Syracuse University’s Contemplative Collaborative supports students, faculty, and staff who engage in contemplative practices, as well as teaching strategies, scholarly research, and discourse surrounding these practices, with the goal of cultivating focused attention in ways that foster insight and deepen understanding of complex issues.
The Contemplative Collaborative bridges student life and academic life through a community of faculty, staff, administrators, and students with shared interests in mindfulness and contemplative practices that embody engaged learning, a mindful academy, and a compassionate society. This community is comprised of more than 140 members, representing diverse disciplines and offices across the University.
A 2015 recipient of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society’s Teaching and Learning Center grant, the Collaborative aims to enhance student development and promote academic excellence in tandem with personal wellbeing. The Collaborative unites students, faculty, and staff through a broad range of contemplative and mindfulness-based practices, including reflection, meditation, creative arts, civic engagement, and close reading.
These practices relate directly to evidence-based effective strategies to improve teaching and learning, which emphasize holistic student development and emotional regulation, self-awareness and self-monitoring, and metacognition (Ambrose et al., 2010). The Contemplative Collaborative provides a foundation on which to build signature SU academic and co-curricular contemplative programming with strong appeal to students. This includes the creation of the Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies minor.
View the 2017 Annual Report [PDF]
View the 2018 Annual Report [PDF]