CIIS Public Programs is committed to keeping our events accessible to as many people as possible. Our scholarship program offers full and partial discounts to all of our workshops, conversations, and talks.

Applications are due no later than 14 business days before the program begins. You will receive a response at least 2 business days before the event. When reviewing applications, we take the following into consideration: your connection to the topic and/or presenter, how you will utilize and share the experience with your community, financial need, previous scholarship awards, event capacity, and available funds.

This scholarship program is part of our larger commitment to anti-racism and equity. We encourage the applications from Black, Indigenous, and other people of color; those in the LGBTQIA+ community; those with a disability; those who identify as neurodivergent; and all those whose lives emerge from the intersections of multiple identities.

Apply for a Scholarship

Current Students, Faculty & Staff

Current CIIS students, staff, and faculty receive discounts on all events. Contact us for more information at publicprograms@ciis.edu or check your CIIS email address for our monthly email.

Click on the registration/ticket link on any event page on our website and you will be taken to a secure registration/purchase site. You will receive a confirmation email after registration. We will email you streaming links and instructions on how to access the live online event 2 days, 2 hours, and 5 minutes before the event starts.

Tickets and donations for individual talks and conversations are nonrefundable. For workshops our policies are the following:

• Tickets are fully refundable up to 7 days prior to the event start. 
• Within 7 days of the event, a 50% refund is available. 
• No refunds are available within 24 hours of the event start.
• As a benefit of membership, CIIS Public Programs Members can request a full refund up to 24 hours prior to the event start.

For conversations and talks: These are streamed live to YouTube. You do not need anything other than YouTube access in order to watch and participate in the audience Q&A. After registering, you will receive an email from Eventbrite, sent to the email used while registering, with the streaming link. This email is sent out 2 days, 2 hours, and 7 minutes before the event starts. Some of them are available to watch after they stream; those events will be available for watching on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube channel.

For workshops: For the best experience, we advise that you have a computer, stable internet, webcam, speaker, and microphone. We suggest earbuds or a headset with a built-in microphone. If your computer does not have a built-in camera; you will need a separate webcam. Learn more on how to operate and navigate Zoom via Zoom's website.

In most cases we record online workshops and make a copy of the recording available to all registered attendees for a limited time. Each workshop is unique and many deal with sensitive topics or content that is not suitable to record, so we work with presenters to determine a recording policy that makes sense for the content. Please refer to the event description to see the recording policy for the specific workshop or program.

Many of our talks and conversations are recorded for our podcast, which you can access at https://www.ciispod.com. As of April 2020, we post many of our online conversations on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube channel.

We offer financial assistance through our Scholarship Program. CIIS staff, students, and faculty receive discounts to all public program events. Please email publicprograms@ciis.edu for more details.

We also offer Memberships for $100 per year—all members receive 20% off all of our events. If you attend just two workshops per year, your membership pays for itself. Your membership support also allows us to continue to offer discounted and free tickets to students and those in need, in addition to helping us produce our podcast to further increase accessibility to our programs.

Yes, certain workshops and semester-long certificate programs are eligible to offer BBS and APA CEs. We are institutional providers for BBS & AASECT, which allows us to issue CEs directly to students who complete pre-approved courses or certificates. For APA, we work with a third-party provider which provides these credits to our students. 

You can stay informed about CE events by: 

• Checking our event calendar and choosing the filter "Continuing Education"
• Checking the event description (we will always include information on how to get CEs in the event description when applicable)

We currently offer APA and BBS CEs through a third-party CE provider, Spiritual Competency Academy.

Once you register for an applicable event, you will receive a link to purchase CEs at the bottom of your confirmation email. We’ll send the link again in our reminder emails 1 week, 2 days, 2 hours and 5 min before the event. The link will take you to a third-party website where you can purchase CEs. After the event, you can return to the same link to complete a survey and download your certificate.

A long-form (typically one semester or more) course designed to provide additional training for licensed individuals and allied professionals seeking to grow their professional networks, continue their education, and get specialized training in various subfields. These are practical trainings designed for people working in the field. They are open to current CIIS students but are distinct from academic courses. These are managed by Public Programs, paid separately from tuition, and not eligible for federal financial aid programs. Upon completion, students can receive APA and BBS CE (see below) credits and a digital certificate.

CIIS Public Programs may ask for your email address in social media campaigns or on our website. We do not share your email address with anyone.

When you sign up you will receive a welcome email from us as well as two weekly newsletters via Mailchimp. You can change your preferences, opt-in to specific groups, as well as unsubscribe at any time.

We look for scholars who have made an original contribution in their field, published authors, health practitioners with solid credentials, and artists or musicians with established reputations and bodies of work. Most of our presenters are sought out by our programming department and do not come from unsolicited proposals. If the originator of a particular discipline is available, we will do our best to host him or her, rather than a student of the work. Our current workshops feature professionals who have experience teaching in university settings, leading retreats, or performing in front of large audiences. Please refer to past academic catalogues to better acquaint yourself with the themes and subjects that are common in our programs.

If you'd like to submit a proposal for a prospective workshop, please provide CIIS Public Programs with an outline of your proposal. Also include a brief description of your qualifications and experience in the subject, noting any published works.

Information we strongly suggest you include:

• Contact information: address, phone number, email address
• Your teaching credentials and history with this workshop
• Title and description of the workshop (no more than one page)
• What teaching method or methods do you use? Include modality: Experiential? Discussion? Lecture? Meditation? Yoga?
• What will participants gain from attending your workshop? List outcomes. Who is the intended audience?
• What do you need to produce your workshop at CIIS, including special materials and AV equipment?
• If you have any online documentation of previously held workshops in your subject matter, i.e. videos, CDs, or books, please note website.
• Estimated attendance of your event, and methods you have (website, email lists, social media. Etc.) for marketing your work.
• Your current CV or résumé.

If there is interest in your offer, an individual from CIIS Public Programs will contact you for booking the event. This process may take several months, as we are often scheduling events one semester at a time. Please be patient. Someone will contact you if there is interest. Please do not call to check the status of your proposal.

You may email the above information to our Senior Manager of Programming, Emlyn Guiney at eguiney@ciis.edu. Attachments must be Word or PDF documents.

We don't offer age recommendations or limitations for our content since all people and families are different, but generally our workshops and talks are best suited for teens and up. All of our events may contain explicit language or sensitive topics. Parents/guardians should make their own assessments about content suitability for their children. We do not offer free or discounted tickets for children. We also do not offer any childcare at our events. We ask that you do not bring babies, toddlers, or any child that does not plan to participate fully to any workshops, and we ask that if you do bring your child to a conversation event that you step outside of the event venue if they are noisy or disruptive.