What does a year at Gaia RDI look like?

Your year begins and ends with a residential intensive at the Commonweal Garden in Bolinas, California, the home of the Regenerative Design Institute. During the first intensive workshop, you will go through an orientation where you become familiar with the Gaia RDI system, clarifying your project and learning goals for the year. This orientation will be followed by a “content workshop” where you focus on your chosen specialization—for example, Regenerative Leadership. Throughout the rest of your year you will be engaged in your home community, implementing projects, checking in regularly with your advisor and classmates, and documenting progress toward your learning and project-specific goals. During the final intensive, you will give presentations, refine your goals, and prepare for your next (or possibly final capstone) year.

First Residential Intensive

To prepare for the first residential intensive, also known as the orientation, you will want to have completed a draft of your Life and Career Review (description of your accomplishments and education up to the present) and project specifications (description of any projects you plan to implement over the course of your studies) prior to arrival. These will be refined over the course of your orientation and content workshops, but preparatory work will allow you to get the most out of the residential intensive. For all but the Open Topic Degree program, the initial residential intensive is comprised of two parts—a week-long orientation workshop and a content workshop in your area of study (Regenerative Leadership, RDNA or 8 Shields Cultural Mentoring).  The content workshop may or may not directly follow the initial orientation.

Orientation Workshop

During the Orientation Workshop we form a mutual teaching and learning culture that encourages an exchange of knowledge and skills amongst participants. 

The Orientation Workshop includes an orientation to Gaia RDI systems and philosophy, including:

• Action learning practices
• Social documentation
• Understanding a second-tier competence and attention model
• Being proactive around asking for feedbackand support
• Skills for generating outputs

We will attend to:

• Extending our knowledge of design frameworks and methods - pattern languages, permaculture design, Theory U, etc.
• The dynamics of working in a design team - using The 10 Faces of Innovation and/or other group role analysis
• Latest thinking and theories regarding the evolution of human societies - Saharasia, Chalice and the Blade, Spiral Dynamics, Integral theory
• Social organization - competent consensus, decision-making methods, meeting methods, policy governance, organizational design and leadership issues, regenerative economics
• Scaling up and broadening out our design competence - moving towards bio-regional design and ecosettlement design
• Tools for progressive deconstruction of oppression
• Our position in the world today - strategies for increased influence and effectiveness
• Project management skills - costings, analytical estimating for time content, costs and resource needs, negotiation skills, monitoring competence and attention, contracts
• Core routines of nature connection - sit spot, journaling, story of the day and more

We will practice:

• How to host effective learning conversations
• How to function as a support person and how to ask for the support we need
• How to recover and/or activate our multiple intelligences
• How to think using pattern languages, conceptual models, diagramming
• How to make effective use of peer counselling resources wherever we are

Click here for Gaia RDI Orientation Workshop fees, logistics and registration.

Content Workshop

The content workshop is typically five days, and is interwoven with the Bioneers Conference. It is required for those starting a BSc or MSc in Integrative EcoSocial Design. It is not required for those starting a MSc Open Topic program. The first day of the content workshop is a day of concentration-specific content and preparation for navigating Bioneers in the most beneficial way. The second, third and fourth days are at the Bioneers conference itself, with additional Gaia RDI events and meals together. During the fifth day, you have an opportunity to integrate the new information acquired during the workshop into your learning and project goals for the coming year. If an instructor from the conference is to be one of your advisors, you will also meet with them one-on-one at this time.

Open Topic learners do not have a required content workshop, but we encourage you to sign up for a content workshop that fits your project focus.

Click here for Gaia RDI Content Workshop fees, logistics and registration.

Re-Evaluation Counseling Fundamentals (optional)

Gaia University associates have access to a unique tool with which to explore and heal themselves, their communities, and the world at large, becoming more effective in the world change work in which they are engaged called Re-Evaluation Counseling (RC).  RC is a process whereby people of all ages and backgrounds exchange effective help in order to free themselves from the effects of past distress experiences. Re-Evaluation Counseling’s global network is generally based on geographic boundaries.  However, given the pioneering work of Gaia U in often remote locations and the challenges its international associates face in finding local RC Fundamentals courses, RC International has decided to allow courses to be offered in conjunction with Gaia U Orientation programs. We will not offer a RC Fundamentals Course with our 2011 Orientation in California, however we have many resources to help you connect with RC Theory and the RC Community.  For more information, please click here or visit rc.org.

During the Year

Between the residential intensives, you will be in your home community—or perhaps traveling or in an apprenticeship—engaged in the projects you have designed within your chosen pathway. You will meet with your peer support person, optional content guild(s) and primary advisor once a month face to face, by Skype or phone. You will be expected to complete an output package about every six weeks—approximately six over the course of the year. You will need access to high-speed Internet on a regular basis to access our e-learning environment where you will upload your output packages as well as posting on forums and blogs with your peer group.

For specialist support in your chosen pathway, you have the option of meeting with affiliated specialists throughout the year. Beyond that, you can use funds allocated from your tuition fees to help cover learning support needs. For example, you might pay an orchard grower in your community to teach you to prune apple trees, or hire someone an evening each month to help with your outputs if you have a writing disability.

Output Packets

Effective documentation is a key skill for all associates of Gaia University (and for all world changers). Apart from attending our short courses, the production of output packets based on your work in the world is also the primary way in which Gaia University associates gain their "credits." Output packets consist of project reports, extracts from your learning journal, annotated resource and reference lists, and self- and peer-review forms.

Permaculture Design Certification Course

All Gaia University programs require you to complete a permaculture design certification course within your first program year or before enrolling. Permaculture design is a key tool for ecological and social regeneration, and we are excited to be building a "permaculture university" with a common language and ethic as our foundation. The Regenerative Design Institute offers two-week permaculture design certification intensives as well as "four-season" certification courses that take place over the space of a year.

You may take your certification course with RDI or with another institute.

We also highly recommend the Ecology of Leadership in the first year of your program as well.

End-of-Year Residential Intensive

During your end-of-year residential intensive, you will be updated on Gaia University’s development in general—and given new content and process tools to assist you. You and your peers will also give an in-depth presentation which includes the details of your project work as well as your learning process. At the end of your final capstone year, you will give a final presentation and collaborate with your peers in the design of your graduation ceremony. We don’t see standardization as a virtue—and want to ensure that each graduation is a unique event that reflects the collective energy, passion and focus of each particular graduating class.