Events at the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society

Upcoming Events

The Academic Program

2010 Mindfulness in Education Conference
Mindfulness: A Foundation for Teaching and Learning

March 19 - 21, 2010
Lesley University
Cambridge, MA

To register or for more information: http://www.mindfuled.org/2010_spring_conference/

Keynote Address by Daniel Siegel:
From Me to We: A New Look at Resilience and Well-Being
Friday, March 19, 2010, 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm
University Hall, Lesley University
Cost: $35 (includes Dr. Siegel’s new book, Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation, Bantam, 2009)

Dr. Siegel, clinical psychiatrist, researcher, writer, and award-winning educator, will speak about the reflective skills of mindsight and the role their cultivation plays in activating brain circuits that underlie resilience, well-being, empathy, and compassion.

Sponsors:
Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values, Lesley University

Conference for Educators, Counselors, and Administrators
Saturday, March 20, 2010
9:00 am – 4:30 pm
University Hall, Lesley University
Cost: $80 (includes breakfast and lunch)
Certificates of participation provided for teachers

Research shows that mindfulness practice enhances concentration, attention, emotional balance, physical well-being, and openness to learning. Educational institutions including early childhood centers, public and private schools, and universities have embraced mindfulness as a valuable educational practice. Join educational colleagues from across disciplines to explore the role of mindfulness in learning.

Plenary Panel:
Sara Lazar, PhD, Instructor in Psychology, Harvard Medical School
Amy Saltzman, MD, Founder and Director, Association for Mindfulness in Education
Paul Wapner, PhD, Assoc Professor, School of International Service, American University

Interest Group Sessions:
Early childhood education; Teaching young children in elementary school; Teaching children in middle school; Teaching young adults in high school; Teaching university students; Teaching teachers; Research on mindfulness; Developing a personal practice; Integrating personal practice and work; Parenting

Sponsors:
Lesley University, Mindfulness in Education Network, Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, Friends Council on Education, Association for Mindfulness in Education, Courage & Renewal Northeast

A Day of Courage and Renewal

Sunday, March 21, 2010
9:00 am – 3:00 pm
University Hall, Lesley University
Cost: $60 (includes lunch)
Certificates of participation provided for teachers

In this full-day retreat, emerging from principles described in Parker Palmer's book The Courage to Teach, participants will engage in a wide range of contemplative practices to explore the inner landscape of the teaching life. Facilitators will support experiences engaging heart and mind in reflection and insight.

Workshop Facilitators:
Sharlene Voogd Cochrane, PhD, Professor and Dean of Faculty, Lesley University
Irene McHenry, PhD, Executive Director, Friends Council on Education
Pamela Seigle, MS, Executive Director, Courage & Renewal Northeast

Sponsors:
Lesley University, Courage & Renewal Northeast, Friends Council on Education

To register or for more information:

http://www.mindfuled.org/2010_spring_conference/

Webinar: Consciousness In Action

Wednesday, March 24, 2010
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM EDT
With Raúl Quiñones-Rosado, Ph.D.
and Rose Sackey-Milligan, Ph.D.
Co-Directors, c-Integral

Consciousness-in-action is a decolonizing methodology and transformative practice rooted in values and principles of liberation, informed by a critical analysis of social power and identity, and guided by a vision of integral well-being and development. This webinar will outline the key principles, processes and practices of this unique approach to liberation and transformation and offer practical solutions, using a contemplative perspective, for addressing various forms of resistance to the model in a classroom setting.

c-Integral, Inc., works with established and emerging social and environmental justice groups in the United States and Puerto Rico to provide training in the application of personal transformative practices in the context of social and cultural transformation work. We offer workshops and leadership development retreats to social and environmental justice organizers and activists toward helping them develop a deep understanding of the systemic and structural forms of oppression, how these play out based on race, gender, class, sexuality and ability, and how to thwart oppression’s potential for limiting individual and organizational effectiveness.

Presenters:

Raúl Quiñones-Rosado, Ph.D., founder and co-Director of c-Integral, has been a social justice educator and organizer for more than twenty years. He co-founded the Institute for Latino Empowerment and Ilé: Organizers for Consciousness-in-Action, working in communities-of-struggle in the United States and Puerto Rico. Active in movements against racism, colonialism, militarism and other forms of oppression, Raúl is currently involved in an emerging “integral activism” bringing a liberation psychology and spirituality perspective to the process of personal, social, economic, political and cultural transformation. Author of Consciousness-in-Action: Toward an Integral Psychology of Liberation & Transformation, and other published writings, Raúl has presented his integral approach to audiences internationally.

Rose Sackey-Milligan, Ph.D., co-Director of c-Integral, is an educator and socio-cultural anthropologist with thirteen years of experience in social change philanthropy. Engaged in a range of social justice issues for over 30 years, Rose is the former Director of Programs at the Peace Development Fund and Director of the Social Justice Program at the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society. Since 1995, she has facilitated numerous workshops in self-analysis, leadership development and building self-esteem for African, Latino, Arab, Cape Verdean and Asian students on university campuses. Rose has studied and practiced the Afro-Cuban Yorùbá-derived Lùkùmí faith since 1992 and received full ordination in 1997. Her eclectic practices include ritual, meditation and yoga.

About Webinar Registration
Submit the Gotowebinar.com registration form. After submitting the form, you will be forwarded to a payment page. If you are a member of the ACMHE, disregard this step (webinars are free for members); if you are not a member, you must submit the $5 payment for your registration to be approved. After your registration has been approved, you will be sent instructions for connecting to the webinar.

If you have any questions regarding registration or connection, please email beth@contemplativemind.org.

Contemplative Inquiry: A New Approach to Adult Learning

A two-day Seminar with Dr. Arthur Zajonc
April 13 -14, 2010
Merton College, Oxford, UK

To reserve a space, visit www.crossfieldsinstitute.com or call Simon Reakes on 01453 808 118.

For further information on the seminar, please view the .pdf flyer or call George Perry on 01452 813 262.

Contemplative Inquiry is a transformative activity that aims to help educators and students cultivate an enhanced attention and emotional balance that leads to improved wellbeing and performance and develop new faculties that enable insight and creativity in the discovery process.

This seminar will appeal to all adult educators looking for a contemporary approach to learning that is scientifically grounded, eye opening and personally rewarding for themselves and their students.

In this seminar, Arthur Zajonc will present and lead a process for adult educators to experience and practice a series of inner and outer exercises. Contemplative inquiry focuses on “reflection” as a crucial factor in adult learning. By bringing together newly emerging meditative practices and the contemplative tradition from within many cultures, the student can develop contemporary aspects to their learning and research. Anyone interested in the field of adult learning (including lecturers, teachers, trainers, carers, coaches) is invited to attend this innovative seminar. CPD certificates (for 12 contact hours) are available for this event.

Webinar: Contemplative Arts and Society

Wednesday, April 28, 2010
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM EDT
With Anne Beffel, Associate Professor of Art, Syracuse University

Anne Beffel is a practicing “public artist” and professor of art at Syracuse University. She creates opportunities for empathetic exchanges through art. As a 2008 Contemplative Practice Fellow she created the course Contemplative Arts and Society to explore the intersection of art, contemplative practice, and social psychology.

In our April webinar, Beffel will discuss students’ experiences with a number of contemplative and creative art practices in preparation for designing their own “daily practices,” which they document using media arts. In addition, the students participate in community engaged video workshops with city high school students. Together they test the relationships among contemplative practices and creative acts as they develop rapport and collaborate. Their shared creativity culminates in public exhibitions at museums and in the near future, online.

If you have any questions regarding registration or connection, please email beth@contemplativemind.org.

Contemplative Environmental Studies: Pedagogy for Self and Planet

A Summer Institute
August 1-6, 2010
Lama Foundation
San Cristobal, New Mexico
$700 (includes room and board)

Application and Registration available at: http://lamafoundation.org/Summer%2008/DHO.htm

at the Lama Foundation Environmental challenges call into question not simply our technological, economic, and political capabilities, but also our fundamental understandings of who we are as a species and how we fit into the broader, more-than-human world. The Summer Institute aims to launch an effort within higher education to develop tools for teaching and researching environmental dilemmas with this broader sensibility in mind. Through a combination of discussions with distinguished scholars, focused conversation among colleagues, artistic exercises, and regular contemplative practice, participants will collectively fashion the emerging discipline of Contemplative Environmental Studies into a pedagogical tool capable of assisting humanity in addressing environmental dilemmas.

Part workshop and part retreat, the Institute seeks to open doors to our own capabilities as teachers committed to education on a fragile and wild planet.

For more information:

Visit www.acmhe.org/ces.html

View/download a .pdf about this event

6th Annual Summer Session on
Contemplative Curriculum Development

August 8 - 13, 2010
Smith College, Northampton, MA
$775 (includes single-room accommodations and meals on the Smith campus)
Application deadline: May 1, 2010

There will be sessions on pedagogical issues, including the relation between course content and contemplative practice and the benefits of stabilized attention and other qualities of mind fostered by meditation, as well as on practical issues such as evaluation, grading, instructional techniques, and use of off-site facilities. We will also consider issues such as communicating course intent with colleagues and college administrators. There will be discussions on how contemplative practices in the curriculum are affecting teaching and learning nationwide. Local scholars and contemplative teachers not listed as faculty will visit and engage in the discussions. Each day will also include substantial contemplative practice time, which will introduce participants to practices from a variety of traditions as well as practices that have been adapted successfully for secular classroom settings. The summer session aims to prepare participants to return to their classrooms with a deeper understanding of the practice of contemplative teaching and a fully developed course.

The summer session builds on the work of the Contemplative Practice Fellowship Program. These fellowships seek to restore and renew the critical contribution that contemplative practices can make to the life of teaching and scholarship. At the heart of the program is the belief that pedagogical and intellectual benefits will be discovered by bringing contemplative practice into the academy. While contemplative practices are part of all major religious and spiritual traditions, they have also had a place in intellectual and ethical inquiry, including secular educational environments. Contemplative practices are defined in a variety of ways, but they can be broadly understood as methods to develop concentration, deepen understanding and insight, and cultivate awareness and compassion.

We invite participants from the full range of disciplinary and inter-disciplinary perspectives in the arts, humanities, sciences, humanities-related sciences, and social sciences. We are especially interested in the development of courses in which classroom contemplative practices are related clearly to the content of the course itself. Such content-related contemplative practices can lead to genuine insights and deeper appreciation of the material under study.

Further information on the content of the session can be inferred from the Academic Program's lectures, reports, and publications. You may also find our selection of course syllabi to be a helpful reference.

The Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education (ACMHE) Second Annual Conference:

The Contemplative Academy

September 24-26, 2010
Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts

The conference will focus on initiatives in contemplative pedagogy taking place in classrooms and institutions of higher education. It will explore how contemplative practices cultivate capacities of attention, equanimity, wisdom, and compassion, which are central to the lives of students and educators.

Contributed papers, poster sessions, and artistic presentations as well as plenary talks and contemplative practice sessions will explore the ways that contemplative practice is serving higher education. As educators integrate these practices into classrooms, studios, and co-curricular initiatives, they are learning how they develop greater mindfulness, open heartedness, and insight.

Attendance and Conference Fees
Attendance is restricted to Association Members. New members may join at the conference attendance rate:
$50 for a one-year faculty membership/$30 for a one-year graduate student, part-time, or retired membership.

Conference Fee: $250 regular/ $190 student, part-time, or retired. The fee includes meals from reception Friday evening through mid-morning break on Sunday.

Call for Papers
The conference welcomes proposals concerning contemplative pedagogy, methodology and epistemology within and across disciplines and through co-curricular initiatives. Submissions of proposals for panel discussions are also invited. Please send a title and an abstract of not more that 200 words for a 30 minute paper or performance along with name, institutional affiliation and 50 – 100 word professional biography to beth@contemplativemind.org by May 1, 2010. Notification of inclusion in the program will be made by June 1, 2010. Late papers will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

Retreat for Academics

November 11 – 14, 2010
The Garrison Institute
Garrison, NY
Cost: $600 single room; $450 double room; $350 double room with scholarship (a limited amount of financial assistance is available)

Educators report that deepening their own contemplative practice leads to more successful teaching and helps them design courses with a contemplative component.

Our retreats offer instruction in a variety of contemplative practices, including contemplative methods adapted for the classroom. These practices cultivate capacities central to teaching and learning--focused attention, kindness and compassion, and contemplative inquiry--and our retreats include discussions about the relationship of the contemplative perspective to teaching, learning, and knowing. Much of the time is spent in silence, including some silent meals. Our retreats are designed to appeal to participants with a wide range of experience in contemplative practice, from beginners to seasoned practitioners.

The Law Program

The Mindful Lawyer: Practices and Prospects for Law School, Bench, and Bar
October 7 - 10, 2010
A conference co-organized by the Law Program of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society
and The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy,
University at Buffalo, NY

Save the date!

This conference at The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy will bring together the pioneers who have been developing programs integrating meditation into the study and practice of law and dispute resolution with others who are interested in exploring and developing this work. Participants will include lawyers, law professors, judges, mediators and dispute resolution practitioners, and law students. The conference will offer a blend of scholarly presentation, practical instruction and discussion, and reports on relevant developments in neuroscience and other disciplines. For those who have no or little meditation experience, as well as experienced meditators working in the law, we will offer opportunities to learn and practice meditation as well as the occasion to learn from presenters who have integrated meditation into their own legal work and presented meditation-based trainings and classes for legal professionals and law students. This will be the first major gathering of its kind since Harvard Law School offered a symposium on Mindfulness and Alternative Dispute Resolution in 2002.

We hope that you will consider attending the conference and we will post further details as they develop.