Center launches undergraduate course for ASU students

Over the years, ASU’S Center for Mindfulness, Compassion and Resilience has presented mindfulness training to audiences across an array of modalities: workshops, classroom presentations, online training, and conference keynotes. This spring, Center is moving in a new direction: credit-bearing undergraduate coursework. For the first time since its founding in 2017, Center will be offering a seven-week, three-credit course called Foundations of Mindfulness and Resilience: Science and Practice. The course will be open to all current ASU  and ASU Online students, as well as faculty and staff.

“This is a natural progression for Center’s work,” notes Center executive director Dr. Nika Gueci. 

“Over the years, we’ve had so many students asking about a for-credit mindfulness training option, but our programming bandwidth has just never really supported the work of creating a ground-up curriculum. But now, with the support of Dean Karshmer and Edson leadership, we’ve been approved to develop and launch this new class.”

Starting this summer, Drs. Gueci and Reeves-Blurton began the process of mapping out Center’s content areas, creating student learning outcomes, and developing sample syllabi and lesson plans.

As they worked through curriculum proposals and approvals, one thing quickly became apparent: the need for this course was high.

“The support and enthusiasm we’ve received has been tremendous,” notes Gueci. “We’ve worked with curriculum designers and consulted with faculty from across Edson and the university, and everyone has been so excited about this.”

“With such a large-scale focus on mental health and student and workplace wellness, we had a lot of feedback along the lines of ‘I wish I could take this myself’ and ‘I want my [college-age] student to take this’. It’s been an incredible (and incredibly validating) process,” adds Reeves-Blurton.

Thanks to the support of Edson’s leadership and curriculum development teams, the development time for the course was a speedy one, with Foundations launching in Spring Session B (March 2024) as a special topics course developed in-house through Edson College. 

However, as development continued, Center’s team was encouraged to submit the course for consideration by ASU Online as well. To the team’s happy surprise, the class was granted approval by ASU Online as well, opening the course to 100,000 online ASU learners.

As a fully asynchronous, online course, Foundations will be open to both in-person and ASU online students. 

The class focuses on the fundamentals of mindfulness and its connection to resilience, examining the history, philosophical underpinnings, and evidence base of mindfulness as a tool for stress reduction and personal development. Designed for either beginners to mindfulness or those wishing to deepen either their practice or understanding of the ‘hows and whys’ of mindfulness, the class will emphasize practice and reflection.

Students will learn not only to define what mindfulness is (and isn’t), but understand its historical and philosophical contexts and tenets. They’ll be able to recognize how research and theory support the benefits of mindfulness practice, apply a mindfulness practice to navigate challenges in their own lives and careers, and identify the connections between mindfulness, stress, resilience, connection and sense of belonging.

“Mindfulness is about the self, and the contextualization of the self within the larger world,” observes Gueci, “but we’re equally focused here on its ripple effect – how greater equanimity leads to stronger communication and better relationships, greater empathy and capacity for compassion, more effective leadership, the ability to modulate automatic reactions into more thoughtful responses.”

Students can expect lessons developed and taught by Center’s staff augmented by readings, videos, and real-life scenarios and practical application, as well as robust ongoing reflection and discussion.

Interested students can learn more about the course, view the syllabus, or register (must be an enrolled student to access Course Catalog) on the HCR 294 webpage.