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Gaia University
Gaia University offers a unique approach to higher learning by offering students (called Associates) access to accredited Bachelors and Masters degrees and Graduate Diplomas whilst the Associate is actively engaged in self and planetary transformation. Linking your ideals with self-directed practical experience, you act as a world changer, by working for local and global sustainability and regeneration, justice and peace.
Our self-directed action learning methodology enables you to study locally, at work or on project, in your own language, supported by Gaia University's Regional Organizers, and a worldwide network of learning providers, tutors and mentors.
No longer do you have to choose between earning a living and studying. With action learning your work and your projects become your places of study.
Gaia Metro, City Repair Project offer Course in Urban Village Building Design
This year, Gaia University’s emerging Gaia Metro regional center and The City Repair Project, both of Portland, Oregon, USA, have collaborated to create a Village Building Design Course
that provides a comprehensive overview of the designs and methods that
empower citizens in urban settings to build community through
‘placemaking’. The course takes place in Portland May 28th – June 6th
in conjunction with City Repair’s annual placemaking event, The Village Building Convergence.
For Gaia U associates enrolled in the Urban Village Building degree
pathway, the course will be a required extension to the May orientation
workshop. Associates who attend the course will continue their
exploration of urban village building after the course, with advising
support, through placemaking projects that they actualize in their own
cities. For the general public, the course will be available as a
standalone workshop.
Observe. Integrate. Design from patterns to details. Use edges. These
are just a few permaculture principles that can be used to redesign
elements of the urban environment in a way that is regenerative and
life-supporting. With over half of the world’s population now living in
urban settings, the need for human-scale urban design has never been
more pressing.
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Alumni Excellence: Ethan Roland, Permaculture Designer
Gaia University graduate Ethan Roland hasn’t always been a strong
collaborator. Now, thanks to his degree work with Gaia University,
collaboration has become a signature characteristic of his professional
work. In each of his various roles - Principal of Appleseed
Permaculture, advisor
and project manager for Gaia University, staff member of Earth Action
Mentor, Co-founder of Gaia Northeast , and board member of Permaculture
Across Borders and the Apios Institute - Ethan brings his Gaia
University Masters project in Collaborative Ecosocial Design to life.
Before becoming a Gaia U associate, Ethan received a BS degree in
microbiology from Haverford College. He was subsequently awarded the
prestigious Watson Fellowship , which funded a year-long study of apple
diversity around the world. Ethan visited 7 countries during the course
of his research trip, with the highlight being New Zealand. It was
there that he met renowned permaculture designer Geoff Lawton and fell
in love with permaculture. Before long, Ethan had established his own
permaculture design consultancy and even had the opportunity to reunite
with Lawton for some co-teaching.
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An Integral Approach to
Conflict Resolution in
the Middle East
The complex conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is reflected by
too many lines drawn in the sand and too few hands extended across the
divide to work together towards collaborative solutions. Gaia University Bachelors associate Yoav Melamed’s deep desire to
discover how his own conscious evolution might inform the design of
integral approaches to conflict resolution in the Middle East has
recently led him into some fascinating trans-border Israeli-Palestinian
project work.
Yoav was born in the US and raised in Israel. In school, he had a
passion for philosophy and a knack for systems thinking. He intuitively
sought an integrative approach to learning, enjoying the discoveries he
made of connections between subjects. In 2006 Yoav completed his
mandatory Israeli military service without killing or being killed, yet
he was not able to escape the grief of returning to civilian life with
the feeling that he had lost himself before even discovering who he
was. Yoav explains that this shock of re-entry after military service,
or ‘citizen shock’, is common among his young Israeli brothers and
sisters, and often leads to an extended period of travel in search of
meaning.
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Penny Livingston & James Stark –
Regenerative Design and the
Ecology of Leadership
Gaia University Associates Penny Livingston and James Stark are the founders of the Regenerative Design Institute
(RDI) in Bolinas, California. RDI has hosted a Gaia U orientation for
the last two years and is currently in development to become an
autonomous Regional Center in October of 2010.
In the mere five years that it’s been running, RDI is has become a
powerful hub of advanced Permaculture and leadership training. RDI
offers hands-on experience with permaculture design, food production,
animal husbandry, beekeeping, and wildcrafting, and much more. One of
their main focuses is the Regenerative Design and Nature Awareness
(RDNA) program led by James Stark and Jon Young, which places a strong
emphasis on regenerative design, cultural mentoring, community building
and nature connection. RDNA will soon become a degree pathway for Gaia
U Associates interested in focusing their work in these areas. Stay
tuned for more information on this in the coming months.
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