An
Educational Paradigm for Global
Regeneration:
Gaia University
by
Tami Brunk
Visualize
the planet, drifting through space.
Perhaps you will see astronaut
Edgar Mitchell’s vision:
a sparkling blue and white jewel,
a light, delicate sky-blue sphere
laced with slowly swirling veils
of white, rising gradually like
a small pearl in a thick sea of
black mystery.
Most
likely though, this picture will
be marred by the nightmare images
of rapidly melting glaciers, skeletal
coral reefs and smoking, barren
landscapes where once were rainforests.
You might project into the future,
imagining widespread warfare and
desperate ravaging of earth’s
remaining resources as oil supplies
peak and rapidly dwindle.
Look closer. When we do, we will
also see a strong, natural impulse
toward renewal. In every pocket
where the Earth has been left
alone, it is regenerating its
life systems. And miraculously
enough, we’ll see that people,
too, are actors in this regeneration
process, nourishing vibrant human
communities and slowly restoring
severely exploited landscapes.
Gaia University, a new decentralized,
action-learning-based University,
was founded last fall in order
to support and strengthen these
hopeful trends. Permaculturists,
ecovillage founders, green technology
innovators and other leaders in
the sustainability field are now
invited to partner with GU to
offer Bachelors and Masters degrees,
with accreditation formally recognized
in both the USA and UK, to the
world changers of tomorrow.
For over ten years, leaders in
the permaculture and ecovillage
movements have envisioned just
such an institution, but it took
the joint brainpower of visionaries
Liora Adler and Andy Langford
to pull it together. The two met
at an ecovillage educators forum
at Findhorn, Scotland in early
2004. This seemingly chance encounter
generated a spirited dialogue
around development of a global
university, through expansion
of the Permaculture WorkNet Diploma
Program Andy had initiated 12
years earlier. In the months following,
Liora and Andy teamed up to bring
what had been a nebulous concept
into a serious institution of
higher learning.
They charted a pathway to accreditation
though IMCA (International Management
Centers Association) and Revans
University–the only action-learning
university in the world. In October
of 2004, Gaia University was incorporated
in Colorado.
It would be difficult to imagine
a better-suited pair to manifest
this ambitious project. Liora
has over thirty years experience
with ecovillages and the establishment
of global networks. She was co-founder,
in 1982, of Huehuecoytl, an artisan’s
ecoaldea in the volcanic highlands
of Central Mexico. In 1996 she
helped to launch la Caravana,
a nomadic ecovillage of international
artists traversing Latin America
from North to South. In the years
following, she has played an instrumental
role in establishing, promoting,
and strengthening both the Ecovillage
Network of the Americas and the
Global Ecovillage Network.
Andy initiated permaculture teaching
in the UK starting in 1985 and,
together with colleagues in the
Permaculture Association of Britain,
has initiated training of more
than 3,000 permaculture designers.
Since 1993 he has been developing
and refining the Permaculture
Diploma WorkNet, which has awarded
160 diplomas to students, mostly
in Europe. The WorkNet is widely
regarded as the standard for European
permaculture education. Andy refers
to the Gaia University collaboration
as Version 5.0 of the WorkNet
System.
Andy and Liora envision Gaia U’s
potential curriculum as broad
enough to include the following:
Permaculture, Ecovillage
Design, Peace Studies, Ecocities,
Appropriate Technology, Traditional
Wisdom, Eco-health, Sustainable
Economics, Bioregionalism, Life
Transitions, Natural Building,
Social Communication, Art for
Social Change, and many
other as-yet-to-be-developed areas
of study.
Action learning is central to
Gaia University’s methodology.
It is a back-to-the-roots alternative
to standard University learning.
It offers a sophisticated, nurturing
framework for students–called
associates–to explore their
area of interest, without demanding
that they know precisely where
they’re headed from the
outset or have any fixed concept
of where they will wind up. Within
a network of supportive and knowledgeable
faculty, students are given the
tools to investigate, reflect,
and to “crash around a bit”
in the classic pattern of inquiry
dating back thousands of years
(See Action Learning Diagram).
Action Learning Sets of students
will have access to a broad range
of support consisting of Workshop
Providers, Set Advisors, Internal
Reviewers, Specialist Advisors,
and an External Reviewer. A Regional
Coordinator develops the overall
regional capacity, linking associates
with these individuals, many of
whom will work in a given region,
but some of whom will likely tutor
and mentor from afar by phone
and e-mail.
In
addition to faculty support, each
associate will be part of a Learning
Guild of three to five peers,
with whom they will meet regularly
to refine and deepen their pathway
through a system of directed inquiry:
what is going well for me as an
action learner? What is difficult?
What are my long-term goals and
visions? What are my next achievable
steps?
Liora and Andy’s expected
students will likely be from the
divergent population. Adler sees
a portion of this group as young
people who are fed up with the
traditional, spoon-fed, sit-in-a-classroom-while-you’re-being-lectured-to
environment. “Perhaps,”
she says, “they have another
kind of genius that could be cultivated
in a different methodology.”
The population Gaia University
is reaching out to will already
share much of the vision contained
in the sustainability movement.
Liora
believes that an estimated six
percent of the general population
fits into this category. “Six
percent of six billion is a lot
of people–we’ll start
with those” says Adler.
Students can take an informal
or formal route toward their degrees,
the primary difference being the
commitment to deadlines. Formal
learners will be expected to work
to a set timetable with their
learning group while informal
degree earners can work at their
own pace. While degree programs
will vary widely depending on
area of study and the structure
of a given regional center, the
basic outline of a formal Bachelors
degree should look something like
this:
Year 1: Associates focuses on
theory and coursework and setting
up projects. Must acquire 80-100
‘classroom hours’–through
workshops and study of theory
with partners in GU’s global
network. While students can choose
from a near-limitless array of
courses, they will be required
to take ‘Regeneration 101’
which will cover core concepts
in sustainable design sciences
such as peak oil, permaculture,
footprint analysis and the ethics
of right livelihood. Students
will identify projects that meet
their own development needs and
meet the needs of a sponsoring
organization – these projects
are the core of an action learning
pathway.
Year
2: Associates will embark on their
action learning pathway, working
closely with their Learning Guild,
Set Adviser and Internal Reviewer
(project mentor), as they begin
articulating and engaging with
their project design. Students
will learn as they go, as they
progress through the projects
that highlight their areas of
ignorance. Technical Advisers
are on hand to assist.
Year 3: Associates’ projects
will move through implementation
towards completion; Project reports
(written, videotaped, or maybe
sung and danced) will be submitted
to an internal reviewer and, finally
an external reviewer, both of
whom must accept the project as
complete in order for an associate
to receive their degree.
One potential stumbling block
for GU students in the US will
be their ineligibility to apply
for federal aid, given the fact
that accreditation is achieved
through a non-US institution.
To overcome this obstacle, Andy
and Liora hope to develop a foundation
for students with lesser resources,
most of which will be directed
toward students in economically
impoverished regions of the world.
However the fact is that a degree
from GU costs substantially less
than that acquired through a university
in the US or Europe. In addition,
the founders are working with
the Permaculture Credit Union
to develop a student loan facility.
A
unique feature of Gaia, which
is intended to benefit the many
individuals who have already contributed
significant time and energy within
their organizations yet lack formal
accreditation is the credit map
system, whereby up to 1/3 of an
associate’s credits can
be derived from previous experience.
Leaders in the sustainability
fields who wish to partner with
Gaia University are encouraged
to use the credit map option in
order to pursue an accelerated
Masters (or potentially Doctoral)
degree.
Remaining work toward a degree
could act as the framework for
clarifying goals and objectives,
fine-tuning of existing programs,
developing regional centers, developing
strategic business plans, or playing
a role in researching and sharing
effective models for the rest
of the network. Andy and Liora
both see Gaia University’s
role in building learning infrastructure
for the sustainability movement
as vital and expect it to“pulse
better focus and performance throughout
the networks” They hope
to nudge ecovillages, permaculture
initiatives, and holistic health
centers closer to their full potential.
In April, Andy and Liora traveled
to The Farm, a 34-year-old intentional
community in central Tennessee,
to begin development of the first
regional center or ‘campus’
in Gaia University’s global
network. In the months following,
a flurry of meetings and visioning
sessions have taken place, as
seasoned pioneers in the fields
of permaculture, appropriate technologies,
ecovillage design, and alternate
health are hammering out various
curricula, a common legal framework,
and faculty structure. GU plans
to offer accredited courses starting
in January of 2006. Numerous other
communities have expressed interest
in establishing their own regional
centers.
At the recent International Permaculture
Convergence (IPC7) in Croatia
there was much support for the
development of Gaia University.
Bill Mollison, Declan Kennedy,
Peter Bane, Ali Sharif, Richard
Wade and many others expressed
their particular visions of how
GU might evolve in their regions
and further the growth of the
permaculture movement.
Information
about Gaia University is now available
on its beta website, www.gaiauniversity.org.
Next steps include establishing
regional centers; development
of ‘Regeneration 101’
and refinement of the University’s
organizational structure through
the website’s feedback system–what
Liora refers to as “growing
tip led organization where the
branches, new-growth and cross-fertilization
happen out there.”
If you are interested in participating
as a workshop provider, associate,
or funder, or if you’d like
to initiate development of a regional
center, first carefully peruse
the website. Then contact GU directly
at info@gaiauniversity.org.
“We
have all been consistently ridiculed
for having visions,” notes
Andy. “We’ve been
told, ‘you can afford to
be idealistic when you’re
young, but when you get out into
the real world, you’ll forget
all that,’ So our visions
of how we’d like to see
the world become a better place
get squashed.”
“Some
of us, though, have managed to
re-emerge our idealism and our
visioning ability. It is up to
us,” he says, “to
create the safe place for other
people to practice. There’s
the true vision for Gaia University:
opening up our visioning capacity,
learning the skills we need to
meet the coming challenges, creating
a sustainable world and allowing
the Earth to regenerate.”
*
Andy
Langford is a long term activist
with permaculture in Britain and
Northern Europe. He worked up
the early British permaculture
teaching resource (supported by
Lea Harrison of Australia and,
later, George Sobol), organised
and taught design courses and
ran significant design projects
for Local Government and private
clients. Andy is an enthusiast
for inclusive learning, decision
making and action methods and
has facilitated Future Searches,
Open Space Technology and Planning
for Real events. He wrote "Designing
Productive Meetings and Events"
(1997, SODC) and trained several
groups of citizen facilitators
in these methods during the 90's
Local Agenda 21 boom. He is a
principal architect of the Permaculture
Diploma WorkNet, an innovative,
University without Walls conception,
which offers trained support to
people using action learning to
gain their Diplomas of Applied
Permaculture Design. Andy currently
lives at Braziers Park, an experimental
residential project designed to
integrate the efforts of people
with 'unlike minds'. He has been
working to assist the transformation
of this 1950's inspirational project
to 21st Century needs, to include
permaculture, leaderful organisation
and a commonwealth of micro-enterpises.
Liora
Adler is a global leader in the
ecovillage movement and from 1999-2003
served on the Board of the Global
Ecovillage Network (GEN). She
currently serves on its International
Advisory Board and is UN Representative.
She is a social activist, communicator,
facilitator and specialist in
the consensus decision making
process, psychologist, holistic
nutritionist, event organizer,
photographer, dancer and lover
of life. Co-founder of the ecovillage
Huehuecoyotl in Mexico and la
Caravana Arcoiris por la Paz -
a mobile ecovillage and training
center traveling through Central
and South America;Associate of
the International Institute of
Facilitation and Consensus; Representative
of the Caribbean Region of the
Ecovillage Network of the Americas;
and Vice-President of Global Village
Institute for Appropriate Technology.
For the last 35 years Liora has
been active in movements to promote
ecovillages, biorregionalism and
global consciousness. She has
been helpful in the creation of
ecovillage and permaculture networks
in Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil,
Ecuador, Jamaica, Puerto Rico
and Cuba. She has given workshops
and conferences in Consensus Decision
Making, Facilitation, Sacred Communication,
Leadership Skills, Holistic Nutrition,
Women's Health and Strategies
for Planetary Change. Liora coordinated
the Workshops for Sustainable
Living projects in Colombia and
Ecuador in 2000-1 and the Women's
Peace Village Project in Ecuador
in June 2002 and in 2003 served
as Coordinator for the Call of
the Condor Gathering in Peru in
which 800 representatives from
ecological, spiritual, indigenous,
peace and holistic health movements
gathered to create a ceremonial
peace village and celebrate the
vernal Equinox at Machu Picchu.
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