This is a deep conversation with Prof. Pramod Parajuli. He talks about the importance of regenerative ecology, food system, natural ecosystem, and many more.
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About Professor Pramod Parajuli
As a trans-disciplinary social scientist, scholar and educator, Dr. Parajuli is deeply seeking ways to heal and regenerate lifesystems, livelihoods, learning and leadership during this turbulent period (especially since 2020) of what he identifies as the “Combined Climate/Coronaviruses Disruptions” (CCCDs). He recognizes CCCDs as a valid and unavoidable response of Gaia to give us the mirror to reassess ourselves and our pathways. Where and how the human world has caused the deep erosion into its own pathways? Why and how are our pathways at the detriment of the bio-geo-chemical cycles? Responding to such an urgent situation he is engaged and invites others to deeply explore both the “epochal” and “epical” dimensions of this moment. Clearly impacting from cellular to cosmic, at this juncture, the message is clear:
HUMANITY is NOT at the center. LIFE, LIFESYSTEMS and WEBS of LIFE which envelop the ecosphere and every species on earth, ARE.
Professor Parajuli’s engaged pedagogies and scholarship are thus guided by the premise that at this critical juncture, the choices humanity has is between: “Upcycling to Regenerative,” or by default, “Downcycling to Degenerative.” What we do now is entirely upon us. Our ecospheric home (the Gaia) is already doing and will do what she needs to do. Gaia has endured long enough of our excesses and there is no room for us to continue the run-away extraction and plunder of the earthly processes.
A passionate educator/advisor, professor Parajuli has designed 2 Masters and 2 doctoral programs while successfully graduating 37 doctoral advisees and about 70 Masters students who are pioneering regenerative pedagogies and leadership work throughout the world. A graduate of Stanford in education, anthropology, and political ecology (1983-1990), he has taught at Stanford, Syracuse U (1991-98), Lewis and Clark College (1998-99), International Honors Program (1999-2000), Portland State (2001-2008), Prescott College (2008-2020), and Southwestern College (2020-). He is also active in the networks of Ubiquity University, Ecoversities, and the Regenerative Communities Network (RCN).
At Portland State (PSU), he designed and developed an interdisciplinary Master’s program, Leadership in Ecology, Culture and Learning and also co-initiated Learning Gardens program. One of his proudest contributions, through the award-winning Learning Gardens initiative, his team actualized the promise of connecting the university with K-12 landscape and the collectivity of children and youth, teachers and their parents. In this award-winning program, children and youth not only learn how to garden but they gardened to learn. A pleasant surprise for all, they gardened to learn every subject, almost grade-by-grade, topic-by-topic, week-by-week, and subject-by-subject. At PSU, he also nurtured another national award-winning innovation on the theme of Schools as Ecosystems. In this online learning platform, children and youth could turn their schools as living-learning laboratories and engage in 36 plus design and regenerative activities.
In 2008, he moved to the high desert of Colorado Plateau to start a new phase and engage at Prescott College. He embraced and embodied, another ecosystem, another reality. Here he served as the Core faculty for the PhD program in sustainability education and offered leadership in designing and developing new graduate programs.
