Jim Garrison, PhD.

Founder and President of Ubiquity University

Garrison was born in China of missionary parents in 1951 and grew up in Taiwan. After returning to the US in 1965, he attended Abraham Lincoln High School where he won a number of awards for outstanding achievement and served two terms as Student Body President. He began college at Pepperdine University (1969-70), attended the University of Tel Aviv in 1972 to study Middle Eastern Affairs, and received a B.A. magna cum laude in World History from Santa Clara University (1973). He then received a double M.T.S. in Christology and History of Religion from Harvard University (1975) and a Ph.D. in Philosophical Theology from Cambridge University (1982).

Jim Garrison has served since 2012 as Founder and President of Ubiquity University, an education and technology platform company dedicated to providing innovative and affordable learning globally in partnership with an international network of educational institutions.

Garrison served as Founder and President of Wisdom University from 2005 – 2012, the precursor to Ubiquity, which is now the Wisdom School within Ubiquity. Garrison led the transition when Wisdom University, a California non profit institution, transitioned into Ubiquity University, a for profit company.

Garrison served as President of the State of the World Forum from 1995 - 2005, a non profit he co-founded with President Mikhail Gorbachev, Senator Alan Cranston, and Secretary George Shultz to establish a global network of leaders dedicated to creating a more sustainable global civilization. The Forum convened leaders from around the world and a spectrum of disciplines to its annual and regional conferences and catalyzed the creation of several independent ongoing organizations.

Prior to this, Garrison was founder of the Radiation and Health Information Service in 1978 and founder of East West Reach in 1980. He served as Executive Director of the Esalen Institute Soviet American Exchange Program in San Francisco from 1985-1990. In 1991, he co-founded the International Foreign Policy Institute with Eduard Shevardnadze. At the request of Gorbachev in 1992, Garrison founded and served as President of the Gorbachev Foundation/ USA, which set the stage for the establishment of the State of the World Forum in 1995, based in San Francisco.

Garrison published his first book in 1980 called The Plutonium Culture (SCM). This was followed by The Darkness of God: Theology After Hiroshima (SCM, 1982), the subject of a one hour BBC TV documentary in 1983; The Russian Threat: Myths and Realities (Gateway Books, 1983); The New Diplomats (Resurgence Press, 1984); Civilization and the Transformation of Power (Paraview Press, 2000); and America As Empire (Barrett Koehler, 2004). His forthcoming book is on Climate Change and the Primordial Mind. He contributes regular opeds to the Huffington Post.