Integral University Fact or Fiction?

I first publicly began discussing my resignation from Integral Institute on Vince Horn’s website http://www.vincenthorn.com/. (Thank you for hosting those first threads Vince)

In that posting I listed my email address and invited questions. I have been surprised how many questions I’ve received and how confused as a whole the Integral Community is about what is happening at Integral Institute. The emails I have received paint a picture of a community that is misinformed and looking for honest answers. I’d like to provide some of those answers.

The issue for me has become a question of integrity. On one hand, I’d like to offer some real transparency to my Integral brothers and sisters so that you can have realistic expectations of I-I. On the other hand, I want to be careful that communicating this information, which isn’t very rosy, is not misread as maligning Ken or somehow trying to prop up my own ego given the falling out I’ve had with Ken.

My intention is to provide information from a placing of loving service as best I can. If along the way it seems to be doing more harm than good, please tell me.

Over the next few weeks I’ll make a number of posts here on Zaadz. The topics will range from specific detail about Integral Institute and the Phase 2 plan to some of my personal opinions about leadership and Integral Business.

Today I’ll start with Integral University.

I was sad to receive a number of emails saying how excited the sender was about the upcoming launch of IU and if I could give them more information.

What do you think Integral University is? What are your expectations? Do you think anyone at I-I knows? How long has IU been talked about? What is real?

There is no Integral University plan. IU is nothing more than an idea. There are no resources allocated and funds to build IU. There is no business plan. There is no strategy, no budget, and no staff. There never was. IU like many I-I projects has been mostly talk with little real action.  No one really knows what it is supposed to be.  There isn't even a simple two page overview that I could find. 

For most of the last two years Integral University had ONE full time person assigned to deal with it. I admit she is an extraordinary young woman, but still, can anything called a “University” come into being with one twenty-something staffer (being paid less than $24K a year) and no budget or project plan? Integral University is more of a myth than anything real.
What is real is that Integral Institute has started two Master’s degree programs, one a JFK and one at Fielding. You can see detail on this http://www.integraluniversity.com/    IU Presents, which is on the Multiplex, was an attempt to actually deliver something.  It has some forum and files and is a place where Center Directors can talk and share. 

There isn’t anything else substantive happening under the banner of Integral University other than a lot of ideas and wishful thinking.

Part of the Phase 2 plan was a focus on nurturing Center growth. I-I often reports there are 24 Centers in IU, but in reality many of those are inactive. The Phase 2 plan involved focusing on about eight key content groups such as Health and Psychology, Business and Leadership, Spirituality, etc. A new business unit called Center Development was to be staffed to help Centers create and host their own web sites as part of the Multiplex. The Center Development team was to assist Center Directors in creating their own content (video, audio, text) as well as accessing I-I resources and best practices for seminar development and delivery, academic program development, networking (Salons and Community), marketing and media. The idea was to get the Centers strong and resourced and then readdresses the concept of IU. It was my intention to propose this strategy to the Center Directors at the end of November, but things inside I-I got very messy which led to my resignation.

In relation to IU, Ken wants each of the Centers to publish a canon under the Integral Books brand which was graciously offered by Shambhala Publications. The Phase 2 strategy included prioritizing which canons (textbooks) would be published first and how over a period of five or six years, a good set of important Integral texts could come into being. The Integral Books concept is mostly shut down now as there is no dedicated personnel assigned no budget and no real project plan. It has always been just a seat of the pants kind of implementation with one full time editor assigned. That editor quit a few months ago. The good news is that there are few books that are mostly done, but Ken has the final word on if they get published or not. Ken’s veto power on Integral Books is a problem. Shambhala contracts directly with the authors, but Ken has veto power, which means that an author can get what looks like a book deal, but Ken can kill the book, or the book cover, or whatever at any time. I was to working with Shambhala to develop a more elegant system, but Ken was not supportive of that methodology. Additional complications around Integral Books exists that I don’t have room to go into here. As an aside, I did get to meet the people that run Shambhala and they are fantastic and professional!

In my next post I’ll address the Integralist magazine and AQAL Journal and why you haven’t seen these yet….or if you ever will.

There is a lot of information to provide over the next weeks. My focus will be first to discuss initiatives like IU, Salons, Seminars, Certification, Coaching, etc. Once those are covered I’ll get into management issues, legal issues and financial issues.

Again, my intention is to provide transparency. If you have questions please ask, I’ll do my best to answer them over time.

In your service,
Steve