Future Generations Graduate School

Future Generations University
Motto Empowering Communities to Shape their Futures
Established 2003
President Daniel C. Taylor
Location Franklin, West Virginia, U.S.
Affiliations Higher Learning Commission
Website www.future.edu

Future Generations University (formerly Future Generations Graduate School) is a global graduate school that offers a Master of Arts in Applied Community Change. Future Generations grew out of Future Generations, an NGO that began in the early 1990s in response to a UNICEF sponsored review of community-based initiatives worldwide.[1] In June of 2010 the school was accredited by its accrediting agency Higher Learning Commission.

History

In 1992, James P. Grant, then executive director of UNICEF, asked Daniel C. Taylor, co-founder of The Mountain Institute, and his father Carl E. Taylor, founding chair of the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, to investigate why there was no correlation between the amount of money that UNICEF invested in sustainable development projects and the output that the projects achieved. The main issue that UNICEF faced was that they had many successful projects in specific communities, but fell short when they attempted to scale them up.[2]

The Taylors founded an NGO called Future Generations in November of 1992 to address the questions of how to scale up local successes and how to sustain these successes using primarily local resources. They called the approach that they developed SEED-SCALE (Self Evaluation with Essential Data - Selecting Communities As Learning Examples). SEED-SCALE had three phases: (1) identifying a successful local project for social development; (2) transforming it into a community-based Action Learning Centre; and (3) a systematic process of facilitating community-to-community extension.[3] SEED-SCALE fieldwork began in Tibet's Qomolangma National Nature Preserve. By 2012, Future Generations was working in China, Peru, India, Afghanistan, Canada, Haiti, and the United States.[2]

In 2003, Future Generations Graduate School was formed to engage the global network of communities that Future Generations, the NGO, had become. The Graduate School would offer an applied master's degree for mid-career community development practitioners who work directly with communities, organizations, and governments worldwide.[2]

Pedagogy

Future Generations uses an innovative pedagogy that blends online coursework, international and regional residentials, and community-based study and practice. This allows students to focus their learning on their community; in this way, their work becomes immediately more effective. The pedagogy encourages peer-to-peer learning, provides rich faculty mentoring, and facilitates self-directed, community-based learning.[4]

Research

In addition to its MA program, Future Generations maintains an active research department that focuses mainly on two areas: (1) pedagological research and program assessment and (2) social change. In particular, the research department is focused on strengthening rigorous methodologies for community-based participatory research.

References

  1. ↑ Taylor, D.C., Taylor, C.E., & Taylor, J.O. (2012. Empowerment on an Unstable Planet. New York, NY: Oxford.
  2. 1 2 3 Future Generations & Future Generations Graduate School. (2012). Two Decades of Global Impact: 1992-2012. Franklin, WV: Author.
  3. ↑ Taylor-Ide, D., & Taylor, C.E. (1995). Community Based Sustainable Human Development: A Proposal for Going to Scale with Self-Reliant Social Development. Children, Environment, and Sustainable Development: Primary Environmental Care (PEC) Discussion Papers, No. 1 February 1995.
  4. ↑ Community-Focused Learning. Retrieved January 28, 2016, from http://www.future.edu



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