War and the Soul

Creating Healing Academic Communities for our Nation’s Veterans Featuring Dr. Edward Tick

First Northwest Regional Summit

May 6 & 7, 2010

The Evergreen State College

For more information, email Abby Kelso
or call her at (360) 867-6164

For complete information visit www.evergreen.edu/veteranssummit

In addition to the Summitt, a FREE, public lecture event takes place at 8 pm on May 6, at The Evergreen State College, Lecture Hall 3.

This summit is being hosted by The Evergreen State College for the higher education community of the Northwest.  

We are a nation at war - the impact of this on our society and our educational communities has been profound.  As our nation’s veterans return to our communities, many are choosing higher education as a first step to re-orienting to our society.  Are we prepared to meet their educational needs and challenges and to acknowledge their experience and strengths?  The goal of this summit is to provide participants with new knowledge and practical skills for working with student veterans and to connect them with resources for student veterans and higher education institutions.

At the summit, participants will:

• Work extensively with Dr. Edward Tick, consultant, psychotherapist, and educator with three decades experience working with veterans.
• View and discuss the film Tattooed Under Fire, a portrait of young men and women who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, with the film's Emmy-nominated producer/director Nancy Schiesari.
• Hear from student veterans about their experiences, what they need, and what they offer.
• Explore strategies to effectively serve student veterans in higher education.
• Exchange best practices with colleagues from across the region.
• Connect with valuable resources available to you, your students and institution.

Ed Tick, Ph.D., is first and foremost a transformational healer. He is also a mythologist, psychotherapist, poet and writer, educator, and overseas journey guide. He holds an M.A. in psychology from Goddard College and a Ph.D. in Communication from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Tick is a clinical member and has held various officer positions with the American Academy of Psychotherapists and the American Holistic Medical Association, as well as many other professional organizations. He is also an ordained interfaith minister.

A practicing psychotherapist for more than 30 years, Tick specializes in extensive and innovative work with survivors of severe trauma and violence — particularly combat war veterans — sexual and substance abuse victims, those with severe mental and emotional disorders, men's issues and deeply rooted psycho-spiritual healing. In all of his work, Tick applies his own innovative model of PTSD treatment based on worldwide research of spirituality, mythology and war/the warrior archetype, in order to develop a new, broadened and strengthened psycho-spiritual identity.

Tick is a nationally recognized expert on the psychological, spiritual, historical and cultural aspects of war, the Vietnam Era, and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. He began treating Vietnam veterans in psychotherapy in 1979 before PTSD was a diagnostic category. Since that time, he has treated veterans and survivors of WWII, the Holocaust, Korea, the Gulf War, Central American conflicts, Lebanon, the Balkan wars, the Irish civil and religious wars, the Greek Civil War, the Middle East conflicts, and the Iraq War, among others. He has also served as consultant to numerous community, church and veterans organizations on the treatment of veterans and the training of staff for such work.

His remarkable work had taken him on healing journeys, spiritual tours, lectures, educational classes and workshops around the globe, and even to the position of co-founder of the Sanctuary International Friendship Foundation, a non-profit agency that directs and raises funds for projects to help heal war-torn Viet Nam.

As an expert in both the classical Greek and Native American traditions, Tick’s last book is fittingly titled, The Practice of Dream Healing: Bringing Ancient Greek Mysteries into Modern Medicine (Quest Books 2001). In addition to War and the Soul which Quest is releasing this November, Tick will be releasing a book of prose and poetry based on his healing journeys to Viet Nam titled, The Golden Tortoise: Viet Nam Journeys, which Red Hen Press will publish later this year.

Nancy Schiesari has directed, produced and been a cinematographer on both broadcast documentaries and narrative features for over twenty years. She was nominated for a 2002 Television Emmy for outstanding cinematography on The Human Face (producer John Cleese). Among her work as a cinematographer is Barbara Sonneborn's Academy Award nominated documentary, Regret to Inform.

Included in her prolific credits as director of photography are A Place of Rage, winner of the Black History Award (1991) and Warrior Marks (1994), (executive produced by Alice Walker), winner of the Public's Award for Best Documentary at the Madrid Festival International De Cine and Partition, a 35mm feature staring Roshan Seth and Saheed Jafrey for Channel Four (1989).

Among Schiesari's latest accolades are the a Cine Golden Eagle Award (1994), Dean's Fellowship (1997), the Texas Council for Humanities Grant (1998), a Texas Film Production Grant (1998), and a nomination for the Rockefeller Foundation Film/Video/Multimedia Fellowship (2000). Her insights as a filmmaker and her deep commitment to public service have inspired Schiesari to write, direct, produce, and D.P. a series of educational films. Two of her public services films, Jan Hughes and Molly Meets Marlene, recently won Chris awards from the Columbus International Film and Video Festival. Another public service film on bicycle safety won the Silver Apple National Educational Media Award.

She has an MFA from the Royal College of Art in London and is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin where she teaches Filmmaking and Cinematography.

The Evergreen State College thanks our summit sponsors for helping us offer this program FREE to the Northwest Region higher educationcommunity.