California Institute of Integral Studies

[EduCativ]

At CIIS, you engage in issues vital to you, today's world, and your personal growth, exploring the deep connections that unite them. You can study in innovative, accredited graduate bachelor's degree programs, all in an academically rigorous setting.
We have built our reputation on 50 years of transformative education as a unique University that prepares students with the knowledge, experience, and professional development to meet today's challenges and understand the complexities of our fast-changing world.
In CIIS, you encounter a lively and diverse community of learners that honors multiple ways of teaching, learning, and knowing. You take part in small classes with faculty who are committed to your education.
California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) is an accredited university that strives to embody spirit, intellect, and wisdom in service to individuals, communities, and the earth. CIIS expands the boundaries of traditional degree programs with transdisciplinary, cross-cultural, and applied studies utilizing face-to-face, hybrid, and online pedagogical approaches. Offering an intimate learning environment and supportive community, CIIS provides an excellent multifaceted education for people committed to transforming themselves, others, and the world.
Critical studies respond to the growing need to synthesize the fragmentary aspects of contemporary thought and culture into a meaningful whole. The integral outlook, envisioned by the founders of CIIS as embodying a creative synthesis of East and West's highest values, has grown to encompass the study of traditions and experience from around the globe. Critical studies at CIIS encompass all aspects of learning: the intellectual, the experiential, and the applied.
The goal of the Ecological Justice Initiative (EJI) is to investigate and implement the changes necessary to ensure that all of the University's activities are in line with commitment #5 of the CIIS Mission Statement - Advocate Sustainability & Social Justice - which states that: CIIS is committed to exploring and promoting knowledge and practices that affirm human solidarity with the entire Earth community. As usual, recognizing that business threatens the integrity of life itself on a planetary scale and perpetuates structures of oppression on a large portion of the human population, CIIS strives to generate creative alternatives leading to a just and flourishing world.
The CIIS community acknowledges that ecological citizenship is an ongoing process. As of the start of the Fall 2015 semester, an EJI committee is in the formation process and will commit to growing its base of dedicated faculty, staff, and students by encouraging the broader CIIS community to join the effort to align CIIS with sustainable and equitable ecological policy.
ODI is a collaborative leader and initiator of transformative change at CIIS, working closely with students, staff, and faculty to advance diversity and student success, create an inclusive academic environment, and incorporate the principles of diversity and inclusive excellence into the classroom and curriculum.
ODI enjoys offering and supporting various CIIS experiences, including the Bridge Program for incoming first-year students, diversity workshops, extracurricular events and conversations, Student Ambassadors for Diversity and Inclusion (SADI), film screenings, and academic program orientations.
Through these events and the resources ODI offers, it strives to work with the CIIS community to engage the entire institution in meaningful dialogues and actions that lead to introspection and change, affecting not only the academic environment and student experience CIIS, but the community beyond. ODI also hopes to challenge students to enhance their writing, research, and general education during their time at CIIS, while supporting faculty and staff in creating diverse, inclusive, and equitable classrooms and curriculums.
Providing an integral education for a changing world, the Institute creates and integrates knowledge beyond traditional academic disciplines' confines. CIIS values cultural diversity, multiple ways of knowing, spirituality, a sense of community, emancipatory ideals, and ecological sustainability, developing a reflective and innovative learning community. In exploring the interplay of mind, body, and spirit, integral education connects intellectual life's spiritual and practical dimensions. The integration of the wisdom traditions presents an evolution of consciousness that has never been more relevant and crucial today.
In the fall of 1950, Stanford University Professor Frederick Spiegelberg searched for a scholar from India to join him, Alan Watts, and others to help form the faculty of a new and innovative graduate school in San Francisco called the American Academy of Asian Studies.
Professor Spiegelberg wrote to the Indian yogi and spiritual philosopher Sri Aurobindo to ask for a recommendation of a person well versed in Eastern and Western philosophies with an in-depth knowledge of integral yoga. Sri Aurobindo approved the recommendation of Dr. Haridas Chaudhuri, then chair of the Philosophy Department at Krishnagar College in Bengal, which prompted Professor Spiegelberg to write to Dr. Chaudhuri to invite him to come to San Francisco and help shape the new academy.
Since 1981 CIIS has been accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Senior College and University Commission (WASC-SASC).
Throughout its history, the Institute has fostered cutting-edge thought. Over four decades, CIIS's original emphasis on Asian religions and cultures has evolved to include comparative and cross-cultural studies in philosophy, religion, psychology, counseling, cultural anthropology, organizational studies, health studies, and the arts, as well as a bachelor's degree completion program.

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