Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction Faculty Workshops

“If you want your students to know more about mindfulness as a part of health, you’ll have to help your faculty and staff to know about mindfulness too. That’s how your wellness culture will change.”

That’s what Rip Gellein ’69 told Vice President for Student Development Laurel Kennedy in an April 2018 conversation about mindfulness. Gellein is on the Board of the Mind & Life Institute and has practiced meditation for many years. Between these bona fides and his reputation for leadership in times of organizational change, Kennedy was eager for his advice about incorporating mindfulness into learning opportunities for faculty at Denison.

Faculty already are doing significant work in the area of meditation and mindfulness, whether as a part of their teaching, their support of student research, or their own personal practice — and a series of conversation indicated there is a strong interest in learning more. One outcome of these conversations was a class in mindfulness offered in Fall 2019 for faculty and staff, taught by Sylvie Lestrade Graff. Graff is a certified teacher of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and a Dance Movement Therapist who divides her time between Columbus, Ohio and France.

Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction is an evidence-based, secular meditation program taught over eight weeks. The program uses a curriculum crafted by Jon Kabat-Zinn, who developed MBSR at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in the 1970s, in an effort to promote wellness and increase the ability to manage distress and pain.

Beginning in late October 2019, about 30 members of the faculty, administration, and supportive operating staff met weekly to learn and practice mindfulness. Classes met on Saturday mornings in the Knapp Amphitheater (although some participants attended classes at a studio space in Columbus). An essential part of MBSR training is a day-long silent retreat, conducted at a historic log cabin in the heart of Columbus.

Weekly classes wove together mindfulness meditation, body scans, and yoga. Class reflections sometimes center on poetry, like this poem by Mary Oliver, read by Cheryl Kennedy McFarrin, a faculty member in theater and a member of the MBSR class.

Faculty found the MBSR classes to be enriching in their personal lives, their professional development and in their interactions with students in and out of the classroom.

President Adam Weinberg has been practicing mindfulness for over 15 years and serves as Denison’s best model of how mindfulness improves the ability to focus. Those who practice mindfulness often say they experience increased self-compassion and equanimity as well. Clinical studies have established that mindfulness practices can improve the ability to manage stress and the symptoms of anxiety and depression.

The MBSR class taught to Denison faculty and staff is part of the larger Mindful Denison initiative, which has been led by Mindfulness Coordinator in Residence Linnea Pyne. The initiative includes classes designed specifically for college students, exploring the impact of mindfulness in athletics, special events (such as the October 2019 Day of Mindfulness), and support for both formal and informal practices.

Faculty Responses to the MBSR Training

Barbara Fultner, Professor of Philosophy

Why did you take the class?

I was curious to learn about a new form of practice. I have been practicing yoga for over 25 years and have found extended, multi-week workshops of this sort very rewarding in the past. This was an opportunity to deepen my practice and to broaden my repertoire to include mindfulness meditation. I was also looking to build and strengthen a community of practice. This was an opportunity to engage co-workers in a new context, outside of our usual roles on campus.

What did you get from the class?

I pay more attention to detail: I approach my almost 25-year yoga practice with an increased and renewed awareness of my body; I find I have a slightly new perspective on everyday life, seeing the positive more readily and being better able to shake of the negative—or at least to put it in perspective. The class’s focus on exploring body movement and body awareness internally, with our eyes closed, allowed me to explore, to feel, and to experience embodiment in new ways. The emphasis on informal meditation thematized and allowed me to pursue more explicitly habits that I was already trying to cultivate.

I have come to know new colleague-friends and strengthened or refashioned relationships with old ones. There is an amazingly robust support network here, so much strength and wisdom, but I think its potential usually goes unrecognized. Being part of that network these past several weeks has been a wonderful gift.

In what ways might you use what you’ve learned in the scope of your work at Denison?

I have already used some of the tools we learned in this training in my conversations with advisees to offer them ways to reduce their stress and anxieties. I was already using very brief yoga sequences in my classes to help students get centered and ready to learn and will continue to do so. (This semester, for whatever reason, students responded even more positively than they have in the past; maybe it was because I was participating in the MBSR training.) I began thinking about ways to incorporate mindfulness into my pedagogy in other ways since engaging with the work of Becky Thompson (Teaching With Tenderness, 2017), so this experience contributes to an on-going project.

Hanna Hurwitz, Associate Professor of Music Coordinator of String Studies

Why did you take the class?

Although I have had a meditation practice of my own for many years, I felt that I had hit a plateau with this. I took the MBSR class because I wanted clarity and direction in terms of what I could do to keep growing, and how I could continue to foster wellness in my own life. I also took the class because, at its core, mindfulness is the practice of awareness and attention. In my experience as a performing artist, this is an essential component of learning, improving, and performing on an instrument. So, I hoped that the class would help me expand my understanding of how this can be integrated into performing and teaching an instrument.

What did you get from the class?

In addition to the practical application of mindfulness in playing and teaching an instrument, I come away from the class with a much more expansive view of what awareness is and what role it can play in my life. For example, I understand now that awareness is not only a skill that requires practice, but also that it is a choice in any given moment. I can choose to direct my attention toward the sounds I hear, toward my sense of smell or touch, toward my breathing, toward my thoughts, towards my emotions. I have choice in how I experience the world.

In what ways might you use what you’ve learned in the scope of your work at Denison?

Because practicing an instrument is about attention paid toward moment by moment feedback, I see mindfulness as a directly applicable skill that can help my students become more efficient and self-reliant in their instrumental practice. In terms of teaching the violin, I would like to integrate and adapt some of the exercises from MBSR into violin lessons, so that students can take these ideas into the practice room. I would also like to weave the topic of mindfulness into my class, Psychology of Performance in the Arts. Lastly, I feel mindfulness practice has positively impacted how I relate to students and colleagues. Mindful listening was an especially useful exercise from the MBSR course that I hope to carry forward with me in my interactions on campus.

Toni King, Associate Professor of Black Studies

Why did you take the class?

I took the class because I’ve been interested in mindfulness for many years and have cultivated my own practice for much of my life. Primarily, I have meditated, practiced yoga and engaged in contemplative movement/dance.

What did you get from the class?

What I’m taking away from this class that I might use in my work at Denison is that the practices we learned in MBSR are useable throughout the day. They include not only practices that require me to set aside time away from it all, but also simple things that help me bring myself back into the present moment at any time. This includes awareness of the breath, paying attention to discomfort in the body and also doing a movement that feels right to respond to that discomfort. I am paying attention to how grounded I am through my feet and how I’m relating to my spine by grounding in my feet. I’m also aware of how I am suspended from my head/shoulders, walking with awareness and being conscious of walking to and from meetings rather than just thinking about the future and getting to the meeting and what will happen while there.

In what ways might you use what you’ve learned in the scope of your work at Denison?

Beyond these practical things that keep me aware of being present in any moment, I think I can integrate ideas from MBSR into the classroom. For example, I might ask my students to engage in as simple practices to help them transition from whatever/where ever they are coming from to the class I am teaching. I think paying attention to the transition from previous classes, activities, etc. might help students be fully present in the class they’re in right now.

Finally, I’m sure I can be more conscious within my classes, meetings, committees, and other things during my day, in terms of when it might be good to pause and come up with a way to be present again. This might be particularly helpful if we have run into something that creates anxiety (such as introducing an exam prompt, or talking about a controversial issue in the classroom).

M. Christine Pae, Associate Professor of Religion

Why did you take the class?

As a critical scholar of Religion, I was curious to know and experience how secular mindfulness training affects human body and spirit and improve physical and psychological health holistically.

What did you get from the class?

A lot. I learned the importance to take the time of silence to be attuned to my body and mind. Also many technique that I learned through the class were useful enough to reduce my stress level immediately. I become more focused on what I am doing each time.

In what ways might you use what you’ve learned in the scope of your work at Denison?

I can organize my work schedule better. I can share some technique such as breathing and an short silent meditation in my class when the class engages some difficult topics or bring students attention to the learning environment.

Alina Haliliuc, Associate Professor of communication

I was very excited to see Denison offer the MBSR training, which brought together a community of people committed to cultivate the skills and habits of paying attention, non-judgmentally, to what is available moment to moment.

This recent training was a powerful reminder of the usefulness of both formal sitting practices — when you set aside 20-40 min at a time to sit or move with attention to your breath, thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations — and of informal ones. Of the latter, my favorite is tuning in and using a key phrase to reframe a situation. For instance, when presented with a difficult emotion such as annoyance, discouragement, or anger — let’s say when you get an assignment, as a student, or when you are in a meeting that doesn’t go where you’d like, as a faculty or staff — MBSR teaches to notice in the body that difficulty. It will show up as a loss of energy, as a tension in the muscles, or a shortening of the breath. Naming those sensations already moves you away from your automatic feeling and thinking reactions.

A key phrase opens you up to a skillful response. My favorite is: “Is there a choice here?” I love this because, instead of succumbing to a limiting view of yourself and others, you give yourself an invitation to see clearly your available agency in the moment. Sometimes the choice may be of accepting what is in front of you. Sometimes you realize there is a way of intervening with an action (e.g., moving a discussion into another direction; asking the professor a question or making a comment). Whatever the response, by becoming aware of your somatic and emotional reaction, you slow down enough to allow more creative and effective ways to engage with what’s right in front of you.

I’m leaving the MBSR program with a commitment to ask more often, in the most mundane of situations, the question: “is there a choice?” And I’ll be inviting my advisees and students to ask the same in their everyday lives. Ask it with a softened gaze and an attitude of gentle curiosity.

Mindfulness is a practice, though. We get to become more mindful because we practice being in the present moment, in many of our available moments. So, I’m excited to see where we can take this practice in our community, how we can support each other in our practice, trusting from experience that it changes our creativity, discernment, and skillful communication with ourselves and with one another.

BethAnn Zambella, Director of Libraries

Why did you take the class?

I’ve been exploring how reflective practice and adjacent techniques such as contemplative pedagogy might be useful tools for my staff and for myself, as I strive to be a better manager and to help them relieve the stresses that come with working in a service organization. I focused my recent sabbatical on design thinking and mindfulness, which has spread into my personal and professional planning this year. I took an online mindfulness class, followed by two five-week sessions of an “Urban Zen” program at a local wellness center. We held a “mindfulness” retreat for all staff at that same wellness center this summer. Taking this MBSR class seemed like the perfect “next step.”

What did you get from the class?

I got some real value from literally concentrating on my breathing. It helped me physically and I also felt it improved my focus at work and at home. I’m starting to fashion my own understanding of what mindfulness might mean to me, and how I can use it to enhance all of my relationships.

In what ways might you use what you’ve learned in the scope of your work at Denison?

Observing that pause between stimulus and response will be a great way to feel more in control of situations that often arise unexpectedly, and I would like to help my co-workers learn to observe that pause and retain that choice, too. We live and work in a really great space, and it’s sad that stress and lack of awareness sometimes make it feel less than optimal. I want everyone to be able to be mindful as a route to more satisfaction, and, dare I say it, happiness. If we can model this, then students will pick up on that vibe. It’s also possible that we could do more explicitly mindful work with the students as we teach and interact with them.