By coming together to create a supportive, collaborative, and engaging academic community, we can experience how contemplative practices transform higher education.

The Summer Session is a week-long professional development workshop with a unique combination of course development, community building, and experiential learning. Past attendees have referred to it as their “yearly tune up,” as it is a chance for personal reflection and self-care, as well as pedagogical development. Attendees will engage in a range of practices including meditation, mindful movement, art-making, and dialogue. These practices are intended to prepare attendees for the deep inquiry and meaningful self-exploration we hope to foster during our time together. Through plenary presentations, afternoon workshops, and time for practice, we aim to provide a space for participants to look at issues of identity, meaning, and purpose in their roles as educators within higher education and beyond.

A multidisciplinary team of educators with extensive experience across many aspects of higher education will facilitate the week-long workshop, and will provide guidance as you explore how to effectively and responsibly integrate contemplative practices into your work. Presentations and discussions at past Summer Sessions have often been about topics such as social identity; culturally-relevant practices and pedagogy; undoing racism and other forms of oppression in the academy; self-care for educators; facing challenging contexts; and building communities of support and practice.

The ACMHE Summer Session on Contemplative Learning in Higher Education is ideal for higher education professionals (faculty, staff, administrators, graduate students, and researchers) who are seeking to:

• develop contemplative methods to inform their work in higher education within and beyond classroom settings;
• examine their own unique identities and experiences to help create inclusive, responsive, inquiry-based learning environments;
• deepen their own personal practice;
• build friendships within a diverse, interdisciplinary community of scholar-practitioners.

We intend for this week to offer:

• personal and professional growth and development through contemplative practice, stimulating  discussions, and reflection;
• working with practice to navigate through the complexities, uncertainties and possible discomforts of new learning experiences;
• reconnecting with old friends and forging new friendships with colleagues coming from diverse world-views and across many disciplines and types of institutions;
• facilitating brave spaces to explore the connections between contemplative practice and social justice, and how that informs effective teaching and learning.

It does NOT offer:

• easy answers and step-by-step solutions; there is no single “how to” that can be applied to this work.

We invite educators, researchers, students, staff and administrators from all higher education disciplines and offices to apply to participate in Summer Sessions on Contemplative Learning.

We encourage you to attend the Summer Session with a project in mind to work on during the week: this can help you help frame your learning and direct your inquiry towards a practical outcome. Projects could include, but are not limited to, designing and developing a co-curricular project, syllabus, curriculum, research project, grant proposal, or faculty learning community. You will have an opportunity to describe your project idea(s) on your summer session application.

How to Apply and Register:

• Applications will open in early 2020. You can join our mailing list (or become an ACMHE member) to be notified when the application is available.