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About Saybrook Graduate School
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Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center was founded in 1971 as the Humanistic Psychology Institute, as part of Sonoma State University.
Later it was incorporated and was designated as a non-profit corporation, a 501(c)(3) organization according to the IRS. A product
of the nationwide wave of innovation
in higher education, it was founded on the basic humanistic
belief that human consciousness at the individual and societal
level is a work in progress for which each person is responsible.
This vision still provides the ethical, pedagogical and disciplinary
content of the school's programs. As we enter the twenty-first
century humanity stands at the dawn of its first global society.
The threats and promises of these times require new modes
of thought and new methods of action. Saybrook believes that
graduate education should prepare scholar/practitioners to
take effective leadership roles in developing the higher levels
of consciousness needed to realize the immense possibilities
of these times, while at the same time minimizing the ever
present potential for social and individual suffering. To
that end Saybrook provides a unique learner-centered environment
for advanced studies in psychology, human science, and organizational
systems based in an emancipatory humanistic tradition.
The program is designed primarily, though not exclusively, for adult mid-career professionals seeking an opportunity to engage in serious scholarly work; and to develop the necessary research, scope of knowledge, and intervention skills to become more effective in their chosen field. Saybrook's goals include the advancement of our understanding
of human beings and the human condition, a commitment to create
and enlarge opportunities for human fulfillment, the encouragement
of the full expression of the highest human possibilities, and
the furtherance of emancipatory values in individuals, communities,
organizations and the world at large.
To achieve these goals Saybrook offers innovative, individualized, and rigorous dispersed residency MA and PhD programs in Psychology, Human Science, and Organizational Systems. Areas of concentration include Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology; Integrative Health Studies; Consciousness and Spirituality; Peace Studies, and Organizational Systems. Saybrook’s curriculum is grounded in humanistic and transpersonal thought, consciousness and spirituality, and both critical and creative methods of inquiry. It goes beyond mainstream academic disciplines into potentially groundbreaking new perspectives about what it means to be fully human.
The Saybrook educational process includes
one-to-one mentoring in faculty- structured required and elective
courses; weeklong residential conferences at which students
take seminars and courses for credit, attend guest presentations
and workshops, engage in applied trainings, and participate in peer learning; and (increasingly) web based courses where
student-to-student on-line group work is required. An essential
contribution of the Saybrook conferences to the unique "closeness
at a distance" learning process is the creation of an intensive
learning community where students meet faculty, administrators
and more importantly, each other. This helps solidify student-to-student relationships, deepen learning, and sustain students’ connection and commitment to their learning process between conferences.
Between conferences, students have access to each other, to the administration, and to faculty by phone, the internet, mail, and FAX.
Common to the entire program is a humanistic
vision of education as a transformative process. Saybrook
has a commitment to the humanistic tradition in psychology
and the social sciences, and fosters the development, employment
and critique of innovative research methods through which
to build relevant, reliable, and emancipatory knowledge about
the significant questions of human psychological and cultural
life.
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