Transforming the Classroom Through a Wellness Paradigm

Registration for Winter 2022

Faculty, Full-Time Lecturers, and Part-Time Lecturers are eligible to register for the Transforming the Classroom Through a Wellness Paradigm Learning Community.

Wellness and well-being have become, of late, very buzzy concepts in the world of higher education, but many of us wonder what do they really mean and how are we as educators meant to apply these concepts in our practice? In these workshops, we will explore the ways in which we can enhance wellbeing in our environment and the ways in which wellness is deeply rooted in the reciprocity of our relationships. When we are able to work in ways that are congruent with our values and beliefs we are better able to create spaces of wellbeing for our students and ourselves. When our students are feeling a sense of enhanced wellbeing their behaviors and the relationships that they create with us further enhance our own sense of wellbeing. Put more succinctly, in the words of the writer Spider Robinson "Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased—thus do we refute entropy."

Specifically, this learning community will create space in which participants can engage in meaningful dialogue, as well as application of concepts to course materials and structure, regarding how wellness and well-being can be interwoven into the fabric of how educational courses are structured and facilitated to help foster overall wellness for both the students and faculty to better yield academic, workplace, and personal success. 

Over the course of the learning community, participants will explore the following content:

  • Defining Wellness & Well-Being as it pertains to both students within their classrooms and themselves as faculty leading/facilitating these academic spaces;
  • Exploring aspects of Wellness & Well-Being as a means to best understand the current lived experiences of students and faculty in the present day environment;
  • Discuss tools and approaches that can be utilized by faculty within the classroom space to infuse wellness & well-being into course structure and delivery;
  • Engage in practical application of tools and approaches within course materials and classroom management tools to allow for feedback from peers and having a wellness/well-being infused approach to their classroom facilitation going forward in future semesters/years;

Each selected participant will earn a stipend of $300.

Facilitators:

  • Sean Woolf, Office of Wellness & Community Responsibility
  • Dr. LaMarcus D. Howard, Disability Resource Center
  • Julia Heck, Office of the Ombuds

Tentative Seminar Dates: All meetings on Fridays, 2-3:30 pm

  • February 25, 2022
  • March 4, 2022
  • March 11, 2022
  • March 18, 2022
  • April 8, 2022