The catalogues of most American universities attest to the fact that the "integration of knowledge" is a predominant aspiration of many American colleges and universities. Today, for a growing number of institutions, this integration means a full recognition of the interplay of body, mind, and spirit.

More and more, students are looking to cultivate qualities they will need as leaders of transformative change in their fields of work and in society - and to do so, they are looking for education that connects the spiritual and practical dimensions of intellectual life.

Although traditionally "the academy" has looked to the intellectual as separate from the spiritual, many graduate schools are recognizing that this disconnect misses the point. Academic programs that respect the spiritual dimension of experience, incorporate multiple ways of knowing, and expose students to the worldviews of diverse cultures are more pertinent today than ever before. The men and women who choose such programs may be looking to develop their own consciousness, and to develop the skills to actively make a difference in the world.

People are increasingly concerned about issues such as ecological sustainability, global understanding, women's issues, relationships and families, self-actualization, spirituality, and social conscience. Where traditional graduate schools may scratch the surface here, alternative programs delve deeper. Schools which recognize a spiritual foundation to life, knowledge, and culture encompass a rich diversity of approaches and viewpoints, and many are committed to small classes and a personal learning environment.

Pei Wu is a graduate student at California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), studying for a Masters degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology with a concentration in Gender, Ecology, and Society. She said, "I thought I would never go back to grad school because I thought no grad school would teach me the skills to be of better service to my community. But the knowledge and skills I've found in the CIIS Anthropology program are so incredibly necessary to those who work for change: participatory research methods, alliance-building, self-critique, critical social thought, and crafting social action that is ethical and sensitive to an ever-changing, complex world."

Accredited schools like California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco or the Naropa Institute in Colorado, among a selection of others, offer an alternative to the traditional confines of academia. Courses may include the fundamentals, like History of Western Worldviews, but also Overview in Creation Spirituality and Cosmology, or Building Alliances Across Differences and Ecological Postmodernism. For students seeking to grow in their own self-realization, connecting the body, mind, and spirit, as well as, and often intertwined with, the desire to learn ways to be positive catalysts for change and peace in the world, schools like these provide the solid academic background, challenge, skills, and opportunity for personal insight.

What they also provide is an enveloping sense of community that comes from the desire to embrace other ways to 'be'. Non-traditional universities not only welcome diversity, they teach and learn from diversity. Here the goal is not to find your niche; it's to experience and appreciate niches you've never been privy to, and to bring that appreciation into the business world, the political world, to community and family.

Even the distance learning programs offered by non-traditional universities can provide such close-knit community. At CIIS, calling the Human and Organizational Transformation M.A. and Transformative Learning and Change Ph.D. programs "distance learning" is a misnomer. With their cohort format, these on-line programs are among the most community-oriented, interactive programs of all, bringing together adult students from around the world in a lively, collaborative, and creatively personal environment, computer screens notwithstanding.

For students seeking graduate degrees to delve deeper into their own psyches and spiritual growth, to experience community and diversity to help them understand themselves in the context of the greater world, or those seeking degrees to springboard their efforts to work for peace, justice, and change in this tense world situation, alternative universities and graduate schools are centers of what is most valuable in higher education - like-minded AND unlike-minded learning, sharing, and growing together with academic rigor and powerful personal passion.

Author:
Nancy Ross
Director of Communications
California Institute of Integral Studies
www.ciis.edu