History

Naropa Institute (now University) was founded in 1974 as the first and only Buddhist-inspired school of higher education in the United States by Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche, noted Tibetan Buddhist scholar, artist and meditation master, widely recognized as one of the foremost teachers of Buddhism in the West. He developed a large following, which included poets Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman, and other artists and scholars who became the founding faculty of the institute. Naropa University also pioneered the interface between Buddhist and Western approaches to psychology. With the founding of Naropa, Trungpa realized his vision of creating a university that would combine contemplative education with scholarship in the humanities, arts, and sciences.

Naropa’s collections document activities since 1974 in a number of departments within the University, including Religious Studies, Writing and Poetics, Contemplative Psychology, Performance, Visual Arts, Eastern Traditional Arts, Early Childhood Education, Music, Interdisciplinary Studies, and Environmental Studies. Some of the leading scholars and teachers represented in the collections include Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, R.D. Laing, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, Father Thomas Keating, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Mother Tessa Bielecki, Ed Podvoll, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, a host of post-modern literary artists, and a number of leading avant garde musicians and performance artists.

See Also:

History Of Grant Funding
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