Meridian's Center for Transformative Learning Presents:

The Integral Practitioner Lab

Convened by Meridian University President Aftab Omer and co-convened by Melissa Schwartz and Zak Stein.

Featuring distinguished Integral Practitioners including Jean Houston, Susanne Cook-Greuter and others.

Following Lab sessions that were held in Oakland and Berlin in the Fall, now coming to Boston - January 21st and 22nd, 2017.6th, 2017

What is an Integral Practitioner?

Integral practitioners foster the development and transformation of individuals, teams, organizations and communities by empowering the whole person and the whole system. In domains such as education, business, healing, coaching and the arts, integral practitioners bring imagination to complex challenges in the service of transforming mindsets, cultures and social systems.

Integral practitioners make an impact by:

• Facilitating incremental, adaptive and transformative change.
• Engaging the vitality and emergence of development and evolution.
• Securing the function of integrity in integral practice.
• Developing the whole person: cognitively, emotionally, somatically, and spiritually.
• Integrating action and reflection by cultivating consciousness capacities.
• Anchoring the sacred by reuniting the artistic and the scientific.
• Healing division within complex systems of relationships.
• Innovating prototypes that can be scaled while sustaining beauty and practicality.
• Inhabiting both the contemplative and the performative.
• Inquiring through both expressive and scientific methods.
• Leading in ways that take responsibility for the whole
• Evolving new methods of creative collaboration.

Why the Integral Practitioner Lab?

We live amidst accelerating environmental and social degradation as well as intensifying social and technological complexity.

In response to these challenges, transformative initiatives are emerging and converging all around the globe. Our global circumstances require practitioners involved in transformation and leadership to develop a unique ecology of competencies that is complex enough for the requirements of the present.

Many of us are are called to lives of sacred purpose where we seek to join professional livelihood with personal meaning and passion. However, there is a widening gap between the challenges of complexity and our individual and collective capabilities.

To realize our potential for passionate and meaningful livelihood, we must close this gap by building a bridge of capability.

The Integral Practitioner Lab at Meridian University offers the opportunity to identify, develop and refine a unique constellation of competencies that are required for impact.

How does the Integral Practitioner Lab work?

In Lab sessions we engage in collaborative inquiry to identify and activate the competencies that connect passionate meaning with professional livelihood.

During the Lab you will:

• Experience a diverse community of inquiry and practice.
• Engage with established Integral Practitioners from around the world - in-person and via live video - regarding their professional work and learning journeys.
• Connect with other aspiring and emerging practitioners.
• Collaborate with others in prototyping your practice idea.
• Discover the distinct web of competencies required for realizing your unique vision of integral practice.
• Participate in the ongoing development of the Integral Practitioner Lab.
• Explore the core consciousness capacities vital for Integral Practitioners.

Calling Coaches, Entrepreneurs, Healers, Consultants, Changemakers…

If you want to explore the intersection of passionate meaning with professional fulfillment, the Integral Practitioner Lab may be for you.

Lab participants will have the opportunity to join in conversation with established Integral Practitioners in the domains of education, business, healing, coaching, and the arts.

Participants will be introduced to practices and resources that facilitate the growth of a unique ecology of competencies through which they can bridge passion and profession.

Convener

Aftab Omer

Aftab Omer, Ph.D. is a sociologist, psychologist, futurist and the president of Meridian University. Raised in Pakistan, India, Hawaii, and Turkey, he was educated at the universities of M.I.T, Harvard and Brandeis. His publications have addressed the topics of transformative learning, cultural leadership, generative entrepreneurship and the power of imagination. His work includes assisting organizations in tapping the creative potentials of conflict, diversity, and complexity. Formerly the president of the Council for Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychologies, he is a Fellow of the International Futures Forum and the World Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Co-Convene

Melissa Schwartz

Melissa Schwartz, Ph.D. is the Chief Academic Officer at Meridian University where she guides integrally-oriented programs in Education, Business, and Psychology. The Director of Meridian’s Center for Transformative Learning, Melissa is dually licensed as both a psychologist and as a Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT). She serves as a reviewer for the American Psychological Association’s Journal, Psychology of Women Quarterly, and the California Psychological Association’s Office of Professional Development. As well, she serves as a Subject Matter Expert for California’s Board of Behavioral Sciences in the continual development of the state’s MFT licensure examination. Melissa’s research interests are in the areas of adult development, the psychology of women, integral transformative assessment, and the role of culture in transformative learning.

Zachary Stein

Zachary Stein, Ed.D. serves as the Program Chair for Meridian University’s graduate program in Education and the co-founder of Lectica, Inc., an organization dedicated to the reform of large scale standardized testing. Zak’s work focuses on social justice and education through the lenses of developmental psychology and integral meta-theories. Zak’s publications have appeared in such journals as American Psychologist, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Integral Review, and Journal of Integral Theory and Practice. His most recent publication is Social Justice and Educational Measurement: John Rawls, the History of Testing, and the Future of Education.

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Catalysts

Jean Houston

Jean Houston, Chancellor of Meridian University, is a visionary researcher who has authored nearly 30 books and worked intensively in over 40 cultures, lectured in over 100 countries, and worked with major organizations such as UNICEF and NASA. Dr. Houston has developed a worldwide network of leaders including Joseph Campbell, Margaret Mead, Buckminster Fuller, Jonas Salk, US presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, as well as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, giving her unique insight into the human potential. Dr. Houston's book, A Passion for the Possible, is an expansive compliment to her inspiring PBS special of the same name.

Although Dr. Jean Houston is best known for her work in human and social development and the realization of our human capacities, she is also a cultural historian and an explorer of the psychology and philosophy of history. As the “adopted” daughter of the anthropologist Margaret Mead, she was sent into the field to study the ways in which different cultures brought their own unique experience of different kinds development. “Jean, go out and harvest the human potential,” Dr. Mead directed her.

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Susanne Cook Greuter

Susanne Cook-Greuter, Ed.D., is Meridian Faculty and Co-Founder and Chief Wisdom Officer of the Center for Leadership Maturity, an organization dedicated to facilitating vertical development in individuals and systems. Susanne is a founding member of the Integral Institute in Denver, Colorado and an internationally known authority on adult development. She travels globally to share her insights and train professionals in applying ego and leadership development theory to self, teams, and systems.
(Bay Area and Berlin - via live videoconference)

#How can you attend?

REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED FOR THIS EVENT.

Saturday & Sunday
January 21 and 22, 2017
Impact Hub Boston
50 Milk Street, Boston, MA
10am - 6pm
$150.00

Previous Lab Sessions:

• Oakland, CA - October 2016
• Berlin, Germany - October 2016