Mindfulness in Higher Education
There is growing interest in the integration of meditation into higher education. Meditation is used to facilitate the achievement of traditional educational goals, to help support student mental health under academic stress, and to enhance education of the “whole person.” Four decades of research conducted with two primary forms of meditation, show how these practices may help to foster important cognitive skills of attention and information processing, as well as help to build stress resilience and adaptive interpersonal capacities.
(Shapiro, S.L., Brown, K.W., & Astin, J.A. (2008). Toward the integration of meditation into higher education: A review of research.)
Recommended Reading - Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education
Barbezat, Daniel & Mirabai Bush. (2013). Contemplative Practices in Higher Education: Powerful Methods to Transform Teaching and Learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Barbezat, Daniel & Allison Pingree. (2012). Contemplative Pedagogy: The Special Role of Teaching and Learning Centers. In James E. Groccia and Laura Cruz (Eds.), To Improve the Academy, 31, 177-191. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Burggraf, Susan & Peter Grossenbacher. Contemplative Modes of Inquiry in Liberal Arts Education. LiberalArtsOnline, June 2007.
Bush, Mirabai. (2010). Contemplative Higher Education in Contemporary America. See also Mirabai Bush, “Contemplative Higher Education in Contemporary Life,” Contemplation Nation: How Ancient Practices Are Changing the Way We Live, pp. 221-36. 2011.
Bush, Mirabai. (2013). “Mindfulness in Higher Education,” in Mindfulness: Diverse Perspectives on its Meaning, Origins and Applications. London: Routledge.
Coburn, Thomas; Fran Grace; Anne Carolyn Klein; Louis Komjathy; Harold Roth & Judith Simmer-Brown. (2011). Contemplative Pedagogy: Frequently Asked Questions. Teaching Theology and Religion, Vol. 14, No. 2, April 2011, 167-174.
Craig, Barbara A. (2011). Contemplative Practice in Higher Education: An Assessment of the Contemplative Practice Fellowship Program. Northampton, MA: The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society.
Eaton, Marie, Hughes, Holly J., & MacGregor, Jean, Eds. (2017). Contemplative Approaches to Sustainability in Higher Education: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge.
Gunnlaugson, O., Sarath, E., Scott, C., & Bai, H., Eds. (2014). Contemplative Learning and Inquiry Across Disciplines. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Komjathy, Louis, Ed. (2015). Contemplative Literature: A Comparative Sourcebook on Meditation and Contemplative Prayer. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Kroll, Keith. (Ed.). (2010). Contemplative Teaching and Learning: New Directions for Community Colleges, 151. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Langer, Ellen J. (1998). The Power of Mindful Learning. Da Capo Press.
Lin, Jing, Oxford, Rebecca L., & Brantmeier, Edward J., Eds. (2013). Re-Envisioning Higher Education: Embodied Pathways to Wisdom and Social Transformation. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
Miller, John. (1994). The Contemplative Practitioner: Meditation in Education and the Professions. Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey. (revised edition to be published in 2014 by University of Toronto Press)
O’Reilley, Mary Rose. (1998). Radical Presence: Teaching as Contemplative Practice. Heinemann.
Rendon, Laura I. (2009). Sentipensante (Sensing/Thinking) Pedagogy: Educating for Wholeness, Social Justice and Liberation. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.
Rockefeller, Steven C. (1994). Meditation, Social Change, and Undergraduate Education. Northampton, MA: The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society.
Sanders, Linda A., Ed. (2013) Contemplative Studies in Higher Education: New Directions for Teaching and Learning, No. 134, Summer 2013.
Shapiro, Shauna L.; Kirk Warren Brown & John A. Astin. (2008). Toward the Integration of Meditation into Higher Education: A Review of Research. Edited by Maia Duerr. Northampton, MA: The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society.
This paper was later revised and published as Shapiro, Shauna, Kirk Warren Brown and John A. Austin, “Toward the Integration of Meditation into Higher Education: A Review of Research Evidence,” Teachers College Record, 113:3 (2011), p. 493-528.Siegel, Daniel J. (2007). The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being. W. W. Norton & Company.
Simmer-Brown, Judith & Fran Grace, Eds. (2011). Meditation and the Classroom: Contemplative Pedagogy for Religious Studies (SUNY Series, Religious Studies). Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Stock, Brian. (1994). The Contemplative Life and the Teaching of the Humanities. Northampton, MA: The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society.
Thurman, Robert. (1994). Meditation and Education: Buddhist India, Tibet and Modern America. Northampton, MA: The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society.
Zajonc, Arthur. (2008). Meditation As Contemplative Inquiry: When Knowing Becomes Love. Lindisfarne Press.
Zajonc, Arthur & Parker Palmer. (2010). The Heart of Higher Education: A Call to Renewal. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.