Overview
Students at California Institute of Integral Studies Benefit from San Francisco's Modern and Vibrant Atmosphere
California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) is located in San Francisco, California. A modern, culturally rich and vibrant city, San Francisco is laden with interesting restaurants, cafes, art, theater, music, and social venues where students of CIIS can meet, socialize, and study.
San Francisco's performing arts and music scene is easily accessible by California Institute of Integral Studies students, with the San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Symphony, and San Francisco Conservatory of Music just a short distance from campus. The American Conservatory Theater, one of the finest regional performing arts companies, is close, and dozens of other professional theater companies make there home in San Francisco as well. There is also a culturally diverse dance scene in the San Francisco Bay area, including the San Francisco Ethic Dance Festival.
There are scores of museums in the San Francisco Bay Area. CIIS students have access to wonderfully educational as well as entertaining resources, including the Asian Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Legion of Honor Museum, the Exploratorium, and the California Academy of Sciences, to name a few.
CIIS Offers Philosophy and Religion Programs Through its School of Consciousness and Transformation
California Institute of Integral Studies offers comprehensive programs of study in philosophy and religion through its School of Consciousness and Transformation. The school offers on-campus and online M.A. and Ph.D. programs that enrich the traditions in the scholastic fields of social change, transformative learning, women's spirituality, leadership, health, anthropology, religion, psychology, and philosophy by imbuing them with perspectives taken from critical social theory, creative social change, consciousness studies, ecological thought, and feminist theory.
For example, the school's graduate programs in philosophy and religion offer a concentration in philosophy, cosmology and consciousness. This concentration is designed to help students sharpen the spiritual, moral, and intellectual leadership skills that are necessary to meet the challenges that today's world faces in its political, ecological, and spiritual realms. The program provides students with information about the new developments and perspectives they may use to help build a healthier world. These include cosmology, psycho-spiritual, ecosocial, and cultural accounts of human existence, including where mankind has come from and to where it may be heading. Students in the program explore innovative lines of thought and existence that are both inspirational and sensible. Students learn how to resist the pattern of becoming disconnected and diminutive that perseveres within mainstream culture. Within a supportive, yet challenging community, students are encouraged to understand the world around them through a deep grasp of contemporary critiques and cultural history.
Some of the school's other programs focus on cultural anthropology, social transformation, East-West psychology, integrative health studies, transformative studies, and transformative leadership.
The Faculty and Their Research Provide Spirit and Strength for California Institute of Integral Studies Programs
Faculty members at CIIS are integral to the spirit and strength of its programs. They are the backbone of the programs, helping to shape in students the leadership skills necessary to meet the challenges that today's world presents to man's ecological, spiritual, and political wellbeing.
The institute's faculty draws on some of history's most powerful ideas and the notions of the world's religious, scientific, and philosophical traditions. They have crafted a thorough, multidisciplinary program of study that helps accelerate the preparation for a role of leadership.
With more than 50 full-time faculty members and just as many adjuncts, there is no shortage of resources for students at California Institute of Integral Studies. The faculty includes some of the most outstanding scholars in their fields of study, internationally acclaimed authors, and practitioners from a diversity of fields - all who are student-centered scholars.
Students are encouraged to participate in internships during the course of their studies. These internships take place in many of San Francisco's integrative, alternative, and complementary health practices; corporations; public health clinics; faith-based organizations; research facilities; and socially engaged non-government organizations.
