Impact =  Transformative Education | Examples

University of St. Gallen:
Integral Development Course

A Course for Young Changemakers, who seek to combine individual and societal Development and who see themselves as Contributors to an integral Paradigm of Human Development.

University of St Gallen Switzerland

This course, held at one of Europe’s most prestigious business and economics universities, is already in its sixth iteration, and has developed into a role model for transformative education.

The original impulse for this course came in 2011 from a student initiative called INDEED (International Development Entirely Different) started by a group of students from the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, who were keen to bring a course on alternative (economic) development perspectives into the university’s curriculum offerings.

Based on this foundational impulse, and supported by the University of St. Gallen, we have subsequently created a course on Integral Development that interlinks inner, personal and outer, societal development. Following the Integral Development framework and process, students are simultaneously exposed to cutting edge theory and practice – providing them with new perspectives on human development. Knowledge is directly applied in cooperation with Trans4m’s integral partner organisations from around the world. Together with them, students work on burning local development issues. In many cases, a Trans4m Junior Fellow, actively working with a partner organisation on the ground, is mentoring the group and facilitating interaction with a larger local innovation ecosystem. At the end of the course, students present, via video-recorded presentations and written reports, their integral results to the partner organisations who provide feedback. Furthermore, students present their personal learnings with regards to their inner development.

The key part of this course is framed as a four-day intensive, taking place in Geneva, Switzerland and at Trans4m’s “Home for Humanity” in the nearby French countryside. In Geneva, students meet representatives from leading developmental institutions (such as UNDP, UNCTAD, and WTO) as well as with high level thought leaders pointing towards alternative development futures. In rural France, students undergo an intense transformative process, working jointly and in small groups on inner and outer development issues.

ID Course 2016: At the United Nations in Geneva
ID Course 2016: At the United Nations in Geneva
ID Course 2016: At Trans4m's Home for Humanity
ID Course 2016: At Trans4m’s Home for Humanity
ID Course 2016 - Final Session with Individual Poster, sharing Transfer of Learnings back to Individual Lives
ID Course 2016 – Final Session with Individual Poster, sharing Transfer of Learnings back to Individual Lives

The course is designed as a transformative journey, and the constellation of partner organisations, students, Trans4m Junior Fellows, course teacher and external contributors is meant to provide an “interactive innovation ecology” in which students participate as co-creators of new integral solutions.

WATCH THE INTEGRAL ALBUM OF THE 2016 COURSE