Every Fall, I have this jonesing to learn stuff. I guess old habits don’t always die — which is probably not a bad thing, assuming the habit is education and not, you know, drugs.
So my ears perked up when I was reminded that it is yet again time to start filling out applications for the Institute for Humane Education’s graduate programs. If “creating a more just, healthy and sustainable world through education” is your thing (and if it’s not, please sit yourself down and read OHH for the next seventeen hours), then pay attention: Spring semester deadlines are December 1 for the M.Ed. programs, and December 15 for the M.A. and graduate certificate programs. Summer semester deadlines are May 1 and 15. Sharpen your pencils, folks. According to IHE:
The programs, offered through a partnership with Valparaiso University in Indiana, include a Master of Education (M.Ed.) in Humane Education; a Master of Arts (M.A.) in Humane Education; an M.Ed. in Instructional Leadership, with a Concentration in Humane Education; an M.A. in Liberal Studies, with a Concentration in Humane Education; and a credit-bearing Graduate Certificate in Humane Education. IHE’s graduate programs provide in-depth training in comprehensive humane education, helping educators, activists and others gain the skills and strategies to teach others about the interconnected issues of human rights, environmental preservation, animal protection, and media, culture and consumerism, and to empower them to become solutionaries for a better world.
When I myself decided on my graduate degree program, I was desperately searching for programs that would help propel and inform my activism. The program I went with, Experiential Health and Healing, was, in retrospect, a bit off-course from the road on which I wanted to travel — but I am grateful that my off-beat cohort model nonetheless gave me the room to incorporate vegan outreach into my schooling. That said, had this groundbreaking graduate program existed when I was in school (insert gravely, toothless-sounding Grandpa-like voice saying “When I was in school…“), I would’ve jumped on it in a heartbeat.