Engage with a holistic approach to world issues that encompasses inner, cultural, and social processes to deepen your understanding of sustainability issues. Build sustainable living skills in the context of an intentional city dedicated to the realization of human unity.
Work with faculty and community members to design service learning projects for renewable energy, sustainable fashion, appropriate technologies, organic farming, fair-trade business, holistic medicine, habitat restoration and conservation, media production, women’s empowerment, and elementary or secondary education.
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• Become immersed in Eastern traditions and philosophies that highlight compassionate nonviolence and reinventing cultural, spiritual and political systems.
• Study in a community that is experimenting on the cutting edge of sustainability practices and integrates education into all aspects of life.
• Participate in a meditation retreat at Bodhi Zendi and visit the Periyar Tiger Preserve.
• Travel to Tiruvannamalai, visit Sri Ramanamaharshi’s Ashram, climb the Arunchala Mountain (body of Hindu God Shiva), and tour sites of cultural significance in Madurai.
Cost
Fall 2013: $15,900
Spring 2014: TBA
Includes tuition, program costs, room and board, in-country travel.
Learn about financial aid options here
Credits
16 Transferable Credits from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst
upon successful completion of the program
Dates
Fall Semester: September 4 – December 11, 2013
Spring Semester: TBA
Requirements
Minimum GPA: 2.5
Minimum Age: 18 and above
Language: none required
Apply Online
Visa
Yes: Contact the Living Routes office for details
Housing
Guest Housing and a Community Stay
Application Deadlines
Fall Semester: March 15
*Deadline extended
Spring Semester: September 30
Rolling admissions on a first come first serve basis, so apply early!
Contact us for availability.
FAQS
Auroville was founded in 1968 with the vision of realizing human unity. Auroville is self-classified as an Ecovillage and spiritual community with over 2,300 individuals from 40 nations.
The vision for Auroville was inspired from the Indian mystic Sri Aurobindo and Mira Alfassa (the “mother”) who pioneered integral education. The community strives to be a global city and learning laboratory for research, education and experimentation towards the evolution of humankind. Learn more about the community here!
Program at a Glance
Week 1 & 2
- Introduction to the vision, mission and history of Auroville
- Visit Auroville projects and explore potential service learning sites
- Talk with and engage Auroville community members
- Visit and explore significant sites in Puducherry
- Explore and learn about the local bioregion
- Participate in group building activities and service projects
- Development of community agreements
- Introduction to the academic courses
W
eek 3-9
- Development of individualized learning plans
- Daily engagement in internships
- Active participation in faculty and Aurovillian seminars on the personal, community, ecological and socio-economic aspects of sustainability
- Participate in learning community meetings and activities
- Travel to Tiruvannamalai and climb Mt. Arunachala
- Mid semester evaluations, assessments and learning celebration
Week 10-11
- Visit the Periyar Tiger Preserve
- Travel to Madurai and explore sites of cultural and historic significance
- Engage in service work projects
- Explore and learn about the areas local ecology
- Participate in a meditation retreat at Bodhi Zendo
Week 12-13
- Community stays in Auroville
- Student led seminars
- Facilitate and participate in learning community activities and meetings
Week 14
- Reflect on, synthesize, and integrate the semesters learning
- Final assessment and learning celebrations
- Develop a post program life map
Health and Safety
The health and safety of students and faculty on Living Routes programs is always our highest priority. Living Routes has clearly articulated health and safety protocols and procedures compiled in our Health and Safety Manual. This manual is reviewed and updated on a yearly basis to ensure the highest standard of care is in place on all Living Routes programs. The Health and Safety Manual is available for download here, or contact our office for a copy to be sent to you. All students also receive a comprehensive handbook including detailed chapters on health, safety and guidelines for preventing illness during the program.
Living Routes faculty and staff have extensive international experience and numerous affiliations throughout our various host communities and countries. These individuals and networks ensure that we stay informed about changing conditions and help us prevent health and safety risks while also responding to emergencies quickly and effectively if they should arise. Our program managers and directors have regular communication with field staff and faculty, who all carry emergency cell phones and are trained to carry out Living Routes Emergency and Evacuation Protocols, in the event that we must respond to an emergency, or remove a student or program from the field.
The following are measures that we take on all of our programs:
- Regular updates from the U.S. Department of State and always abide by their safety precautions, travel warnings, and recommendations for U.S. citizens abroad
- Registration through the U.S. Department of State Smart Traveler Enrollment Program
- Abidance by the safety guidelines set out by the National Association for Foreign Study Abroad (NAFSA)
- In-country orientation on country, culture, host site, health and safety procedures, illness and injury prevention and emergency protocol
- Emergency Cards with program itinerary, local emergency contacts, emergency protocol
- International health insurance under iNext Basic Plan, which includes major medical, evacuation, repatriation, and 24-hour emergency assistance
For questions or more information about Living Routes Health and Safety policies, please contact our office at (888) 515-7333 or email us at info[at]livingroutes.org.
Required Courses
Group Dynamics
(Communications 352) (4 credits)
Learn to recognize and analyze the physical, social, economic, political, ethical, and spiritual elements that make up sustainable communities. Students build strong conceptual frameworks and have opportunities for real-world experience by developing a learning community and engaging with established host communities.
Global and Local Sustainable Living
(Environmental Design 592A) (4 credits)
Study the role of human history, language, education, physical landscape, society, and world view on shaping human-place relations. Explore methods of strengthening these connections through use of ecological footprint analysis, ecological literacy, mindful awareness, community/societal action, and systems thinking.
Applications and Practices of Sustainable Living
(Service Learning 397I) (4 credits)
This field-based experience, combined with readings, dialogue, reflection and a project paper, introduces you to the history, methods, and meanings of sustainable development. Students select, implement, record, and evaluate an internship project in sustainable development during their ten-week stay in Auroville, India.
Body, Mind, and Spirit: Cultivating Personal Sustainability
(International Education 292C) (4 credits)
Study the importance of worldviews and how they affect human behavior and the earth, and gain an appreciation for the historical role of religions and spirituality in creating culture. In addition to seminars, readings, reflective journaling, and discussion on philosophical and spiritual movements that link inner transformation with political and environmental action, this course explores how practices such as yoga and meditation, holistic health, and rituals expand perceptions about who we are and how we live.
Program Faculty
Bindu Mohanty – Spring Semester
Ph.D., Comparative Studies in Integral Yoga and Transpersonal Theories, CIIS
M.A., English Literature, University of Kentucky
B.A., English Literature, Sambalpur University
A writer and senior faculty, Bindu Mohanty has lived in Auroville since 1994. Committed to the practice of Integral Yoga, she believes that social change requires a radical transformation of the individual. She is passionate about promoting social justice and ecological sustainability in a globalized world through an integral and transdisciplinary approach to education. Her current research interests include interpersonal dynamics and social evolution.
Ing-Marie Putka – Spring Semester
MA, Environmental Studies of South Asia, Skidmore College
BA, Program on the Environment: International Perspectives, University of Washington
Having moved to Auroville shortly after her studies, Ing-Marie has spent the last seven years living, working and playing in the township. Her activities, including working on an organic farm, managing an off-the-grid guesthouse, and teaching in the Auroville schools, have all been inspired by her deep motivation towards personal and planetary sustainability. Deeply committed to living the change she wants to see in the world, you can often catch Ing-Marie riding her cycle, engaging in a discussion on solid waste management, or delighting in a juicy papaya from the garden
Heather Reid – Fall Semester
Ph.Dc, Adult Education: Community, International and Transformative Learning, University of Toronto
M.A., Philosophy and Religion, California Institute of Integral Studies
B.A, English, Vassar College
Heather first joined the Living Routes faculty in 2006. Her diverse background includes working with the International Institute of Global Education and UNICEF to facilitate an educational reform effort in Central Asia, developing curriculum and assessing the impacts of an environmental educational initiative for schools in Toronto, and writing and presenting national radio documentaries for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Informed by feminist theory, environmental philosophy and depth psychology, her academic research explores the influences underlying the Western worldview that have led to the alienation from nature and from self, and how these may be redressed and transformed through participatory and embodied epistemologies. As an educator, she draws on her training in movement-based expressive arts, wilderness rites-of-passage, and mindfulness practices to create spaces for deep personal and collective inquiry. She is an associate of the Transformative Learning Centre at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, and the co-author of Circles of Transformation: Finding our Way in the “Great Work.”
Neil Meikleham – Fall Semester
Ph.D., Organic and Environmental Chemistry, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
M.Sc., Holistic and Environmental Science, Schumacher College, UK
M.Sc., Chemistry, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
B.Sc. (Hons), Chemistry, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
Neil is an environmental scientist and educator specializing in environmental chemistry, ecological restoration and design, plant propagation and horticulture. In addition to being on the faculty of Living Routes, he has taught courses for the University of British Columbia, the University of the Witwatersrand, and Neal’s Yard Remedies (UK). As an environmental consultant, Neil has implemented systems in integrated water management, biological monitoring, ecological design and wetland restoration, as well as conducted research into environmental science and climate change. He has also consulted on several Auroville-initiated projects, including an ethnomedicinal forest and bioresource center, and a center for integrated bioregional water management. Neil’s areas of interest include plant conservation, traditional ecological knowledge and ethnobotany, permaculture, participatory scientific methodologies, and exploring the complex interface of environmental and social justice.
Leda Cooks
UMass Faculty Sponsor: Group Dynamics (COMM 354)
Elisabeth Hamin
UMass Faculty Sponsor: Global and Local Sustainable Living (ENV. DESIGN 592A)
John Gerber
UMass Faculty Sponsor: Applications and Practices of Sustainable Living (SRVSLRNG 397I)
Gretchen Rossman
Umass Faculty Sponsor: Body, Mind and Spirit: Cultivating Personal Sustainability (INTL ED 292C)
