Residential M.A. in Women's Spirituality
Our two-year 54 unit MA weekend program in Women’s Spirituality offers an advanced degree for women at a pivotal “crossroads” in their lives. The program promotes intellectual and creative expression and explores and integrates global and historic intellectual, social, psychological, artistic, and spiritual aspects of womanhood. The Women’s Spirituality program has at its foundation the values of transformative learning, with a view towards encouraging students to engage their local communities as change agents who live and work in accord with their own beliefs and values.
Our program’s primary goals are to inspire social action and spiritual activism and to teach students how to think critically and work in a ways that allow for personal transformation and consequent social change.
Our required courses and electives are small graduate seminars held in a cohort model and taught by supportive, diverse, leading practitioners in the fields of women's spirituality and spiritual activism, including authors, scholars, artists and ritualists. Courses are offered on weekends once or occasionally twice a month and are scheduled to be completed in six quarters over two academic years. A completed thesis or equivalent major creative project as a culmination of a student’s studies is required.
Our curriculum explores women’s roles in pre-history and history, women’s spiritual and religious leadership, women’s work in healing and social activism, and women’s ritual, literary, social, and artistic contributions. Our feminist learning community offers dedicated mentoring, encouraging the development of new knowledge and theory through an integration of scholarly research, spiritual practice, embodiment, activism, and the sacred arts. The Sacred Feminine and the values of justice and equality associated with Her are explored in multi-spiritual traditions across Asia, Europe, Africa, the Americas, the Ancient Near East/Middle East and Australia.
Areas of study include:
- Archaeomythology,
- Cultural feminist theory,
- Creative visual arts,
- Movement,
- Literature and poetry,
- Living indigenous sacred practices,
- Psychology of women,
- Metaformic theory (ritual origins of culture),
- Performance ritual theater,
- Sacred texts, and
- The revisioning of religion.
Click here to review a sample of course descriptions.
Students and Learning Community
Our program is designed for adult learners who have a passionate interest in the historical, cultural, philosophical and theoretical roots of a women-centered spirituality as well as the practical applications that its research, personal exploration, and creative expression inspire. The MA program looks to enroll students who have an intellectual capacity to learn theory and engage in critical thinking, and the emotional maturity to work within a cohort-learning structure that relies upon personal integrity and mutual respect.
The program content and group experience empowers students to find direction, self-authorization, connection to female roots, authenticity and fulfilling life work. Our approach to learning appeals to students who find value in the use and celebration of ritual, creative expression, and community within an academic context and who use this learning as a catalyst for change within themselves and the world.
The curriculum and the learning community we build through our cohort and weekend intensive model would most benefit those students who are looking to enhance their career or professional work through the study of a women-centered spirituality that promotes whole-person learning and encourages their spirited engagement with local communities. These students, many of whom are therapists, social workers, business women and lawyer, nurses, teachers, and artists, as well as individuals working within the non-profit sector, do not view their academic development or progress in earning a graduate degree as discontinuous with the personal, professional, or avocational spheres in their lives, but instead look to deepen their knowledge and develop their competency in these areas through the expertise they gain in the program. Our program schedule also allows students the time to reflect and apply what they learn to their lives and their current work situations.
Community Service Practicum
Each student also participates in a community service practicum of her or his own design which is intended to enrich thesis research work and model a spiritually grounded approach to scholarship and social change. The practicum is arranged by the student and approved by the faculty and consists of 40 hours of community service. It may take place in a social service agency, a school, or other institution, or may be a series of courses or workshops developed and offered by the student to the larger community. The practicum may be arranged as a traditional internship or may be created by the student, with approval of her or his advisor, outside of any institution, to address a perceived community need. It is supervised and assessed by a faculty supervisor and someone from the outside agency or organization, if applicable.
Career and Professional Applications
Alumni of the MA program have used their training as researchers and practitioners of women’s spirituality to animate their personal and professional lives in diverse and creative ways. Some of these alumni include the following:
- Gillian Brown wrote her thesis on the history and contemporary uses of labyrinths and now teaches part-time at Humboldt University in their Women’s Studies department. She also conducts workshops on such topics as labyrinth building, the Burning Times, and the sacred sites of Britain and Ireland, and has installed several permanent labyrinths within her local community.
- Nane Jordon is completing her Ph.D. in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC, where she plans to write her dissertation on how the Women’s Spirituality program pedagogy transforms the lives of its students.
- Margaret Kruszewska is teaching Comparative Mythology at Santa Rosa Junior College and received a six month fellowship to attend Jagiellonian University in Poland for study and research. She is completing her Ph.D. in Philosophy and Religion at the California Institute of Integral Studies.
- KK Ledford teaches public Anusara classes and works privately with clients with Yoga Therapy and herbs. She was recently featured in the June issue of San Francisco Magazine for her therapeutic work with people living with cancer and HIV. She has also presented at the Green Yoga Conference and the Red Web Menstrual Education conference.
- Joy Reichard is a Certified Clinical Alchemical Hypnotherapist practicing in San Mateo and works with both women and men who are striving to overcome self-limiting behaviors, beliefs and attitudes. Her interest in the Goddess has taken be to Serbia, Bulgaria, Italy, and Turkey (in 2008, to Crete), where she gathered material which she incorporated into a 5 part series on Goddess images illustrating how the myths, characteristics and attributes of the Goddess can be integrated into our lives today as we reclaim a sense of our personal power and vitality.
Program will begin in Fall 2008.