GPSL Endowment 2022-2023

This year, as we continue to reconnect as a campus community from the last few years, we are excited to be able to use this initial funding toward resourcing intentional conversations around the protective effects of spirituality to help mitigate our nation’s current mental health crisis.  This year, grant funding will go toward initial facilitator trainings and hospitality for gatherings to start Awakened Awareness groups at Lewis & Clark about how we use spiritual practices like mindfulness and guided meditations to enable personal and communal transformation.

We start by exploring a training developed at Teachers College, Columbia University by Dr. Lisa Miller which uses data-driven science to inform a spirituality-based wellness curriculum for college students.  Several community leaders will participate in this training’s first run this June of 2022 entitled: Awakened Awareness Spirit-Mind-Body Intervention Prevention.   This Awakened Awareness Program has been piloted for many years at Barnard and Columbia to students ranging in spiritual background from secular humanist to committed Muslim, and is open to all, regardless of religious or spiritual identity. The goals of this work have been to reduce depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress and have offered encouraging results, summarized in a recently-published paper.

Moving forward, we will support regularly-meeting groups, adapted from this training, in the Gregg Pavilion during the academic year.  In this initial work and investment, we hope to highlight that spirituality, belonging, ritual, and intentional togetherness can be effective tools in addressing our mental health crisis.  We see this work as about practicing care and compassion for ourselves and for one another as we build resilience in these times.