Southwestern College Santa Fe, NM
The Visionary Practice & Regenerative Leadership PhD Program at Southwestern College in Santa Fe begins with an initial on-ground residency, Residency I: Seeking. The purpose is to provide an orientation to the program and to introduce students to unique approaches to transformational and experiential learning. These new ways of learning, doing, and being invite our doctoral student visionaries and future regenerative leaders to question, engage, and open themselves to possibilities not yet imagined. Below are quotes from new doctoral students who began our program in Fall 2024.
“The residency broke down barriers while creating a collaborative, connected, and cohesive learning environment. I was invited to separate from my previous self-adapted, performance-based perfection into an environment that encouraged, modeled, and celebrated authenticity and our messiness. Furthermore, I felt anointed into a group that valued multiple intelligences while celebrating our diverse perspectives. Ultimately, my time at residency was a reformative experience from my previous traumatic academic encounters. For this alone, I feel extremely humbled and grateful.” Student – Genell Howell
“In the six days of my residency, I was asked to experience fractals, investigate portals, and channel my past and present to support me on this journey. Through these experiences, I understand the validity and importance of new ways of accessing data and research; I am being asked to “reflect on [my] and society’s assumptions without situating into a new, fixed worldview. Perhaps most importantly, [I am] bringing the new levels of awareness to invoke creative change in the world” (Canty, 2017, p. 32) through my continued process with my vision seed and a new profound way of learning and seeking. I am ready to release what is no longer serving me as a learner and a leader. I am prepared to release what is no longer serving my planet. These new ways of learning have helped me expand my thinking about the vision seed but also have helped me deconstruct what I believe were the only ways of knowing. As Canty (2017) stated, “the essence of transformative learning is when an adult permanently alters [their] worldview” (p. 26). My worldview has been altered, shifted, and challenged.
Within this altered space, I feel the expansion. How will this continue appearing in my personal and professional spaces? How will I continue to deconstruct and reconstruct a new reality ahead of me? How can I maintain this without getting lost in the familiar and my colonized ways of being? I hold both excitement and fear. Overall, I am excited about how this will continue to change, and how I will continue to evolve and move through each class, each node, and each new teaching.” Student – Denise Moore
“The readings that complemented the residency have continued to be useful guides for me. I have been reflecting on the conent about white supremacy culture and on my participation in its reproduction. The readings offered important framing for the residency and will continue to support my work beyond the course. I am already seeing so much that I want to take back with me to the classroom. As I shared at the end of the residency: If this was the end of the VPRL program, I would be utterly transformed—but it’s only the beginning. I am still wrestling with the fear and beautiful realization that this will change my life.” Student – Nicola Walters
Reference
Canty, Jeanine M. (2017). Seeing clearly through cracked lenses. In Jeanine M. Canty (Ed.), Ecological and social healing: Multicultural women’s voices (pp. 23-44). Routledge.
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