VERONIKA
BOHAC CLARKE

Title of contribution:

Integral Researchers – Still Homeless in the Academia (Acad)

Where & when:

Ibiza II.

Sunday, 27th May
11:30-13:30

Project: Integral researchers – still homeless in the academia

This report focuses on graduate students and professors using Integral theory as transdisciplinary research framework, at a western Canadian mainstream university. Data were collected from observations and reflections with a colleague, while teaching, supervising graduate students, and doing Integral research. Analysis, using the Integral Model, uncovered challenges facing Integral doctoral students and faculty members. While transdisciplinarity is becoming recognized, in mainstream academia disciplinary orthodoxies continue to rule. Not having a single disciplinary home, Integral academics do not fit into the traditional roles and their benefits. This applies both to professors and to graduate students. Integral students must continue to defend their research and professors must defend Integral teaching. Nevertheless, Integral academics report that the benefits of gaining an Integral world view and a more complex understanding of the world, still outweigh the challenges they face.

About Veronika Bohac Clarke:

Veronika Bohac-Clarke, PhD, is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary, Canada. In 2001 Veronika began teaching a graduate course on spirituality in postmodern age, using Wilber’s Integral Model. Teaching either spirituality or Integral Theory at a mainstream university then required tenacity. In 2013 Veronika became Co-Ordinator of EdD cohort Curriculum-Integral Theory. The 10 students from this cohort have successfully completed their degrees.

Website: http://werklund.ucalgary.ca/educ_info/profiles/veronika-elizabeth-bohac-clarke