Choosing Earth Every Day | CIIS Skip to Content CIIS student at an event hosted by Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion department. Photo Credit: Nelson Melgar/CIIS CIIS student at an event hosted by Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion department. Photo Credit: Nelson Melgar/CIIS Campus News Choosing Earth Every Day How CIIS honors the Earth through curriculum, retreats, events, and practices that root learning in the living world. April 21, 2026 There is a reason CIIS is called an integral institution. For more than five decades, it has brought together mind, body, spirit, community — and Earth. The natural world is a foundational teacher, partner, and home. From experiential learning along waterways to leadership retreats among ancient forests, from ancestral healing practices woven into clinical training to doctoral research conducted at mountain retreat centers, CIIS offers an education rooted in — and in reverence of — our living world. Earth-based literacy, spirituality, and praxis shape how this institution understands what it means to learn, to listen, and to teach. From Ecology to Climate Psychology The Department of Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion is one of the few graduate programs in the world dedicated to the intersection of ecological science, spiritual wisdom, and transformative practice. Students in both the M.A. and Ph.D. tracks examine the deep relationship between worldviews and the environmental crisis — asking not only what is being lost, but why, and how shifts in human consciousness might open pathways toward healing. Coursework draws on indigenous biocultural knowledge, feminist epistemologies, traditional ecological knowledge, and the writings of visionaries like Thomas Berry, Joanna Macy, and Wangari Maathai. Students graduate equipped to work across academia, activism, nonprofit leadership, and spiritual counseling, prepared to become what the program calls visionary thinkers and thought leaders of hope. Image CIIS student joined a watershed witness tour tracing San Francisco's hidden waterways alongside a circle of dedicated water protectors. CIIS also addresses the emotional toll of our changing climate through the Climate Psychology Certificate . Spread across five weekends and fully online, this 42-CEU certificate equips therapists, healers, and allied professionals with clinical tools to work with eco-anxiety, eco-grief, and the existential weight of living through a changing planet — drawing on behavioral science, ecological philosophy, and the expertise of faculty including Leslie Davenport, Anna Graybeal, Andel Nicasio, Theopia Jackson, Linda Thai, Caroline Hickman, and Bayo Akomolafe. Image CIIS students discuss outside at Research Psychology Intensive, Fall 2025. For CIIS alumni like Jessica DiVento Dzuban, Global Head of Mental Health Policy at TikTok, CIIS curriculum didn't stay in the classroom. One summer, her Spirituality and Ecology elective took the class to Costa Rica for several weeks — an experience that became one of the most formative of her time at CIIS. "The first part of the trip we worked on a biodynamic farm, harvesting ginger and turmeric and learning about the biodynamic farming process and ecology. Then we spent time near an active volcano, in the hot springs. Later we went to the east coast (of the island) and spent time with indigenous tribes and the Rastafari people, learning about their cultures and ways of being. I had done things like that before, but not when it was paired with the teachings. Being paired with an educational experience helped me to think about things — and reflect on them — in a different way. That was really powerful." Jessica DiVento, Clinical Psychology Alumna Learning in Nature's Classroom Some of the most transformative education at CIIS happens not in a lecture hall, but under open sky. The Blue Sky Leaders Certificate Program — a leadership program for visionary leaders, influencers, creatives, and professionals — holds its in-person residencies in Northern California redwood forests where participants engage questions of ecology, inner development, and regenerative futures while immersed in the landscape itself. Leadership discussions happen on trails. Contemplative practices unfold outdoors. The land is a co-facilitator and teacher of presence and being. Drawing on ecopsychology, indigenous knowledge systems, and new cosmology, Blue Sky Leaders reimagines what it means to lead: authentically, embodied, and in living relationship with the Earth. Image Connecting on a new vision of embodied leadership in Scotts Valley at the Blue Sky Leaders Certificate Program. Image Experiential learning and listening at the Blue Sky Leaders Certificate Program. Like many of the degree programs at CIIS, this philosophy extends into doctoral life as well. Each year, CIIS Research Psychology Ph.D. students gather for a retreat among the redwoods — a space to ground in their studies and step into a new chapter of learning together. Image CIIS Research Psychology Ph.D. student enjoys a break between classes at their annual retreat hosted at Green Mountain Retreat Center. Ancestral Wisdom as Earth Practice Honoring Earth also means honoring the lineages of knowledge that have always understood life as deeply relational. The Integrated Wellness Fellowship (IWF)— a yearlong cohort-based program developed in partnership with Healing Clinic Collective and supported by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation — trained emerging clinicians in cultural and ancestral healing practices alongside rigorous clinical skills in community-based settings. Fellows brought ceremony, land-based practices, and ancestral frameworks into a clinical context, recognizing that ancestral medicine must be experienced, felt, and integrated over time. Through CIIS' Division of Community Engagement and Belonging (DCEB), the Fellowship found an institutional home from 2024-2025, closing with a beautiful, spiritually centered event in January 2025 . Based on the wisdom gathered from the Fellowship, DCEB is envisioning what integrated wellness practices and programs look and feel like at CIIS in the future. Image Healing Clinic Collective Mentors and CIIS Student Fellows bring in their ancestral practices as part of the Integrated Wellness Fellowship. Community Events That Bring Earth to the Fore CIIS Public Programs bridges the University and the wider community — and Earth is a recurring teacher and partner. A guided foraging tour led by Alexis Nikole Nelson, widely known as the Black Forager, brought the CIIS community outdoors to learn the edible landscape of their own region, honoring indigenous plant knowledge and the living abundance that surrounds us when we know how to look. Events like Cultivating Earth for Resources and Resilience deepen this work, exploring how communities can build practical, sustainable relationships with the land. The CIIS Public Programs Podcast carries these conversations further. In the episode Seeds as Ancestors , recorded live at CIIS in November 2025, Mohawk seedkeeper and Sierra Seeds founder Rowen White joined CIIS Associate Professor of Anthropology and Social Change Michelle Glowa to explore Indigenous food sovereignty and what it means to truly nourish a community. For White, seeds are never just botanical — they are political. Reclaiming the varieties that fed Indigenous communities for generations is an act of recovering power, dignity, and self-determination. Her invitation is simple and immediate: find one plant your lineage cared for, learn its story, and take one small step toward reconnecting with it. Image Community learns on a guided walk outside with public programs. Image CIIS hosts a public event called Cultivating Earth for Resources and Resilience. This April, the Division of Community Engagement and Belonging activates the whole campus with Earth Month — from hosting events on eco-sustainability practices with SF Recology and SF Transit Riders to crafternoons where attendees create artful postcards from reusable materials. Being connected to the Earth is also about collaboration and relationship. This month the Division uplifted amazing Earth month events across campus, including an expressive arts gathering exploring ecological identity hosted by the Office of Student Affairs, and a rewilding meditation workshop hosted by CIIS Public Programs. CIIS lives these values on campus every day through a Ridwell recycling partnership, a new secure bike and scooter enclosure in partnership with Facilities and Business Operations, offering the community ongoing guidance on ecotherapy, composting, and sustainable living. Image A composting discussion at CIIS, part of the Division of Community Engagement and Belonging's Earth Month programming, with hands-on training from San Francisco's Recology. Earth Is Our Biggest Teacher At CIIS, choosing Earth is not a seasonal initiative or a curriculum component. It is a teacher and a home. The Earth is integral to CIIS because CIIS has always understood that inner and outer transformation — personal and planetary — begins with relationship. And relationship, at its most primary, begins with the ground beneath our feet. Image A Guided Walk With Black Forager: Discovering Hidden Bounty in Our Local Place California Institute of Integral Studies Integral education for therapists, thought leaders, creatives, and activists since 1968. Explore CIIS Programs Request Information Related News View All News Campus News Marking 58 Years of Integral Education: CIIS Celebrates Founders Day CIIS marked its 58th anniversary with community-wide celebration, collective art-making, and the President's Service Distinction Awards. Campus News What Makes CIIS Different From Other Graduate Schools? Since 1968, CIIS has redefined graduate education by integrating Eastern, Western, and Indigenous wisdom traditions with rigorous academic inquiry. Alumni News Room to Become: You Will Surprise Yourself Here CIIS students and alumni reflect on the moments that changed everything — inside and outside the classroom.