Core Curriculum

These courses explore contemplative and spiritual views and practices that invite students to engage body, mind and heart in cultivating insight, receptivity, and wisdom. Students learn to cultivate openness, curiosity, and compassion, building capacity to skillfully meet complexity and uncertainty. All courses in this area present historical and cultural contexts, key concepts and terminology; honor the range of diverse experiences (physical, cultural, etc.); and emphasize diversity within and across traditions as relevant to the course.

These courses address issues of power, privilege, oppression, and collective liberation. They present concepts and methods that deepen students\' ability to understand and constructively engage with issues at the intersection of race, class, gender, sexuality, and more. These courses include inner and interpersonal practices such as working with emotions and cultivating resilience. They may also include historical analysis and case studies, artistic expression, public scholarship, and opportunities for community engagement and social action. All courses in this area emphasize critical thinking and communication skills.

In these courses, students learn to live in an ecologically just and regenerative relationship with the living earth. They learn to embed principles and practices of sustainability into every aspect of their lives to address local and global environmental crises, to build flourishing communities, and to help foster life-sustaining societies. These courses emphasize critical thinking, writing, and oral presentation skills.

In these courses, students explore creative practices and forms of artistic expression as vehicles for inquiry and communication. Students will discover how art can be a means to awaken perception, conduct embodied research, and develop the possibilities of the imagination toward healing, meaning making, and transformation of themselves, and their communities. Courses in visual arts, writing & poetics, music, dance-movement, and performance engage students in the joys, challenges, and deep learning of the solitary and collective creative process.

Working with an understanding that leadership takes multiple forms and expressions, courses in this area provide students with opportunities to explore and practice leadership mind-sets and skills. Students develop knowledge and capacities for creative professional and civic life, leveraging their gifts to be of service locally and globally.

In this area students deepen and sharpen their writing and research skills, weaving their own experience, ideas, social locations, and authentic purpose with broader social, historical, political, artistic, scientific, and cultural contexts. Students learn and practice research methods relevant to their emerging capstone projects, such as finding and evaluating sources, interviewing, and arts-based inquiry. Assignments and instruction address the writing process and writing strategies, providing frequent feedback to support student\' growth and development as scholars and writers.