(1) Teaching Time

Chapter 8.  Teaching Time

The Southwestern Vocational University is located not too far 

from the monastery, so the few days a week that I taught there

I could commute.  The arrangement made me happy in that 

finally I could live permanently at our monastic home up in

the San Ysidro Mountains.

As for the university itself, more than 30 years back it was only

a community college; however, the various community colleges

in California eventually evolved into vocational universities.

It was decided back then that the need for seriously academic

training, directed towards specific vocations, was needed to

meet the job standards of an ever growing high technology

economy.  The vocations were more diverse than expected, 

hence new schools within these vocational universities kept

emerging.  Hence Southwestern's Architecture School was a

recent addition.  Consequently there was a need for teachers,

thus I was hired and slid into a nice slot: Professor of

Environmental Design.

Before I even reached the point teaching students, I was given

time to develop my course that I would teach in-house, 

via video, and online--as well as arrange tours of facilities.

I focused on the subject of Sustainability for all my courses.

California was burgeoning with huge populations, and especially

its Energy and Water resources were the main issues when it

came to sustaining these populations.

It was easy aiming in on the Energy resources, because I had

worked for years in these areas--ranging from photovoltaic

roofs to designing new geo-thermal plants.  On the other hand

I couldn't claim a background when it came to the design of

the Water resources that were necessary for California and

its future.

So I had to arrange some serious time contacting special 

Water facilities in the area, talking to the designers, to the

people who worked there, taking tours myself, before I could

even begin to map out a course on this important and

necessary resource.