Renee Crown Wellness Institute

Expert to share how to use your voice for more power

Anonymous — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 17:58:29 +0000

Expert to share how to use your voice for more power Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 04/16/2024 - 11:58

Presentation titled ‘SPEAK: Vocal Empowerment for Students and Educators’ is set for April 29

Your voice can be a path to power, a CU �鶹ӰԺ expert argues, and she will explain how in a public presentation this month.

Chelsea Hackett, a university research associate, will give a presentation titled “SPEAK: Vocal Empowerment for Students and Educators,” on Monday, April 29, at 3 p.m. via Zoom.

The event is free and open to everyone, but registration is required at this link. The event is sponsored by Be Well, the College of Arts and Sciences' wellness initiative, and is part of its regular Let’s CU Well series of programs.

During the session, Hackett will explore “how to support your voice both within and outside of the classroom. This focuses on three aspects of voice: social/emotional, physical and civic.

“During this interactive hour, you will learn tangible skills to keep your voice healthy, and to practice getting comfortable being uncomfortable so that you can speak about issues that are important to you!”

Hackett is a 2010 CU �鶹ӰԺ theatre performance graduate and PhD graduate of New York University. She is now a research associate at CU �鶹ӰԺ’s Renée Crown Wellness Institute.

She is the co-founder and executive director of SPEAK, a nonprofit that focuses on vocal empowerment for young women and girls. In addition, she is an interdisciplinary artist, researcher and creative consultant.

SPEAK, which Hackett founded with Beth Osnes, a CU �鶹ӰԺ professor of theatre, aims to “support and celebrate the voices of all young women and girls.”

The organization envisions a world in which all young women and girls are “heard, valued, and affirmed, a world that benefits from their unique contributions, one where they are safe to express themselves fully, and are free to co-author an equitable, survivable, and thrive-able future.”

If you go

What: SPEAK: Vocal Empowerment for Students and Educators

When: 3 p.m. Monday, April 29

Where: Zoom, free but registration required

The nonprofit says vocal empowerment “is the ability to express yourself the way you want in any context.” The group’s approach to vocal empowerment addresses three aspects of of voice: physical, which draws from theater and voice and speech pathology; social/emotional, which uses meditations, journal activities and games to help young women and girls explore their internal voices, ideas and emotions; and civic, through which women and girls are encouraged to share their thoughts about vital issues with their communities.

“By combining theatre with voice speech pathology, Dr. Beth Osnes and I have worked to charter a new, creative and trans-disciplinary endeavor we call Vocal Empowerment that is designed for use primarily by young women to become agents of change in their communities, their nations and the world," Hackett says. "This work supports youth in speaking about issues that are important to them, such as sexual violence prevention, climate change and racial justice.”

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Presentation titled ‘SPEAK: Vocal Empowerment for Students and Educators’ is set for April 24.

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Forging a thoughtful path to a mindful future

Anonymous — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 07:00:00 +0000

Forging a thoughtful path to a mindful future Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 11/28/2023 - 00:00

Shubham Sapkota, researcher at the Renée Crown Wellness Institute, to share insights into and lessons from the Mindful Campus Program

A mindful campus is a healthier campus, experts at the Renée Crown Wellness Institute at the �鶹ӰԺ contend. One of them will make that case in a public presentation next week.

Shubham Sapkota, a research associate at Crown, will give a talk titled “Be mindful through the Mindful Campus Program,” on Tuesday, Dec. 5 at 2 p.m. via Zoom. The event is free and open to everyone, but registration is required at this link.

Sapkota’s presentation will give an overview of the work done by the Renée Crown Wellness Institute at CU �鶹ӰԺ, specifically on Crown's Mindful Campus Program. The event is sponsored by Be Well, the College of Arts and Sciences' wellness initiative, and is part of its regular Let’s CU Well series of programs.

Shubham Sapkota, a research associate in the Renée Crown Wellness Institute, will give a talk titled “Be mindful through the Mindful Campus Program” on Tuesday, Dec. 5 at 2 p.m. via Zoom.

Sapkota, a native of Kathmandu, Nepal, earned a doctorate in religion and theology through the Joint Doctoral Program in the University of Denver and the Iliff School of Theology. His PhD work focused on how to bring Buddhist meditation practices and principles in the spheres of academics, pedagogy and community engagement.

The Mindful Campus Program includes an eight-week series in mindfulness launched at CU �鶹ӰԺ in 2021 to support the well-being of students and was designed, in part, by students themselves. As experts at Crown have emphasized, the program is not just geared toward students; they are involved in its creation.

This approach “allows the voices of young people to be central and guiding within the research process,” Sona Dimidjian, director of the Renée Crown Wellness Institute and a professor of psychology and neuroscience, said last year.

The program is now implemented across CU �鶹ӰԺ and continues to seek participants to go through a mindfulness journey that complements life at CU.

Crown is an interdisciplinary institute that focuses on youth education, with mindfulness as a crucial tool that, the institute says, “enables holistic learning and wellbeing” for the university community. Leaders at CU �鶹ӰԺ and beyond have argued that the effort is of critical importance.

Philip Distefano, CU �鶹ӰԺ chancellor, states that mental health is a growing concern: “Mental health and wellness are increasingly a critical topic in K-12 classrooms and college campuses across the country. It's imperative that we collectively create solutions to promote wellness. The Renée Crown Wellness Institute will conduct groundbreaking research relevant to wellness, starting as early as possible in development and continuing through college.”

If you go

Who: Shubham Sapkota, research associate, Renée Crown Wellness Institute

What: Be Mindful through the Mindful Campus Program

When: Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2 p.m.

Where: Zoom–This online workshop is available to CU students, employees and community members. Please register here.

Why: To support a culture of care and wellness

Rob Anderson, superintendent of the �鶹ӰԺ Valley School District, has heralded the Crown Institute’s work. “We have no doubt that the breakthrough developed at Crown will have a profound impact on the community we all have the honor to serve.”

Mindful Campus has gained traction just as many sources of data suggest that such initiatives are sorely needed. Recent research finds that anxiety and depression among students have risen steadily during the last eight years, and students of color have experienced the steepest increase.

Researchers from Boston University analyzed surveys of 350,000 students from more than 300 campuses between 2013 and 2021. Their meta-study, like other smaller studies, found students’ rates of depression and anxiety had more than doubled in eight years, rising by 135% and 110% respectively.

Additionally, research published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that mental-health challenges are worse among high school students who perceived racism. The study concluded that understanding “how negative health outcomes are associated with student experiences of racism can guide training for staff and students to promote cultural awareness and anti-racist and inclusivity interventions, which are critical for promoting safe school environments for all students.”

Meanwhile, students’ demand for psychological counseling has far outstripped the availability of resources. These are national trends, but officials note that they are reflected among CU �鶹ӰԺ students, too.

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Shubham Sapkota, researcher at the Renée Crown Wellness Institute, to share insights into and lessons from the Mindful Campus Program.

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Students, faculty forge a thoughtful path to a mindful future

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 21:40:48 +0000

Students, faculty forge a thoughtful path to a mindful future Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 09/15/2022 - 15:40

Clint Talbott

Mindful Campus Program, designed by students and faculty, aims to help students improve their own wellness and that of the community

An eight-week series in mindfulness launched at the �鶹ӰԺ in 2021 to support the well-being of students was designed, in part, by students themselves. And while the series strives to help students live more fully in the present moment, it also aims to leverage mindfulness in the effort to promote social justice.

The Mindful Campus Program, an initiative by the Renée Crown Wellness Institute, began in 2019, with students’ helping to craft surveys and focus groups to gauge other students’ interest and preferences, asking, for instance, how the campus could minimize barriers to mindfulness programming.

Later that year, students, faculty and mindfulness experts co-designed the eight-week mindfulness series. That first series was the focus of a research study, the results from which Crown Institute experts are still analyzing.

Seven Crown Institute experts were instrumental in developing and implementing the eight-week series, including (top center going clockwise) Kathryn Dailey, Caitlin McKimmy, Cody Moxam, Michele D. Simpson, Natalie Avalos, Kourtney Kelley, and (center) Sona Dimidjian.

Using data from this study—which drew about 150 student participants—the team is still honing the eight-week series. Another team is working to develop a for-credit class and make it available at CU �鶹ӰԺ and other campuses and communities.

Kourtney Kelley, senior project manager and professional research assistant for the Crown Institute, participated in the design of the eight-week series using Youth Participatory Action Research, a method in which young people learn to conduct systematic research to improve their lives, their communities, and the institutions intended to serve them.

As she noted, “It’s not just research about students and what students are going through. Students are involved.”

This method of research “allows the voices of young people to be central and guiding within the research process,” said Sona Dimidjian, director of the Renée Crown Wellness Institute and a professor of psychology and neuroscience.

“The whole tenet is that I as a researcher don’t know what the community needs, and I need to learn in partnership with students and campus partners from the ground up,” added Caitlin McKimmy, a graduate research assistant in Dimidjian’s laboratory.

Natalie Avalos, an assistant professor of ethnic studies, noted that the eight-week series includes instruction, practice and the sharing of ideas. In one session, for instance, participants learn a compassion practice in which they breathe in the suffering of others and, on the exhale, give compassion and healing to themselves and others.

One goal is to help participants see how they might use mindfulness and compassion practices to support anti-racism and social justice, “explicitly linking them and then going on from there,” Avalos said.

Avalos added that students assume teaching and co-mentorship roles in the Mindful Campus Program: “Hierarchies of power shifted, and I think students really responded to that and really appreciated that.”

McKimmy concurred, emphasizing that “at the heart of this project, and this is really an important part of the Crown Institute, is having undergrads at the table where their voices are central.”

Kathryn Dailey, interim/acting director of health promotion at CU �鶹ӰԺ, was part of the co-design team and, because her office was housed in the Division of Student Affairs, she shared her insight into students’ experiences, particularly what stressors students reported experiencing.

Dailey has also worked as a facilitator with Mindful Campus generally and with its LGBTQ+ facilitation group. “We're looking at true culture change on campus, trying to engage people at all different dimensions and levels of the university to be able to bring mindfulness into different spaces, whether it is student employment or into the classroom into co-curricular experiences,” Dailey said.

Join us at the Crown Institute Oct. 14 open house

Want to learn more about the Crown Institute? Celebrate the grand opening of its new space at an open house on Friday, Oct. 14, from 4 to 6:30 p.m. Meet faculty, staff and students from the institute and experience how groundbreaking research is impacting the lives of young people and the systems and adults who support them. Learn more and register online—walk-ups are also welcome.

Interested in learning more about or registering for the Crown Wellness Institute's next eight-week Mindful Campus Program course? Please contact mindfulcampus@colorado.edu.

Looking to the future, Dimidjian said, “We are so excited in the Crown Institute to offer the eight-week series to students on our campus as part of our enduring commitment to link research and practice. We are exploring ways to bring some of this learning directly into the classroom through what we hope will become a semester-long, for-credit course.”

Cody Moxam, an honors student in psychology and neuroscience, completed the eight-week series and is now part of an interdisciplinary team of students and faculty co-designing the for-credit course. He said students and faculty “set aside our personal agendas to truly work on a course designed for the well-being of its participants.”

“We were able to integrate our experience as students, and as people, with the research literature to thread together an experience that would change students’ lives for the better,” Moxam said, adding that the: “values of community, social justice and mindfulness were imbued in our team interactions from the very start.”

Michele D. Simpson, a Crown Institute faculty affiliate, research associate and CU �鶹ӰԺ associate teaching professor, underscored that point, saying that her motivation in joining the Mindful Campus Program was not to simply boost mindfulness on campus, but also to expand it into different communities on and potentially off campus.

Voicing a guiding vision for the Mindful Campus Program, Simpson said, “Mindfulness belongs to everyone. Wellness is a right of everyone.”

Mindful Campus has gained traction just as many sources of data suggest that such initiatives are sorely needed. Recent research finds that anxiety and depression among students has risen steadily during the last eight years, and students of color have experienced the steepest increase.

Meanwhile, students’ demand for psychological counseling has far outstripped the demand. These are national trends, but officials note that they are reflected among CU �鶹ӰԺ students.

Mindful Campus Program, designed by students and faculty, aims to help students improve their own wellness and that of the community.

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