Postponed

Contemplative Sustainable Design
San Cristobal, New Mexico
Program Director: Paul Wapner
Core Seminar: 3 credits
Independent Study (optional): 3 credits

Challenge your ideas about environmentalism and conservation in a non-traditional setting. While residing at a small, off-grid community, you will explore the theory behind sustainable design and put those theories into practice as you build straw-bale and straw-clay community structures.

This three-week seminar, hosted at the Lama Foundation in San Cristobal, New Mexico, will provide students the opportunity to live in a community in the mountains of northern New Mexico, participate in building sustainable structures, and explore the more contemplative dimensions of environmentalism. Students will examine the practical, political, technical, and economic facets of sustainable design as they erect structures utilizing passive and active solar energy. At the same time, students will reflect on their personal relationship with environmental politics and the quality of their commitment to sustainability. Through practices such as meditation, yoga, journal writing and artistic expression, students will examine their motivations, self-understandings and aesthetic sensibilities as they relate to environmentalism.

Students will also enjoy their natural surroundings in the Carson National Forest, as well as group experiences in sweat lodges, mountain hikes, and weekend trips to other parts of New Mexico.

Find out more about the summer 2008 program by downloading the program guide [pdf 431kb].