On October 1, New Vrindaban’s Palace of Gold will be featured at the Thirty-seventh Annual Communal Studies Association Conference in New Harmony, Indiana. The theme of the conference is “The Architecture of Community.” Tapahpunja dasa, one of the devotees who helped construct the Palace of Gold, will discuss the role the Palace has played in New Vrindaban over the past two decades.

The Communal Studies Association is a multi-disciplinary academic association dedicated to the study of intentional communities. “An intentional community is a group of people who have a common ideal or philosophy about what a better world would look like, and they come together to their ideals into day-to-day practice,” explained Professor Bob Rosenthal, Chair of the School of Philosophy at Hanover College, an elite private four-year liberal arts college in Indiana. Rosenthal has been teaching a course on intentional communities since 1976, and has been bringing his students to New Vrindaban since1981.

“New Vrindaban, which was founded in 1968, is one of the longest-lasting intentional communities in North America,” observed Rosenthal. “So many communities were started in the 1960’s and 1970’s, but they no longer exist. New Vrindaban is still here.”

New Vrindaban’s longevity has earned the community the respect of the academics who study it. Although the Communal Studies Association Conference is predominated by professors, this is the fourth time in the past 15 years that a resident of New Vrindaban will be making a presentation.

The community’s reputation within the academic circle is paying off in other ways, as well. New Vrindaban’s Tapahpunja has been invited to visit Hanover College following the Communal Studies Association Conference. His presentation on the link between human health and the health of the Earth will be part of the college’s Capstone Program, a campus-wide lecture series.

New Vrindaban Community is located south of Moundsville – Wheeling, off Route 250. For more information, contact (304) 843-1600 or visit http://www.newvrindaban.com.