WISR’s Foundation: Our History, Distinctive Qualities, and Culture

[Taken from Opening Remarks made by WISR President, John Bilorusky, at the beginning of the site visit by DEAC to consider WISR for accreditation in October 2023. . . .]

We very much appreciate having this visit from DEAC representatives. Just being considered seriously for accreditation is a significant milestone in WISR’s long history, now approaching a half century.

For 49 years we have pursued an ambitious mission—on a very small-scale. From the beginning, we hoped to provide an inspiring model of higher learning for others, by combining what we saw to be the best of traditional academia with the best of non-traditional learning methods--for example, emphasizing rigorous academic inquiry that is also practical and action-oriented, and prioritizing personalized education that involves continuing dialogue between students and faculty, and opportunities for collaboration with other students.

We have tried, and I believe succeeded, in creating a welcoming and supportive learning environment for people from many varied walks of life. And, these students have been very successful in pursuing their goals. Here are some examples:

• Single mom raising two teenage daughters, changing careers to be an MFT, after having a business career resulting from her UCLA MBA and Stanford Bachelor’s degree. She is now a licensed MFT with a private practice, and provides therapy to Spanish-speaking students and students of Latin American descent at Stanford University. 

• A union organizer who identifies as gender non-conforming, aiming to become an expert therapist serving the needs of Queer clients. She is earning her post-graduate hours as an Associate MFT toward her license. 

• A career Air Force Major, a graduate of the USAFA, raised in a rural Mormon community in Utah, who decided to become a therapist (due to the value he found in couples therapy), and who also wished to actively diversify and expand his circle of friends and colleagues. He is earning his post-graduate hours toward the State MFT license. 

• A man who identifies as Hispanic and Native American, and who has been working in the Traffic Services Division of the Santa Monica Police Department, and who wants to eventually become a therapist in private practice. In the short-run he would like to work for a public agency such as the LA Department of Mental Health. He has a Bachelor’s in Native American Studies, and has worked with a church youth group.  

• An immigrant from Thailand wishing to become a therapist, and concerned with community mental health. She now works as a licensed MFT for a community agency.

• The head of a labor-management consulting firm and leader in the Bay Area Chapter of 100 Black Men, wishing to solicit oral histories from those still alive, who with him, successfully led a strike of African American skilled workers at Mare Island Naval Station—resulting in a landmark Civil Rights accomplishment in Bay Area history. 

• A young 21 year-old women, with severe dyslexia, having just graduated with honors in Social Work at UC Berkeley, who then successfully pursued her Master’s in Marriage and Family Therapy, and then immediately obtained full-time employment as a counselor in the Palo Alto school district, and more recently now in an Oakland non-profit, earning hours toward MFT licensure. 

• The grassroots historian for the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska and Iowa, who achieved his Master’s and Doctorate at WISR, and whose dissertation, in collaboration with a colleague in Nebraska, was the unique 1,500 page history (in writing, photos, and maps) of the Omaha People in the midst of the European invasion. Unexpectedly, about five years ago, seven or so years after they completed the doctorate, the evidence in that dissertation was cited as pivotal in winning a case for the Omaha people before the U.S. Supreme Court.

• One WISR student, an Islamic man of Pakistani descent, who completed his MS in Education and Community Leadership in less than two years, enrolled at WISR less than a year after having been released from San Quentin Prison.  He had been in prison 20 of the 22 or so years of his adult life, where he earned his BA from Ohio University by correspondence. His WISR studies built toward his efforts to contribute to the improvement of Prison Education, and since graduating he has started a family (he and his wife have two young children) and with the initial help of his employer upon release from prison, he has started a very successful chain of Falafel restaurants in Sacramento. 

• A number of licensed therapists, many of them specializing in trauma and/or somatic therapy, who wished to further develop their professional skills, develop training curricula, and publish scholarly writings based on their professional insights. 

Indeed, the history of WISR’s history has resulted in an extremely diverse, and also consistently motivated, often talented, and strongly self-directed faculty and students who are attracted to WISR by many of the key values of our mission. Faculty and staff turnover is very low, and students generally withdraw only as the result of the unavoidable life crises that happen to many people. Each person is attracted to WISR for their own distinctive reasons, but generally eager to collaborate and engage in dialogue with others at WISR, and to learn from and with people who most often are very different from themselves.

In an era when our country seems increasingly polarized, WISR has succeeded in creating collaborative opportunities and a welcoming and hospitable learning environment for each person, even if they are likely very different, in many ways at least, from others at WISR--in terms of their previous life experiences, and many of their life priorities, values, and interests. 

Over the years, we have come to appreciate more and more the importance of the collaborative culture we have created among faculty, staff, students, alumni and Board members. People find encouragement and opportunities to make suggestions for improvements—informally and outside of the frequent, regularly scheduled meetings of 1) all the faculty, 2) the administrative leadership team, 3) the Board, and 4) semi-annually of the Advisory Committee]. People are generally very open to listening to others, comfortable in expressing their ideas and suggestions, and often come to feel a sense of ownership over the sustainability and future directions for WISR.

In 2017 and 2018, in conjunction with our plans to apply for DEAC accreditation, faculty engaged in a methodical process of developing an online curriculum, based on almost 50 years of providing quality graduate education. Rather fortuitously, shortly after we first implemented the curriculum in September 2018, this online curriculum enabled us to quite easily weather the challenges presented by COVID. This included our newly created ability to do most of our administrative work from a distance, using the Google Suite for Education and documents in the Administrative Google Drive.   

Further, in the past five years, the challenges of working toward accreditation would have been daunting were it not for the nearly universal appreciation of our mission among students, faculty, staff and Board, as well as the spirit of collaboration that we have nurtured at WISR. 

And, our mission, our collegial culture and the inspiration from our long history have enabled us to reframe the challenges of accreditation as opportunities to further improve. 

This process, unfortunately, proceeded under great duress, due to the State of California law that not only requires that we achieve accreditation, but do so under a timeline that felt hurried and continually subject to renegotiation. Still, this process has further strengthened this institution, and we have continued to build on and demonstrate further the resilience and commitments to quality education and to our mission that have been evident throughout our 48-year history. Rather than complaining about the challenges involved in seeking accreditation with DEAC, we have reframed the challenges as opportunities to further improve. Indeed, a major accomplishment has been for WISR to develop the position of Quality Improvement Officer, and to engage all groups at WISR in a number of collaboratively agreed upon procedures.

Faculty, staff, students, Board and alumni—are engaged, both informally and substantively through our collegial culture, and also formally and systematically in quality improvement toward greater institutional effectiveness and continued sustainability, along with eventual, carefully planned modest growth. 

Because of our mission, collegial culture, people  . . .  and our history

we have the experience, expertise, conviction, and perseverance 

to embrace challenges, and to continue forward for many years to come, 

beyond our 50th Anniversary in 2025.

We appreciate the opportunity to help you get to know us better!