We at the University of Michigan value diversity and work to connect and combine forces within the student body to unite all voices on campus.

Like different shaped and colored puzzle pieces fitting together in unity, a group of diverse students come together and make-up the University of Michigan Permaculture Design Team . By combining forces between schools and departments on campus, as opposed to joining organizations that are not interdisciplinary in nature, members of the PDT are able to institute campus change in a representative fashion. Like puzzle pieces fitting together to illustrate a picture in its entirety, permaculture represents holistic education, illustrating a possible solution for many of our social, environmental, economic, and educational problems faced today.

Integrating Theory and Practice at the University of Michigan

The RC Social Theory and Practice Major supports students in developing the analytical and practical skills necessary for active engagement in the world and for building careers that promote equality and responsible citizenship. Faculty whose work encompasses sociology, political science, history, anthropology, economics, education, environmental justice, sustainable agriculture, geography, and psychology provide students with multi-disciplinary approaches to current issues in U.S. society and the global environment. Students learn theories, methods, and strategies that enable them to understand and critique social structures and processes and to become effective actors in struggles for justice. They take core courses together, and create individual concentration plans tailored to their specific interests. -Residential College within the College of Literature, Science, and Arts

Social Theory and Practice provides students with the opportunity to engage in a year or semester long senior project or thesis. This integrative blend of theory and practice leaves students well prepared with the research and project development skill sets necessary for many jobs including those in the fields of law, politics, within non-government organizations and non-profit organizations,entrepreneurship, and more. The integration of theory withpractice is a process that many students never attempt before leaving the walls of the university. This program allowed me to explore my intellectualcuriosityabout a topic, permaculture, as well as to go through the process of researching what it would take to create an initiative on campus and then to actually implement it. This process of exploration does not stop at the self. The Residential College encourages students to be creative and fosters personal development as well. -Madeline Dunn (pictured bottom left)

By putting the right things in the right place, relationships develop between them and they support each other.

This icon represents a group of people from a birds-eye view, holding hands in a circle together. The space in the centre could represent the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. The proverb many hands make light work suggests that when we work together the job becomes easier. -Holmgrens Permaculture Principles