Slowing down and taking a breather can be difficult for college students, but students at Cornell University are enthusiastic about the idea. His 10-year-old program at the university, Let’s Meditate, encourages campus personnel to meditate quietly throughout the week with her 30-minute guided meditation sessions.
Cornell Law School and Samuel Curtis Johnson School of Business piloted meditation sessions in 2014, with more than 100 participants in the first three weeks. Over the years, the university has hired additional facilitators and expanded its offerings to make the program available to the entire campus community.
What is needed: Students across the country continue to report heightened feelings of anxiety and stress, with a recent report from the Harvard Graduate School of Education finding that 36 percent of young adults experience anxiety. Meditation can help alleviate some of those concerns.
According to Cornell Health, this practice helps people focus and contemplate one object or object at a time, calming the body and mind. Meditation can also be a spiritual practice, but it doesn’t have to be.
This practice is also popular with today’s students. According to his 2023 Student Voice survey, Inside higher education and CollegePulse, 1 in 10 students say a mindfulness and meditation class on campus is their favorite wellness activity.
How to use: Cornell University facilitators will conduct 12 free 30-minute drop-in sessions throughout the week (5 in-person, 5 online, and 2 hybrid). Students, faculty and staff can attend as many sessions as they like, regardless of age, gender, or ability. Sessions do not require registration, so anyone can participate, including those who happen to attend a session.
Emily Dunuwila (right), Cornell Health’s Let’s Meditate Coordinator, leads students in a guided meditation session.
Facilitators complete two hours of in-person training with a Cornell Health Let’s Meditate coordinator before leading a session. Many of the facilitators are Cornell University staff, but departments such as Human Resources, the Office of the Dean of Students, and the North Campus Services Center, a multipurpose facility where students can pick up their mail, are represented. Some of the guides are graduate students.
Mindfulness in the curriculum
Some educational institutions are incorporating mindfulness practices into their classrooms to benefit students and professors.
At Indiana University and Purdue University Indianapolis, approximately 270 first-year students receive four weeks of mindfulness training in first-year seminars, developing stress management skills such as breath awareness, guided meditation, and mindful eating. I attached it to
The University of Rochester created Mindfulness Training for Faculty in 2023. The seven-session training teaches educators her three principles of presence-based leadership and how to put them into practice in and out of the classroom.
Sessions take place in a variety of locations throughout the week, including libraries, residence halls, the Big Red Barn, cafes, and multipurpose spaces.
Cornell Health is promoting the program through newsletters, word of mouth, calendars and digital screens across campus, said Emily Danuweera, Let’s Meditate Coordinator and Health Initiatives Coordinator at Cornell Health. .
During the session, the facilitator will guide participants through meditation exercises that will help them focus on their breathing and quiet their mind. Participants sit quietly with their eyes closed during the session to reduce stress and promote good health.
“We have a lot of secular meditation scripts and exercises that I and others have written, and guides are free to apply them,” Danuweera says. “Some people are self-guided in the moment, while others prefer a script, like Jon Kabat-Zinn’s script for ‘Mountain Meditations.'”
Scale up: Danuwira said the university began offering on-demand recorded sessions in spring 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown. Sessions were expanded to reach bilingual community members.
Mar Perez, senior coordinator in the Office of Student Support and Advocacy Services, began leading Spanish meditation sessions in spring 2020. The sessions have continued over the past four years and reached university stakeholders at Cornell University Cooperative Extension and Cornell Tech.
Sinon Ji, a counselor and community liaison officer at Cornell Health, began leading biweekly Chinese language sessions via Zoom this spring.
Facilitator training is also very popular, but not everyone becomes a guide. Undergraduate athletes on the women’s basketball team participated in recent facilitator training not to lead a “Let’s Meditate” session, but to help their teammates and themselves prepare for a game, Danuweera said. To tell. “If we can inspire someone to make a corner of campus more mindful, and they do so in an inclusive and welcoming spirit, then at the end of the day, that’s what we accomplished. It will be.”
zen space
Universities have invested in de-stress rooms, low-sensory rooms, meditation rooms, and other quiet spaces to promote contemplation, introspection, and well-being among students.
This summer, Virginia Commonwealth University installed a reflection room in the campus library for students to meditate, reflect, and pray.
What’s next: Ten years later, Cornell University staff and faculty continue to invest in meditation resources for the campus community.
To assess effectiveness, Cornell Health conducts participant satisfaction surveys after sessions to solicit feedback, and staff are in the process of creating a web version of the survey.
“The increase in the number of guides and sessions across the university, the invitation for Let’s Meditate guides to participate in events, and the expansion of language offerings are all signs that the program is healthy and serving the community effectively.” added Danuwira.
Leaders from the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science and Cornell Health are partnering to create resources for CIS students at Bowers.
Danuweera hopes to partner with Nature Rx @ Cornell (a campus-wide initiative that links time in nature with improved health and well-being) and faculty to create even more integration opportunities.
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