Residency, the one-week humane education immersion, is an elective course (3 credits) for MEd, MA, and doctoral students. Residency takes place at IHE’s campus, situated on 28 oceanfront acres overlooking the mountains of Acadia National Park. This energizing, hands-on experience is a very popular part of the program, offering students an opportunity to practice humane education with fellow students and faculty while developing lifelong relationships.
During residency week, students participate in humane education activities with their peers, participate in lectures, and offer a short, prepared presentation.
Residency was valuable professionally, emotionally, and spiritually. It exceeded my expectations and more than matched my hopes! It was informative, practical, challenging, magical, full, and fun! THANK YOU for the gift of the week.
Kurt Schmidt
This was the most meaningful and life-changing educational experience of my life.
Hyungjoon Kim, Graduate Certificate
If there are extra spots, Antioch graduate certificate students and other educators may apply to participate on a first-come, first-served basis. To find out about openings and/or to be put on a waiting list, please contact Mary Pat Champeau, IHE’s Director of Graduate Programs: marypat@humaneeducation.org.
Residency is not offered every year.
We have accommodations for 14 people in a rustic guesthouse on campus. There are many other lodging options available in the area as well.
During the humane education immersion week, we offer lodging in our rustic co-ed guesthouse for participants wishing to stay on campus. The guesthouse is situated on IHE’s 28 oceanfront acres where you may see deer, seals, foxes, bald eagles, loons, ospreys, turkeys, song birds, frogs, lightning bugs, and even the occasional moose or bobcat. There are two miles of trails through the woods, wildflower meadows, and down to the ocean.
The guesthouse offers convenient, affordable, and simple camp-like accommodations. The building includes two large rooms with bunk beds (sleeping up to 6 in one room, and up to 8 in the other), a small common area, a small kitchen area with a coffee maker, electric tea kettle, toaster, sink and mini-fridge, and one shared bathroom. One of the two rooms in the guesthouse is women only; the other is co-ed. Normally, 7-10 people stay at the guesthouse. It is rare that it is at capacity. There is a bathroom in the main building about 200’ away from the guesthouse as well.
The Guesthouse is Right for You if…
The Guesthouse is Not Right for You if…
If the guesthouse is not right for you, there are many options nearby (hotels, motels, Airbnbs, campgrounds, and glampgrounds).
Please plan your travel so that you arrive at the guesthouse between 12 – 7 p.m. on the Sunday before your training week begins. If you are unable to arrive within this time frame, please contact info@HumaneEducation.org well in advance. It is possible to accommodate arrivals only up to 10 p.m.
Even if you are staying on campus, a car per five people is still essential, as dinner is not provided and area groceries and restaurants are a minimum of five miles away. IHE graduate students will be able to coordinate flight arrivals and car-sharing through their online course platform.
“I am so happy I stayed in the guesthouse and had that experience with so many of my classmates. The bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and common room were all excellent and more than I could have hoped for. I can’t imagine not staying there.”
“I loved it! It absolutely enriches the experience to stay there. Everything was excellent.”
“I tend to sometimes prefer solitude and a little bit more independence, but I stretched my comfort zone a tad and as always the case with me was rewarded for doing so. I’m happy I was able to make deeper connections because of this.”
“Initially I thought one bathroom would be hard. We all got so attached to each other that nothing seemed to matter as the week went on. I would have been so sad if I had missed out on that experience. I made some lifelong colleagues and friends.”
“Changing the world one child at a time.” Those words have inspired my work for more than four decades in education, and they continue to inspire me now. We are at a pivotal point in the evolution of our world. We are facing a climate crisis, a health crisis, a crisis of racial justice, a crisis in our treatment of animals, a crisis of media bias. The list goes on. And perhaps our greatest crisis is our consistent struggle as a society to simply come together respectfully, intelligently, and ethically to solve our problems and save our planet. We need solutionaries. We need young people who have been educated not only to think critically, creatively, and systemically about real-world issues, but also to be passionate, persistent, and humane in their implementation of real-world solutions. And that is IHE’s mission: to support teachers and educational institutions in preparing young people to become solutionaries – and the next caretakers of our planet.
IHE offers a healing vision and a tangible pathway forward for a struggling world. As Executive Director, I am excited, humbled, and deeply honored to join with others to promote that vision and that pathway in ways that make them foundational to systems of education throughout the world – and to each child who is committed to making that world a better place.
Passionate about preparing young people to lead lives of joy and purpose, Steve Cochrane has had a remarkable journey through the field of education. It is a journey that has taken him from the campus of Princeton University, where he served as an admissions officer and an assistant dean of students, to the classroom of a public elementary school, where he had the privilege of teaching – and learning from – his fourth and fifth grade students. Steve has been a dorm director and associate dean of admissions at Wheelock College in Boston. He has also been an elementary school principal, a middle school principal, an assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, and, prior to his work at IHE, he was the superintendent of the Princeton Public Schools in Princeton, New Jersey where he was honored with the award of County Superintendent of the Year. In each of these roles, Steve has collaborated with others to prioritize innovations in learning, wellness for students, equity, and a belief that every child should be supported and inspired to achieve their highest potential.
Steve received his undergraduate degree in English from Princeton University and his master’s degree in educational administration from Harvard. He is a competitive road cyclist who also enjoys the thrill of mountain biking. Steve and his wife are both vegans and advocates for holistic health. They currently reside in Spencerport, New York, with their two dogs and a very large Maine Coon cat.
