Inspiring Change in Earth Stewardship: Elizabeth Allison’s Work at CIIS

Elizabeth Allison, founding chair of the Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion program at CIIS, is an environmental social scientist, active researcher, and dedicated educator whose work examines causes and consequences of ecological degradation in the context of religious, spiritual, and philosophical traditions. The Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion (ESR) graduate program, offering M.A. and Ph.D. degrees online, prepares students for meaningful careers in education initiatives, environmental stewardship, and religious and community leadership.

In this interview, Dr. Allison shares why transdisciplinary learning and spiritual engagement are vital to the future of life on earth, and what makes the ESR program a one-of-a-kind path for today’s emerging changemakers.

Why is the Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion program at CIIS important at this time?

In the past few decades, humans have become a dominant and dominating force on the face of Earth. This is something that we've never experienced before in human history. This is an entirely new phase for humanity. Not only does it raise questions about how we treat our ecological surroundings, whether we should dump pollutants into our air and water, whether we can equitably distribute resources to sustain dignified human lives, but it also raises philosophical, religious, and spiritual questions. What does it mean to be alive right now when humans have so much power, power that we've never had before? Do we know how to use this power? Can we deploy it responsibly?

In Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion, we're exploring those questions. We're trying to understand how the age-old teachings of religions and spiritualities can help us be better caretakers and stewards of our planetary home.

How does your department conceptualize the relationship between ecology, spirituality, and religion?

Our Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion program is part of a broader academic and activist field of religion and ecology that has developed over the last three decades or so, and we are one of actually several programs around the US focusing on the intersection of religion and ecology. In this field, we look at what religions and spiritualities teach about the natural world, and we look at how those teachings may influence and inform the way humans interact with the natural world.

We also look at the ways that natural environments shape what humans think about, how spending time in nature can provide spiritual sustenance, and we explore the various benefits, beyond the material, that the natural world offers for human well-being. Transdisciplinarity is a central component of our department.

Why should potential students choose this program over programs at other schools?

The Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion program offers a number of unique benefits. First of all, we are the only graduate program in the field of religion and ecology that is fully online. We offer master's and doctoral studies together, so students benefit from a very rich cohort of their peers. Our students are engaged in their home communities, often as working professionals, sometimes balancing family life as well, because they’re studying from home, so they bring these rich and varied backgrounds into the classroom. We have a great peer community to learn from.

We also have an annual retreat in Northern California with our sibling program, Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness. We gather together for a week sharing the latest research, insights, presentations, discussions, meals, sometimes films, star watching. It's a wonderful week that builds fellowship, community, and camaraderie in the program, while still allowing people to study at a distance for 360 days of the year.

Within the field of religion and ecology, our program uniquely centers spirituality, which is one of the seven ideals of CIIS: “to affirm and elevate spirituality.” Within our program, we consider spirituality to be an important part of human life. We don't prescribe any particular form of spirituality, but we recognize that for many people there is a spiritual connection to nature, and that's part of what we're exploring.

Can you describe the format of the Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion program?

Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion offers fully online master's and Ph.D. degrees. Master’s and doctoral students work together in their same coursework. Then the doctoral students go on to prepare their dissertation proposals, and research and write their doctoral dissertations under the guidance of a committee of experts.

Many of our students continue to live in their home communities and are continuing their professional endeavors, and so they choose to study part-time. They may take two courses at a time rather than the standard three. This helps them balance their professional family and community commitments together with their interest in studying with us. I think this enriches our program because people are engaged in professional pursuits and they're bringing that back into their studies.

What is a highlight or unique offering within the program?

Some of my favorite things about this program are the vast array of students that we attract. In the last class I taught, I had students joining from Portugal all the way to Hawaii and everywhere in between. So those students are bringing their experiences of those places, those communities, their professional background into the classroom. I also really love our annual retreat. That's a week-long retreat with the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program held here in Northern California where we join together in person for a week. It's great to share meals together, hear presentations about research, and just catch up and build community face-to-face.

The other thing that absolutely inspires me is the total dedication of our students to improving the quality of life on Earth, to creating a more just, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable community of humans and non-humans. Our students are totally devoted to this and believe that we can create a better world for everyone, not only for people, but for non-humans, including redwoods trees, turtles, rivers, frogs, and the rest of the living Earth community. Our students are very creative in thinking about how we can create more resilient and flourishing relations, and moving forward with their ideas.

Who is the Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion program for?

Our students are motivated by an urgent sense of concern about the state of life on Earth. They're concerned about our rapidly escalating global climate crisis, our loss of biological diversity, the mass extinction of wild species, and pollution of our air and waterways, along with many other interconnected socio-ecological issues. We believe that there are ways to address these problems that can be found in the way that people think about non-human nature.

We primarily attract three groups of students. One is college instructors in biology, ecology, and environmental studies, who want to add a broader, transdisciplinary perspective to their college teaching. We also attract religious leaders of a range of faith traditions who are interested in bringing ecological knowledge into their preaching and their work with faith communities. The third group is students seeking broad, transdisciplinary perspectives on ecological issues and their intersections with religions and spiritualities. These students may be interested in working in the public sector, with environmental or religious organizations, or in launching their own initiatives with the knowledge and skills they gain.

What is the Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion program designed to accomplish?

Our students produce groundbreaking research that can be used to interpret and understand how philosophies, religions, and spiritualities shape the fate of the living Earth. Our students are empowered to think across disciplines, to move from ecology, environmental studies, and scientific disciplines, to religions and spiritualities, and understand how they interrelate with one another. Our students are actively developing and promoting a worldview that's more relational and more care-oriented that recognizes that humans and non-humans are kin together on this living planet, and that we need to understand one another and care for each other better.

What tools do students gain from completing this program that they can use in their careers beyond CIIS?

Students who graduate from the Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion program are skilled writers, speakers, and thinkers. They can read, digest, and synthesize large amounts of information, finding connections across disparate fields. We emphasize skills of transdisciplinary thinking, analysis, and research, so our students become very skillful at moving between disciplines. They can examine information from scientific fields like ecology and biology, and bring it together with religions, philosophies, and spiritualities. I think that in this increasingly divisive age, it's great to have people who can move skillfully between different ways of thinking. Our students are really bridge builders.

How does the Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion program reflect CIIS’ mission for integral education?

The Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion program reflects many of the seven ideals of CIIS. Inherent in our name is spirituality. One of the seven ideals of CIIS is to affirm and elevate spirituality, which is something that we do in our program. We recognize that many people have a spiritual connection to nature. They define that in different ways, but that's one of the issues that we're interested in exploring in the program.

We also practice integral education, and we endeavor to incorporate mind, body, and spirit into the classroom. Sometimes we'll do a meditative practice at the beginning or end of a class. We'll draw on different contemplative practices from different world religious traditions. Sometimes we ask people to go out in their community in nature and do something and report back about that. So even though we're online, we're endeavoring to incorporate the whole person into our education and not think of our students as “brains on sticks,” but as embodied humans interacting with their surrounding communities, both human and non-human.

What are the advantages students have by participating in a fully online program as opposed to an in-person experience?

CIIS is a really unique university. Our array of programming can't be found anywhere else. Also, we're in the most expensive city in the world. When we offered the program in person, many students were really hesitant to move to San Francisco. The COVID-19 pandemic caused us to make a rapid transition to online education, and we found that it's actually really beneficial because our students are all over the world. Our students then enrich our discussions with perspectives from all over the world. We've had students from Bali and Hawaii and Africa and Europe and Canada, as well as all over the United States. Because they stay in their home communities, they're able to bring perspectives from those communities and relate them to our topics of discussion. It actually makes the material that we study more applied because our students can think about how it relates to their home communities, and how they might apply the ideas we’re studying there.  

What kinds of transformations do you observe within your students over the course of the program?

It is so exciting to see our students graduate. Our master's students present a public talk in our Master's Symposium, which is their culminating event. The master’s students have become skilled public speakers. They have synthesized a ton of information into a 15-minute talk, like a TED Talk, that they share with our assembled community. They become skilled at synthesizing a large amount of material and navigating across disciplinary boundaries and bringing ecology and religion and spirituality together. Our students deepen their commitment to making positive change for the Earth community. They recognize the urgency of our environmental problems and they're ready to take action.

Can you share about your own research and work as a faculty at CIIS?

I'm working on two major research projects right now. The first is a book called Thunder Dragon Ecology: Lessons for a Flourishing Future from Himalayan Bhutan. This book is based on ethnographic research in Bhutan, where I observed a really different way of interacting with non-human nature and valuing non-human nature. I'm sharing those observations and lessons in this book.

The second project is looking at the effects of what we're calling “Life without Ice,” the disappearance of high elevation glaciers, particularly those in tropical and temperate mountains. The Life Without Ice research is conducted by a multidisciplinary, multi-national team, including ecologists, glaciologists, and hydrologists. I'm studying the social and spiritual consequences of life without ice for people in high mountain communities. Some of these mountain communities locate their gods or their deities on or in the mountains, so I’m exploring the effects of the disappearance of these mountain glaciers on religion and culture.

Can you share some words about your faculty? How do they work together as an ensemble in educating each student?

We bring together a range of faculty with expertise in a variety of disciplines, including religious studies, philosophy, environmental studies, women's spirituality, and psychology to this transdisciplinary study of Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion. The faculty are united by a shared concern for the fate of life on Earth, and for building more caring, resilient, and relational communities. Our faculty bring a range of perspectives to exploring the intersections of ecology, spirituality, and religion, and how these domains mutually influence one another. Our transdisciplinary faculty approach these questions from a range of angles.

What is the most common job or career path graduates from this program end up pursuing?

Our doctoral graduates are teaching at the college and university levels. We're very, very proud of them. They're bringing a unique CIIS perspective into the institutions where they're teaching. Our master's graduates tend to either work in community organizations or start their own organization. Several graduates have started their own nonprofit organizations dedicated to some aspect of religion and ecology: they’re involved in educating others, teaching wilderness skills, preserving and protecting wildlands, sharing film and media about religion and ecology, and educating queer youth about ecology and nature.

While our doctoral students pursue college or university teaching, many of our master’s graduates also become educators in a variety of ways. Some of our master's graduates will start their own organization, join a community organization, work for governments or public agencies. Faith leaders who study with us carry their ecological education back to their faith communities and deepen their work as faith leaders.

Read more about Professor Elizabeth Allison's writing, research, and talks.