Resources for Current Students in the PCC Program
Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness (MA)
The PCC program makes every effort to cultivate a diverse, widespread, and supportive learning community in which personal and academic growth are valued and embraced.
The program offers a wide array of extracurricular offerings that contribute significantly to the richness of our learning environment. These have taken several forms, and include the following:
The PCC Annual Retreat: Every Fall, students, faculty, and alumni spend a week deeply immersed in community at the annual retreat, traditionally held at Esalen Institute. Retreat activities are cocreated by students and faculty, and include presentations, experiential workshops, excursions in nature, and a closing-night dance celebration.
Community Meetings: Held at least once a semester, community meetings provide an opportunity to reflect upon where we are, both personally and academically, as individuals and as a collective. While the format for community meetings continues to evolve, the meetings help to foster a greater sense of purpose, meaning, and energy for individual and collective action.
PCC Forums: These consist of public presentations from PCC faculty, from visiting scholars, and occasionally from PCC students.
PCC Podiums: Inaugurated in 2002, these events consist of presentations by PCC doctoral students who have finalized their dissertation proposals. The podiums provide an opportunity for lively debate and for the presenter to gain valuable public speaking experience.
PCC Symposiums: At least once a semester, the faculty meets in the presence of the students to discuss issues arising from its ongoing research or to address matters of concern to the wider community.
Conferences: PCC has organized or sponsored a variety of conferences over the years, from "Meeting the Millennium" and "Evolution and Complexity" to "Planetwork," "The Cosmological Imagination," and "Wisdom and Action."
Student participation at these conferences-whether as presenters, organizers, or attendees-has been an invaluable element of the PCC learning environment. The most recent conference was the student organized "Cosmology of Love," with presenters that included students, CIIS faculty, and national figures.
Semester Opening Party: Each semester begins with a party for students, faculty, and alumni.
PCC Unplugged: In recognition of the importance of creative expression, PCC Unplugged gives students, faculty, and alumni the opportunity to share song, performance, poetry, spoken word, and more.
Species Alliance: In 2003, PCC students formed 6X, a group designed to address the current mass-extinction crisis. 6X evolved into Species Alliance, a nonprofit organization and documentary film project (see www.speciesalliance.org for more information).
Graduation Ritual: An important element in the framing of students' experience of our program is the graduation ritual, where graduates are given a PCC "Philosopher's Stone" by their advisor/mentor, and where graduates are given space to share something to mark the successful completion of their journey.
