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Nick Blanc ’26 left a fulfilling career in homeless services to pursue undergraduate education at CIIS rooted in ancestral wisdom, indigenous traditions, and community healing.
Nick Blanc ’26 spent five years working at a homeless shelter in Colorado, keeping people housed through permanent supportive housing and case management. It was, by his own account, the most fulfilling work of his life. But by the middle of his first semester at California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), where he is pursuing a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies, he began to feel that something had shifted. “I was getting the sense that I’ve been living someone else’s dream,” he says.
The dream he had been living, he realized, was not his own. It belonged to the work — necessary, urgent, important work — but not aligned with what he describes as his “higher self.” CIIS, he says, is showing him the dream he had even earlier, back in 2013: a multifaceted facility that caters to cultural needs and supports healing at its roots. To pursue that vision, Blanc left his job and moved back to school full time. “The big changes are the sacrifices that I’ve had to make for my future self,” he reflects. “And it’s been scary, but it’s good. Definitely good.”
Blanc first learned about CIIS more than a decade ago while researching schools for psychedelic-assisted therapy. CIIS and Naropa University in Colorado were his top choices, since both institutions are inclusive of many ways of knowing and learning.
He chose to begin his undergraduate education at Naropa, but CIIS remained “the end goal.” Two people in particular helped solidify that direction. One was a dream psychology professor at Naropa who was a CIIS alum. The other is Blanc’s own counselor, Isha Lucas, who is completing her second Ph.D. and is also a CIIS graduate. “Those two people at different periods of my life helped ground that CIIS would be the home for me,” he says.
What he was seeking, he explains, was non-traditional community. “I’ve always considered myself someone that lives on the fringes of society,” Blanc says. CIIS offered a place where he could bring his whole self without having to fit into conventional academic structures.
Am I living the life that my ancestors hoped for? I have my own wishes and wants and aspirations, but I wouldn’t be here without them.
Nick Blanc, B.A. 2026, Interdisciplinary Studies
One class in particular has already reshaped his understanding of his path. In Social Ecology, he was given an assignment to investigate place. He chose to solo camp at a location that had been significant to a friend who passed away in August 2025. Blanc had never been to the land before, but the assignment gave him an opportunity to form his own relationship with it, and to learn about the Arapahoe Nation, who had been there before him.
The experience of camping alone, learning the land’s history, and sitting with grief opened something in him. “I guess what I’m getting at is finding my roots again through this Social Ecology class — finding how much of me wants to learn from indigenous culture, how much of me wants to trace my own lineage and work with my own people back in Haiti.”
That lineage work is not new for Blanc. He has spent time in Brazil with the Huni Kuin people in the Amazon and has been tracing his Haitian roots. He describes how reconnecting with indigenous Haitian practices, including “vodou ceremonies or ceremonies that were happening in Benin, West Africa,” has become central to his work. Blanc is also a steward with Medicine of Many Tribes, a community he credits as part of his ongoing work.
When asked what specific curiosity brought him to CIIS, Blanc pauses before offering a question in return: “Am I living the life that my ancestors hoped for?” He has come to see himself, he says, as “the embodiment of their dreams.”
“I have my own wishes and wants and aspirations and goals, but I wouldn’t be here without them,” he explains. “So I wouldn’t be at CIIS without them.” For Blanc, the question is not only about personal success but about living in a way that honors those who came before. He describes the practice of making space for his ancestors wherever he goes. “I imagine I have hundreds of ancestors in this room with me right now,” he says. The question he asks himself is whether there is enough space for both him and them. At CIIS, he has found an education that allows him to bring his family in.
Working in homelessness services, instead of trying to bucket out the pollution from the middle of the river, you can go to the source. And the source is family dynamics.
Nick Blanc, B.A. 2026, Interdisciplinary Studies
Blanc plans to continue his education at CIIS in the M.A. in Community Mental Health program, with the goal of pursuing licensure as a marriage and family therapist. The shift in focus — from homeless services to family therapy — is part of his learning and his healing journey.
“I’ve learned to see it as this polluted river,” he says. “Working in homelessness services, instead of trying to bucket out the pollution from the middle of the river, you can go to the source. And the source is family dynamics. It’s emotional regulation in your children, emotional regulation in partnership.”
He believes that offering psychoeducation through marriage and family counseling will have “a lot more of a ripple effect, a downstream healing effect” than the crisis intervention work he has been doing. Outside of his studies, Blanc is also working to open ceremonial space in southern Colorado for people seeking healing work grounded in the indigenous traditions he has been learning.
When Blanc reflects on what has surprised him most about CIIS, he returns to the support he has received from faculty, from academic encouragement to genuine personal care when he was struggling. “I’ve never had counselors, school counselors, or professors really encourage me and support me in the way that CIIS has,” he reflects. “It makes me want to give back a lot more when I can.”
“You don’t find education like that commonly,” he says. “This is the most genuine, authentic education that could be offered. Their foundation is rooted off of authenticity and reciprocity. So everything that they offer is supportive to what my soul wants.” It is a place where he can walk with his ancestors, honor his lineage, and build the vision he has carried for more than a decade. “It feels like I can call this home,” he says.
This is the most genuine, authentic education that could be offered. Their foundation is rooted off of authenticity and reciprocity. So everything that they offer is supportive to what my soul wants.
Nick Blanc, B.A. 2026, Interdisciplinary Studies
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