Are there colleges that have majors in permaculture?

Or organic farming?

I know some offer "organic" courses, but its just same old ag but using organic products.  Permaculture is a copyright term to prevent collages from teaching "permaculture" and screwing up the whole idea.  What the term others use?  Nature mimicry?

There are things like:
http://www.merrittlandhort.com/permaculture/permaculture.html

And  there is always the permaculture course, and course on DVD.  The permaculture institute is recognized my many the world over including the world health organization.  So there may be some vale in having their certificate IF you plan to offer consulting ect...  To get your certificate you have to take the course then send in photos and design materials of a property you designed and finished.

For those of us who are poor the permaculture 13 DVD set is on bittorrent.

Not a major, but the University of North Carolina offers a course, Intro to Permaculture http://online.northcarolina.edu/course.php?id=13319

A while back there was a thread on here to videos online taped from that class.  I've watch about half of them so far. If you do a search, you might be able to find it.

Here's a link:

http://mediasite.online.ncsu.edu/online/Catalog/pages/catalog.aspx?catalogId=f5a893e7-4b7c-4b79-80fd-52dcd1ced715

John Polk wrote:
Here's a link:

http://mediasite.online.ncsu.edu/online/Catalog/pages/catalog.aspx?catalogId=f5a893e7-4b7c-4b79-80fd-52dcd1ced715

And here is the link to the permies thread:
https://permies.com/bb/index.php?topic=4471.0

Will hooker is a really fabulous teacher. He has gathered lots of knowledge through his travels from farm to farm to homestead to urban homestead. If you take one hour a day, you can really learn alot

I feel like there might be major conflict between the basic beliefs in permaculture  and going into huge amts of debt for college.......that being said

there is GAIA university,  just google it.    I dnt know much and its not a permaculture college but you sort of set your own plan and focus etc etc etc.

There are also several major universities with sustainable ag programs etc.......The U of montana has a great one where the students run a CSA farm  and its pretty progressive.  Again  its not a permaculture degree  but there is alot of good stuff going on there.     

Warren Wilson college has sustainable ag, sustainable forestry, ecology, etc. All applicable to permaculture.

The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA also offers sustainable ag programs, and their farm has a permaculture demonstration site.  Warren Wilson is very good, but very expensive.

I actually went to The Evergreen State College for awhile, but I didn't really like it there. Maybe I will look into that program though. And thanks so much for the link to that college class!! I already watched one, and I am going to watch another one later today. Soo excited!

Hey, I actually went to Evergreen as well, and I didn't like it either! haha

In retrospect I really wish I had taken advantage of the organic farm, as it seems to be the only part of the school that is accomplishing anything.  Everyone I knew or spoke to in those programs had positive things to say.

peace

Haha, that's funny!! I also REALLY wish I had taken advantage of the organic farm. I was really looking forward to it before I went to school there, but then I got kind of lazy and depressed so I didn't end up doing much of anything. Are you going to a different school now?

Paleo Gardener wrote:
Warren Wilson college has sustainable ag, sustainable forestry, ecology, etc. All applicable to permaculture.

yes but your family needs to be loaded......its avery expensive school

Not at a different school, I moved away from Oly when we got pregnant, finished my remaining credits at various community colleges and now have a useless BA from Evergreen. 

Re: Warren Wilson, it is VERY expensive, but very good, from what I've heard from several graduates.  It's also right outside Asheville, NC, where the likelihood of finding employment as a permaculturist is higher than many areas of the country.

Also worth considering is Naropa.  Also fairly expensive, but good from what I hear.  Also in a good location to wind up with a job.

peace

University of California at Santa Cruz has one of the older organic programs, it is generally well regarded.

Permaculture is not protected by copyrights. PDCs (Permaculture Development Courses) do have a degree of protection in terms of who can teach them and certain things that must be taught. But any person or school is free to teach "Intro to Permaculture" or "Topics in Agriculture: Permaculture" without penalty.

Some ag schools teach Agroforestry, which overlaps with permaculture... it is not taught as an integrated school of design, but they recognize the value of deep rooted perennials, polyculture, no-till or low-till for preserving the soil, etc.

Sterling College and the University of Vermont both have well-established permaculture programs each over 6 years old.

Sterling College is a small school, and the entire campus is a working diversified organic farm which feeds the students- probably your best bet if you're more of a 'hands on' learner.

UVM is the biggest school in the state and has some of the best research, extension, hard sciences, etc. if you want a bit more technical/ academic grounding.

Also- The Yestermorrow Design Build School runs a few accredited programs and has a very well-reputed permaculture program.  That would be your best bet if you lean towards the architecture/ building design/ natural building end of the spectrum.

There's also a course held in VT every summer which is a full PDC and 4 credits transferable to any university.

Best of luck with your path!

Funny -- I graduated Evergreen back in 92, and wish I had taken better advantage of the farm...

I have often thought that if you are going to purchase a college degree (along with the opportunity cost) you might as well get a paying profession out of it... like engineering, or liscenced geomorphologist, or biologist (so you can do seasonal field work and get paid to investigate nature) or something like that.  If you want to be a farmer, land tenure is hard enough without adding debt to the bargin.  If your heart is in something like permaculture, than that way of thinking permeates everything you do, and all training and skills just become feedstock to systems design.

Worthwhile to check out Gaia University www.gaiauniversity.org, a blended model of online/local project university that was designed using permaculture principles and whose co-founder/president Andrew Langford is a permaculture elder. A student's project focus needs to fit within the ethics of permaculture and students self-design their work with support from mentors and advisors. Many graduates of Gaia University are professional permaculture designers or working in allied fields.

whoa, old thread!

Jason Long wrote:

John Polk wrote:
Here's a link:

http://mediasite.online.ncsu.edu/online/Catalog/pages/catalog.aspx?catalogId=f5a893e7-4b7c-4b79-80fd-52dcd1ced715

And here is the link to the permies thread:
https://permies.com/bb/index.php?topic=4471.0

Will hooker is a really fabulous teacher. He has gathered lots of knowledge through his travels from farm to farm to homestead to urban homestead. If you take one hour a day, you can really learn alot

hey, I took that course. actually I live half a mile from Will. actually I'm in all these videos. glad to see they are still available on the web and a good resource!

I just listened to an interview with Christopher Shein who teaches at Merritt College (someone posted a link above). I think one of the most powerful ways to add momentum to the permaculture movement is for it to be taught in community colleges like Merritt.

I attended community college from age 16 to 20 in a relatively rural part of North Carolina. permaculture courses could benefit all of the types of people who attend. it would make a lot of sense to the homeschooled rural types like myself who grew up immersed in nature and with an easy grasp of responsibility and stewardship. it would inspire those who are there because they struggled in school or academically alienated. and I think it would be really valuable to the adults in their 30s, 40s and beyond who are at community colleges with the sole intent of gaining skills, certificates, or degrees to improve their livelihoods--this approach, while admirable in its focus, can be reductionist in execution. as such, permaculture courses with their emphasis on holistic thinking could help mitigate this.

Not permaculture per se, but Berea College has a sustainable agriculture program: http://www.berea.edu/anr/farm-enterprises/

Interesting school - free tuition, to everyone accepted - tho they do require some work in exchange for the education. Very highly regarded, as well.