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CIHS Newsletter
 
In This Issue
Message from the Dean
Message from the Execitive Dean
Commencement Address from Joseph Subbiondo
Community Events
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October/2017

Dear CIHS Community Members,
 
 
Happy Halloween!
 
Congratulations to our CIHS graduates who finished their programs. We celebrated their graduation on Saturday, September 9. This was CIHS' 20th commencement ceremony, and we had 3 graduates this year. Thank you for those who came to celebrate with us, and thank you for those who could not come but who support CIHS throughout the year in many different ways.
 
This newsletter contains 4 articles. The first article is from Dr. Umansky who reviews our graduation and our current academic quarter. The next article is from Dr. Ji Hyang Padma (explaining her teaching experience in Omega Institute in East Coast) and detailing the community events, which she is organizing at CIHS.
 
The next two articles are about Joe Subbiondo. One is from Dr. Thomas Brophy introducing Joe Subbiondo to the community and explaining his honorary degree from CIHS. Lastly, there is Joe Subbiondo, h.PhD address to CIHS that was presented at the graduation ceremony.
 
We hope that you have wonderful time in the coming fall season. We greatly appreciate your support, and welcome your inclusion as part of our community, either as a graduate student, researcher, or by simply attending one of our workshops.
 
Sincerely,
 
 
Hideki Baba, Ph.D. 
 Hideki_Baba@cihs.edu

 
 
Message from the Dean 


Dr. Hope Umansky 

 
Dear CIHS COMMUNITY,

Happy Fall! This new academic year at CIHS was marked by a very moving graduation with three graduates who embody the concept of commencement. That is the other word for graduation and its meaning is to begin. Each of the three students were not ending their journey but just beginning it. The two Master's degree graduates are continuing in the PhD program, and the PhD graduate will be utilizing his work in integral psychology to augment his work with special needs children. Thus, we marked this fall quarter and new academic year with a transformative beginning.
 
There is much positive work behind the scenes happening with WASC and if you are a student here please block out Wednesday May 2, 2018 for an afternoon student meting (most likely 2-4 pm or 3pm-5 pm). This will be CIHS' site visit and it could mark a tremendous milestone for us. So, if you are local or in Southern California, it is really a service opportunity to the school to attend this meeting. The accreditation effort benefits you directly by having the opportunity to have a WASC accredited degree, and we need the most participation as possible. The site visit could either mark CIHS as a candidate for accreditation, which is the next step to the final phases of accreditation. There will be more details to follow but WASC will be on campus May 2-4, 2018. The more students they can speak with at this time, the more robust the community, which is what we need to demonstrate.
 
Winter quarter classes will be announced mid-November and registration will be before the Christmas Holiday break.
 
If you have any questions about your programs, please direct them to your program director or to me. I am happy to advise all CIHS students. If you are interested in what a graduate degree where the underscore curriculum is consciousness studies and how this can help create a commencement, too, please do not hesitate to email me 
 
 
Sincerely,

Hope Umansky, PhD
Dean of Academic Affairs
Director, Psychology Program
 


 

 
 
Award: Doctor of Humane Letters for Integral Education honoris causa
to Joseph L. Subbiondo
 


Dr. Thomas Brophy  

 
A few years ago I read an article in the Huffington Post, titled: "From Liberal Education to Integral Education". [8/21/2013] I loved the article, to me it expressed very clearly and succinctly and in a way as to educate both the general public and the scholarly community
  • Just what an Integral Education is.
  • Why Integral Education is better, more inclusive and more advanced than what we used to call a "Liberal Arts Education" - which has been somewhat in decline in recent decades.
  • Why Integral Education will be the emerging wave of the future
  • Why Integral Education will also serve to foster a peaceful global society - which is one of the founding missions of CIHS.
The article was so good I felt a little piqued at the author - he was able to so clearly articulate what I had been trying for years - to hone a succinct message about why we CIHS use the term Integral in the foundational language of our programs.
 
How can he do that so much better than me! I exclaimed to myself. I will get back at him, this brilliant author I didn't know. Someday, I will write an even better article about Integral Education, I vowed to myself!
 
Time passed, and something better happened than getting back at that author - I got with him!
 
A few months ago, by chance (although nothing like this is really by chance), Joe came to visit CIHS. He immediately recognized the coherence of CIHS' mission and purpose to his own. And ever since he has become an invaluable advisor and mentor to us.
 
The timing was perfect, he had just become President Emeritus of CIIS - the California Institute for Integral studies.
 
After a 17 years tenure as president of CIIS, during which time he:
  • Took the helm at a struggling small institute having troubles financially and with their accreditation
  • Grew academic enrollment and public programs by several multiples, building CIIS into the solid leader in Integral Education that it is today.
 
He accomplished that feat by communicating and networking and leading in what I will call a "naturally Integral" way.
 
I say "naturally" integral because I think like many great Integral leaders, Joe came to operate Integrally (meaning: mind-body-spirit-social-individual inclusive and developmentally) naturally organically from his own being.
 
I think we see evidence of that, for example, in his early scholarly interest, as a young man, in the natural philosophy of John Wilkins - A 17th century Anglican leader, Wilkins was one of the few people ever to head both Oxford and Cambridge Universities. A transdisciplinary polymath, Wilkins made forefront contributions to fields ranging from religion, the foundations of linguistics, to science - he essentially created and got adopted the international metric system. As a political and religious leader in a time of much turmoil he managed to remain on good terms with leaders on all sides. Wilkins clearly was another "naturally Integral" leader. Thomas Jefferson was greatly influenced directly by the works of John Wilkins, as surely were other American founders of the United States. [And I like to think the key to the success of the American Revolution itself was its fundamentally Integral nature ... but that is beyond the scope of this "brief" introduction.]
 
Joe Subbiondo's works on Wilkins are just one area of his many important scholarly contributions to the fields of linguistics and history of English and other areas.
 
His record of service to the Higher Education community is tremendous. He has served on and led approximately 25 Accreditation Teams for the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, and the Western Association of Schools and Colleges - helping young institutions become vibrant and sustainable, fulfilling their educational missions.
 
Before he was president of CIIS, his posts included:
  • Dean of Arts and Sciences at Santa Clara University.
  • Dean at St. Mary's College of California, Moraga.
  • Executive Associate to the president, The Art Institute of Chicago. [Having grown up in Chicago area, I think this one is really cool.]
  • Vice President for Academic Affairs, University of the Pacific.
  • Professor of English and Linguistics -- granted tenure at three different universities.
 
All the time, he was and is leading as an Integral Educator.
 
So it is actually our deep honor to award to Joseph L. Subbiondo,
For his achievements, accomplishments and leadership to the field of Integral Education:
A Doctor of Humane Letters for Integral Education honoris causa.
 
Thomas Brophy
Executive Dean, CIHS
September 10, 2017



 

 
 
Commencement Address
at CIHS 20th Graduation  


Joseph Subbiondo, LHD   

  
Integral Education and Compassionate Community

As the 2017 graduates of the California Institute for Human Science (CIHS), you are the beneficiaries of an integral education. As you now well know,
an integral model of education drawing on many disciplines, cultures, and ways of knowing is needed, especially today. It will help you to continue making progress in dealing with the pressing issues that currently challenge us, especially the fragmentation of the whole into divided groups.

I strongly encourage you to continue to live the values of your integral education, especially those relevant to building and sustaining compassionate communities.
Living in 21st Century divided America, we know well that compassionate communities are as needed today as ever.

We all crave belonging. This
craving is fundamental to being human. Thich Nhat Hanh eloquently recognized the need for community: he noted that "Society has so much momentum in the direction of forgetfulness that we need the support of friends to help keep us in touch with our deepest desire to love and help all beings" (

All aspects of your
integral education are related to building and sustaining compassionate communities, especially the following:
 
  • Integration of knowledge, action, and love
  • Inclusion of spirituality
  • Connections of diverse cultural traditions
  • Exploration of inner and outer dimensions of life
  • Acknowledgement of individuals as a part of a collective
  • Honoring of experiential learning
 
In both the founding visions of Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama (1925-2015), founder of CIHS; and Dr. Haridas Chaudhuri (1913-1975) founder of CIIS, we see the significance of building and sustaining compassionate communities

Dr. Motoyama (drawing on the words of the CIHS catalogue) "envisioned that academic and scientific work of CIHS would play a crucial role in the emergence of a universal spiritual outlook that will help to build common ground between the world's religious, cultural, and ethnic groups, paving the way for humanity to take its next evolutionary step toward a harmonious, peaceful, and sustainable global society."

Similarly, Dr. Chaudhuri maintained that integral education looks for "... a new form of humanness - one where world citizens evince loyalty to the welfare of all human beings, transcending former barriers imposed by national, ethnic, religious, doctrinal and cultural differentiations
.

Dacher Keltner, Professor of Psychology at UC Berkeley, directs the Berkeley Social Interaction Lab. He is also the director of the Greater Good Science Center.
In the Center's 2016 Newsletter, Greater Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life, Keltner affirmed:
 
 
Recent neuroscience studies suggest that positive emotions are less heritable-- that is, less determined by our DNA-- than the negative emotions. Other studies indicate that the brain structures involved in positive emotions like compassion are more "plastic"--  subject to changes brought about by environmental input. So we might think about compassion as a biologically based skill or virtue, but not one that we either have or don't have. Instead, it's a trait that we can develop in an appropriate context. 
 
Human communities are only as healthy as our conceptions of human nature. It has long been assumed that selfishness, greed, and competitiveness lie at the core of human behavior, the products of our evolution. It takes little imagination to see how these assumptions have guided most realms of human affairs, from policy making to media portrayals of social life.
 
But clearly, recent scientific findings forcefully challenge this view of human nature. We see that compassion is deeply rooted in our brains, our bodies, and in the most basic ways we communicate. What's more, a sense of compassion fosters compassionate behavior and helps shape the lessons we teach our children.

Integral Education contributes significantly to building and sustaining communities because it advances the interrelationships of each to the other and to the universe.

Deepak Chopra and Menas Kafatos, in their recent book You are the Universe, recognize that the study of the universe is no longer solely the domain of the natural scientists in general, and the physicists in particular. If we are to increase our understanding of the nature of the universe and our relationship to it, we need to move beyond the confines of the traditional disciplines by adopting an integral education that includes multiple ways of knowing, multicultural traditions, and transdisciplinarity.

A particularly significant moment in the Chopra's and Kavatos' book is in the discussion regarding reality at a tape recorded meeting between Albert Einstein and Rabindranath Tagore in 1930. The authors cite this conversation to connect the expansive contours of their study. Tagore was "someone the West viewed as an embodiment of Indian spiritual traditions." He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, and he was an acclaimed philosopher, musician, and artist. When Einstein, deservedly regarded as the "world's greatest scientist," asked Tagore about the meaning of truth, Tagore asserted that truth was human, that is subjective. Einstein, while holding an opposite opinion, stated that he could not prove the objectivity of truth. For Chopra and Kafatos, this historic exchange represents a radically shifting dialogue between East and West as well as between the physical sciences and spiritual traditions. By the end of the conversation, Einstein and Tagore reached a meeting of minds and an integral framework. Chopra and Kafatos write:

The once-famous meeting between two great minds is now largely forgotten. But in a startling way, it was prophetic, because the possibility of a human universe, one that depends upon us for its very existence, now looms large. The most fantastic of possibilities, that we are the creators of reality, is no longer fantastic. After all, belief and disbelief are human creation, too.
 
Chopra and Kafatos present an integral approach to an ancient idea by making a case for human participation in creating the universe as a community.

In creating and sustaining communities of compassion, I encourage you to practice heroic compassion, the ultimate expression of a compassionate community. Heroic Compassion  is like altruism with a risk. It has two forms: Immediate Heroic Compassion is when, without thought, you jump onto the subway tracks to rescue someone. It's impulsive. Considered Heroic Compassion isn't done impulsively; it's done with thought, and it can be maintained for many years.

Kristen Monroe, Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine, has studied people with heroic compassion, and she offers the following criteria:
1. You must act-not just think about how good it would be to act.
 
2. Your goal is the welfare of the other person.
 
3. Your action has consequences for that person.
 
4. There's a good possibility your actions will diminish your own welfare becausr you are putting yourself at risk;
 
5. You have no anticipation of reward or recognition.
 
To connect the current social divides that are so prevalent in our country and in the world, we need to advance the spirit of Martin Luther King's Beloved Community. As Dr. King realized: "I can't be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can't be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be."

I conclude my remarks with a quotation from Dr. Chaudhuri's writings. He often wrote about what he refered to as the supermind - the ultimate outcome of a life-long integral education. The supermind enabled one to build and sustain compassionate communities as an integral expression of an evolved consciousness. Dr. Chaudhuri asserted:

The supermind is the principle of integral consciousness in which all opposites are harmonized. So the supermind alone can lay the foundation for a unified world-order in which unity and diversity, peace and justice, love and freedom can coexist (1972a: 181).
 
 
Congratulations to you, your families, and your friends. Congratulations to CIHS and its inspiring faculty and its committed trustees, administrators, and staff.
 


 
Community Event Updates

Dr. Ji Hyang Padma  
 
 
The California Institute of Human Science (CIHS) will be welcoming change leaders from a variety of disciplines-Spirituality, Psychology, Integral Health and the Arts-to lead its fall 2017 events and workshop series. Each offering is designed to help illuminate our lives in some way and provide us with the courage and renewal needed to meet the challenges of a modern life.
 
This series, which begins on October 18 with a visit from Zen Master Jose Shinzan Palma, provides an open door to all who wish to deeply integrate body/mind/spirit and develop wisdom to chart the way ahead.
 
Our transformative speaker series begins on Wednesday, October 18th at 7 p.m. with the visit of Zen Master Jose Shinzan Palma. On Wednesday, October 25th CIHS hosts"The Many Faces and Phases of Love", a performance featuring Pulitzer- Prize- nominated poet Rev. Dr. Vincent Carver Gilliam and DeArcho, a duo comprised of musicians Deborah Robin Mech, a CIHS student, and Richard Choquette. On Sunday, November 5th, at 7:30 p.m. Deep Sound Meditation, the largest and longest playing sound meditation ensemble in the country performs their healing work to benefit disadvantaged school children in Nepal. Other scheduled events this Fall include Shamanic Journeying, and Emerging Proud, a film on spiritual awakening.
 
Please see our calendar for full details: https://www.cihs.edu/index.php/events_main/list/