Western Institute For Social Research:
Making Your Career Relevant to Social Change

	Don St. John, a therapist in the State of Washington receives his PhD. With him is Dr. Deborah Pruitt, faculty member of WISR.

Western Institute for Social Research, longtime OPEN EXHCANGE lister, offers advanced academic degrees in our Schools & Certifications category.

Many of us have chosen careers that we believe might, in a small way at least, contribute to making our world a better place. These careers include, but are not limited to, community services, education, counseling and therapy, health, and the arts, to mention just a few areas. Since 1975, the Western Institute for Social Research (WISR) has been providing personalized BA, MA and PhD programs for mature adults.

WISR's small-scale, multicultural learning community provides a hospitable environment in which people can either change careers, or further enhance their existing careers to pursue, in compatible ways, each of these: community improvement, social change, personal growth and career advancement. WISR's success is illustrated in the diverse and impressive accomplishments of our students and alumni. Here are a few recent examples:

Margery Coffey is a WISR MA alumnus and PhD student, and an artist who has worked with Dennis Hastings of the Omaha Tribal Historical Research Project (www.othrp.org) to restore and preserve century-old photographs of Omaha life and culture, as well as to create original interpretative paintings depicting aspects of Omaha history.

WISR MA and PhD alumnus, Anngwyn St. has just published her book, Relative Balance in an Unstable World—A Search for New Models for Trauma Education and Recovery. She is a licensed therapist, and this book is based on her decades of work in the field of trauma, healing and social change. She has written to us that "This book would not have been possible without my projects done at WISR and (the) invaluable guidance during those years. For me, the most challenging project was qualitative research, which in the long run turned out to be the most satisfying."

WISR MA student, Nzinga Pace, was one of the lead artists for the recently completed 10-week 100 Families Project in Oakland. It was an art and social change project aimed at "creating opportunities for families to work together collectively with professional artists to make art that will bring beauty to the community as well as to strengthen family ties through the creative process of making art together."

WISR PhD student, Judy Andreas, organized the recently completed conference, "Facing a Challenge Within: A Progressive Scholars' and Activists' Conference on Anti-Semitism and the Left, East Coast." (www.facingachallenge.com)

WISR MA student, Jane Johansen, helped to organize the recent conference on "Education as Preventative Medicine" (Educacion como Medicinia Preventiva) in Guanajuato, Mexico. (www.koliskomexico.org)

WISR PhD student, David Yamada, is a tenured law professor at Suffolk University Law School, and he is using his PhD studies to further develop his interests in addressing the nationwide problem of workplace bullying and to examine how "independent scholar-activists" can constructively contribute to progressive social change.

WISR PhD alumnus, David Hough, teaches English as a Foreign Language in Japanese universities, and he is involved in action-oriented research to promote indigenous minority language rights in Micronesia.