Special Scholarships for Integrative Nutrition Students and Grads Available


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• UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES:  May 21, 5:30pm EST
• GRADUATE STUDIES: May 22, 6:45pm EST

How Carina Rockland Took Control of Her Health and Future

As Carina Rockland can testify, good health should never be taken for granted. At the tender age of twenty, she was so debilitated by painful Crohn’s disease that she felt trapped in the body of a ninety-year old. A 2012 graduate of the IIN Health Coach Training Program, Carina has since taken control of her health and is achieving incredible academic and professional accomplishments.

She is currently completing her final year of her BA in Health Arts and Sciences at Goddard and  is writing a book about integrative approaches to Crohn's disease.

Q& A with Carina:

• What were you doing prior to enrolling at IIN?
  I had recently been diagnosed with Crohn's disease after years of struggling with its symptoms and misdiagnoses. In the three years prior to enrolling at IIN, I underwent a devastating six-week hospitalization and five surgeries, which almost took my life and two years of being completely homebound. I was dangerously underweight, so malnourished that large clumps of my hair began to fall out, and was experiencing relentlessly acute abdominal pain and intestinal bleeding. I was twenty years old, but I felt like I was trapped in a ninety year-old’s body.
   
• How did your life change after enrolling?
  I decided to take control of my own health. I had already tried almost every diet, medication and system of medicine that is available, each to no avail. I grew increasingly more devastated and ill as I tried one after another treatment protocol that was promised by one of my many health practitioners to “cure” me.

  Slowly, I regained my physical health back. I eventually found that a combination of a very strict self-constructed diet with supplements, medication, acupuncture, bodywork and exercise became essential to maintaining my health.
   

• What are you doing now?
  I recently transferred to Goddard College and am finishing my final year. I was ecstatic to find out about IIN's new partnership with Goddard, as my time at IIN translated into a semester worth of additional Goddard credits.
  I am currently immersed in my senior study at Goddard. I am writing a book that explores integrative approaches to the treatment of Crohn's Disease. Additionally, I am enrolled in a massage therapy licensure program. By this summer of 2013, I will have graduated from Goddard College with a BA in Health Arts and Sciences a comprehensive book manuscript about the integrative treatment of Crohn's Disease in hand and be fully licensed as a massage therapist.
• Which topics and modules were most beneficial for you?
  The concept of bio-individuality, or in other words, "one man's food is another man's poison," really hit close to home for me. I came to the stark realization that no one could cure me. Instead, IIN gave me the tools that I needed to heal myself. Additionally, the concept of primary foods had a major impact on me. I began to put less emphasis on relying on my diet and treatment plan to gain my health back again because I realized that I needed to nourish and heal my soul, too. I focused on the good that my disease has brought me, like my unbreakable bond with my husband and the strength and compassion that living with a debilitating chronic disease has given me. Dr. Andrew Weil's and Dr. Deepak Chopra's teachings and commitment to integrative medicine unquestionably resonated with me the most. I feel unbelievably fortunate to have had the opportunity to study under both of them.
   
• How has your illness shaped you as a developing Health Coach?
  As a person living with a chronic disease, I intimately understand how devastating it is to be paralyzed in the face of illness. As a future health practitioner, I will bring an immense gentleness and compassion to my clients. Furthermore, I strongly value an integrative approach and believe that medicine will be most successful in the long run if the seemingly divergent worlds of Western and Eastern medicine are united and bridged.
• Is there a need for Health Coaches where you live?
  Yes, absolutely! Although the pioneer valley in western Massachusetts is teaming with esteemed complimentary health practitioners, it is missing the wealth that Health Coaches bring, which is the blend of self-healing and tools to improve and ignite passion in all areas of life reinforced with a large knowledge base of holistic nutrition, health coaching, and preventative healthcare.

Connect with Carina on Facebook

A sample of undergraduate student senior study topics:

• Nutrition to support the immune system
• Epidemiology of childhood obesity
• Ecological health issues resolved by organic farming
• Nutritional and herbal medicine for the child-bearing years
• Food and body image
• Ethnonutrition and marine sustainability in a Filipano Village
• Holistic nutrition and Crohn’s disease
• Comparing Western and Eastern Food Traditions
• Ethnobotany of Traditional Food Systems in Italy

• Is this an online program?
  • All of Goddard's Programs are Low-Residency. This means that students are only here on campus for the first 8-days of each semester; there are 2 semesters a year. During the residency students work with a Goddard College faculty adviser (as well as networking with student peers) on the development of a personalized Study Plan for the 15 week semester. Study plans begin with the interests and passions of the students and incorporate many means of learning and demonstration of learning. While some students are spending their whole semester reading and writing, others are traveling, working, interning, volunteering, creating art, and working with specialty instructors and schools in their local communities.

    Low-residency education offers the best of what distance education, online programs, and traditional campus-learning offer:  you will have the flexibility to study from home and while also being a part of a living, breathing community of learners, faculty, staff and alumni -  the larger community of Goddard College.  

• Is there a scholarship for this program?
  • UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAMS:
    • Up to 40 semester-hours of credit may be transferred from IIN programs toward the Goddard College Bachelor of Arts degree in Health Arts & Sciences, Sustainability, or Individualized Studies. IIN graduates accepted to the undergraduate programs for the Fall 2013 semester are also eligible for a $1000 scholarship.
  • GRADUATE PROGRAMS:
    • IIN graduates who are accepted to the 48-credit MA in Health Arts and Science for Fall 2013 are eligible for a $1500 scholarship for each of four semesters as long as they remain continuously enrolled and in good academic standing
    • IIN graduates who are accepted into any other graduate MA programs are eligible for a $1000 scholarship for the Fall 2013 semester.
• How many undergraduate credits toward degree completion does Goddard accept from IIN?
  • IIN graduates of the Health Coach Training Program and/or the Immersion Program are eligible to transfer up to 40 semester credit hours toward the Goddard Bachelor of Arts degree in Health Arts & Sciences, Sustainability, or Individualized Studies.
  • Graduates of the IIN's Health Coach Training Program may apply up to 29 semester-hour credits in transfer toward the Goddard College BA in Health Arts and Sciences degree.
  • Graduates of the IIN Immersion Program may transfer an additional 11 semester-hour credits toward the BA in Health Arts and Sciences.
• What's the cost?
  Tuition and fees vary slightly by program and campus. Current tuition and fees can be found here.
• Will you accept credit from additional schools I've attended, or other prior work and educational experience I have?
  • Students may also be awarded up to a total of 45 credits through a combination of the Assessment of Prior Learning process and post-secondary college-level training programs for other vocations (e.g., health professions).
  • Post-secondary training programs will be evaluated individually, in relation to aims, degree criteria, and what the training institution can tell Goddard about the “college equivalency” of the training. No more than 30 vocational credits from training programs will be applied toward the BA or BFA.
  • Students may transfer in a total of up to 75 credit, including previous college credit.
• How many credits does it take to earn a BA at Goddard?
  • To earn a BA degree at Goddard, a student completes 120 semester-hour credits as well as specific requirements related to their fully accredited liberal arts degree. Each Goddard semester is full-time and earns you 15 credits. There are 2 semesters a year, and you will attend one 8 day on-campus residency per semester.
• Is the Health Arts & Sciences BA program the same as a nursing program?
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  • NO. The degree track at Goddard that is most closely connected to the work of IIN students is the BA in Health Arts & Sciences (HAS) which is about bridging Nature, Culture, and Healing. In this program you will learn to promote health and healing for individuals and the community through individualized curricula. Student work combines an engaging mix of integrative health studies, holistic sciences, health philosophy, multicultural perspectives, social change, self-awareness, and self-care practices. They may undertake theoretical and practical study in such areas as community and environmental health, women’s health and midwifery, men’s health, botanical medicine and ethnobotany, nutritional health, expressive arts, body and movement therapies, integrative health, integrative nursing, mind-body health, ecopsychology, and cross-cultural healing.
• What courses do I take?
  • Goddard's progressive pedagogy focuses on student-centered rather than curriculum-centered learning - a model that, at its core, connects students to the contexts of their lives. As a result, we don't publish a course catalog, simply because there are no specific courses you are required to take. Instead, every student designs her/his own studies in partnership with a faculty advisor. The idea is to optimize learning by allowing students to study what interests them most, in ways that best suit their individual learning styles. You, the student, are given the freedom to design your studies around your own passions and goals; in exchange, you take on the responsibility of pursuing your studies in a self-directed manner. Your personal and professional objectives are honored; we provide oversight and guidance in order to ensure that your studies are rigorous and credit-worthy.

    Students must demonstrate how and what they're learning throughout each semester by documenting their studies and sharing them with their respective faculty advisors. There are no entrance examination requirements, no tests, and no grades. Exactly what you study, and how you go about doing it, is up to you. This means that, instead of spending countless hours in classrooms, the whole world becomes your classroom. Learn more about the Goddard model of learning here.