| Graduate Program
Advanced Study of Intuitive Listening (ASIL)
Requirements | Course Features | Tuition | Course Outline
Overview
Graduate Program
Randall Alifano (Ph.D.), Kim Chernin (Ph.D.), and Renate Stendhal (Ph.D.) have developed a graduate program (ASIL) that will offer to those enrolled the opportunity to receive training as ministers while participating in an advanced course of graduate study that will grant a doctor of philosophy, or a doctor of divinity degree, as preferred. As Provosts of the University we will be the primary facilitators for learners working towards their degree. This program will lead to full qualification as an integral counselor, consultant, or pastoral counselor. It is an innovative and viable alternative to the more conventional, state-approved and state-licensed paths, especially appropriate for those who wish to incorporate spirituality in their healing and listening work. The program is provisionally called Advanced Study in Intuitive Listening. (ASIL). Study Program
It is also possible to participate in the Advanced Study of Intuitive Listening without seeking a doctorate or registering for a graduate program. ASIL is an independent program that meets twice a month; provides participants with an extensive collection of provocative and relevant articles; offers cutting-edge essays on various aspects of intuitive listening. This program will be of interest to people in professions where listening is an important aspect of their work: lawyers, interviewers, doctors, nurses, social workers, teachers, therapists, people in senior management, accountants, etc. will benefit from the advanced study and practice of listening.
World-view of the Graduate Program
It is important to distinguish pastoral counseling from therapy. ASIL/UIL does so in the following way:
1. Therapy, by definition, is a treatment by an expert for a pathological condition or an illness. 2. Pastoral counseling is a listening art, concerned with the existential, identity and spiritual concerns most individuals encounter in the course of their lives. People who seek this type of counseling do not regard themselves as ill and would not be so regarded by their counselor. A pastoral counselor would not view her/himself as an expert, but as a partner in a joint undertaking in which both participants are responsible for understanding, explicating, exploring and clarifying.
3. In short, ASIL/UIL recognizes the need for an environment in which people who seek to discuss their life-concerns would be offered informed and intuitive listening, without reference to the clinical diagnosis of illness. It is further important to distinguish pastoral counseling as we will study and practice it, from the type of counseling offered by other churches, spiritual and religious organizations. At AIWP we do not believe that we have the truth, we do not feel that we must convince others to share our beliefs. We hold that individuals are called to find their own truth in their own time and in their unique way.
The University for Integrative Learning (UIL), distinguishes itself from other Universities by offering learners an opportunity to create their own program of advanced study with the assistance of other learners and advanced teachers. We offer high standards of scholarship without externally imposed rules and with a consistent emphasis on individually crafted study. In pursuit of these values UIL has deliberately, intentionally and passionately not sought State accreditation for its programs.
Pastoral Counseling
* The advanced study of listening, leading to ordainment and a doctorate, is appropriate for people whose life has involved them in the kind of listening and interaction that is relevant for counseling others. They are intuitive listeners who have been playing an unofficial counselor role in their work situations, in their lives, often in their families. They may be mature people whom everyone in their life recognizes as the person to whom they turn with problems, for advice, for counseling, for their wisdom. This program would be of interest to retired people and those who are considering a career change. It would also be of interest to therapists who would like to re-examine their listening style or include a doctorate or ordination among their qualifications.
* ASIL/UIL will also be of interest to younger people who are intuitive listeners and have developed and practiced these skills early in life. These people may work at full-time jobs or be full-time parents; they may seek career change or advanced learning that allows them to continue their other activities, while simultaneously devoting themselves to the ASIL program.
* If these people went back to a conventional graduate school they would have to un-learn much that they know and learn much that they don't need and won't use. They would be required to accept someone else's idea of what it means to learn and develop ideas. They would have to follow a learning schedule devised by other people and not necessarily suited to their individual learning-styles, interests or future intentions.
* ASIL/UIL is intended for self-motivated learners, who will benefit from a flexible program they help design for their own individual or career development. Simply put, this program is applicable to all who wish to enhance their listening abilities.
Back to top Requirements
For AIWP:
* The program will explore a minister's commitment to the well-being of other people and the world. * We will examine the ways in which our individual abilities, gifts and interests can be effectively organized in service of others. We will remind ourselves that to minister simply means to be of service.
* We understand that some people applying to the program will already have the preparation and qualification for ordination, and will therefore be able to concentrate on their doctoral work.
* We would advise our Learners to be involved in a process of self-exploration that supplements their more theoretical and practical learning. We can recommend Listeners or Counselors or Healers to them, or they can choose people outside the program.
* These studies would confirm the skills they already have and help them know and conceptualize their ways of listening/counseling/healing/serving. For UIL:
Essays : Learners enrolled in this program may choose to write a series of essays describing their life's learning, particularly as related to creative, healing, counseling and listening activities. These essays might be an exploration of how they acquired their listening skills, a description or analysis of the ways in which they listen. Do they already have a listening-style? A unique way of taking things in? Do they listen by assigning people to categories? Have they invented categories of their own? Are they thematic listeners? Are they interested in narrative? Is there a type of listening they would particularly like to explore?
The Doctorate : Their thesis can include a program of theoretical and intuitive learning in what they feel they need to know (as opposed to what others think they should know or need to study) in order to offer themselves as counselors, pastoral counselors and consultants to other people.
They can study the various models of counseling/analysis/therapy/bodywork/shamanic journeying/healing they sense would be of use to them (the provost, knowing them, could help advise).
Thesis : Their thesis could consist of the following three areas of exploration:
A. A description of the various schools to which they feel drawn, or about which they wish to know more.
B. A highly subjective account of how they respond to these approaches, whether they would want to use them or modify them, or blend them, or reject them. This may also include a discussion of which of these approaches, if any, they have found useful in their self-exploration.
C. The selection of the approach or approaches they have found most congenial, along with a description of the kind of listening they intend to practice. This may be a combination and refinement of listening-styles they have studied; or it may be a description of their own, unique style.
Other types of thesis can be considered and developed within the program, including projects that do not necessarily depend on written work.
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Some Features of the ASIL Program 1. The Advanced Study of Listening : ASIL will invite learners to explore listening as such. What is it like to listen with a theory in mind? How does listening with diagnostic categories influence the listening process? For instance, a diagnostic category allows us to understand how people are like one another. What is it like to listen for what is unique in an individual, for the ways she or he is NOT like anyone else? How is listening affected by interaction or self-revelation on the listener's part? What helps an individual feel heard? What are the unique concerns and preoccupations of this individual? What kind of language does she/he use to communicate them? How do we come to hear an individual's individual language? Can a listener learn to speak the speaker's language? What do lapses in attention mean? Can they be a source of information about the individual who is speaking or not speaking? What kind of concentration is required to listen well: evenly-hovering attention? focused concentration? meditative awareness of self and other? judgements, or the absence of judgements? How does one develop non-judgmental curiosity? We will encourage students to take this course of study into their daily lives and begin to listen in new ways within old contexts. What is the check out person communicating as he works? What are people communicating with their bodies, breath, facial expressions, voice tone, volume? We will think of ourselves as instruments recording the information around us. We will endeavor to refine our instrument so as to pick up ever more subtle messages. We will discuss the differences between listening and hearing.
2. Emergent Learning : ASIL will encourage what we call Emergent Learning, the conscious development of the learning most suited to the individual learner. By noticing and following what is presently emerging in their emotional or intellectual lives, what really matters to them NOW, learners will be able to concentrate on those issues they are strongly drawn to in the moment. Learning of this type is a natural, spontaneous process driven by excited interest and always, by definition, relevant to the learner.
3. Emergent Writing : ASIL will help learners discover the spontaneous pleasure of writing. The program will be dedicated to the awakening of the innate tendency to express the feelings, ideas, understandings and questions which arise naturally from emergent learning. To feel, to think, to wonder, to understand, to write: it is a natural progression. To this end, the program will encourage the use of notebooks, journals and diaries, scraps of paper, a napkin picked up while having coffee in a café, the frequent jotting and noting of thoughts and ideas and feelings and perceptions and insights and intuitions as they become conscious. These can be notes about the learner's response to what is being read or discussed or learned in individual self-exploration, or while listening to others, or in conversation or study groups and classes. The emphasis is on keeping things natural and spontaneous, so that writing becomes the expression of what is currently and authentically emerging in the self. This raw material can later be shaped into sections or chapters of a thesis, but learners are encouraged to practice it as spontaneous self-expression.
4. The Use of Small Spaces . ASIL will encourage learners to use what are often regarded as small, in-between spaces of time. Once again, our intention is to break down the formal, rule-bound approach to learning that is offered by most schools. We will advocate the use of: the ten minutes between clients; the waiting for a child outside of school; waiting for the wash to get done so it can be transferred to the dryer; waiting for the drying to get done so the clothes can be folded; standing in line at a store; waiting for a bus; waiting for the pot of soup to boil; taking notes while a child is playing or studying; waiting while on hold for someone to answer the telephone; waiting in traffic. Notebooks, ever-ready pencil stubs, tape-recorders, dictation machines facilitate this use of time, which can turn out to be unexpectedly and joyfully productive.
5. From Fragments to Wholeness : ASIL will offer the opportunity to learn how bits and pieces of spontaneous raw-material can be shaped into a more formal piece of work, an organizational process that is accompanied by the understanding that much of the work has already been accomplished in fragments created while using small spaces.
6. Pair-Study and Seminars : Many people involved in this program will prefer individual learning with as little guidance from and contact with others as possible. Others may choose to participate in pair-study or small-group study or to attend more formal classes. Classes and trainings can be pursued outside the program, for credit within the program. However, ASIL will offer a regular group that meets at least twice a month to discuss, study and above all to practice intuitive listening. This group will be held on Thursday afternoons and will provide an opportunity to develop a new understanding of, and indeed a new model of, intuitive listening.
Back to top Some Additional Considerations
* Our Doctorate of Philosophy degree, while fully appropriate to and entirely sufficient for the work of pastoral counselor or spiritual consultant will in many cases not be appropriate for teaching at other academic institutions. It will, however, offer the opportunity to participate in the development and teaching of the ASIL program, or programs our learners wish to evolve, whether within UIL, or at other alternative universities, universities without walls, etc.
* Our Doctor of Divinity degree, due to the separation of church and state in our constitutional system, does not require state accreditation or approval, and is fully equivalent to Doctor of Divinity degrees offered by other seminaries, spiritual and religious programs of study.
* Pastoral counselors are eligible for liability insurance, and entitled to receive payment from many insurance companies on behalf of their clients.
* Ministers of AIWP will be fully qualified to officiate at marriages. Tuition
The tuition for ASIL/UIL will be $8000.00 a year. We imagine a two year program leading from the M.A. to the Ph.D. or D.D, although learners who wish to take longer will be invited to do so. For those who wish to earn a B.A. or an M.A. in intuitive listening, more time will be required.
The tuition for ASIL (without doctorate) will cost $1300.00 a semester.
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For more information on Kim Chernin or Renate Stendahl, you can go to www.kimchernin.com or www.renatestendahl.com
Requirements | Course Features | Tuition | Course Outline |
