Environmental Center Sponsors Voluntary Simplicity Speaker
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 14, 2002
Kathleen McPartland
530-898-4260
Mark Stemen, Environmental Studies Program
530-898-5428
Environmental Center Sponsors Voluntary Simplicity Speaker
The Environmental Action and Resource Center is bringing Cecile Andrews, community educator and author, to California State University, Chico on Thursday, April 4. She will speak on voluntary simplicity at a public lecture at 7:30 p.m. in Performing Arts Center, room 134.
Andrews is the author of “The Circle of Simplicity: Return to the Good Life,” (Harper Collins, 1997) and works with the Simplicity Circle Project of the Cornell University-sponsored Seeds of Simplicity Program. She provides workshops designed to bring more meaning and exuberance to people’s individual and community lives.
“Voluntary simplicity, an age-old philosophy explored throughout human history, has once again captured people’s imagination as we struggle to build lives of high fulfillment and low environmental impact,” said Mark Stemen, Environmental Action and Resource Center.
The simplicity movement, said Stemen, is a response to the dilemma of working, consuming and rushing too much, of having little time for family, community and creativity. “It is about living consciously in order to live more fully, thinking through the effects of our behaviors in terms of the consequences for the well being of people and the planet. It’s about asking what’s important, what matters. It’s about redefining the good life,” said Stemen.
Andrews uses small groups as the basis of her teaching and her workshops. The method comes from the study circles used in the nineteenth century American Chautauqua movement. “Ultimately, when you use the small circle in learning experiences, it means that people experience equality and caring and community,” said Andrews.
Andrews has her doctorate in education from Stanford University and at present is an affiliated scholar at Stanford’s Institute for Research on Women and Gender. She has been a community college administrator, a columnist for the Seattle Times and a co-host for a local National Public Radio program.
The sponsors are asking for a $1 donation with all proceeds going to the Environmental Action and Resource Center.
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