SIT Graduate Institute Workshops and Certificate Programs
The SIT Graduate Institute offers a range of short-term workshops and longer-term certificate programs for career professionals and students seeking to expand skills and build capacities in new areas. Programs leverage the resources of World Learning's global work and staff as well as the organization's 75 years as a leader in experiential education.
Upcoming Programs
The Center for Dialogue
The Center for Dialogue teaches dialogic processes that lead to a more inclusive, just, and peaceful world.
Skills and Topics in Conflict Transformation:
Facilitating Structured Dialogue for Youth
August 11-13, 2010
This course addresses why and how structured dialogue is used in youth peacebuilding and leadership programs (such as the Youth Peacebuilding and Leadership Programs (YPLP) run by the Vermont-based NGO, World Learning) to deepen communication and raise awareness of self, others, and social issues. It assesses how issue-oriented peer dialogue strengthens a youth program and impacts young people through learning about other people and cultures, and developing interpersonal and intercultural communication skills. Course participants are trained to design and facilitate effective youth dialogue, focusing on topics for teenagers from different cultures.
Course participants will learn both theoretically and experientially, participating in and getting the opportunity to facilitate dialogue sessions with supervision and feedback from the professor. They will learn how to sequence appropriate and effective topics and reflective activities both within a dialogue session and in a dialogue series, managing beginnings and endings, as well as managing risk and challenging, controversial, and deep dialogue topics. Course readings are included to provide additional theoretical frameworks. Participants will reflect on their own growth as youth dialogue facilitators through peer assessment and a self-reflection paper.
We welcome participants from schools, youth groups, and peace and social change NGOs. The workshop will begin the evening of Wednesday, August 11 and conclude by early afternoon on Friday, August 13, 2010.
Instructors: Dr. John Ungerleider, SIT Graduate Institute faculty
- International Center Room 101, SIT Campus, Brattleboro, Vermont
- Tuition: $500 (includes coffee/tea breaks and group event)
- Graduate Credit Tuition: $746 (includes above and 1 graduate credit upon completion of written assignment)
The Way of Council
August 13-15, 2010
In the practice of Council - a dynamic circle process for developing and sustaining direct, honest and effective communication--each person learns to speak from the heart and to listen with full attention. Council is an ancient form and a modern practice whose roots are within the natural world spanning diverse cultures and religions. The Council process encourages community building, conflict exploration and resolution, the sharing of personal and cultural stories, and collective and non-hierarchical decision-making in a supportive and compassionate environment. Council is used in communities, public and private schools, universities, therapeutic settings, non-profit and business organizations and families throughout the United States and around the world. This course will introduce participants to the basic intentions and practices of council. It will also address the particular interests of the participants and the contexts in which they wish to integrate Council processes. Council is a great ally in introducing meaningful change in the settings in which we work and live. We welcome applications from educators, counselors, business leaders, youth workers, and peace and social change activists. The workshop will begin the evening of Friday, August 13 and conclude by early afternoon on Sunday, August 15, 2010.
Instructors: The course will be co-taught by Bonnie Mennell and Paul LeVasseur who are both SIT Graduate Institute faculty as well as East Coast trainers with the Center for Council Training at the Ojai Foundation in Ojai, California. As faculty members, they have been working in the fields of teacher training, group dynamics, community building and social change for over 30 years. They have used Council in elementary schools, community colleges, universities and graduate school classrooms to build community, teach communication skills, and process educational content. In addition to offering Council trainings in the New England area and teaching graduate courses in The Way of Council at SIT, they bring Council to their service work with local non-profit organizations and their teacher training, team building, departmental visioning, and supervision work in educational institutions around the world.
- International Center Room 101, SIT Campus, Brattleboro, Vermont
- Tuition: $500 (includes coffee/tea breaks and group dinner Saturday evening)
- Graduate Credit Tuition: $746 (includes above and 1 graduate credit upon completion of written assignment)
Recent Programs
Policy Advocacy: Citizen Engagement in Governance
January 9 -29, 2010
Washington, DC
World Learning’s SIT Graduate Institute offered a section of its Master’s level 3-credit Policy Advocacy course in an intensive workshop and seminar format in Washington DC from January 9 -29, 2010. Fieldwork assignments included visits to international development organizations and government institutions in the area. The course modules are designed to foster individual and group learning on Deliberative Democracy, Public Policy Making, Citizen Advocacy, Governance Structures and Reforms, Social Justice and Civil Society/Community Network Mobilization.
Participants learned about global, national, and grassroots advocacy campaigns to promote effective policy-making and participatory global, national and local governance. Every course session provided an opportunity to discuss economic, political, cultural and institutional aspects of governance and prevalent policy advocacy issues and approaches in various countries. The course learning combined academic and operational analyses, policy advocacy and program strategies, research tools, case studies, and participation in "live" advocacy campaigns.
Phone:
800.336.1616
802.258.3510
TTY:
802.258.3388
Fax:
802.258.3500
Mailing Address:
PO Box 676, 1 Kipling Road
Brattleboro, VT 05302 USA