Community Studies Center

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

Sherry Ellms is chair of the Environmental Studies Department, 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 twenty-five 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 online course, Meditation for Social Change Leaders, in the Ecopsychology concentration of the MA Transpersonal Psychology Program. Sherry is a longtime meditation practitioner and a student of the university’s founder, Choygam Trungpa Rinpoche.. Her master’s thesis was titled "Tonglen as a Tool for Transformative Environmental Engagement." In addition to her contemplative scholarship, she served as Naropa University’s dean of students for twelve 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.