Community Mindfulness Sessions - Wednesdays
Members of the UW-Parkside Community:
You are warmly invited to participate in one or more mindfulness meditation sessions for our campus community, to be held each Wednesday, 12:30 - 1:00 pm, in the Faculty/Staff Lounge (second floor, library Jonathan Shailor, Professor of Communication Director, Center for Ethnic Studies Director, Certificate Program in Conflict Analysis and Resolution Director, Shakespeare Prison Project University of Wisconsin-Parkside 900 Wood Road Kenosha, WI 53141-2000
Are you interested in practicing with others to reduce stress, improve concentration, and cultivate a fuller awareness of yourself and your environment?
~ If so, you are welcome to participate in weekly Community Mindfulness Sessions, to be held Wednesdays, 12:30 -1 p.m., in the Faculty/Staff Lounge (Library, second floor). All students, staff, and faculty are welcome! Sessions begin Wednesday, Sept. 23.
~ What is "mindfulness"? One thing we know for sure is that it is a buzzword in our contemporary culture! For the purpose of these community sessions, we will follow the lead of the mindfulness-based stress reduction pioneer Jon Kabat-Zinn, defining mindfulness as the art of paying attention to the present moment, on purpose, non-judgmentally.
As Kabat-Zinn notes, this is easy to describe, and challenging to practice! We can do it alone, but it also really helps to have the support of a group.
What is the relationship between mindfulness and higher education? A growing body of research is demonstrating that mindfulness practices can be effectively incorporated into campus environments and college classrooms, resulting in better focus and concentration, deeper awareness, and more authentic relationships.
Mindfulness practices have been applied in principled ways to classroom discussions, to viewing, reading, writing, speaking, and listening exercises, and in other ways. A group of UW-Parkside faculty, staff and students will be investigating contemplative practices in higher education this semester, meeting each Wednesday immediately following the community practice sessions.
Our text is Contemplative Practices in Higher Education (Barbezat and Bush, 2013): http://tinyurl.com/contemplative-highered.
If you are interested in joining the group, please contact me at shailor@uwp.edu. Where can you go to find out more? A good place to start is our blog for the UW-Parkside Contemplative Practices in Higher Education Study Group at UW-Parkside: http://uwp-cphe.blogspot.com/. Also, feel free to send me an email
my best,
Jonathan Shailor shailor@uwp.edu