FWD 2 Partnership Allows Herbalists to Use Training Toward Bachelor’s Degree

HerbalEGram: Volume 8, Number 7, July 2011

Partnership Allows Herbalists to Use Training Toward Bachelor's Degree

A new educational partnership between the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism (VCIH) and Goddard College enables herbalists to transfer their herbalism training as credit hours toward a bachelor’s degree.1 With this new collaboration—the only known program of its kind—herbalists who have completed VCIH’s 1- or 3-year training programs can enter Goddard’s Health Arts and Sciences (HAS) program with up to 45 credit hours, significantly shortening the amount of time it takes to obtain an undergraduate degree.

“We believe the world needs deeply educated herbalists who have a love of plants, healing, and learning,” said Suzanne Richman, Goddard’s HAS program director. “The academic partnership between VCIH and Goddard supports such individuals to engage in life-long learning and practice in herbal medicine (e-mail, June 14, 2011).”

Goddard College—based in Plainfield, Vermont—offers low-residency bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in which students are able to work toward their degree from their own homes, in close communication with academic advisors.2 With such a flexible and unique structure, students have more control over their course of study, making it individualized to their “personal interests, professional commitments, and creative aspirations.”

According to Larken Bunce, co-founding director of VCIH and an HAS faculty advisor, “Goddard offers a way to tailor your degree and take the time to answer the questions you have burning in your mind.” Bunce and Richman worked together to establish the vision and details of the new partnership, which was made official in the spring of 2011.

In order to augment the practical, hands-on training of the HAS program, Goddard regularly builds educational partnerships with a network of professional health programs. While VCIH is not accredited by any state education board, Goddard chose to partner with the center due to its programs’ relevance and quality, said Bunce. The VCIH herbalist programs consist of 1-year and 3-year tracks. The first year consists of 300 training hours, 100 of which are spent outdoors with plants. Upon completing the first year, students have learned “basic sciences and the art of understanding the energetics of plants and people,” and receive their family herbalist certificate or go on to complete the 3-year clinical course.3

The second year is spent obtaining an extensive understanding of pathophysiology and clinical strategies, and in the third year, students learn to teach in the community, understand how to interface with conventional medicine, develop a business plan for a future clinical practice, and complete 150 hours of supervised clinic work, obtaining and working with their own clients. According to Bunce, the difference from other herbalism training offered in the United States, is that VCIH offers “more extensive curriculum hours and has one of the largest requirements for supervised clinical practice.”

Pursuing a degree at Goddard is an option particularly suiting for herbalists who wish to deepen their study into an herbalism-related topic, like biochemistry for the herbalist or ethnobotany, or into something different from herbalism altogether, like the healthcare system, ecological health relationships, or a particular aspect of human health.

“Not that we don’t look at those things when training herbalists, but we have a finite amount of time,” said Bunce. “And the Goddard experience allows for more exploration”

According to Bunce, a college degree can convey expertise to clients, who often choose practitioners based on what certificates or degrees he or she has obtained, and it can earn an herbalist more respect in today’s society. It can also provide more opportunities for herbalists who want to be a part of the varying roles now common within the profession, like being a writer, consultant, or teacher.

Bunce, who has her bachelor’s degree from Goddard and Master of Science in Herbal Medicine from the Tai Sophia Institute, said she has received a number of invitations to publish articles or teach in certain settings due to her educational degrees. Still, she recognized that this route is not necessary for all herbalists, especially those who want to focus primarily on clinical practice.

“I certainly don’t think an herbalist has to have a degree,” she said. “I’m not saying that we think this is the new way. But with so many paths for herbalists, this is for people who have an interest in getting out there with more credentials.”

Those herbalists who decide to pursue their degree at Goddard will likely find the college’s unique low-residency structure also beneficial to their lives and careers. Each semester, students spend 8 days at Goddard’s campus, attending workshops and presentations and discussing their degree program and academic requirements.4 For the remaining semester, students work in their own home communities or, as Richman put it, “wherever a student needs to be to best fulfill their studies.”

“They have the time to maintain their life and clients and gardens without having to abandon all of that and move to a different place to go to college,” Bunce added.

Following their individualized study program—a road map of sorts developed with input from a Goddard advisor who has experience in their field of interest—students complete their semester hours by reading, writing, conducting research and/or interviews, and sometimes attending actual courses. Throughout this time students are in close communication with their advisors and every 3 weeks, they submit a learning packet to illustrate their work.4

Goddard students enrolled in the HAS undergraduate and graduate programs have always been able to take VCIH classes that count as credit hours for their degree, as well as toward earning an herbalism certificate from VCIH. For them, the new partnership improves the ease and scope of incorporating herb-related coursework into their education, as they previously had to seek out their own herbalism resources.

“In Goddard’s most recent survey of undergraduate and graduate programs, one of the largest areas of interest from students is in someway related to herbalism,” said Bunce. “People from Goddard are definitely pleased to have more direction in regards to where they can expand their herbal education.”

Additionally, Bunce noted, Goddard students will now see that in order to become a practicing herbalist, the college supports and recommends hands-on, face-to-face, supervised instruction and education—whether obtained from VCIH or another herbal organization.

In addition to the new partnership with VCIH, Goddard collaborates with other alternative health programs, such as the Lourdes Institute of Wholisitic Studies and Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, both of which feature training in massage, yoga, reflexology, meditation, and sustainable living. Goddard now also offers students the chance to receive 3 credit hours for attending a 12-day ethnobotany workshop in Hawaii led by ethnobotanist Kathleen Harrison and Hawaiian cultural teacher Momi Subiono (http://www.goddard.edu/study_polynesia_hawaii).


—Lindsay Stafford


References

1. BA in Health Arts and Sciences: Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism partnership. Goddard College website. Available at: www.goddard.edu/bachelorarts_healtharts_vcih. Accessed June 10, 2011.

2. About Goddard. Goddard College website. Available at: www.goddard.edu/about/. Accessed June 10, 2011.

3. Herbalism course offerings. Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism website. Available at: http://vtherbcenter.org/. Accessed June 21, 2011.

4. BA in Health Arts and Sciences. Goddard College website. Available at: www.goddard.edu/bachelorarts_healtharts. Accessed June 10, 2011.