Founder’s Message - Ed Sarath
Professor of Music, University of Michigan,
Designer of BFA in Jazz and Contemplative Studies Program
Dear Friends,
Ever since I entered higher education, I have been interested in expanding its boundaries to include a spiritual or transpersonal component. Although I have made some inroads along these lines, I have also become keenly aware of the challenges that need to be overcome if this kind of reform is to become widespread. I began toying with the idea of forming a network dedicated to these ends, and in the fall of 2002, I ran the notion past two of my students, Ariella Kaufman and Ross Huff. Their immediate enthusiasm, which was matched by that of a core group of students we met with over the next months to allow the idea to incubate, affirmed my initial conviction that this was an idea whose time had come. Not only am I eternally grateful for the invaluable contributions of this group - which in addition to Ariella and Ross included Shannon McBride, Jeremy Bedzow, Megan Golani, Michael Steelman and Garrett Field - I am also thankful to them for exemplifying the wisdom and leadership in today's generation of students. When all is said and done, it will be the students who play the most central role in STATE. I could not have hoped for a more talented, devoted, inspiring, and enlightened group to come forth in the initial stages of this project.
Why STATE? Do we really need another organization, another attempt to transform education? What are the prospects of bringing a spiritual aspect to the educational world?
When I reflect on these questions, I always come back to two main motivating factors for the formation of STATE. One, which needs little elaboration, is the wide range of crises that confront today's world; where poverty, all kinds of violence, a growing gap between rich and poor, rampant disease, and environmental destruction lead us to wonder about what sort of future we, let alone our children, might look forward to. While I, unlike many, am intensely optimistic that humanity can rise to the occasion and address these challenges, an unprecedented transformation in how we think and act, which means a transformation in consciousness, will be necessary if this is to happen. A spiritual awakening, whereby divisions and conflict between ethnicities, religious denominations, and political orientations are replaced by a deep embrace of the rich diversity of our global human family. While political, social, environmental and other forms of action will be important to this shift, at its basis will be a restored connection with the innermost regions of human awareness ; where the various categories that distinguish our personal, ethnic, gender, and other qualities are transcended, and enriched by contact with the transpersonal/spiritual and integrative core of our being.
If this kind of experience and change is to occur, it must happen first in the educational world, which brings us to the second motivating factor for the formation of STATE. Education impacts a wider range of the population than any other social institution, and thus has the capacity to either perpetuate the prevailing paradigms of our society, or to change them. Unfortunately, education has been more of a passive reflector than a transformational agent, and thus, if anything, has furthered the narrow and fragmented view of human potential that dominates much of our world. This is not to deny the important contributions that education has made, but simply to recognize that the needs of our times call for a new vision of human knowledge and development. I believe education has the capacity to expand its sphere of activity and meet these needs.
Coming full circle to a point I made above, it will be the students who will be the driving force for this kind of change. Today's students realize that there is an interior core of human experience that is being neglected in education, and that the cultivation of this core on individual and collective scales is critical to the future of our world. While STATE will also involve faculty, administrators and community members, it will be the students who, beginning at their respective campuses, galvanize these groups into local networks, which will then become part of a collective voice for change.
Thank you for your interest in this exciting project!
Peace,
Ed Sarath
Professor of Music and Chair,
Department of Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation Studies
The University of Michigan School of Music
Website: www.edsarath.com
e-mail: sarahara@umich.edu
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