Beyond Studio
If you sense that our current sustainability efforts aren’t going far enough and you’re looking to deepen your practice, read on…
IBE’s Beyond Studio offers in-depth developmental education for professionals who are looking to what’s beyond – beyond best practices, beyond the status quo, and beyond problem solving.
Each Studio is designed to cultivate the understanding, motivation, and discernment required to respond to global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and social justice. These are not problems that have tidy solutions or that can be addressed in isolation. We need to grow our individual and collective capacities to work holistically, to source our actions from living systems understanding, and to engage in local efforts that are sourced from a specific place.
IBE’s Beyond Studio offers an alternative to frenetic industry conferences or short courses that deliver a few ideas or best practices. Beyond Studio provides structured space for deep reflection, dialogue, mindset shifts, and authentic connections with other humans and places. Participants can expect to stretch their minds, develop new capabilities, and connect with others who are looking to delve deeper.
2025 Course: Beyond Hope & Despair
Discovering the Potential of Living in Transformative Times
4-Day Onsite Retreat based at the CSU Todos Santos Campus, Baja California del Sur, Mexico
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5 Online Sessions, 2 hours each
Throughout the 2025 Beyond Hope & Despair Studio, we will work in a community of fellow practitioners to evolve our theory of change and lay the groundwork for increasing our effectiveness in our work. The Studio will invite us to explore and rewrite underlying patterns of thinking that are unintentionally causing us harm and working against the outcomes we seek to generate. We will sow seeds for reimagining new potentials for navigating and contributing during transformational times.
Who this is for:
- Brave souls ready to challenge the way they see the world
- Those willing and ready to be disrupted by letting go of old mental models and unlocking new ways of seeing and evaluating change
- Those who want to move toward working from a regenerative living systems worldview
Who this is not for:
- Those who are not OK with exploring edges and working in dialogue with others
- Those seeking answers, best practices, or confirmation that they’re doing a good job
Course Overview
The course consists of five online sessions and a four-day, on-site retreat at the CSU Todos Santos facility in Baja, Mexico. Participants will include an intimate group of co-journeyers who share a commitment to growing themselves to grow their practice. Registration is limited to 18 people.
Online Sessions
There will be three online sessions prior to and two online sessions after the retreat. The purpose of the first three online sessions is to introduce ideas foundational to the retreat experience. The two sessions after the retreat will support participants in integrating what they learned into their practice.
On-Site Retreat
The retreat will be spacious, providing plenty of time to enjoy the natural beauty and cultural abundance of Todos Santos and Baja California Sur. It will offer time to slow down and go deep. Our learning will be experiential and will include reflection, dialogue, and community building.
Course Faculty
2025 Course Details
Schedule & Locations
Online sessions 4-6 pm Mountain Time via Zoom; In-person retreat based at CSU Todos Santos Campus in Baja California del Sur, Mexico.
- May 7, online
- May 21, online
- June 11, online
- June 24-28, in-person retreat
- August 13, online
- September 10, online
Costs
Early bird rate: $3,300 if registered by February 28, 2025
Registration after February 28, 2025: $3,600
Registration deadline: April 15, 2025
Inclusions: Room, meals, activities & transportation
- Breakfast, lunch, snacks, and 2 dinners
- Lodging (4 nights, private studio)
- Ground transportation to/from airport and during stay
- Cultural activities – dinner and prep with local chef, hiking, cultural tour
- Support to local community members/organization through a community engagement activity
- Small donation to support Beyond Studio scholarship fund
Exclusions
- Airfare
- Two dinners
- Alcoholic beverages
- Additional outdoor/cultural activities (e.g., swimming with sea lions, kayaking, surfing, etc.)
Discounts
- Student rate: $3,300
- Scholarship: Non-profit, low-income (please inquire with IBE)
Refund policy
- By April 15: Full refund
- After April 15: 80% refund
Lodging at the CSU Todos Santos facility is clean, basic, and affordable. If you are looking for a more premium lodging experience, there are a limited number of apartments available at the CSU campus for an upcharge of $100 per person. Off-site lodging at nearby boutique hotels ($150-$250 per night) is also an option; a total discount of $250 can be offered to those who wish to stay off-site. Ground transportation to and from campus for those staying off-campus is not included and individuals staying off-site will need to arrange their own transportation.
Faculty Bios
Josie Plaut
Josie serves as the Associate Director for the Institute for the Built Environment. Her recent work spans regional and national clients with a focus on place-based climate response, community planning, equity, and regenerative development. She has designed and delivered hundreds of strategic planning processes, workshops, and organizational development programs, including a wide variety of public and private stakeholder engagement initiatives. Josie is an internationally recognized leader and frequently cited author in the field of regenerative practice. She is a lineage member of the Carol Sanford Institute and former faculty for the Regenesis Institute’s Regenerative Practitioner Series.
Clayton Bartczak
Clayton serves as Community Engagement & Sustainability Specialist for the Institute for the Built Environment. His facilitation and engagement skills are informed by 11 years as a sustainability consultant; leading 12 Habitat for Humanity Global Village build trips around the world; and three years as a board member for EarthLinks, a nonprofit social enterprise that reduces isolation for people experiencing homelessness through earth-centered experiences. In 2010, Clayton helped coordinate and co-facilitate CSU’s first week-long Sustainable Design & Construction course taught in Costa Rica, and he has co-facilitated a multi-day ReWilding Dads retreat in which 16 fathers joined together in nature-based therapy, forest bathing, and exploration of social norms to re-imagine masculinity and fatherhood. Clayton is a fluent Spanish speaker.