Faculty

Sherry Ellms
BA, University of California, Los Angeles, Psychology
MA, Naropa University, Environmental Leadership

Sherry Ellms teaches a variety of contemplative practices including meditation and facilitates earth based experiences and their application to leadership, earth stewardship, and personal sustainability. She leads wilderness solos and other nature based programs that facilitate a deep connection with the power and insight of the natural world. For the past 25 years, she has been conducting retreats and teaching meditation in secular settings such as Outward Bound, as well as in spiritual settings throughout out the country. She teaches an on line course, “Meditation for Social Change Leaders” in the Ecopsychology concentration of the Masters in Transpersonal Psychology Program. Sherry is a long time meditation practitioner and student of the University’s founder, Choygam Trungpa. Her master’s thesis was “Tonglen as a Tool for Transformative Environmental Engagement.” In addition to her contemplative scholarship, she served as Naropa University’s Dean of Students for 12 years. She has studied with Joanna Macy and trained at the School of Lost Borders. She is committed to investigating the interdependence of landscape and the psyche and facilitating activities that transform human consciousness.

John Davis
BA, Wake Forest University
MA, University of Colorado, Boulder
PhD, University of Colorado, Boulder

John Davis is a professor and former chair of the Transpersonal Counseling Psychology Department at Naropa University. He is also the director of the low-residency MA in Transpersonal Psychology at Naropa. The author of The Diamond Approach: An Introduction to the Teaching of A.H. Almaas, John has also been published on the topics of transpersonal psychology, ecopsychology, wilderness rites of passage and research methods. Read John Davis’s article “We Keep Asking Ourselves: What is Transpersonal Psychology?” www.johnvdavis.com

Colleen Stewart

M.A., The Naropa Institute, B.Ed., University of Alberta. Colleen Stewart is adjunct faculty at Naropa University and the half-time admissions coordinator and advisor of the MATP program. She is a graduate of Naropa's Transpersonal Counseling Psychology Department. She is currently enrolled in the End of Life Certificate program at George Washington University. Colleen lives in Boulder, CO with her husband and stepdaughter

Jed Scott Swift

Jed Scott Swift, M.A., is both the Director of the Ecopsychology Concentration within the low residency Master’s in Transpersonal Psychology (MATP) at Naropa and a full time core faculty in the MATP program. Jed has also been a Graduate Advisor for the past ten years for the Prescott College Master of Arts Program in Arizona. The courses he teaches at these institutions include: Ecopsychology; Transpersonal Psychology in the Wilderness; Deep Ecology; Wilderness Rites of Passage; Nature, the Sacred & Contemplation; Transpersonal Service Learning and Master’s Paper Online. In addition, Jed has previously been a wilderness rites of passage guide with over fifteen years experience successfully guiding hundreds of teens and adults on spirited wilderness quests in the Utah Canyonlands and the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. He has also authored a chapter in The Soul Unearthed edited by Cass Adams. Jed and his wife Dianne and eight year old daughter Anna Gabriel live in Columbus, Ohio.

Soltahr Tiv-Amanda

Soltahr is a therapist in private practice in Boulder as well as working as the Director of the Outreach program at the Safe Shelter of St. Vrain Valley in Longmont. She has taught Multicultural coursework in various capacities at Naropa University since 1999. She also teaches at CU Boulder and Regis University. She has published a journal article in the Journal of Counseling and Development. She is a certified Reiki Master as well as a named Healing Woman in the Hopi healing tradition where she studied healing ceremony with her teacher Moonhawk. She is a Certified Mindfulness Instructor for Naropa University, and has been a priestess for the last 23 years in the Pagan Earth Centered Tradition. She is one of the featured healers in the 2001 book by Carol Kronwitter: Women of Grace--Women Healers and Healing Practices.