While we were able to deliver some of our programming online during the Covid-19 pandemic, some of it we simply could not. Chief among these were our summer intensives.
Every year, Los Altos puts on two four-day intensive courses in picturesque areas of rural BC. Our menu, created by Dan Jenneson, a former chef, is designed to be both locally-sourced and integrated with the subject matter of the intensive. While our morning classes are in a standard classroom seminar format, our afternoon sessions engage with local sites and landscapes relevant to the specific educational programming. Our Dependency Theory seminar, for instance, included tours of an abandoned sawmill and Kinbasket reservoir’s north reach; Anthropologicon included landscapes described in the myths recorded by Franz Boas near the site, more than a century ago.
Jeremy Stewart, a long-time impresario and event organizer, selects each site and we hire a co-instructor specialized in the subject matter being conveyed. Alannah New-Small, our vice president, is in charge of overall event coordination during the event. Each institute is planned and co-taught by our president, Stuart Parker, who selects a co-instructor for each intensive.
Following the completion of our last intensive in November 2021, our intensives program is on indefinite hiatus, although we have actually assembled the teaching team, with the return of Gary Liu, and full curriculum for The Commissar Class: from Inquisitor to Executive Director. Should circumstances change, we stand ready to offer this course.
If you are on the fence about registering, take a look at our past intensives pages; they have photos of participants, meals and locations.
