Students come to the program with diverse educational and work backgrounds, including education, the arts, psychology, business, community development, and the environment. The pedagogy and learning environment allows students to bring all of themselves to the educational process, and facilitates the development of strong academic capacities, including critical and creative thinking, the use of innovative qualitative research methodologies, and a transdisciplinary sensibility. Students are encouraged to draw from literature, the arts, narrative methods, and spiritual traditions in their learning. The transdisciplinary context of our research aims not just to describe, but to change human systems.

This doctoral program focuses on collaborative learning, dialogue, and self-reflection, and encourages learners to bring their full experience and goals squarely into the educational process. Learners prepare themselves for engaging contemporary cultural dilemmas by transforming their capacities for communicative learning (pursued through dialogue) and emancipatory learning (exploration of one's own underlying assumptions and explanatory stories.)>p>This degree offers Distance Learning options