Mentoring as a Contemplative Practice in the Academy
Mentoring as a Contemplative Practice in the Academy
A webinar with Dr. Maria Hamilton Abegunde
Founding Director of The Graduate Mentoring Center and Visiting Faculty in African American and African Diaspora Studies, Indiana University Bloomington
Originally broadcast on Wednesday, January 29, 2020
3 pm – 4 pm ET / 12 pm – 1 pm PT
Free and open to all, with a $10 optional, suggested donation
A mentoring relationship can make the difference not only in how you succeed in your professional endeavors, but also in how you understand yourself as a scholar, practitioner, and community member. Most importantly, such a relationship can help both mentor and mentee grow in unexpected ways that deepen their understanding of what it means to be human and be in community with others who can support and challenge our growth. How can contemplative practices assist students, faculty, and staff in doing reflective work that will lead them to mentoring relationships – in all areas of life – that encourage balance, community, appreciation of culture, and academic success? Join Dr. Maria Hamilton Abegunde, founding director of The Graduate Mentoring Center at Indiana University Bloomington for a discussion of these questions and others.
About the Presenter
Dr. Maria Hamilton Abegunde writes poetry because it can and does change the world. For her, writing poetry is a spiritual path that can lead to political and social action. Abegunde is an ancestral priest in the Yoruba Orisa tradition, a memory keeper, healing facilitator, and Reiki Master with a focus on the recovery and healing of memory from sentient bodies.
Her research and creative work focus on inter-generational trauma and community healing through contemplative and arts-based practices. Excerpts from The Ariran’s Last Life, a Middle Passage memory-work, have been published in Let Spirit Speak!, Best African American Fiction, and The Kenyon Review. Her essays have been featured in The Journal for Liberal Arts and Sciences, Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, nocturnes, and an upcoming volume on Black Arts Aesthetics and African Spirituality. Commissioned poems are featured in Be/Coming and Keeper of My Mothers’ Dreams, collaborative community exhibitions. Excerpts from Learning to Eat the Dead: Juba, USA, a manuscript that contemplates history, violence, and healing in South Sudan and the US, were selected as a COG poetry finalist by Juan Felipe Herrera and has been featured in Tupelo Quarterly and the Massachusetts Review.
She is a Cave Canem, Ragdale, Sacatar, and NEH institute fellow. She is the founding director of The Graduate Mentoring Center and is a visiting faculty member in African American and African Diaspora Studies at Indiana University Bloomington.