documents to the federal government prior to her departure from CIIS.
Report on Finance &
Planning
With your wonderful support and enthusiasm, the strategic planning process is moving right along! The key underlying theme of the planning process is how to generate more revenue from diverse sources so that the Institute becomes less dependent on tuition revenue. Further, we want to capitalize on the fact that what the Institute is about is fundamentally interesting to more and more people around the world. Our first two strategic planning workshops focused on the higher education environment and culminated in a discussion of how the Institute should respond to some of the key change signals and challenges presented by the external environment. The third workshop addressed what we imagine CIIS will be engaged in by the year 2006. The last two workshops will center on the zero-based budget process. Every department and office will be asked to develop a zero-based budget for the next three years. This budget will reflect the objectives and goals that we have set for ourselves in order to achieve our vision. We will develop the budget during April and early May in anticipation of the meeting of the board of trustees on May 19. The Strategic Planning and Budgeting Committee will establish criteria for evaluating budget proposals and in line with these criteria will set budget and investment priorities. Our goal is to have a viable strategic plan by mid-May that we can present to both the board and WASC. This is a very tight schedule, and I thank you again for your cooperation and participation. I firmly believe that this process will help make explicit the wonders of the California Institute of Integral Studies!
Dear Colleagues: In participating in the recent workshops on strategic planning, I am witnessing the maturing of the Institute. Faculty and staff members are working together in scanning the external environment of CIIS to identify and respond to the many opportunities and challenges to our Institute. Our gaze is turning outward. I deeply appreciate the gifted leadership of Annabel Beerel, vice president for finance and planning, and the members of her staff for their professional approach in linking planning to budget. Their passionate commitment to insure that the CIIS community stays grounded as it envisions its future has been infectious. Many participants have indicated that they not only support the process, but they also enjoy it. The positive spirit emerging from our collaboration as we see the many possibilities before is building a more closely shared sense of community. I am most grateful to the many faculty and staff members who are engaged in the process. The high number of participants alone has been impressive, and the collective insights drawn from the participation are contributing significantly to the success of the process. Soon, we will have a strategic plan and an implementation schedule that will guide our actions and improve the quality of CIIS' performance. I am confident that the spirit that enlivens the development of the plan will inspire its implementation. For those of you who have not yet participated, there is still time. I strongly encourage you to join your colleagues in ensuring that the distinct values of the Institute transform our planet as never before imagined. Gratefully,
Free Copies of Counseling in Genderland
Other welcome donations include 150 items in holistic health and related areas from Alumni Association President and author Peg Jordan, as well as a gift of 105 items in history, social sciences, and Asian studies from the private library of Darren McDermott. (If you guessed some family connection with the Institute, the guess is correct and the library appreciative.) San Francisco therapist Dr. Richard Weiser gave 83 items from his private library. Other donors include Aurora Press, Sandy Bassett, Seymour Boorstein, Lucia Birnbaum, Cathy Coleman, Carolyn Dunckelman, Joan Hertzberg, Sean Kelly, Joan Marler, Cynthia Matison, Bruce Mazet, and Ray Vespe. The library welcomes all gifts of books from you or your friends.
Faculty Publications and Presentations Daniel Deslauriers,
East-West Psychology Judith Glass, Drama Therapy Elinor Gadon, Women's Spirituality, presents "Mysteries of the Yoginis," Montclair Women's Cultural Arts Center, Oakland, April 3. Charlene Spretnak,
Philosophy, Cosmology, & Consciousness ___ "The Presence of Place," Michigan State University, April 12.
Don't Miss Out! There are a number of fascinating lectures, workshops, and courses still to come this spring. Here are just a few examples. Internationally acclaimed Kabbalist, Z'ev ben Shimon Halevi (Warren Kenton), will present a workshop on "Kabbalah: Light of the Divine Illumination." Dan Millman, author of eleven books including Way of the Peaceful Warrior, will join us for an open-ended dialogue on life, direction, and connection. A highlight of the season will be "Engaged Spirituality in America," featuring spiritual leaders Marianne Williamson, Robert Thurman, and Dean Ornish. June brings CIIS Sage Jean Shinoda Bolen and mystic Andrew Harvey to the Institute. In August it's "Anomalous Experiences and Clinical Issues." Based on the success of last year's Spiritual Emergence (SEN) Conference, CIIS and SEN will be presenting "SEN Conference 2001." For information on all Continuing Education offerings, visit www.ciis.edu or pick up a Continuing Education brochure.
Save the date! An integrative approach to developing as whole human beings with a healthy spirituality requires that we re-enliven ourselves as instinctual, physical beings. On Friday, April 13, from 7:00-9:00 pm in Namaste Hall, the East-West Psychology Program is hosting a lively lecture/discussion—"Spirituality, Regeneration, and Integral Development"—with guest lecturers Ramon V. Albareda and Marina T. Romero, co-directors of ESTEL, a center of personal and transpersonal growth in Barcelona, Spain. They will explain why a regeneration of our vital forces is essential in laying the foundations of a creative, grounded, and fully embodied spiritual life. Refreshments will be served. See complete details here.
Keeping in Touch with
Student Alliance The Student Alliance meets every other Tuesday at 6:30 PM in the
third floor cafe. Meeting minutes are posted on a bulletin board just outside
the cafe. If you with to contact SA, or to be placed on the SA e-mail list, write
ciisstudentalliance@yahoo.com.
Inner Eye The Inner Eye is published by the Communications & Marketing Department.
Articles may be submitted to candicec@ciis.edu via email or disks may be put in the Inner Eye mailbox. Articles are subject to editing for clarity, length, and appropriateness. |
Brings Experience from Harvard Law School, Radcliffe Forum, NEH, and For-profit Organizations
As a practitioner of yoga and meditation and someone who has been interested in the integration of Eastern and Western philosophies and traditions for the past thirty years, Dr. Reagor is intrigued by the mission of the Institute. She also has high regard for two individuals associated with CIIS—board member Tamar March and Vice President for Finance and Planning Annabel Beerel. She says, "Knowing that Tamar and Annabel are associated with CIIS convinced me that it must be an institution of high quality. I look forward to meeting other board members and to meeting faculty and learning more about their work." Dr. Reagor, who studied history at Oxford University, is currently doing consulting work and acting as executive advisor for special projects at the Educational Development Center in Newton, Massachusetts, where she is developing policies and procedures and spearheading a structural reorganization. Prior to this, she was executive director of Hill and Barlow, a law firm of 125 lawyers and 150 nonlegal staff in Boston, where she was responsible for business operations, facilities, personnel, computer operations, library, and marketing. From 1984-1990, she was chief administrator officer at Harvard Law School. Dr. Reagor has also served as director of the Radcliffe Forum and of the Division of Research Grants at the National Endowment for the Humanities. She now lives in Boston, Massachusetts with her domestic partner of many years, Mary Grace Smith. Dr. Reagor has numerous publications to her credit. Among these are "Evaluations of Phase I and Phase II of the Project on Women and Gender in the Curriculum in Newly Coeducational Institutions" (co-author) for the Ford Foundation and "The Application of Computer Technology to Scholarly Communication in the Humanities," in the periodical Computers and the Humanities.
Summer in the City
The School for Transformation and Consciousness is offering courses in ecology, Buddhist studies, yoga, writing, Chinese studies, art, cosmology, Sufism, and more. Most courses are offered in an intensive or weekend format. For information about study tours to Turkey, Sicily, Greece, and Ecuador, visit www.ciis.edu. Among the residential and online offerings are: "Nature, Culture, & Extinction"/Gray and Nelson; "Chaos Theory"/Abraham; "Psyche & Cosmos"/ Tarnas and Grof; "The Heroic Journey: Living with Dignity; Dying with Dignity" (workshop)/Sircar; "Ten Ways Being More Aware Can Make You a Better Writer" (online)/Shearer; and "Weekend Yoga Intensive For Body-Mind Integration"/Reinders. Watch for summer course schedules that will be mailed to current students during the week of April 16. After Friday, April 13, you may access this information at www.ciis.edu. Summer semester begins Tuesday, May 29.
Faculty Abroad Philip Brooks, who recently joined the Integral Counseling Psychology (ICP) faculty, has just returned from teaching guided imagery in St. Petersburg, Russia. Philip was the guest of Mark Pevzner and Sasha Badkhen, co-directors of the Harmony Institute and the International School for Psychotherapy, Counseling, and Group Leadership. These programs invite faculty who volunteer their time to bring psychospiritual approaches to psychology professionals in Russia.
The International School offers a post-graduate training center with many parallels to the ICP program. Among their services are an integrative counseling center hotline (Harmony has trained staff in 200 of the 300 hotlines in the former Soviet Union); crisis counseling services; training in dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder to professionals in war-ravaged Chechnia. And there's a local angle. Philip said, "While I was taking a lunch break in Dr. Badkhen's office I noted among undecipherable Russian titles CIIS faculty Brant Cortright's Psychotherapy and Spirit! This had been given to Sasha by an American supporter with the suggestion that this is essential reading." Further discussion revealed that professor and counseling center director Michael Kahn's Between Therapist and Client (which has been translated into Russian) has been enthusiastically read and has been incorporated into their training. Philip was understandably impressed with the far-reaching impact of CIIS scholars.
Empowerment, Prison Theater, and Social Change Michael McCamish, a student in the Social & Cultural Anthropology Program, is doing his dissertation from prison, from San Quentin to be precise. He also has been in a number of prisons throughout Europe.
For Michael, this is a life work. He says, "We need to find alternative, creative communal ways to approach reform. Theater turns things upside down. It gives inmates the chance to experience being the expert at something and to take on different identities. My hope is to create a nonprofit that will be a resource for inmates both in prisons and after they are released."
Spirit in Action Various programs at the Institute offer students structured opportunities for integrating spirituality with action. A good example is the support students are receiving this semester in "Spirit in Action," a course offered by the Women's Spirituality Program. Adjunct faculty member Susan Carter, who plans to receive her doctorate from CIIS in May, says, "This class encourages and challenges students in the program to take their education and life skills into the larger community, transforming both in the process." Here are examples of what some of the students in the class are doing this semester. Michelle Herrera is organizing a talking circle for women of color at CIIS. She also reaches out to women of color as part of the Institute's student recruitment effort. Shannon Reich works with the Maa Batakali Cultural Mission, a San Francisco-based nonprofit dedicated to the goddess Kali and founded by Chandra Alexandre, a Ph.D. student in Women's Spirituality. The Mission helps to plan public ritual and ceremony and raises funds to send to schools and women's organizations in India. Shannon also works with the Tibetan Nuns Project. Elizabeth Shillington works with the Sebastopol-based Menstrual Health Foundation, revising educational material on the integration of body, soul, and spirit. She also facilitates meetings with mothers of fifth-grade girls to discuss issues surrounding menarche and coming of age. Ann-Marie Cory speaks to recovery support groups about the differences between religion and spirituality and her personal journey from Catholicism to goddess spirituality. Sharron Traweek heads the Hope Faire program in East Contra Costa County, whose purpose is to decrease the stigma attached to receiving mental health services. (The fair is coming up on May 5 in the Todas Santos Plaza in Concord.) Inner Eye invites students and faculty to share with readers how individuals in their programs are embodying 'spirit in action' in their communities.
News for International Students The annual tax workshop for international students was held on March 15. Dexter Young, international student advisor, presented information to students on completing tax forms. If you are an international student and need additional consultation, please call the International Students Office at 415.575.6153.
Welcome to: Judith Glass, Ph.D., RDT, as half-time Drama Therapy core faculty. Judith also works at the Concord Vet Center with sexually traumatized veterans and provides action-oriented sexual harassment prevention training for corporations. Caroline Griswold, as Continuing Education coordinator. Caroline has worked with adolescents, taught secondary school English, and recently coordinated an afte- school program for "at-risk" students. Her passions are yoga and all types of dance. Kiki Hernandez, as financial aid counselor. Kiki worked in the Registrar's Office from 1994 to 1997, and has returned after working in the dot com world. Gregg McGreevy, as half-time creative services coordinator in the Communications and Marketing Department. Gregg will be handling much of the graphic design for the Institute. Nick Masi, as evening receptionist. Nick is a student in the master's program in Asian and Comparative Studies and a graduate of the University of Rochester in History and Italian Studies.
In the Stars by Cathy Coleman
HINT: A German speaker, recently had an art reception for her work, and the first CIIS student to receive a Psy.D. degree. ANSWER AT: InnerGate-mail.ciis.edu. Each issue of the Inner Eye features a photograph of staff or faculty from another time in their lives. (Please submit photos along with a "hint" to Candice Chase in Communications.) |
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CALENDAR OF EVENTS
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Tuesday, April 3, 7:30 PM Tuesday, April 3, 7:00 PM Tuesday, April 10, 7:00 PM Tuesday, April 17, 7:00 pm Friday, April 27, 7:00 -10:00 PM
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Monday, April 30, 7:00 - 10:00 PM,
Free lecture by artist Kumar Lama sponsored by Asian & Comparative Studies Program. Reception on Wednesday, May 16, 7:00-10:00 PM in staff/faculty lounge. Thangka Exhibit at CIIS, 4th Floor, through May 31. Women's Spirituality Tours June 8-June 21 June 24-July 8 July 1-14, 2001 For additional details on these events, go to www.ciis.edu. |
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In
the Andes mountains of South America, strong Indigenous cultures and traditions
co-exist with the challenges of poverty and globalization. Social & Cultural Anthropology
Professor 
By
Annabel Beerel, V.P. of Finance & Planning
Secrets
of the Stacks 
Neila
Miller, a Massachusetts therapist who "works and plays with cross-gendered
persons," has donated a box of her books to students and others at the Institute.
Her book, Counseling in Genderland, may be picked in the library office,
as long as supplies last.
President
Joseph L. Subbiondo has announced that Dr. Simone Reagor will join
our board of trustees and chair the board's finance committee. Having worked in
a variety of contexts—government, university teaching and administration,
and the for-profit world—Dr. Reagor brings an unusual combination of knowledge
and skills to the Institute.
CIIS
is offering an expanded schedule of courses this summer. In the School of Professional
Psychology, the Masters in Counseling Psychology (MCP) and Integral Counseling
Psychology (ICP) are moving to year-around scheduling to help students complete
course requirements. This summer's offerings include Human Development, Professional
Ethics and Family Law, Psychopathology, Alcohol and Chemical Dependency, Sexuality,
Cross-Cultural Counseling, Research, and more.
Growing
up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he developed close relationships within the
African-American community, Michael began to see patterns of racial and economic
injustice. This experience led him to earn an M.A. in Criminal Studies from the
University of Tennessee. In 1997, when he decided to return to school to study
prison culture from an anthropological perspective, he says he chose CIIS because
he was so impressed by his conversations with professor 
The
Sun has moved into the tropical zodiacal sign of Aries at the Vernal Equinox March
20. Spring break is timed with this seasonal symbolism, providing an opportunity
for reflection and regrouping to return for the remainder of spring semester and
begin anew. The New Moon in Aries on March 24th—at the end of the break—is
perfectly poised to usher in greater potential for planting new seeds, starting
new projects, acting on impulses, and taking risks. The Ram symbolizes Aries,
offering symbolic energy for lowering one's head to the task, gathering all of
one's available energy, and charging forward. Students, faculty, and community
members taking advantage of the cardinal fire of Aries through April 20 should
be able to make rapid progress on papers, assignments, and projects.