Dear Friends of the CPA

It is the 25th anniversary of the founding of the CPA this year, and as good astrologers we are only too aware that all things must change. So, with Pluto’s move into Capricorn imminent, we have decided to inaugurate a big change of our own.

From September 2011, we will no longer run the CPA Diploma Course seminars exclusively from Regent’s College. The CPA is moving toward an online distance-learning course using the latest online classroom teaching technology. With the use of a webcam, headset, and microphone, students will be able to log onto and participate in live seminars from their own home. Although the intimacy of the physical classroom setting will be lost except in specific seminars which will still be held at Regents College, the CPA online seminars will be held in real time and it will be possible to see and hear the lecturer as well as seeing and hearing individual students from all over the world participating and asking questions. Powerpoint presentations, diagrams, and charts from both the tutor’s examples and students in the seminar group can also be displayed, and students can type in their questions as well as contribute vocally. There will be a number of advantages to an online course, not least the ease of accessibility to a lot of printed material to download that cannot be included in live seminars at the College. Students who find increasing travel costs prohibitive can join the course, and excellent and experienced tutors from abroad who are unable to travel to London can contribute online classroom sessions. Smaller supervision groups as well as supervision assessments can be held online, and one-to-one tutorials and reading-in assessments are also possible to arrange. In addition, the various online libraries will continue to make older CPA seminars available to download as well as providing the ability to catch up with seminars recorded online which can be downloaded later if necessary.

While we are aware that many will regret the loss of the classroom situation, we feel that this is the best way forward for the coming times. The software we will be using is very new but has proven extremely successful in the academic environment, and by 2011 it will be even more effective and comprehensive than it already is. And the opportunity for meeting in person will not entirely disappear, as we intend to hold conferences as well as the occasional weekend seminar at the College. The course as it is presently being run exclusively at Regents College will not continue in its existing form, but the new form promises to be exciting and offer many possibilities for learning which cannot be accommodated within the present structure.

Of course, these plans are in the early stages, so we are not in a position to take bookings yet for the future online Diploma Course. We will be experimenting over the next three years with a few new introductions such as an online beginners’ course. We will keep you updated and informed about all our new developments.

With best wishes

Liz Greene
Director