Who is Camphill Academy?

The Camphill Academy is the higher education community of Camphill in North America. It offers its programs in partnership with other participating Camphill communities and affiliated organizations. It provides professional education and certification in the interdisciplinary field of Inclusive Social Development, including concentrations in Curative Education, Social Therapy, Social Agriculture, and related fields through practice-integrated courses of studies embedded in the life and work of participating communities and organizations. It also offers continuing education in a variety of areas related to the work of the Camphill movement. 

An active member of the international network of professional education centers in Anthroposophic Curative Education, Social Therapy and related fields, which is represented by the Anthroposophic Council for Inclusive Social Development, the Camphill Academy is committed to the cultivation of anthroposophy, the spiritual science inaugurated by Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), as the philosophical and methodological foundation of its work. It is affiliated with the Anthroposophic Council for Inclusive Social Development in the School of Spiritual Science in Dornach, Switzerland, and its qualifications are recognized by the Council’s International Training Circle. 

All full-time programs in the Camphill Academy emphasize emergent field-based learning, embedded in the experience of community life as practiced in the Camphill Movement. They are rooted in rich and diverse practical experiences, which provide the driving force for the educational process and challenge students to ever further growth in personal capacities, practical skills, insight and understanding. Contemplative capacities are cultivated as an essential means for self-education and self-development. The practice of the fine and performing arts permeates all aspects of the learning process, supporting and enhancing the development of practical skills, inter- and intrapersonal capacities, and conceptual knowledge. 

In line with the needs of an increasingly fluid 21st Century environment, the Camphill Academy’s view of learning focuses on supporting the transformation of the individual student to a whole, fulfilled human being with the capacity to serve the good as an active agent in the world. Part-time programs, continuing education programs, research and other activities of the Camphill Academy are oriented towards the same goal and principles of emergent, embedded and embodied inquiry and learning, extending possibilities for participation to a wider audience.