Faculty of The Human Challenge of Sustainability: Findhorn Community Semester

Applied Sustainability Lead Faculty
Graham Meltzer - BSc (Mathematics), BBE (Bachelor of Built Environment), BArch hons (Bachelor of Architecture), PhD (University of Queensland).
Graham grew up in New Zealand but lived, as an adult, mostly in Australia where he worked variously as building contractor, architect, university lecturer and commercial photographer. He currently works for the Findhorn Foundation as community architect and project manager.  He has a deep abiding interest in communal living, having lived two years on Kibbutz, eight years in Australia’s largest commune and five years at Findhorn. His academic research of the last 20 years has focused on cohousing, looking specifically at the link between social cohesion and environmentalism. He is on the board of ICSA, the International Communal Studies Association, and is organising the next ICSA conference, to be held in Findhorn in 2013.

Exploring Self & Community through the Arts
Lisa Shaw - M.F.A. Grays School of Art, Aberdeen, 2007-2009 (to be completed September, 2009). B.F.A. The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York City, 2000-2004.
Lisa Shaw is an artist, designer and educator. She is the art director of the Ecovillage Institute, an ecological design and engineering firm based in Findhorn, Scotland. She has worked on water restoration projects in India, China, Bolivia, Russia and the UK as part of the Ecovillage Institute team, educating for the restoration and sustainable use of water and soil. This work targets problems of water scarcity, contamination and land degradation. Lisa is involved in community building and ecological art and is currently researching issues of self-image in relationship to the environment in Scotland. She creates paintings on canvas, photographs, videos, murals and dialogical interventions and has taught art to adults and children.

Group Dynamics
Gill Emslie - Diploma (M.A. equiv.) in Process Oriented Psychology, School of Process Oriented Psychology Portland, OR, and London UK; Certificate in Holotropic Breathwork, School of Holotropic Breathwork, CA. Gill has extensive experience as an international trainer and facilitator, drawing on her training in transpersonal psychology, as a consultant to organizations and communities, and as a psychotherapist, to deliver trainings in group dynamics and conflict facilitation, social design, personal development, staff training, supervision, and developing the relationship between individual purpose and its application in the workplace and the world. Gill currently works within the corporate and voluntary sectors both in Europe and Latin America as well as teaching in a variety of educational programmes.

Worldviews and Consciousness
Melissa Godbeer B.MSc & M.MSc University of Metaphysics, California
Melissa is passionate about Living Education and personal sustainability, teaching on a range of themes from green mind programing to pro-peace activisim, she has been an educator with the Findhorn College since 2005 where her key area of interest has been the beneficial communal effects of right-livelihood. With a diverse history originating in Zimbabwe - Africa, Melissa dynamically draws on over 10 years of team leadership and group facilitation experience, utalising advanced facilitation technology as a means to reach her audience. Whilst maintaining an authentic level of compassion to support and mentor students through the accadmemic demands of the rigourus Findhorn Community Semester programme, Melissa’s capacity to demystify the seriousness of sustainable education brings at times relief to the learning community.

Academic Focaliser

Melissa Godbeer - please see faculty descriptions above

Community Focaliser

Andrea Marcus -
B.A. (Hons) Queen’s University, Belfast; Post-Graduate Certificate in Youth & Community Studies St. Martin’s College, Lancaster; MA and PhD Lancaster University
Originally from Northern Ireland, Andrea is a Youth and Community Worker and has worked in a range of voluntary and statutory settings in the UK, as well as overseas.  Previous professional experience in Further Education, as well as within Local Government, has helped her to gain essential insights into some of the challenges facing young people in having their voice(s) ‘heard’. She is passionate about anti-oppressive practice and has sought to embed this into her professional and academic career.  Holding an MA in Women’s Studies and a PhD on the politics of space and gender she has worked as a part-time lecturer, college supervisor and researcher. For the past two years she has lived  within the Findhorn Foundation Community.