Honoring Shoshana Simons’ Many Contributions to CIIS

With a mix of joy and sadness, the Expressive Arts Therapy program announces the retirement of a key faculty member and part of our broader community, Shoshana Simons.

As one of her close colleagues, I have witnessed her passion, commitment, ethics, and fierce love for CIIS and all its people — students, faculty, and staff — during her 19-year tenure here as program chair and professor.

Professor Simons first began teaching at CIIS in 2006, as core faculty in the Department of Transformative Inquiry. Shortly thereafter, in 2008, she joined Expressive Arts Therapy as program chair — an opportunity to combine her expertise in organizational systems with her background as a drama therapist. Since then, she has gathered a highly respected and influential “ensemble” of faculty and initiated substantial changes and innovations in expressive arts training that have greatly contributed to the success of our students, faculty, and alumni.

In 2013, drawing on the team’s shared background in improvisational performing arts, Professor Simons reimagined the Expressive Arts Therapy faculty as an ensemble, highlighting and encouraging a highly collaborative, nonhierarchical approach to teaching, learning, and leadership.

In addition to her teaching, and scholarship — which are substantial — she has greatly increased our Beloved Community by drawing new faculty, including many alumni, to Expressive Arts Therapy and other programs, and to University administration, such as Denise Boston, who served as core faculty 2009-15, then became CIIS’ first Dean of Diversity and Inclusion from 2015-19. In 2015, Simons also recruited core faculty member Christine Brooks, who has recently been announced as the program chair of the new M.A. in Expressive Arts Coaching & Community Building, which launches in spring 2026. 

Dean of Faculty Development, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Danielle Drake was a student in Expressive Arts Therapy when she first met Simons, who, along with Boston, fostered Drake’s growth from teaching assistant to adjunct professor, core faculty, program chair, and ultimately dean.

Indeed, Professor Simons recruited me — M.A. ’05, Expressive Arts Therapy — when founding program chair Jack Weller retired in 2012. She nurtured my growth from an artist-practitioner to an artist-practitioner-scholar, supporting me as adjunct and then as core faculty, through to stepping up as program chair in 2022.

Professor Simons reimagined the Expressive Arts Therapy faculty as an ensemble, highlighting and encouraging a highly collaborative, nonhierarchical approach to teaching, learning, and leadership.
Philip Weglarz, Program Chair, Expressive Arts Therapy

Another enduring contribution is her genius for program development: under Professor Simons’ leadership, beginning in 2017 — well ahead of the pandemic — Expressive Arts Therapy was the first M.A. in Counseling Psychology concentration to pilot a distance-learning option. Simons composed a team of faculty with a depth and breadth of online learning and teaching experience and led the proposal, approval, and implementation process.

When the pandemic struck in 2020, Expressive Arts Therapy already had courses ready to go for a combination of synchronous and asynchronous engagement. Beginning Fall 2022, we discontinued the campus-based in-person option and enrolled 100% of new students into an updated hybrid format, utilizing in-person retreats and a combination of synchronous and asynchronous learning. This innovation made the program significantly more accessible leading to the highest enrollment in its history, serving over 100 students from an increasingly diverse group of LMFT/LPCC trainees focused on the integration of the arts and mental health services in their local communities and beyond.

Not only have Professor Simons’ contributions influenced generations of students and alumni, they will continue to shape expressive arts-based education at CIIS: Along with Expressive Arts Therapy core faculty Christine Brooks and Myriam “Mimi” Savage, she spent many years developing the new M.A. in Expressive Arts Coaching & Community Building program.

She is currently co-editing a book with Dean Drake —“I Don’t Know, But Together We Do!” Narrative Expressive Arts in Counseling, Coaching and Community Building, which will articulate their unique approach to narrative expressive arts therapy and includes the voices of many faculty and alumni. In addition to this and other publications, she has been very active in other platforms, and has frequently been interviewed by podcasts, and participated in workshops and conferences.

The relationships Professor Simons built within the program are ongoing, as she maintains connections with and mentors many alumni. Outside of CIIS, she also serves as a Lead Trainer for the NarrARTive Coaching Certificate offered by the Northwest Creative & Expressive Arts Institute based in Seattle, WA and is a founder of the Key of Life Academy (KOLA), a resource for an international community of higher-education faculty, focused on training and consultation of trauma-informed pedagogy for online learning.

When asked how she would like Expressive Arts Therapy student and faculty colleagues to regard her in retirement, Shoshana playfully responded, “elderberry.” Elderberry happens to be one of the most commonly used medicinal plants in the world. As an aesthetic response, I found this excerpt from Tristian L.F. Ford’s poem, “The Elderberry Tree: Entangled Roots #27,” which offers a crystalline reflection of my enduring love and admiration for Shoshana Simons:  

Honoring the Lasting Contributions of Professors Simons and Williams

Please join us in celebrating Professor Simons at an event to honor her and Associate Professor Annette Williams, who is retiring from the Women’s Spirituality department. The party will be held on Thursday, May 15 from 1-3 p.m. Pacific Time online and in Namaste Hall on campus. 

Graduating students will have a special opportunity to hear Professor Simons speak, as she will deliver the address at CIIS’ 57th Commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 17, at A.C.T.'s Toni Rembe Theater.