Mindful Campus Program
Mindful Campus Program
The Mindful Campus Program aims to co-design and implement mindfulness and compassion-based programming to support undergraduate student wellness at ֱ Boulder. To increase the impact and relevance of these practices to students, we employed participatory research methods to forge collaborations among diverse experts. Together we collaboratively designed scalable, sustainable mindfulness- and compassion-based resources driven by the best available scientific evidence, contemplative practice wisdom, and the practical needs of our campus community during these challenging times.
Our work paves the way for sustained wellness on our ֱ Boulder campus and highlights the power and promise of Youth Participatory Action Research and co-design methods to expand the relevance and scale of contemplative practices such as mindfulness and compassion for individual and collective impact.
Mindful Moments
Mindful Moments: Sand Mandala Creation
Opening Ceremony: December 9, 2024, 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM MDT
Closing Ceremony: December 12, 2024, 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM MDT
The Crown Institute invites you to experience the creation of a Chenrezig Mandala, a symbol of compassion, healing, and impermanence. This sacred ceremony, led by the Jangchub Choeling Nunnery as part of their U.S. tour, will unfold over several days. We welcome our community to observe and experience this profound event.
The event begins with a consecration ritual led by Buddhist nuns, invoking the force of goodness through the rhythmic chanting of mantras, accompanied by drums and cymbals. The event ends with the Chenrezig Mandala completion and consecration, which will be gracefully swept away in a ceremony symbolizing the impermanence of all things.
Mindful Moments: Mindful Moment Pause
November 7, 2024, 5:00 - 7:00 PM MDT
Michele's courses reflect her passion and commitment to topics including anti-racism, anti-Blackness, social justice, and the exploration of the intersections that inform myriad lived experiences. Her course offerings have included: Gender, Sexuality & Popular Culture, Ethical Puzzles & Moral Conflicts, and Sacred Spaces. Currently, Michele is the host and producer of Black Talk, a co-creation of the Boulder County NAACP and Boulder Public Radio’s KGNU. Black Talk centers Black voices, thought, and vision. At Crown, she has the distinct honor to be a member of the Mindful Campus team as a curriculum co-creator and BIPOC affinity group co-facilitator. Michele is also a part of Girls Like Us, a program/research study focusing on the lives and experiences of Black girls in Boulder County. She is also a contributing member of the Compassion & Dignity for Educators Project.
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Mindful Moments: Embodiment and Interoception Workshop with Donna Mejia
October 6, 2024, 10:00 AM -12:00 PM MDT
Donna Mejia, Crown Institute Faculty Fellow, has been a practitioner and educator in the arts, somatic science, meditation, and critical theories about Earth's human cultures for over 35 years. She is an interdiciplinarian who values cusiority and imagination, and welcomes you to be in community with others who crave opportunities to explore healing of the mind/body/heart connection. For more information about her awards, publications, and activities please visit .
Mindful Moments: Mindful Walking with Millie Wright
September 16, 2024, 4:30 - 6:00 PM MDT
Millie Wright is a mother, lover of nature, gardener, yoga practitioner, and mindfulness meditation teacher. Millie has been meditating for 27 years. She was inspired to learn meditation after going through a period of time dealing with some challenges and life changes, which left her feeling anxious and at times ungrounded. She first learned Transcendental meditation and gradually felt a sense of calm, clarity, and ease in her daily life. During the next 23 years, Millie attended many retreats and workshops on different forms of meditation and in 2012 started focusing more on Insight meditation.
Speakers Series
Presenting Anthony Ray Hinton, author of "The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life, Freedom, and Justice"
October 24, 2024, 2:00 - 3:00 PM MDT
Anthony Ray Hinton survived for 30 years on Alabama's death row. His story is a decades-long journey to exoneration and freedom. In 1985, Mr. Hinton was convicted of the unsolved murders of two fast-food restaurant managers based on the testimony of ballistics experts for the State who claimed that the crime bullets came from a dusty revolver found in Mr. Hinton's mother’s closet. Without the benefit of a competent expert to challenge the State’s theory (Mr. Hinton’s lawyer hired a ballistics expert who was blind in one eye), an all-white jury convicted Mr. Hinton and he was sentenced to death. After years of petitioning to have the revolver re-analyzed, three independent experts concluded that the bullets could not have been fired from his mother’s revolver. With the assistance of the Equal Justice Initiative, led by attorney Bryan Stevenson, Mr. Hinton was freed in 2015. Since his release, Mr. Hinton has traveled the world sharing his story and discussing the changes that need to be made to prevent similar injustices from happening to other people. In 2018, Mr. Hinton published The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row, which was selected for Oprah’s Book Club and is a New York Times bestseller. In 2019, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from St. Bonaventure University, and in 2023, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Emory University.
Good Grief - A Sangha for Healing and Transformation
September 20, 2023, 4:00-6:00 PM MDT
Reggie is the founder/chief serving officer of Active Peace Yoga. His yoga and meditation practice have served as a sanctuary of peace and perspective while navigating the stresses of being a black man in the world, serving in pressure filled jobs at the height of politics and have helped him navigate complicated emotions (anger, grief, disappointment) to find and nurture peace of mind and ease of spirit.
Reggie nourished his early yoga practice in the rich yoga culture of Denver and Boulder, ֱ. As a teacher, he shares his practice in service to helping people from all walks of life navigate this thing called life with more creativity, authenticity, peace and ease. He has extensively studied with leading teachers in yogic, meditative and dharmic disciplines while also remembering that the best teacher is an eternal student. He is a graduate of the 2023 MMTCP (Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program) cohort.
Through Active Peace Yoga, he offers asana and meditation classes to help others nurture peace of mind, creativity, equanimity in spirit and physical health - helping people nurture well-being as foundational, rather than an afterthought. Reggie has taught Members of Congress, Congressional Staff, major labor unions, leading progressive organizations and individuals from all walks of life - simple tools for managing stress and bringing peace to mind, body and spirit. Active Peace also offers strategic guidance on creating healthier cultures and organizational norms rooted in wellbeing, compassion and results.
In addition to his yoga teaching practice, Reggie has held many senior strategic and logistical roles across a variety of fields, ranging from global marketing, digital and community organizing, government relations, international education to Presidential campaigning. He is a featured speaker on political strategy, new consciousness, wellbeing and social justice, and civic engagement for leading publications, podcasts and platforms including: Be Here Now Network, The Hill, Mind and Life Institute, SoundsTrue Foundation, Upaya Zen Center, Wanderlust, the Wellbeing Project, Yoga Alliance, and Yoga Journal.
Reggie's life work sits at the intersection of bringing more peace and balance to activists; guiding the wellness community toward being more engaged, concerned citizens; and, enhancing the well-being of all walks of life. Achieving this balance is how we catalyze transformative change in our society, which we are desperately in need of at this moment.
He received a B.A. in philosophy from Yale University and an MBA in international strategy from the Vlerick Business School in Belgium.
You can find out more at .
Ancient and Contemporary Healing Modalities
September 20, 2023, 4:00-6:00 PM MDT
Solwazi teaches mindfulness meditation classes and leads meditation retreats and workshops throughout the U.S. and worldwide. He has practiced mindfulness meditation for over 25 years, focusing on Vipassana since 2003. He graduated from Spirit Rock's Community Dharma Leadership Training and Spirit Rock's four-year Retreat Teacher Training. He is a mentor with the Sounds True Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program. He is also an ICF-certified professional coach and a graduate of the Rolf Institute of Structural Integration and the Thai School of Complementary Health in Chaing Mai, Thailand. Lastly, Solwazi was the guiding teacher for the Prison Buddhist Ministry Program in a Federal Prison in Englewood, ֱ, for over five years.
The Power of Ceremony: Indigenous Contemplative Practices, Neurodecolonization, and Indigenous Mindfulness
February 21, 2024, 4:00 - 6:00 PM MDT
Michael Yellow Bird, PhD, is Dean and Professor of the Faculty of Social Work, University of Manitoba, and a member of the MHA Nation (Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara) in North Dakota, USA. Michael Yellow Bird is a certified, internationally trained mindfulness meditation teacher, professional, and scholar and has been practicing mindfulness meditation since 1975. He is a Member of the Mindfulness Council of Canada Board of Directors, a Member of the Global Compassion Coalition Board of Directors, a Member of the Brown University Mindfulness Center External Advisory Board, and a Member of the Council of Elders for Indigenous Mindfulness Practices. He is a mindfulness consultant and trainer to many organizations, programs, and communities, and serves as a Decolonial Contemplative Mentor and Scholar.
He has held faculty appointments at the University of British Columbia, Kansas, Arizona State, Cal Poly Humboldt, and North Dakota State University. His research focuses on colonization, decolonization, healthy Indigenous aging, mindfulness, contemplative practices, compassion, Arikara ethnobotany and traditional agriculture, and the cultural significance of Rez dogs.
He is the author of numerous scholarly articles and the co-editor of four books: For Indigenous Eyes Only: The Decolonization Handbook; For Indigenous Minds Only: A Decolonization Handbook; Indigenous Social Work around the World: Towards Culturally Relevant Education and Practice; and Decolonizing Social Work. He is the co-author of two books: A Sahnish (Arikara) Ethnobotany (2020) and Decolonizing Holistic Pathways Towards Integrative Healing in Social Work (2021). He is currently co-authoring two books, Arikara Traditional Agriculture and Decolonizing the Social Work Curriculum, and is working on three books, The Memoirs of a Mindful Rez Kid, Rez Dog Meditations: Contemplative Practices for Healing People and the Lands, and A Rez Dog Manifesto: Rediscovering the Sacred Connections in the Time of Climate Change.
Building Compassion and Joy From the Inside Out
April 12, 2024, 12:00 - 1:30 PM MDT
The challenges of growing up black and female in apartheid South Africa have been the foundation of the Rev. Nontombi Naomi Tutu’s life as a motivational speaker and activist for human rights. Those experiences taught her that our whole human family loses when we accept situations of oppression, and how the teaching and preaching of hate and division injure us all. The human rights activist’s professional experience ranges from being an economist and development consultant in West Africa to being a program coordinator for programs on Race and Gender and Gender-based Violence in Education at the African Gender Institute at the University of Cape Town. In addition, the Rev. Tutu has taught at the University of Hartford, the University of Connecticut and Brevard College in North Carolina. She served as Program Coordinator for the historic Race Relations Institute at Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn., and was a part of the Institute’s delegation to the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa.
Growing up the “daughter of Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu” has offered Naomi many opportunities and challenges in her life. Perhaps one of the greatest struggles was the call to ministry. She knew early in life that the one thing she would never be was a priest. She always said, “I have my father’s nose, I do not want his job.” It refused to be silenced, even as she carried her passion for justice into other fields. The call to preach and serve as an ordained clergyperson continued to tug at her. Finally, in her 50s, she responded and went to seminary. She is an Episcopal priest who most recently served as Associate Rector at All Saints, Beverly Hills.She started her public speaking as a college student at Berea College in Kentucky in the 1970s when she was invited to speak at churches, community groups and colleges and universities about her experiences growing up in apartheid South Africa. Since that time, she has become a much sought-after speaker to groups as varied as business associations, professional conferences, elected officials and church and civic organizations.
Rev. Tutu has established Nozizwe Consulting. Its mission is to bring different groups together to learn from and celebrate their differences and acknowledge their shared humanity. As part of this work, she has led Truth and Reconciliation Workshops for groups dealing with different types of conflict. She is the recipient of four honorary doctorates from universities and colleges in the U.S. and Nigeria. She has served as a curate at Christ Church Cathedral as a Canon Missioner for Racial and Economic Equity, and as a Canon Missioner for Kairos West Community Center for the Cathedral of All Souls in Asheville, N.C.
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Contact
If you have any questions, please reach out to mindfulcampus@colorado.edu