As we celebrated the 50th anniversary of CIIS, the primary goal of the Diversity and Inclusion Symposium was to bring together our learning community in order to capture, interpret, explain, and describe varying perspectives and viewpoints in relation to diversity, inclusion, and social innovation. What emerged were thought provoking and inspirational ways of knowing by faculty, staff, students, and alumni. In our first year of the symposium, we featured over 50 presenters and had 140 people in attendance. The symposium was one of the ODI's offerings this year to engage in critical discourse, develop multicultural competencies and build recognition of the complexity of race, access and personal identity. Below are a few videos that provide a glimpse into the richness of this event, and some of the presentations:
CIIS Dean of Diversity, Denise Boston, PhD provides an overview of the day, along with footage from the symposium:
CIIS Professor, Alec McLeod, MFA, discusses his workshop for the symposium titled, "Unconscious Assumptions of White Supremacy" and how he came up with the theme for his presentation:
Associate Director of the CIIS library, Kelly Sundin, MLIS, discusses their presentation for the symposium entitled, "More than Two: Embracing Non-Binary Gender, Gender Fluidity, and Gender Non-Conformity":
CIIS Professor, Sara Salazar, PhD, discusses her presentation for the symposium entitled, "Multicultural Pedagogies for a Multicultural World":
CIIS Professor, Daniela Koenig, MFT, discusses her Poster Presentation about the ICP Diversity Pilot Program:
CIIS Program Coordinator, Felipe Restrepo discusses the symposium and the 5oth anniversary of CIIS:
|SATURDAY||February 24, 2018|
|9:00 am||Opening ceremony (CIIS Lobby)|
|3 Hour Morning Sessions:|
|9:30 am - 12:30 pm||
"Synergic Inquiry: A Tool for Engaging Diversity and Inclusion" - Room 307
Presenters: May Elawar, PhD; Joanne Gozawa, PhD
|9:30 am - 12:30 pm||
"Somatics 2.0: Diverse Bodies, Diverse Perspectives"- Room 304
Presenters:Tayla Ealom, Stephanie Francis, BA; Roger Kuhn, MFT; Haruhiko Murakawa, PhD; Jules Pashall; Muriel Jamille Vinson; Kurt Wagner, MFT; Nick Walker, MA; Alyssa Zelaya, MA; Antoinette Reyes, MFT; Don Hanlon Johnson, PhD
|9:30am - 12:30am||
"Sensing/Feeling and Thinking our Way into Wellness"- Room 210
Presenters: Laura Coelho, MPH; Robin Gurung; Nafisa Jumahan, BS; Nicole Naramura, BA; Roshmi Rayamjhi, MA; Patricia Rojas-Zambrano, MA; Jaq Nguyen Victor
|1.5 Hours Morning Sessions:|
|9:30 am - 11:00 am||
"Diversity: Individuation, Strategic Essentialism, and Integralism" - Room 308
Presenters: Debashish Banerji, PhD; Felipe Restrepo
|9:30 am - 11:00 am||
"Multicultural Pedagogies for a Multicultural World"- Room 306
Presenters: Danielle Drake, MA; Mara Keller, PhD; Sara Salazar, PhD; Annette Williams, PhD
|9:30 am - 11:00 am||
"Making a Way out of No Way: How Building a Community of Sisterhood Impacts the Graduate Experience for Clinicians Identified as Women of the African Diaspora "- Room 216
Presenters: Tayybah Hasan, MA, MFTI; Lynesha Kately, MA, MFTI; Yvonne Hendricks, MA, MFTI
|9:30 am - 11:00 am||
"Song Exchange: Sharing Refrains from All Over the World" Room 311
Presenter: Bryan Ritchey, BA
|11:15 am - 12:45 pm||
"An Expressive Arts Approach to Exploring Filipino Adolescent Youth Acculturation Processes (Using a Decolonization Framework)" - Room 550
Presenters: Stephanie Balon, MA, MFTI
|11:15 am - 12:45 pm||
"Self-Empowerment, Community Engagement and Social Justice- A Buddhist Perspective" - Room 308
Presenters: Keiko Kubo; Tia Waller-Pryde MEd; Roberta Giordano, BS
|11:15 am - 12:45 pm||
"Coalition Classrooms: Communication Across Complex Difference in a Democratizing University" - Room 306
Presenter: Kai Lundren- Williams, PhD
|11:15 am - 12:45 am||
"Crucial Conversations: Seeking Peace and Conflict Resolution Through Dialogue"
- Room 565
Presenters: Kathryn Ryan, L.Ac, Hannah Stack, MBA
|12:00 pm- 2:00 pm||Lunch and Poster Networking Session - Namaste Hall|
|3 Hour Afternoon Sessions:|
|2:00 pm - 5:00 pm||
"Collaborative Pedagogy for Liberation and Transformation: Addressing Diversity in the Classroom Through Ensemble Teaching" - Room 304
Presenters: Danielle Drake, MA/PhDc; Shoshana Simons, PhD
|2:00 pm - 5:00 pm||
"Loving our Roots: Expressive Arts and Self-Care Through a Bi-Cultural Lens"- Room 306
Presenters: Emilio Juri-Martinez, MFT; Kiona Medina, MFT
|2:00 pm - 5:00 pm||
"Unconscious Assumptions of White Supremacy"- Room 216
Presenter: Alec MacLeod, MFA
|1.5 Hours Afternoon Sessions:|
|2:00 pm - 3:30 pm||
"More than Two: Embracing Non-Binary Gender, Gender Fluidity, and Gender Non-Conformity"-Room 308
Presenter: Kelly Sundin, MLIS; Ari Kleinman, MSLIS
|2:00 pm - 3:30 pm||
"A Participatory Look at The Artist is Present"- Room 218
Presenter: Amy Anderson, MFA
|2:00 pm - 3:30 pm||
"Embodied Supervision: Somatic Relational Approaches to Working Across Differences"- Room 311
Presenters: Ellen Balis, EdD; Marsha Hiller, MFT
|2:00 pm - 3:30 pm||
"Healing Epistemic Wounds: 2e Perspectives"- Room 565
Presenters: Bisola Marignay, PhD; Jaq Nguyen Victor
|2:00 pm - 3:30 pm||
"On Taking up Space: Citational Politics on the Frontlines of a Changing Academy" - Room 550
Presenter: Michelle Marzullo, PhD
|2:00 pm - 3:30 pm||
"LET'S TAKE THE NEXT STEP: African Cosmology and Western Science" - Room 560
Presenters: Brian Swimme, PhD: Annette Williams, PhD
|3:45 pm - 5:15 pm||
"Neighborly: Ethnographic Theater Facilitated By Drama Therapists Toward Community Behavioral Health"- Namaste Hall
Presenters: Deborah French-Frisher; Brittany Carey, BA
|3:45 pm - 5:15 pm||
"Bridging Possibility: Exploration into Developing Inclusive Action in Global Citizens"- Room 565
Presenters: Rebecca Crapps, BA; Angela Reed, PhD
|3:45 pm - 5:15 pm||
"Co-Creating a Nurturance Culture: The Power of 'WITH'"- Room 210
Presenter: Ashanti Monts-Tréviska, MA
|3:45 pm - 5:15 pm||
"Creating Safe and Inclusive Spaces: Moving the CIIS Values Forward"- Room 560
Presenter: Irene L. Plunkett, PhD
|3:45 pm - 5:15 pm||
"Reconciling Transcendence and Immanence in Spiritually-Aware Social Justice Work"- Room 307
Presenters: Gary Raucher, MA, LMFT, RDT/BCT; Felipe Restrepo; Matt Segall, PhD; Joanne Gozawa, PhD
|5:30 pm - 6:00 pm||
Closing Ceremony - CIIS Lobby
"Synergic Inquiry: A Tool for Engaging Diversity and Inclusion"
May Elawar, PhD; Joanne Gozawa, PhD
Synergic Inquiry is a participatory method-effective for supporting discussion that trigger our fears. For this workshop, we chose White Supremacy as the trigger. Participants explore a provocative idea: White Supremacists, like many of us, fear losing individual autonomy. Come experience self, other, and holding differences in the face of deep fears.
1) To employ a Synergic Inquiry process to create mutual space
2) To engage authentically in a potentially triggering experience within a diverse community
3)To generate deeper questions about White Supremacy and its influence on our personal and national mythos.
"Somatics 2.0: Diverse Bodies, Diverse Perspectives"
Tayla Ealom, Stephanie Francis, BA; Roger Kuhn, MFT; Haruhiko Murakawa, PhD; Jules Pashall; Muriel Jamille Vinson; Kurt Wagner, MFT; Nick Walker, MA; Alyssa Zelaya, MA; Antoinette Reyes, MFT; Don Hanlon Johnson, PhD
"Somatics" as a collaborative project in education, healing, and research, was created some 50 years ago out of the climate of two World Wars and the Cold War, the Holocaust, and the residues of slavery in the US. It was a gathering of methods of touch, sensing, breathing, feeling, and moving not only, or even primarily, as aimed at personal well-being, but as methods for reshaping the institutions of a sick social order. As this community crafted common education and research projects, a body of literature, the clinics, it faces the obvious challenge of expanding voices that are calling out from other peoples and regions, yearning for healing out of different kinds of historical conditions. Each of these scholars represent diverse viewpoints on the challenge of embodiment, and have been working with strategies to communicate a broader range of healing directions, embedded in experiential and theoretical approaches which they will address in this workshop.
1) How we may work more cooperatively with people radically different from ourselves;
2) How we may discern experiential resistances to others and modulate their impact;
3) A more intricate understanding of how different embodied selves lead to varying strategies of working with oneself and with others.
"Sensing/Feeling and Thinking our Way into Wellness"
Laura Coelho, MPH; Robin Gurung; Nafisa Jumahan, BS; Nicole Naramura, BA, Roshmi Rayamjhi, MA; Patricia Rojas-Zambrano, MA; Jaq Nguyen Victor
In this workshop participants interested in increasing diversity in the mental health field will have first hand experience of the liberatory practices used by Wellness in Action (WiA). Presenters share personal narratives of what works for them to feel a central part of a diverse space, while transcending token inclusion.
1) Learn about the experience of diverse community leaders and their process of engaging and participating in the community health mental field.
2) Learn and have a direct experience of liberatory arts-based learning practices.
3) Share with other workshop participants about their own experiences in diverse
educational and work settings
"Diversity: Individuation, Strategic Essentialism, and Integralism"
Debashish Banerji, PhD; Felipe Restrepo
At the base of diversity is the idea of pluralism. Yet individuals are culturally branded and interpellated by dominant cultures robbing them of their power of expression and experience. Cultural histories also have an evolving reality to which the individual belongs even if s/he is unaware of it or consciously rejects it. At the same time, modernity is a world history in-the-making to which the modern individual also belongs as a participant. Thus one may talk of internal relations and hybrid formations among local, subcultural and global subjectivities in each individual. This internal dialog has external formations of political alliance or constellation and organizations of neutrality and hostility. This political contest of cultural signs is an internal and external praxis of the individual that is self-critical and creative. Critique is an awareness of cultural codes and their locations and possibilities in a field of power. Creativity is the micropolitics of the performance of codes moving towards individuation. Such an individuation is also a becoming-universal of the individual and a becoming-individual of the universe. We may also call this an individuation towards an integral consciousness and a planetization which is an integral culture. This presentation explores these ideas through a talk and conversation, followed by a discussion
1) Be able to describe and discuss the cultural situatedness of the individual
2) Be able to describe and discuss the process of individuation in terms of cultural relations and of integrality
2) Be able to analyze and discuss the politics of diversity in terms of individuation (micropolitics) and integrality (macropolitics)
"Multicultural Pedagogies for a Multicultural World"
Danielle Drake, MA, PhDc; Mara Keller, PhD; Sara Salazar, PhD; Annette Williams, PhD
As our country becomes increasingly multicultural, our educational approaches will need to engage students with more multicultural course content, diverse learning modalities, and skillful means of inter-relating the differences among students, their worldviews, and goals. Specific teaching methods include the use of altars, integrating spirituality, addressing student traumas, and developing integrative multicultural curricula and perspectives.
1) Gain knowledge and appreciation of how altars can be used to augment learning Development of teaching tools and diversity awareness that include spirituality
2) Increase the participant's ability to recognize and work with academic trauma in the classroom
3) Share best practices for integrative multicultural teaching and learning
"Making a Way out of No Way: How Building a Community of Sisterhood Impacts the Graduate Experience for Clinicians Identified as Women of the African Diaspora "
Tayybah Hasan, MA, MFTI; Lynesha Kately, MA, MFTI; Yvonne Hendricks, MA, MFTI
This workshop explores the benefits of support groups for people of color attending predominantly white institutions. The model of creating a space for women of a common ethnic and/or cultural background is not a phenomena and is one that has been used by women of the African Diaspora for centuries. Women have created sister circles, quilting clubs, sororities, book clubs, vacation clubs, etc., all in the name of having a space to call our own. These spaces are often critical to our well-being and are a model of communal care that we cultivate for ourselves. Women of the Diaspora is an example of this model and one that can be replicated in other spaces or institutions. In this workshop, we will discuss how to consider our communal care and sisterhood as a part of our self-care within the many obstacles of attending a predominantly white institution.
1) How to navigate systematic oppression in an institution.
2) How to build an additional support system outside of family and existing friends.
3) How to process death, loss, and grief of family during the graduate process.
"Song Exchange: Sharing Refrains from All Over the World"
Bryan Ritchey, BA
Song Exchange -This workshop invites each person to share and teach a folk song from anywhere in the world. Participants will be taught how to pass along songs in an oral tradition. Proposed songs should be memorized so that they can be taught without the aide of written music or instruments.
1) Attendees will know how to pass along songs in an oral tradition, instructing through sound, body presence, and mirroring.
2) Attendees will learn how to embody a song using the power of ensemble, including how to mix harmonies and follow rhythms without the aid of written music or instruments.
3) Attendees will learn new, kinesthetic ways of listening to oral music
"An Expressive Arts Approach to Exploring Filipino Adolescent Youth Acculturation Processes (Using a Decolonization Framework)"
Stephanie Balon, MA, MFTI
The presentation examines culturally relevant approaches to working with Filipinx/Filipinx-American adolescent teens using various expressive art therapy interventions. The contextualized backdrop is grounded in a decolonization framework interpreted by renowned Filipino Psychologist, Kevin Nadal, Ph.D and adapted accordingly to integrate narrative-based art therapy practices by the presenter. Clinicians and providers who may serve the Filipinx/Filipinx-American population; and those interested in learning about the Filipinx/Filipinx-American experience are welcome. Format engages the audience interactively with a case presentation and an experiential activity.
1) To gain practical knowledge on culturally sensitive therapeutic expressive arts-based techniques in working with the Filipinx/Filipinx-American population.
2) To identify potential risk factors and detrimental effects of a colonial mentality and intergenerational trauma may have on a Filipinx/Filipinx-American adolescent teen's cultural identity formation.
3) To develop a wider lens of varied Filipinx/Filipinx-American experiences that may unfold as a youth, such as the onset of depression precipitated from cumulative effects of migration stressors, acculturation, and historical trauma.
"Coalition Classrooms: Communication Across Complex Difference in a Democratizing University"
Kai Lundren- Williams, PhD
Bernice Johnson Reagon distinguishes between "home places"-where distinctive and embattled identities can be nurtured-and coalition spaces, where subjectivities, meanings, values, and practices need to be painstakingly negotiated across complex differences. What would it mean to consider our classrooms as coalition spaces? What can guide our practice?
1) Explore the meaning of coalition applied to pedagogy
2) Apply approaches developed in Women of Color Feminism and Postmodern ethics to classroom practice
3) Develop resources (intellectual and institutional) to support non-dominant, emergent, and democratizing subjectivities
"Self-Empowerment, Community Engagement and Social Justice- A Buddhist Perspective"
Keiko Kubo; Roberta Giordano, BS; Tia Waller-Pryde, MEd
What words come to mind when you think of Buddhism? Perhaps it's something along the lines of meditation, mindfulness, impermanence and detachment. This workshop sheds light on a Buddhist perspective that emphasizes its less mainstream and often overlooked principles of self-empowerment, community engagement and social justice. Together, we will explore the historical context of Buddhism in the West that made this so; study the practical application of this approach as applied by a global people's movement of Nichiren Buddhists, Soka Gakkai International (SGI),
and exchange ways in which we enact self-empowerment, community engagement and social justice in our everyday lives.
1) Explore Buddhism's perspective on self-empowerment, community engagement and social justice from an historical and doctrinal standpoint.
2) Study the model of SGI as a movement in its practical application of the aforementioned principles.
3) Interact with other participants to share and learn ways of exercising self-empowerment, community engagement and social justice in daily life.
"Crucial Conversations: Seeking Peace and Conflict Resolution Through Dialogue"
Kathryn Ryan, L.Ac, Hannah Stack, MBA
In this interactive discussion-based presentation, we will discuss barriers (such as echo chambers) and introduce usable skills for having difficult conversations in a polarized world. This talk is for anyone who wishes to respectfully speak their truth, listen to opposing views, and create an opportunity for inclusion in their day-to-day interactions.
1) Using mindfulness practices to set an intention for the session and assess emotions in hard conversation
2) Introducing a identity/diversity activity to challenge how we define ourselves/others while finding common ground
3) Dialogue prompts/exercises to practice listening skills and build better conflict resolution styles
"Collaborative Pedagogy for Liberation and Transformation: Addressing Diversity in the Classroom Through Ensemble Teaching"
Danielle Drake, MA/PhDc; Shoshana Simons, PhD
This experiential workshop will draw from liberatory educational theory, narrative therapy, and cultural and feminist frameworks to demonstrate the use of collaborative pedagogy to facilitate the inclusion of diverse experiences and epistemologies into the university classroom. It is geared toward educators, clinical trainers, and those interested in collaborative teaching. A narrative collective expressive arts practice titled "Laundry of Life" will assist participants in accessing creative ways to liberate and transform educational praxis.
Participants will come away with:
1) A greater understanding of inclusive frameworks that support diverse pedagogy in the university classroom;
2) Ways in which to think collaboratively across faculty, programs, and departments;
3) Expressive arts-based tools to invite creativity and diversity into the classroom from both faculty and students
"Loving our Roots: Expressive Arts and Self-Care Through a Bi-Cultural Lens"
Emilio Juri-Martinez, MFT; Kiona Medina, MFT
We create a safe space and container for anyone interested in connecting to their cultural roots and allow them to inform their self care practices. Our experiential workshop explores our diverse and rich backgrounds and stories using the expressive arts to enrich how we care for ourselves in our different environments.
1.To use expressive arts to honor our stories while understanding our multifaceted roles as clinicians, therapists, members of communities.
2. To create a forum for participants to address the current needs of the communities participants are part of.
3. Participants will take concrete expressive arts self-care practices and tools for themselves and the people they serve.
"Unconscious Assumptions of White Supremacy"
Alec MacLeod, MFA
Participants are guided to consider the assumptions underlying "white supremacist consciousness." This highly charged phrase refers to taken-for-granted assumptions of superiority of white norms and the legitimacy of white privilege. By exploring the myths supporting white supremacy and identifying cultural narratives participants can understand how their own beliefs are shaped..
1) An understanding of the use of critical thinking to challenge cultural assumptions about race
2) Greater awareness of individual assumptions about race
3) Tools for deeper analyses of the foundations of structural racism
"More than Two: Embracing Non-Binary Gender, Gender Fluidity, and Gender Non-Conformity"
Kelly Sundin, MLIS; Ari Kleinman, MSLIS
In this phenomenological exploration of gender in wild variation, Kelly will discuss non-binary gender, attempt to disentangle sex and gender, explore impacts of essentialized cultural practices and normative gender, consider embodiment in binary paradigms, present options for gender-neutral pronouns, and examine California's new Gender Recognition Act (SB-179).
1) An in-depth understanding of the gender binary and variations within, without, and regardless.
2) Suggestions for engaging with gender-neutral pronouns.
3) Approaches for making space for gendervariant folk, and to open minds and hearts to the experiences of those whose gender identities are not easy to explain, not tidily categorized or that tend to shift.
"A Participatory Look at The Artist is Present"
Amy Anderson, MFA
This workshop is a participatory event that embodies the transformative potential of fine art. We look, specifically, at Marina Abromavic's performance piece, The Artist is Present. Attendees participate in a mindfulness activity modeled after Abromavic's art piece. Following the activity, we discuss the effects it had within us.
1) Fine Art carries powerful transformative potential
2) Creative presentations of knowing are very effective within the individual
3) Participants will gain a new tool for developing empathy and compassion (to be used on an individual basis, or in the classroom, if the participant is an educator)
"Embodied Supervision: Somatic Relational Approaches to Working Across Differences"
Ellen Balis, EdD; Marsha Hiller, MFT
This is a clinical psychology experiential workshop in which we will explore how intersectional identities and power dynamics impact clinical work. Developing some ideas of Jon Sletvold and Anne Krantz, we will use expressive movement approaches to see how supervisors, therapists and clients implicitly communicate our relational processes and sociocultural locations. We are literally shaped by these messages, and can use these insights in supervision.
1) Describe how racial identity and racism, disability and ability, poverty and wealth, genders, sexual preferences, spiritual traditions, age are all embodied experiences.
2) Implement gathering implicit information through embodiment practices.
3) Identify non-verbal data such as posture, gesture, prosody, eye contact, nervous system regulation and dysregulation, affect, and breath, in oneself and in another.
"Healing Epistemic Wounds: 2e Perspectives "
Bisola Marignay, PhD; Jaq Nguyen Victor
The academy can be a wounding place when you're an outsider. What happens when you lack the appropriate conceptual tools to understand your social experience and the language in which concepts and theories are presented? This workshop will address such "wounds of knowledge," that is, the hermeneutical injustice that students face in higher education. It will place special attention on the hidden margins of identity, namely at the intersection of dis/ability and other identities that are not widely recognized. It will also introduce Twice Exceptionality (2e), a concept that refers to learners who are both intellectually gifted and disabled, and address ways to best support those with paradoxically presenting needs. The content and structure of this workshop will acquaint students, teachers, and administrators with hermeneutical power, that is, the knowledge to anticipate, support, and heal wounds that otherwise go unnoticed..
1) To practice compassionate self-interrogation.
2) To initiate internal change for more self-accepting productivity.
3) To quiet hierarchical judgement of others.
4) To determine the specifics of individuals' learning needs and seek ways to support them.
"On Taking up Space: Citational Politics on the Frontlines of a Changing Academy"
Michelle Marzullo, PhD
Citational politics in the academy are informed by how scholars write and cite. This interactive discussion invites reflection on the citational politics of participants through the lens of microaggressions. We share best practices for writers on anti-oppression writing gleaned from respected journals and disciplinary organizations. The sessions applies to students, professors and those interested in improving the practice of higher education.
1) Define citational politics
2) Apply the concept of microaggressions to professional and scholarly practices
3) Identify best practices for anti-oppression writing
"LET'S TAKE THE NEXT STEP: African Cosmology and Western Science"
Brian Swimme, PhD: Annette Williams, PhD
Western empirical science synthesized with African cosmology offers a new vision for the human community. Following brief presentations by Annette and Brian, attendees, through dialogue and discussion, join the world-wide adventure in speculative philosophy aimed at reinventing the human at the species level.
1) Participants will learn core cosmological wisdom of African spirituality.
2) Participants will learn western science's principal achievement.
3) Participants will learn how to participate in reinventing the human species.
"Neighborly: Ethnographic Theater Facilitated By Drama Therapists Toward Community Behavioral Health"
Deborah French Frisher, MPA, RDT; Brittany Carey, BA
Neighborly is a multicultural arts-based move toward behavioral health in the bay area and the title of a new play, inspired by the writing of James Baldwin and voice of Billie Holiday. This table reading of excerpts, performed with live jazz, transforms into a facilitated conversation about how people treat each other.
1) Learn to reflect with others about how people treat each other and the impact that related behavioral
health issues have on health in the bay area-individual, corporate, and public.
2) Learn how historic and current fine art and visionary writers inform and inspire practices of inclusion
and equity in multicultural institutions of learning, corporate workplaces, and civic neighborhoods.
3) Learn or refresh your micropractice of how to discern and take an actionable step toward healthy and
neighborly relating at the specific intersections where you live and work
"Bridging Possibility: Exploration into Developing Inclusive Action in Global Citizens"
Rebecca Crapps, BA; Angela Reed, PhD
Inclusive wellness embraces all aspects of community with the intention of serving the greater whole. In this experiential workshop, we delve into creative processing and reflective work for constructing common ground and creating mindset for inclusive thinking. Audience: Individuals interested in social justice, community service, civic action, and bridge work.
1) Cultivate a deeper understanding of diversity and how one's perspective contributes to participation in the global community.
2) Utilize creative modalities for reflection as a technique for expanding the mind beyond linear thinking into the creative mind of possibility needed for bridge building work and inclusive thinking.
3) Generate strategies for ongoing reflection and collaborative work for addressing diversity issues and incorporate this awareness into action steps supporting inclusive wellness and well-action.
"Co-Creating a Nurturance Culture: The Power of 'WITH'"
Ashanti Monts-Tréviska, MA
When it comes to social justice & equity strategic organizing, one of the common problem is the lack of understanding of equity within social justice spaces. This presentational workshop will guide you as a transformative participant to gain insights on the meaning of the collaborative power within the word of ‘WITH'. This workshop will also address critical issues of social exclusivity, community dialogues and status quo mindset. This is the first step to disrupt mainstream worldviews on doing things for people of lesser community or collective voices by understanding what it takes to be a different kind of transformative activist through healthy approaches. Ready to change the collaborative game?
"Creating Safe and Inclusive Spaces: Moving the CIIS Values Forward"
Irene L. Plunkett, PhD
This workshop is for teachers and examines three parts of a safe and inclusive classroom-self- knowledge, the de-mystification of academic cultures, and acknowledgment of the students' cultural backgrounds.
"Reconciling Transcendence and Immanence in Spiritually-Aware Social Justice Work"
Gary Raucher, MA, LMFT, RDT/BCT; Felipe Restrepo; Matt Segall, PhD; Joanne Gozawa, PhD
Activists and practitioners of engaged spirituality both pursue diversity/inclusion, but from seemingly different paradigms, one horizontal/objective, the other vertical/subjective. This panel discussion is convened in an effort to cultivate "both/and" thinking and advance our understanding of how spiritual practice and social justice work can be mutually inclusive and enhancing. This session will be of particular interest to people who have pondered the paradoxes of confronting systemic injustice through compassionate inclusiveness.· Understand and be able to articulate worldview differences that have, at times, kept politically and spiritually oriented activists from mutual understanding and cooperation.· Understand and be able to articulate worldview differences that have, at times, kept politically and spiritually oriented activists from mutual understanding and cooperation.· Understand and be able to articulate worldview differences that have, at times, kept politically and spiritually oriented activists from mutual understanding and cooperation.
1) Understand and be able to articulate worldview differences that have, at times, kept politically and spiritually oriented activists from mutual understanding and cooperation.
2) Discover perspectives and practices that can foster "both/and" thinking and reconcile spiritual and socio-political approaches to achieving inclusive justice.
3) Recognize the contributions of spiritual practice to the healing of collective trauma.
May Elawar, PhD has been a faculty member in the Transformative Inquiry Department since 2015. Prior to that she was an adjunct professor in the Women's Spirituality and the BAC Programs. Her research interests include: postcolonial feminisms and other critical research approaches, participatory and community based epistemologies and methodologies; women's spirituality and spiritual activism; restorative justice philosophies and practice; and the transformative potential of hybrid "third" spaces.
Joanne Gozawa, PhD is Associate Professor in the Transformative Inquiry Department. She has taught at CIIS for 16 years both face-to-face and online. As an educator, her prevailing inquiry asks whether the learning environment evokes a compassionate presence or simply a contentious one. The former enables learners to bear witness to their unconscious assumptions and meaning perspectives and to intersubjectively learn with diverse others. Her scholarly work has incorporated the contemporary Jungian idea of the cultural complex and Shin Buddhism's jiriki-tariki to illuminate learners' resistance and surrender to transformative change.
Tayla Ealom: an Earth and Water protector working to weave the worlds of social and ecological justice in an embodied way as a trained somatic counselor and bodyworker. She draws on her many lineages that tie her to the Cherokee, Haiti, and European cultural intersections, and cross-cultural women's work that offers access to powerful healing modalities for all genders. She strives to brings these awarenesses and practices into activist spaces so healing can remain at the forefront of social and ecological movements. Over the past year, she has been exploring the theme of how the human body is both shaped by, and shapes contemporary society through workshops in the larger Northern California community. Her contribution is a reflection on these experiences and how embodied exploration is the key to moving toward a more just society.
Stephanie Francis, BA: Stephanie is a second-year graduate student at CIIS pursuing her master's degree in Counseling Psychology focused in Somatic Psychology. She received her undergraduate degree in Africana Studies with a Psychology minor from Bowling Green State University. Stephanie writes from the perspective of her biracial identity with particular interest in her embodied experience.
Roger Kuhn, MFT is a Somatic Sex Therapist and a member of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. His work is informed from a social and sexual justice perspective. His current academic and activist focus centers on the concept of decolonizing sexuality. He is currently completing a PhD in Human Sexuality as an active participant in the Two-Spirit community in the Bay Area of California.
Haruhiko Murakawa, PhD: professor in the doctoral program of body practices at Kansai University, Osaka, Japan. A scholar of the role of the Japanese martial arts in the transformation of consciousness. Organizer of several conferences on this topic in Japan, and one of the founders of Somatic Psychology there.
Jules Pashall, MFT: a white, Jewish, fat, and queer femme working as an artist and activist to support people living in marginalized bodies. Her work as a director of fat and queer centered theater, a facilitator of anti-oppression workshops, and training as a Somatic psychotherapist informs her work of envisioning how Somatics can reshape its practices and values to make space for bodies outside of the normative.
Antoinette Santos Reyes: a queer cisgender Pinay who comes from a long line of healers and resisters. Having completed a masters in somatic psychology, they are focusing on integrating their therapeutic practice by centering indigenous and decolonized praxis through the ongoing study of women's spirituality. They support the healing of collective trauma by framing human relationship through an intersectional, feminist, and somato-spiritual lens.
Muriel Jamille Vinson: an African American scholar, dancer, musician, writer, activist. As a descendant of enslaved Africans and a practitioner of West African drum and dance, Muriel has personally engaged with the dynamics and healing potential present in Africentric embodiment practices including song, drum and dance. Currently training as a somatic psychotherapist, Muriel seeks to highlight Africentric somatic practices, including practices of the African Diaspora, and contextualize their potential use in addressing intergenerational trauma.
Kurt Wagner, MFT: Somatic Psychotherapist, researcher, and activist within the gay community. His doctoral research on the possible hormonal variations in the body of birth has led to his articulating the groundwork for understanding the multiplicity of variants in one's erotic proclivities and gender identity.
Nick Walker, MA: an autistic Aikido teacher, author, speaker, educator, and somatics practitioner, and a faculty member at California Institute of Integral Studies and Sofia University, founding editor of Autonomous Press. Since 2004 he has been a central figure in the development of Autistic culture and a leading thinker in the Neurodiversity Movement. His eclectic work explores the intersections of somatics, spirituality, neurodiversity, empathy, and creativity. His writings include Loud Hands: Autistic People Speaking, The Real Experts: Readings for Parents of Autistic Children, The Spoon Knife Anthology, and Spoon Knife 2: Test Chamber. He has been featured in the documentary films Orphans of Delirium, Dreambody/Earthbody, and Spectrum: A Story of the Mind.
Alyssa Zelaya, MFT: a Somatic Psychotherapist, a Lukumi priestess (Olosha) crowned to Shango in 2002, a professional bodyworker (massage therapy and Reiki), and former Aztec dancer. Under these various exposures of religious initiation, folk practices, and professional training, she became interested in helping to heal or resolve the constant "disconnection to self" and imbalances that result when traumas occur. From this perspective, she is currently specializing in trauma work, which includes physical, emotional, and sexual abuses and trauma, specifically, and not limited to, children and adolescents of color.
Don Hanlon Johnson, PhD: founder of the Somatics Psychology Program. For several decades, his writing and teaching have focused on the role of the experienced body in crafting a more just and inclusive social order.
Laura Coelho , MPH is the Wellness in Action Program Designer and Evaluator. Laura is a Filipina-Indian American and received her MPH from UC Berkeley, where she studies health and social behavior. She designs and implements programs and evaluations with local nonprofits and community-based organizations that work with and for immigrant and refugee communities in the Bay Area.
Robin Gurung is a Bhutanese refugee community organizer who is passionate about empowering refugee youths and their families. Robin's project with Wellness in Action, "Bridging the Gap", focuses on resolving inter-generational conflict by building inter generational alliances. Robin now serves as the President of Bhutanese Community in California (BCC), a non profit organization that represents the Bhutanese people in the state of California.
Nafisa Jumahan holds BS in Industrial/Organizational Psychology. Facilitator of Afghan women's support group, through WiA. Bringing awareness about mental health for the Afghan community and breaking cultural misunderstandings about mental health and other social issues, through fun art projects and group meetings.
Nicole Naramura holds a B.A. Human Biology and Society, UCLA. She is a Japanese Filipina Bay Area native whose project with WiA is to create a community support group for organizers in Anakbayan East Bay and other sister organizations working for genuine democracy and just peace in the Philippines. Today, she works as an emergency medical technician, a teacher, local photographer, and an apprentice doula with hopes to continue her higher purpose by offering support on the ground.
Roshmi Rayamjhi is Wellness in Action Coordinator. She holds Master's degree in Public Health from The Arctic University of Norway, and is a registered nurse in Nepal. She believes Mental health issues are burning problems in modern society and has learned through her work that for the Nepalese community stigma is an issue that deprives people from seeking proper treatment.
Patricia Rojas-Zambrano is the Wellness in Action Program Director. Originally from Colombia, she immigrated to the US to study at CIIS. She holds an MA from the Expressive Arts Therapy Program at CIIS and provides Clinical Supervision for third year EXA students as well as a BIS adjunct faculty. She has worked for over twenty years in the arts and community mental health field, beginning in her native Colombia. Today, in addition to her work with Wellness in Action she combines her love of teaching, the arts and healing in her private practice and studio and with other community based organizations.
Jaq Nguyen Victor is a Vietnamese, queer, trans, neurodivergent graduate student in the Drama Therapy Program at CIIS. They are also the Director of Dig & Demand, a healing justice program with WiA. Jaq was honored to receive a 2017 Soma Award for "Outstanding Activism Inspired by Spiritual Wisdom" from the Buddhist Peace Fellowship and a 2015 nomination for "Best Featured Actress" by the San Francisco Bay Area Critics Circle.
Lynesha Monet Kately, MA MFTi is dedicated to serving the community. She is a graduate of the Expressive Arts Therapy program at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) and has over 10 year's experience serving children, youth and families with agencies such as Larkin Street Youth Services, WestCoast Children's Clinic and Seneca Family of Agencies. Lynesha uses her background in expressive arts therapy, compassionate spirit, and sense of humor to connect with her current middle school clients.
Tayyibah Hasan, M.A., MFTi currently works for Seneca Family of Agencies as a clinical intervention specialist in an elementary school in Richmond, CA. She works with children and families to provide creative and holistic mental health care. She received her graduate degree in Counseling Psychology with a concentration in Expressive Arts Therapy from the California Institute of Integral Studies in 2017. Tayyibah is dedicated to working creatively with and for communities of color through volunteerism. Her lifelong goal is to live an abundant life full of joy, creativity, and peace.
Yvonne Lynn Hendricks, MA MFTi from California Institute of Integral Studies. She studied Counseling Psychology with a concentration in Expressive Arts Therapy. Yvonne is a Marriage and Family Intern at The Marina Counseling Center where she works with individuals, children, and families. She also works as a behavioral therapist doing early intervention with children on the Autism Spectrum. Her theoretical orientation uses NTU psychology with a combination of indigenous ritual and expressive arts interventions (dance, art, and drama), with a collective framework. Yvonne believes that working as a collective will bring healing and prosperity.
Felipe Restrepo A native Colombian, Felipe is the Program Coordinator for the CIIS Office of Diversity and Inclusion, and will be graduating from CIIS' Bachelor of Arts Completion program in the spring of 2018. Felipe plans on continuing his studies, and will be pursuing a Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology starting in the fall of 2018. He is an artist and a musician, and has a deep commitment to cultivating and practicing an engaged spirituality rooted in embodied nondual awareness.
Danielle Drake, MA/PhDc is Assistant Professor and alum of the Expressive Arts Therapy MA program at CIIS, and a PhD candidate in Clinical Psychology at Fielding Graduate University. Her research studies focus on the ways in which African Americans use creativity and spirituality towards cultural empowerment, communal relationality and liberation. Her work as an Expressive Arts Therapist engages clients in creative writing, poetry, music, and visual arts processes. She uses a humanistic and narrative informed theoretical approach that incorporates womanist (black feminist), indigenous, African-centered, and liberation psychologies with Emotion Focused Therapy, Narrative Therapy, and contemplative practices.
Mara Keller, PhD is a Professor of Philosophy, Religion, and Women's Spirituality. As Program Director of Women's Spirituality at CIIS from 1998-2008, she produced dozens of special events on women's sacred arts and scholarship, most recently, a joint art exhibition with CERES Gallery in New York on Ineffable/Woman. She is a philosopher, thealogian, and specialist on the Eleusinian Mysteries of Demeter and Persephone. Her articles include "The Ritual Path of Initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries," "Ancient Crete of the Earth Mother Goddess: Sacred Arts and Communal Ritual;" "Goddesses around the World," "Violence against Women and Children in Religious Scriptures and in the Home," and "Women's Spirituality and Higher Education." She believes that "Freedom of Religion to worship Goddess is a social justice issue," a message she delivered to the Parliament of the World's Religions at the Women's Plenary in 2015.
Sara Salazar, PhD is a second-generation Chicana and was the first in her family to attend college. She holds a BA in English Literature from Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame, Indiana and an MA and PhD in Philosophy and Religion with an emphasis in Women's Spirituality from the California Institute of Integral Studies. An educator for 15 years, she has taught in various schools around the world from the elementary level to the graduate level. As an educator, Sara is informed by critical pedagogy and feminist theory. Her research interests include healing, spirituality, curanderismo, Mesoamerican art, restorative justice, and activism with special emphasis in Chicana/o communities, communities of color, women, and education. In particular, she is interested in the intersections of art, spirituality, and activism. In addition to teaching in the School of Undergraduate Studies, she is also part-time faculty in Philosophy, Religion, and Integrative Studies at Holy Names University in Oakland, CA.
Annette Williams holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy and Religion with a concentration in Women's Spirituality from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco as well an M.A. in psychology with an emphasis in Jungian and archetypal approaches. Research interests have centered on healing from sexual trauma at the level of the soul that involves reclamation of the powerful erotic (à la Audre Lorde) and libidinal (à la Jung) energies suppressed by assault. While at CIIS she has continued to explore the theme of damaged female sexuality, expanding the discussion to more fully expound upon socio-historical and cultural influences. From 2009-10 she served as co-chairperson of the Goddess Studies section of the American Academy of Religion/Western Region. An initiate within and student of the Yorùbá Ifá tradition, Annette has had the privilege of lecturing on the philosophy and lived reality of this West African religion. Her dissertation, "Our Mysterious Mothers: The Primordial Feminine Power of Àjé in the Cosmology, Mythology, and Historical Reality of the West African Yoruba," takes up the theme of women's spiritual power and agency within the tradition.Lynesha Monet Kately, MA MFTi is dedicated to serving the community. She is a graduate of the Expressive Arts Therapy program at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) and has over 10 year's experience serving children, youth and families with agencies such as Larkin Street Youth Services, WestCoast Children's Clinic and Seneca Family of Agencies. Lynesha uses her background in expressive arts therapy, compassionate spirit, and sense of humor to connect with her current middle school clients.
Bryan Ritchey,BA is a 30-year old 1st-year Drama Therapy student from Cleveland Heights, Ohio. In 2009, he attained his BA in Dramatic Arts from Cleveland State University. He's performed in over 60 plays since he was 10 years old, and his dream is to teach people about magic and how to find it in themselves using theatre. In addition to performing, Bryan is also a teaching artist, sound designer, and writer. From 2013-2017, he worked closely with NACL Theatre in Highland Lake, NY, helping craft plays that integrated songs and stories from all over the world.
Stephanie Balón. MA, MFTI is an Expressive Arts Therapist at the Daly City Youth Health Center and high schools in Northern San Mateo County. The center offers primary health care, counseling services, and comprehensive sexual health education for youth. Stephanie integrates music, visual art, role-play, ritual, writing, and poetry in her practice. With a Masters in Counseling Psychology (Expressive Art Therapy) from CIIS and an undergraduate degree in Sociology from University of Washington, her work is rooted in trauma-informed care, narrative therapy, person-centered therapy, relational-cultural, and systemic therapy. As Filipino Mental Health Initiative Chair of San Mateo County, Stephanie has an extensive non-profit background in community mental health addressing health inequities amongst underserved populations.
Kai Lundgren-Williams, PhD, studied political economy and fiction writing at the New School for Social Research, finished his BA in Social Sciences and Political Theory at Oberlin College, and received his PhD in Philosophy in 2001 from the Philosophy Interpretation and Culture program, State University of New York in Binghamton. He has taught at SUNY Binghamton, De Anza College, Laney College, the University of Cape Coast in Ghana, San Francisco State, and at New College of California where he helped develop the Activism and Social Change emphasis BA Completion and MA programs. He has published and given talks on alternatives to the modern capitalist devotion to scarcity as a way of being.
Keiko Kubo is a current CIIS student in the Counseling Psychology, Community Mental Health Master's program. As a former Study Programs Fellow of grassroots Buddhist movement, Soka Gakkai International-USA (SGI-USA), Keiko brings her knowledge of Buddhist doctrinal studies, as well as the application of those studies on an individual and organizational capacity. Having done non-profit social work across the United States and the Southern Hemisphere, Keiko has collaborated with community leaders and peacebuilders who work to transform the devastating effects of colonization, genocide, nuclear weapons and capitalism. It is her passion to share principles of Buddhist philosophy as a tool to promote healing, empowerment and social change.
Roberta Giordano holds a Bachelor in Science in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management with an emphasis in Global Environmental Politics from the University Of California, Berkeley (UCB). Born and raised in Rome, Italy, she has spent most of her life working as a grassroots organizer in the fields of social and environmental justice. Roberta relocated to the US in 2008, and since then, she helped students organize across California around environmental justice issues. In 2012 she co-founded the Student Environmental Resource Center at UCB, and in 2013 she co-founded Students Against Fracking. She is actively involved with legislative advocacy in the Bay Area and California to halt the financing of extractive projects and companies that are violating indigenous rights and exacerbating climate change. She currently serves as Development Associate at Amazon Watch, a non profit organization that works to protect the Amazon rainforest by advancing indigenous rights. Roberta has been an active member of the Soka Gakkai International-USA since 2008 and uses her Buddhist practice as a tool for self improvement and to effect positive change in her community.
Tia Waller-Pryde, MEd. For over 20 years, Tia Waller-Pryde has worked to improve the lives of vulnerable children and families through philanthropy. She has served as Director of Programs for the Freddie Mac Foundation in McLean, Virginia and as Education Program Manager for the Clorox Company Foundation in Oakland. Among her most satisfying accomplishments has been using foundation resources to increase the number of highly effective teachers and principals working in low-income communities in Washington, DC. Additionally, she facilitated and invested in initiatives within the DC region that reduced the number of homeless families by providing housing with support services. Prior to her career in philanthropy, Tia served as a legislative assistant to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and Director of Training for Coro in San Francisco. Coro conducts leadership development programs for youth, young adults, and professionals who want to ignite change in our society. Shortly after moving to the Bay Area in 1974, she founded Nia House Learning Center, a Berkeley-based Montessori childcare program whose families continue to reflect the income and ethnic diversity of the community. Tia has a B.A. in history from Howard University in Washington, D.C and a M.Ed. with a specialization in the Montessori Method from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. She is also a graduate of the Coro Fellows Program in San Francisco. Tia has been a practitioner of Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism with the Soka Gakkai International-USA for over 43 years. She is retired and derives great fulfillment from supporting members in developing their Buddhist practice. She is also an avid skier who is determined to finally outdo her husband on the slopes this year.
Hannah Strack MBA, has an undergraduate degree in Communication Studies from Luther College and an MBA in Leadership and Personal Development from the University of Iowa's CIMBA Italy Program. During her liberal arts studies, Hannah welcomed new multicultural students as a coordinator for the Diversity Center and studied abroad to countries such as the Canary Islands, Malta, and more; learning how to connect and communicate across cultural divides. She has taught English in the Republic of Georgia and volunteered for several multicultural organizations. Hannah is currently the Admissions Counselor for ACTCM at CIIS and is enthusiastic about engaging and inspiring others to be inclusive and acknowledge unique perspectives.
Kathryn Ryan L.Ac., has been a Licensed Acupuncturist for over 30 years, and has enjoyed teaching at ACTCM at CIIS for 20 years. Before becoming an acupuncturist, Kathryn received a degree from UC Berkeley in Dramatic Art. In the 1990s, she worked at Quan Yin Healing Arts Center in San Francisco treating HIV patients. She was also honored to work with the transgender community.
Shoshana Simons, PhD, RDT is a drama therapist, voice-over artist, leadership coach and Professor and Chair of the Expressive Arts Therapy Program at CIIS. She received her PhD in Human and Organizational Systems from Fielding Graduate University. Shoshana has over 30 years of experience as a transdisciplinary scholar-artist-practitioner-educator. At the heart of all her work is a passion for transforming educational and human service systems into environments that actively welcome in the voices, experiences, cultures and traditions of people across difference. Shoshana's writings and applied research are in the fields of narrative collective expressive arts practices and performative approaches to change.
Kiona Medina is a Colombian-born expressive arts therapist intern graduate from CIIS with 10 years of experience working in diverse communities in the Bay Area and has presented her work internationally. She is deeply passionate about empowerment and connection through arts and play. She currently works in Richmond as a family therapist and big-hearted community facilitator.
Emilio Juri is an Argentinian-born Reiki Master and expressive arts therapist intern graduate from CIIS. He has experience working with diverse communities in the Bay Area and is currently working as a Mental Health Specialist at an inpatient adolescent unit struggling with depression, anxiety, and eating disorders. Emilio has also presented his work internationally.
Alec MacLeod, MFA is a white educator, artist, and scholar at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He has thirty years of experience as a facilitator of learning and change in a wide range of contexts, from formal educational environments to organizational and corporate interventions. He is especially interested in education for anti-racism, multicultural awareness and change, and in issues of whiteness. He has furthered his understanding of multicultural change through training with Equity Institute and VISIONS, Inc. and has been a consultant with the latter for over ten years.
Kelly Sundin, MLIS Balladeer, geek, logophile and memetic drifter, Kelly Sundin is a librarian at CIIS, and has been working within the CIIS community for over 8 years. Kelly identifies as queer and gendervariant and is steeped in daily efforts to cultivate dignity, equity and respect for all beings and the earth, and embraces anti-oppression and anti-racist practices as major frameworks in their lifelong learning. A San Francisco native, Kelly proudly attended City College of San Francisco, studied the origins of oppression in western society at UC Berkeley with a BA in Medieval History magna cum laude, and attained their MLIS from San José State University. Singing, reading and helping others are deeply spiritual and healing practices for them and, in becoming a parent last year, they embarked on their biggest adventure so far.
Ari Kleinman, MSLIS works in the CIIS library as a cataloging librarian, where they strive to provide equitable access to information resources. They are queer, agender, and non-binary, and use they/them pronouns. Ari studied Literature, Media, and Communication at American Jewish University, and recently graduated with their MS in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. In addition to their work in the library at CIIS, they also volunteer as a librarian at Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library, a communist library and archive in Oakland.
Amy Anderson, MA Born in Greensboro, North Carolina, Amy M. Anderson studied Studio Art, as well as, Philosophy and Religion at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Amy received her Master of Fine Arts from Western Carolina University, her Master of Liberal Studies from UNC-Wilmington and is currently pursuing a PhD in Transformative Studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies with a focus in contemplative, transformative pedagogy in higher education. Amy is an art instructor and a visiting artist at international artist residencies, specializing in conceptual, site-specific installations.
Ellen Balis, EdD Ellen's relational psychodynamic orientation is enriched by over 30 years of meditation practice, as well as her early training in feminist therapy, family therapy, and psychodrama. She is on the faculty of the Wright Institute, where she teaches courses in Supervision and Multicultural Awareness, and she has a private practice with a sub-specialty working with LGBTQ clients and couples. She has supervised pre-doctoral interns and post-doc fellows since 1986.
Marsha Hiller, MFT has been teaching graduate psychology students at John F. Kennedy University and CIIS, and supervising for over 20 years. She has extensive personal and professional experience and passion for living and working cross-culturally. Her private practice and supervision experience include working with people from the LGBTQ community, folks of different races and she is a Transracial Adoption Consultant for Pact, an Adoption Alliance working with white adoptive parents of children of color. Her private practice is in North Berkeley, and her work is informed by psychoanalytic, relational, somatic, developmental, feminist and social justice theories.
Bisola Marignay, Ph.D. has taught and provided individual and group writing support for students at CIIS for the past eleven years. She developed the process of Creative Writing Therapy to address the emotional issues that are commonly the source of students' academic struggles. The objective of her work is to guide learners past their anxiety into awareness of their specific intellectual competencies. Simultaneously, she instructs writing skills that give learners confidence to use lived experience as foundations for writing lucid critiques, arguments, and creative expression. Bisola has also contributed technical assistance for improvement of the university's overall approach to providing academic support services for students. Presently, she supports groups and individuals within her private practice of Creative Writing Therapy. Contact: firstname.lastname@example.org
Michelle A. Marzullo, Ph.D. is a practicing anthropologist and academic who serves as Chair and Professor for the Human Sexuality PhD Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Dr. Marzullo's work currently engages sexuality policy and economic issues in the United States, LGBTQ access to higher education, issues of ethics in internet research methodology, and workplace diversity and inclusion issues. She has earned a bachelor's degree in Psychology with a minor in Sociology from Western Connecticut State University, a Master's Degree in Human Sexuality Studies from San Francisco State University, and a PhD in Anthropology concentrating on Race, Gender and Social Justice from American University in Washington, DC. Michelle is honored to be a past recipient of the Point Foundation Scholarship, the American University College of Arts and Sciences Dissertation Fellowship, the St. Clair Drake Grant from the Society for the Anthropology of North America (SANA), the Carlos Enrique Cisneros Scholarship for LGBT students of distinction attending American University, Genentech's Out & Equal Scholarship, and the Grant Larsen Fellowship at San Francisco State University. Dr. Marzullo has been featured on CNN, in the Washington Post, the Advocate and regularly provides expert advice to various media requests.
Brian Thomas Swimme received his Ph.D. from the Department of Mathematics at the University of Oregon for work in gravitational dynamics. He brings the context of narrative to our understanding of the fourteen billion year trajectory of the universe. Such a narrative, he feels, will assist in the emergence of a flourishing Earth community. Swimme is the author of The Universe is a Green Dragon, and creator of the educational video series: "Canticle to the Cosmos." He is core faculty in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness, (PCC) and in Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion (ESR).
Angela Reed, Ph.D., received her doctorate in Transformative Studies from CIIS in 2014. She currently teaches physical education in North Carolina with 25 years' experience and continues her research with young people in the areas of global and planetary wellness. She has a patent pending for a tool she created from her dissertation research, Mandala in Motion, and is in the process of designing a resource kit for educators to bring diversity, inclusion, and global awareness into the classroom through experiential learning that empowers.
Rebecca Craps holds an undergraduate degree in Sociology and Communication Studies from Clemson University. She has facilitated district level Social Studies professional development with an emphasis on inquiry-based learning and informed action. She currently teaches fifth grade in North Carolina. She is co-author of an article published in the September/October 2016 issue of Studies and the Young Learner that focuses on using inquiry in the classroom.
Ashanti Monts-Tréviska, MA is the co-founder and the creative visionary of Cascadia Deaf Nation, a For Profit Social Enterprise of Deaf Black Indigenous People of Color (DBIPOC*) where it focuses on bringing creative solutions to dismantle socio-economic and social injustices through its transformative cooperative model. Ashanti demonstrates that Deafhood is the first step to bringing transformative narratives into co-creating collaborative relationship between Deaf and Hearing communities. Through this understanding, she offers spiritual insights on activism, human connection, the meaning of community, and education, and believes in the creative arts of deep listening and communication to convey the need to transform human connections.Ashanti holds Master's degree in Transpersonal Psychology and Certificate in Spiritual Psychology from Sofia University and is currently a Doctoral student in Transformative Studies and Consciousness at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She enjoys coloring mandalas and writing poems as her meditative hobbies. She jogs frequently and is always unpredictable when it comes to her leisure activities. Ashanti understands that deep change has to start at the individual level before the actual changes reach the community level based on her current transformative activism framework model. She seeks to reframe and transform current reductive worldviews of Deaf people globally.
Irene L. Plunkett, Ph.D., is faculty emeritus of Chabot College where she taught ESL, English, Women's Studies, and Religious Studies for 35 years. This college is in Hayward, CA, the third most diverse city in the U.S. The campus is a minority-majority school in which there is no racial, ethnic, or cultural majority, and where English is most commonly not the first language of the students whose numbers include both immigrants and refugees. Dr. Plunkett completed her doctoral work at CIIS in the Women's Spirituality program.
Gary Raucher, MA, LMFT, RDT/BCT: Core Faculty with the CIIS Drama Therapy Program; licensed MFT; Registered Drama Therapist; Board Certified Trainer of Drama Therapists. He has broad clinical experience in community agencies, hospitals, and private practice working with individuals, families, and groups. He has presented internationally on applications of drama therapy in diversity and social justice work, and serves on the CIIS Faculty Diversity and Inclusion Committee, which has adopted these conference presentations for community use. A firm believer in the mutual efficacy of spiritual practice and social justice advocacy, Gary is a certified instructor of The Wisdom Foundation, offering classes in Wisdom Meditation and Wisdom-Informed Therapy. He is a past Board Member and Vice-President of The North American Drama Therapy Association, and received its 2015 Annual Service Award. His publications include numerous articles and book chapters, several bridging transpersonal psychology and consciousness studies to drama therapy.
Matthew T. Segall, PhD, teaches German Idealism and process-relational philosophy for the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program at the California Institute of Integral Studies. His Spring 2018 online course at CIIS, Process and Difference in the Pluriverse, aims to address the challenge of thinking and acting with creativity and compassion in an increasingly complex and pluralistic set of social, political, and ecological contexts. He has published articles on metaphysics, participatory theory, psychedelics, religious studies, and is the author of Physics of the World-Soul: The Relevance of Alfred North Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism to Contemporary Scientific Cosmology (2016). He blogs regularly at footnotes2plato.com.