Academic & Career Pathways

Discover how these approaches differ and why the arts can unlock new pathways for growth and self-discovery.

Preschool teacher Linette Illastron returned to school after a decade and rediscovered her voice, her strength, and her passion for learning at CIIS.

A CIIS graduate degree in Anthropology and Social Change opens doors in academia, nonprofits, communications, and beyond.

What happens when art, therapy, and justice meet in one program? Explore how CIIS is shaping the next generation of expressive arts therapists.

Kimberly Koljat ’11 transformed personal loss into groundbreaking research on grief, embodiment, and connection in an increasingly digital world.

At the 2026 Scholarship Dinner, CIIS students and donors gathered to celebrate the journeys that generous giving makes possible.

Since 1968, CIIS has redefined graduate education by integrating Eastern, Western, and Indigenous wisdom traditions with rigorous academic inquiry.

After a decade in early childhood education and twenty years away from school, Heather Miller found renewed purpose through CIIS' Bachelor of Science in Psychology.

CIIS students and alumni reflect on the moments that changed everything — inside and outside the classroom.

Dr. Rene Dumetz teaches CIIS' Clinical Psychology Psy.D. program, training therapists to work with the unconscious, relationships, and holistic human experience.

Find your path to an expressive arts coaching career at CIIS.

Megan Lipsett, chair of CIIS’ M.A. in Integrative Health Studies, explains how the program trains practitioners to address health as a whole-person, systems-oriented endeavor.

Associate Professor Chris Walling reveals how CIIS' Department of Research Psychology trains scholars to live the wisdom they study — in two doctoral programs at the forefront of somatic and transpersonal psychology.

Discover how degree completion programs offer flexible pathways for adult learners to finish their bachelor's degree.

What if the questions that draw us to learning could also reshape who we become? Across disciplines and life paths, curiosity emerges as sacred work, an opening into connection, healing, and transformation.

Courtney Johnson-Benson shares how CIIS' Human Sexuality Studies Ph.D. program transformed her advocacy work and vision for her future career.

Professor Mimi Savage introduces CIIS' new Expressive Arts Coaching & Community Building master's program, designed for artists and coaches seeking to support transformation through creativity.

Expressive arts coaching uses creativity to foster resilience, connection, and meaningful change.

Professor Lani Chow explains how CIIS' Clinical Psychology Psy.D. program takes an integrative approach to training therapists in depth psychological traditions.

In a divided world, two Blue Sky Leaders explore how deep listening, jazz, and integral education create connection and shared leadership.

Senior Lecturer Cosmin Gheorghe shares how CIIS' Bachelor of Science in Psychology helps students connect disciplines and find meaning in a fragmented world.

Professor Jeanine Canty explores how the Transformative Studies Ph.D. prepares visionary changemakers to address humanity's disconnection from nature and each other.

Your roadmap to becoming a licensed clinical psychologist through CIIS' integral, holistic approach to doctoral training and professional practice.

Dr. Janis Phelps founded the world's first academically approved psychedelic therapy training program, preparing clinicians for a transforming field of mental health.

Discover your fit among CIIS' five counseling psychology concentrations, each offering a unique path to becoming a transformative healer.

Playwright and activist Alex Burger brings his global experience into the CIIS MFA classroom, teaching art as transformation, and crisis as creative fuel.

Marine Corps veteran Bre Butler discovered a path to healing and transformation through CIIS' Integrative Health Studies program after five years of active duty service.

Fernando Ona, Chair of Transformative Inquiry at CIIS, carried questions from Iraq to the classroom—and found space to explore them.

Explore CIIS’ groundbreaking Bachelor’s program and the bold vision behind its creation.

Explore how CIIS’ Human Sexuality degrees empower students to create social change through research, theory, and advocacy.

Dr. Elizabeth Allison on training leaders for ecological change.

Inside CIIS’ bold approach to community mental health and healing-centered education.

Professor Emerita Shoshana Simons, who retired from Expressive Arts Therapy this year, delivered the address to graduating students at CIIS’ 57th Commencement.

Integral Counseling Psychology M.A. graduate Marissa Huang gave one of two student speeches at CIIS’ 57th Commencement Ceremony.

B.S. in Psychology graduating student Dominic Bucci delivered one of two student reflections at CIIS’ 57th Commencement Ceremony.

Women’s Spirituality Co-Chair and Associate Professor Annette Williams is retiring this year after an illustrious career.

Expressive Arts Therapy congratulates professor and former program chair Shoshana Simons on her retirement.

CIIS has joined hundreds of colleges and universities across the country in signing “A Call for Constructive Engagement.”

Dr. Karim Dajani, M.A. '95, Integral Counseling Psychology, joined Clinical Psychology’s annual spring conference to explore the social unconscious in the work of Wilfred Bion.

Join CIIS to celebrate Jung’s legacy and explore his psychology’s impact on growth, healing, and cultural change in challenging times.

The Integral Counseling Psychology concentration now offers an online-focused hybrid format of its M.A. in Counseling Psychology.

The 7th Annual Religion and Ecology Summit will celebrate the sacred waters of the world.

CIIS’ new M.A. in Expressive Arts Coaching & Community Building is the first degree of its kind in the U.S.

Transformative Leadership alum Cynthia Huie, M.A. '24, brings creativity and connection to the San Francisco small-business community.

A panel hosted by the Department of Human Sexuality gathered notable alumni from the Ph.D. program to discuss their change-making work and research.

At each CIIS Open House event, a community panel of faculty and alumni discusses what drew them to CIIS and their experiences at the University.

CIIS Provost Kathy Littles' statement on the importance academic freedom.

The Blue Sky Leaders program equips leaders with wisdom and skills to navigate the global metacrisis, fostering transformative leadership for a sustainable, compassionate future.

CIIS breaks ground with its new, one-of-a-kind M.S. in Critical Sexuality Studies

Community Mental Health alumna Nichole Pettway on using her experiences to help others navigate uncharted waters 

When Florida laws threatened queer scholarship, CIIS provided a new home

A new essay, Heart-Knowing, Somatic Dreaming, and Trans-subjectivity: A Scholarly Personal Narrative, written by Daniel Deslauriers, Ph.D., explores the power of somatic dreams. 

Community Mental Health graduate Dr. Patsy Tito on bringing mental health support to the Samoan and Pacific Islander community

Exploring the Department of Women's Spirituality and celebrating with two events

Fika and Fellowship at the Psy.D. Conference

The New York Times travels to CIIS to learn more about the Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research and the science behind holotropic breathwork. 

CIIS professors Alfonso Montuori and Gabrielle Donnelly discuss editing The Routledge Handbook for Creative Futures, a 37-chapter, globally diverse handbook on creative, collaborative approaches to envisioning hopeful futures.

A discussion with Professor Charlotte María Sáenz about community education, collective responsibility, philosophy and imagining brighter futures for students.

CIIS Professor Alfonso Montuori and CIIS alumna Professor Gabrielle Donnelly were curious how to combat the despair and increasingly dystopian expectations of the future, and how creativity specifically could be used to inspire hope and action.

Read more about CIIS' consciousness accelerator to bring together integral education scholars with luminaries from tech, finance, and the arts.

Listen and watch as students and alumni talk about their experiences in the Drama Therapy program at CIIS

Over the past 17 years, queer autistic author and educator Nick Walker has played a key role in the emergence of the neurodiversity paradigm—a framework for scholarship, practice, and social justice work where treating human neurocognitive variations such as autism, dyslexia, and ADHD as medical disorders is understood to be a form of systemic oppression along the same lines as the pathologizing of homosexuality in the 19th and 20th centuries.

In this episode, Dr. Walker is joined by writer Dan Glenn in an uplifting conversation exploring her newest book, Neuroqueer Heresies: Notes on the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic Empowerment, and Postnormal Possibilities. They also discuss the edges and intersections of neurodiversity, gender, Queer Theory, embodiment, creativity, somatic psychology, and the human capacity for transformation.

This episode contains explicit language. It was recorded during a live online event on February 16th, 2022. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

CIIS Standard Exam pass rate was 85%, compared with 64% for all schools in California.

Discover how CIIS' School of Undergraduate Studies adapted to help students address today’s unique challenges with Bachelor Completion Programs.

An interview with Master of Fine Arts alum Maia Scott on how her experience as a student helped shape her work now as a teacher and labyrinth designer

In this episode, Integrative Health Studies Professor Meg Jordan explores some of the most compelling new ideas in health from the world of science that are shaking up our notions of how to recover from trauma and illness. This talk was part of the Big Ideas at CIIS series.

This episode was recorded during an event on September 29, 2016 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

Kathy Littles, former Dean of the School of Consciousness and Transformation at CIIS, explores how western museums have historically held power and authority in matters of race.

This episode was recorded during an event on June 21, 2018 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

A student's mom writes about the unique and transformative degree.

Why the humanities are more important than ever

Learn more about the Psy.D. program's experientially rich clinical training and why we no longer pursue APA accreditation

Sarah DeVincenzi, Integrative Health Studies graduate, describes how her degree led her to leadership opportunities

How a New Yorker Article Lit a Path to an MFA

My story of defending my Ph.D. dissertation in front of 150 high school students

Transformative Inquiry Department 2017-2018 Book Selection

 Universities.com ranks CIIS high on list of top ten schools nationwide

Alumna Preeti Rao and Professor Meg Jordan help introduce health coaching in India

CIIS graduate Preeti Rao and Professor Meg Jordan introduce health coaching in India

Increased online access through Canvas platform

The Anthropology department joins an international network of research centers.

A story of synergies in being Ana Castillo's TA

This certificate is ideal for graduate students and any individual interested in transformative, guided imagery practices for mental and physical health.