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Kepler College

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Kepler College is a small liberal arts school located in Lynnwood Washington, just north of Seattle. It is the only college in the western hemisphere authorized to issue BA, AA and MA degrees in Astrological Studies. Kepler offers a Distance Learning with Symposia program designed to accommodate students from around the world without the need to relocate to Washington State. Ten weeks of each eleven-week term, students engage with fellow students and faculty via email and electronic classroom communication. The one-week on-site Symposia each term is the centerpiece of the academic experience that provides students with direct interaction with faculty and peers in a classroom setting. The program provides a synthesis of subjects in a fully integrated interdisciplinary curriculum, giving students the breadth of education available from a traditional liberal arts program.

1 History of the school
2 Curriculum
3 Faculty & Administration
4 For more information

History of the school

Kepler incorporation chart, approximate time

Kepler was originally conceived of by a Seattle astrologer named Maggie Nalbandian. At the time, many people in the astrological community felt that the best approach towards legitimizing astrology would be to try to join an already existing school, but Maggie believed that that would not be likely to happen, and that the astrological community should form it's own school.

Ms. Nalbandian had been talking about a college for astrology for many years, and then in 1991 an astrologer named Michael Munkasey put her in touch with a woman from Alabama who had written her Masters thesis about a college with a curriculum directed towards astrology. Maggie flew to Chicago to meet this woman and a group of astrologers in August of 1991, and a meeting was held there to discuss a college for astrology. There was some division amongst the group as to what course of action to take in order to form a school, or if it should even be done at all. At the end of the meeting Maggie declared that she was going to go back to Seattle to form a school, and the group gave her their support.

It was on September 3, of 1991, after Maggie flew back to Seattle that she brought together a group of Washington State "visionary" astrologers and the first meeting to form the college was held. The group divided themselves into teams, and they began to formulate the outline for the school. At the second meeting Rick Levine proposed the name 'Kepler College' and designed the logo and brochures, while Martha Taub acted as an archivist by keeping records of what was going on, and the various charts for the school. Gary Lorentzen and Roxana Muise were the two who focused mainly on the curriculum, while Maggie acted mainly as the liaison with the astrological community. She traveled to several astrological conferences in the early 90's trying to raise support and donations from the community. Joanne Wickenburg and Roxana Muise also helped to spread the word about Kepler throughout the community and raise support by utilizing their vast networking capabilities. Kepler was first announced at the Northwest Astrological Conference in 1992, and it was incorporated later that year on November 27th, 1992.

For a while there was a lot of resistance within the astrological community to the idea of Kepler, due to a variety of reasons. For example, some felt threatened by the school because many astrologers teach astrology privately themselves as a craft, while others feared the possibility of regulation within the community itself for something that they viewed as an art. Many more showed reluctance towards the idea simply because they didn't believe that it was possible. There were many people within the community who didn't believe in the college early on, but that eventually came around as they saw it start to come together due to the tireless efforts of the school's proponents and supporters.

As a result of the hard work and dedication of many unpaid volunteers and extremely idealistic astrologers in the mid and late 90's, on March 10, 2000 the Washington Higher Education Coordinating Board granted Kepler authorization to give BA degrees in Astrological Studies and classes started shortly afterwards, on July 20, 2000. The first symposium began August 18, 2000. The school was authorized to grant AA degrees on June 22, 2004 and on October 10, 2004 Kepler awarded academic degrees in Astrological Arts and Sciences to their first graduating class.