Experience Your Education & Your Life
“At Naropa, we are not just imparting information. We are teaching how to cultivate wisdom. And true wisdom is discovered in the ‘not-knowing,’ in the paradoxes, in the mysterious depths of our Being. When this kind of openness to the mystery is integrated with the body, the mind, and the heart, then our wisdom can be expressed more authentically in the world. This is the whole point of a Naropa education.”
Naropa at its heart is a verb: To meditate, write, discuss, intern, travel, serve, and grapple with the nature of your own identity, your professors, and the world—that’s Naropa!
Life outside the classroom influences students’ growth and development along with their academic experience.
Academic pursuits integrate seamlessly with—and inform—social endeavors and vice versa. On-campus events regularly include poetry readings and performances, theater and dance productions, art exhibits, musical performances featuring on-campus musicians as well as local and national performers, dances, bands, films and special events.
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Student Highlight
“My time at Naropa has provided the fundamental tools to actively engage in the transformation of the world and then use that work to profoundly transform myself. I can do both at the same time. That, I believe, is not only a tremendous gift to me, but to an Earth community increasingly in crisis as well.”— Lucas Sego, Religious Studies Graduate
Doers. Poets. Contrarians. Deep listeners. Environmentalists. Yogis. Passport huggers. Change agents. Different drummers.
We are an inclusive community of individuals, all seeking insight, knowledge, and purpose.
Will you sit around on cushions? Sometimes, because it will help you improve everything you do.
But you will also study with world-class writers, artists, and thought leaders. You will write, write, and write some more, wrestling with the material you are learning on and off the mat. Plus you will have the opportunity to intern, volunteer in the community, and study abroad, enhancing your education through experiential learning.
🌼 Humans of Naropa: Chicago
“I’m grateful for all the people that have helped me along the way, every single person, my teachers and my students. When I got out of prison, guys that I had sponsored, and I`m still in contact, and guys that took my stress reduction class, the faculty from the University of Arizona that threw me a homecoming party, everyone who helped me get a bachelor’s degree behind bars, my kid who helped me put a GoFundME together, the warden that allowed me to do the grad interview in my oranges, which never happens, my CO3 officer who put in so much energy to help me get an interstate compact, even my parole officer approving my interstate compact to attend college without a job yet, to go back to school, its unheard of. She took a chance. But I had done the work and I know who I am and what I’m here to do. I`m a teacher. I`m a stress reduction teacher. I`m a teacher for prisoners, and it doesn`t have to be incarcerated people, it can be anyone. But I did have to go to prison to find who I am. I wouldn’t change it. And I’m grateful for all the people who have seen who I am and supported me along my path.”
Chicago is a first year master’s student of Naropa’s Mindfulness-Based Transpersonal Counseling program. This summer, he got out of prison after 25 years for an armed robbery in 1999. Now, he has a joy for life that is infectious to everyone who meets him and lives his life as he says, “like an open book.” While in prison he learned mindfulness and Buddhist meditation and became an avid practitioner with a daily practice and has led workshops and classes for other inmates since 2012. Through his education he plans to go back to work with inmates teaching stress-reduction, mindfulness, and compassion. He has written a series of stress-reduction books for prisoners that will be published, is getting his facilitator certificate in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, and just started a non-profit that will house all his stress-reduction work which he hopes will impact many to come.
🌼 Humans of Naropa: Chicago
“I’m grateful for all the people that have helped me along the way, every single person, my teachers and my students. When I got out of prison, guys that I had sponsored, and I`m still in contact, and guys that took my stress reduction class, the faculty from the University of Arizona that threw me a homecoming party, everyone who helped me get a bachelor’s degree behind bars, my kid who helped me put a GoFundME together, the warden that allowed me to do the grad interview in my oranges, which never happens, my CO3 officer who put in so much energy to help me get an interstate compact, even my parole officer approving my interstate compact to attend college without a job yet, to go back to school, its unheard of. She took a chance. But I had done the work and I know who I am and what I’m here to do. I`m a teacher. I`m a stress reduction teacher. I`m a teacher for prisoners, and it doesn`t have to be incarcerated people, it can be anyone. But I did have to go to prison to find who I am. I wouldn’t change it. And I’m grateful for all the people who have seen who I am and supported me along my path.”
Chicago is a first year master’s student of Naropa’s Mindfulness-Based Transpersonal Counseling program. This summer, he got out of prison after 25 years for an armed robbery in 1999. Now, he has a joy for life that is infectious to everyone who meets him and lives his life as he says, “like an open book.” While in prison he learned mindfulness and Buddhist meditation and became an avid practitioner with a daily practice and has led workshops and classes for other inmates since 2012. Through his education he plans to go back to work with inmates teaching stress-reduction, mindfulness, and compassion. He has written a series of stress-reduction books for prisoners that will be published, is getting his facilitator certificate in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, and just started a non-profit that will house all his stress-reduction work which he hopes will impact many to come.
🌼 Humans of Naropa: Giovannina Jobson
“My favorite thing to teach is Buddhist Studies, the Dharma, because it just makes a huge difference in people`s lives when someone starts to really ‘get’ how you create the world that you live in and that the choices you make reflect who you are at any given time. The Dharma is so down to Earth. In Buddhism there is no salvation that you can seek out there, so you have to stop looking at the sky to be saved. You, of course, have resources and people you trust and friends and family, but on a basic, ultimate level there`s just you—your mental stream, your consciousness and your emotions and you have to do the work yourself. There`s just no other way. The Buddha said the Earth is my witness when he was asked to prove that he had attained liberation. When you are down to Earth you are also more in harmony with yourself, and being in harmony with yourself is another way of being in harmony and connected with all of existence. If you can just sit and feel the earth breathing, feel the trees breathing and connect with that rhythm, you belong to this world. You don`t need somebody to say, you`re okay, or it`s okay that you were born. You just belong.”
Giovannina has been a professor in Naropa’s Wisdom Traditions department for over 23 years. She teaches in the Masters of Divinity (Mdiv) program as well as undergraduate courses on meditation, ritual arts, Maitri Space Awareness, and compassion. She was instrumental in helping to establish the Mdiv program at Naropa with a group of faculty decades ago. She is also an alumnx of Naropa’s former MA in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism and Contemplative Religion program. Outside of Naropa, she teaches meditation for non-profits, corporate retreats, and with domestic abuse survivors as well as in prisons and senior citizen centers. She loves spending time with her partner, Phil Stanley, another Naropa professor of Wisdom Traditions, and her three grandchildren. She`s a lover of mystical spiritual traditions of all kinds, and especially the Buddhadharma. Her work at Naropa and in the community is offered with devotion and gratitude to her teacher Trungpa Rinpoche.
🌼 Humans of Naropa: Giovannina Jobson
“My favorite thing to teach is Buddhist Studies, the Dharma, because it just makes a huge difference in people`s lives when someone starts to really ‘get’ how you create the world that you live in and that the choices you make reflect who you are at any given time. The Dharma is so down to Earth. In Buddhism there is no salvation that you can seek out there, so you have to stop looking at the sky to be saved. You, of course, have resources and people you trust and friends and family, but on a basic, ultimate level there`s just you—your mental stream, your consciousness and your emotions and you have to do the work yourself. There`s just no other way. The Buddha said the Earth is my witness when he was asked to prove that he had attained liberation. When you are down to Earth you are also more in harmony with yourself, and being in harmony with yourself is another way of being in harmony and connected with all of existence. If you can just sit and feel the earth breathing, feel the trees breathing and connect with that rhythm, you belong to this world. You don`t need somebody to say, you`re okay, or it`s okay that you were born. You just belong.”
Giovannina has been a professor in Naropa’s Wisdom Traditions department for over 23 years. She teaches in the Masters of Divinity (Mdiv) program as well as undergraduate courses on meditation, ritual arts, Maitri Space Awareness, and compassion. She was instrumental in helping to establish the Mdiv program at Naropa with a group of faculty decades ago. She is also an alumnx of Naropa’s former MA in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism and Contemplative Religion program. Outside of Naropa, she teaches meditation for non-profits, corporate retreats, and with domestic abuse survivors as well as in prisons and senior citizen centers. She loves spending time with her partner, Phil Stanley, another Naropa professor of Wisdom Traditions, and her three grandchildren. She`s a lover of mystical spiritual traditions of all kinds, and especially the Buddhadharma. Her work at Naropa and in the community is offered with devotion and gratitude to her teacher Trungpa Rinpoche.
🌼 Humans of Naropa: Moudi Sbeity
“I`m a fairly open book, quite literally. I talk about what I`m passionate about quite obsessively: I love writing and poetry as mindfulness and transpersonal practices. I see writing as an archeology of soul and the pen is your digging tool. You dig through your experiences to process them, and throughout that process you get to take a step back and witness what you`ve experienced, and find beautiful gems from the past that have shaped you.
What feels important to me most days is language. So true to writing and poetry, language shapes our experience. It`s how we can show who we are. There`s a saying in Lebanon that a vessel spills what it contains. I care about this world a lot, and I love this world in a way that it`s painful at times to see what`s happening and how cruel and violent we can be. And I find that it all comes back to language and story. The way we show up in our words and our actions really shape the reality we experience. Writing and poetry are a way to refine not just how we think, but how we express what we feel and I think that has the power to create a more possible world for everybody.”
Moudi is a writer, poet, and grad student currently in his second year of the MA in Mindfulness-Based Transpersonal Counseling program. He is author of the forthcoming memoir Habibi Means Beloved: a spirited queer memoir about stuttering, war and belonging. Originally from Lebanon his life has taken remarkable turns—he sued the state of Utah for the right to marry his former husband over a decade ago which paved the way for legalization of same-sex marriage in 5 states after a Supreme Court ruling. He also co-owned a Lebanese restaurant in Salt Lake City and currently facilitates poetry and writing workshops. Having grown up with a stutter, Moudi has found language and public speaking to be an empowering process of visibility and revolution. He describes himself as a Sufi at heart.
🌼 Humans of Naropa: Moudi Sbeity
“I`m a fairly open book, quite literally. I talk about what I`m passionate about quite obsessively: I love writing and poetry as mindfulness and transpersonal practices. I see writing as an archeology of soul and the pen is your digging tool. You dig through your experiences to process them, and throughout that process you get to take a step back and witness what you`ve experienced, and find beautiful gems from the past that have shaped you.
What feels important to me most days is language. So true to writing and poetry, language shapes our experience. It`s how we can show who we are. There`s a saying in Lebanon that a vessel spills what it contains. I care about this world a lot, and I love this world in a way that it`s painful at times to see what`s happening and how cruel and violent we can be. And I find that it all comes back to language and story. The way we show up in our words and our actions really shape the reality we experience. Writing and poetry are a way to refine not just how we think, but how we express what we feel and I think that has the power to create a more possible world for everybody.”
Moudi is a writer, poet, and grad student currently in his second year of the MA in Mindfulness-Based Transpersonal Counseling program. He is author of the forthcoming memoir Habibi Means Beloved: a spirited queer memoir about stuttering, war and belonging. Originally from Lebanon his life has taken remarkable turns—he sued the state of Utah for the right to marry his former husband over a decade ago which paved the way for legalization of same-sex marriage in 5 states after a Supreme Court ruling. He also co-owned a Lebanese restaurant in Salt Lake City and currently facilitates poetry and writing workshops. Having grown up with a stutter, Moudi has found language and public speaking to be an empowering process of visibility and revolution. He describes himself as a Sufi at heart.
🌼 Humans of Naropa: Lodi Siefer
“Recently in the larger field, social justice and earth justice have people looking deeper and saying, oh, the same extractive and exploitive systems underlie both and then that ripples out into everything. This is our collective home, there is no other planet, and we`re all in this together, whether we agree with each other or not. So to me, when I say climate justice, it is all of it— it`s food systems, it`s transportation, it`s housing, it`s wage theft, it`s immigration issues, it`s all of those things that are part of a particular narrative that sees us as separate from one another and that it`s possible for someone to benefit while others are oppressed. That’s just not how things actually work long term; it’s wonderful that we live on a planet where that just isn`t the truth. We have to realize we are completely inseparable and dependent upon each other. Both on other humans but also every breath I take is a gift from the trees and every out breath, without any effort on my part, is food for them. We were built to be co-developing and we evolved to be a keystone species on this planet. Some things I’ve learned from Indigenous scholars like Lyla June is that in the geological record wherever humans appeared in a place, biodiversity grew. We are capable of being caretakers of this planet and I think we`re actually wired for that much more than we’re wired for fear or loss of that sense of connectedness.”
Lodi is an alumnx of the MA of Contemplative Psychotherapy program and former adjunct faculty for the MA in Clinical Mental Health Counseling in the Somatic-based and Buddhism-Informed concentrations. They are now the co-director of the Climate Justice Hive—a Boulder organization that acts as the connective tissue for many local climate justice organizations, making it easier for them to coordinate and collaborate across sectors. Through the lessons the Hive learns in movement organizing and fiscal hosting for grassroots efforts, the model will be offered and extended to further cities across the US and beyond.
🌼 Humans of Naropa: Lodi Siefer
“Recently in the larger field, social justice and earth justice have people looking deeper and saying, oh, the same extractive and exploitive systems underlie both and then that ripples out into everything. This is our collective home, there is no other planet, and we`re all in this together, whether we agree with each other or not. So to me, when I say climate justice, it is all of it— it`s food systems, it`s transportation, it`s housing, it`s wage theft, it`s immigration issues, it`s all of those things that are part of a particular narrative that sees us as separate from one another and that it`s possible for someone to benefit while others are oppressed. That’s just not how things actually work long term; it’s wonderful that we live on a planet where that just isn`t the truth. We have to realize we are completely inseparable and dependent upon each other. Both on other humans but also every breath I take is a gift from the trees and every out breath, without any effort on my part, is food for them. We were built to be co-developing and we evolved to be a keystone species on this planet. Some things I’ve learned from Indigenous scholars like Lyla June is that in the geological record wherever humans appeared in a place, biodiversity grew. We are capable of being caretakers of this planet and I think we`re actually wired for that much more than we’re wired for fear or loss of that sense of connectedness.”
Lodi is an alumnx of the MA of Contemplative Psychotherapy program and former adjunct faculty for the MA in Clinical Mental Health Counseling in the Somatic-based and Buddhism-Informed concentrations. They are now the co-director of the Climate Justice Hive—a Boulder organization that acts as the connective tissue for many local climate justice organizations, making it easier for them to coordinate and collaborate across sectors. Through the lessons the Hive learns in movement organizing and fiscal hosting for grassroots efforts, the model will be offered and extended to further cities across the US and beyond.
🌼 Humans of Naropa: Drew Grindley
“It really makes me think about my favorite therapy modality, which is Internal Family Systems. I love it because it helps bring this view of ministering care to yourself as you would another person. Like, what would you do if there was a child here in front of you? You would care for them. You would give them what they need. Sometimes, it’s hard for people to recognize the child that we were still lives in us. In IFS, you get to find the different parts of yourself, the different selves with different ages that are within you and start caring for them. And it`s really beautiful knowing that I don`t have to be all the same person, I can be so many different aspects. Its like what Whitman says: I contain multitudes. I can say that I hate my dad and I can say I love my dad, because they’re each part of it. And I`m passionate about sharing that with other people and letting them see that vision of the 13-year-old, or 6-year-old version of you that’s still alive. In cases with trauma it`s more pronounced, but we all have these multitudes that are there and waiting on you. There`s no one else that can come in and say: you`re okay, I`m here for you now, your suffering isn`t over, but I`ll be in it with you. That older, mature you can be the parent, the provider and the caretaker that younger you needed and maybe didn`t have. And you can say to those parts of you—it`s okay, I`m here. And that`s part of being a healthy adult is learning how to hold myself in my youth and in that insecurity and keep moving.”
Drew is a graduate student of the Clinical Mental Health Counseling: Mindfulness-Based Transpersonal track. She is an avid writer, rock climber, gamer, and reader. She’s interested in getting involved in the applied research of human sexuality with Naropa professors and AASECT and making a career of helping others on their healing path to authenticity, integrity, and wholeness.
🌼 Humans of Naropa: Drew Grindley
“It really makes me think about my favorite therapy modality, which is Internal Family Systems. I love it because it helps bring this view of ministering care to yourself as you would another person. Like, what would you do if there was a child here in front of you? You would care for them. You would give them what they need. Sometimes, it’s hard for people to recognize the child that we were still lives in us. In IFS, you get to find the different parts of yourself, the different selves with different ages that are within you and start caring for them. And it`s really beautiful knowing that I don`t have to be all the same person, I can be so many different aspects. Its like what Whitman says: I contain multitudes. I can say that I hate my dad and I can say I love my dad, because they’re each part of it. And I`m passionate about sharing that with other people and letting them see that vision of the 13-year-old, or 6-year-old version of you that’s still alive. In cases with trauma it`s more pronounced, but we all have these multitudes that are there and waiting on you. There`s no one else that can come in and say: you`re okay, I`m here for you now, your suffering isn`t over, but I`ll be in it with you. That older, mature you can be the parent, the provider and the caretaker that younger you needed and maybe didn`t have. And you can say to those parts of you—it`s okay, I`m here. And that`s part of being a healthy adult is learning how to hold myself in my youth and in that insecurity and keep moving.”
Drew is a graduate student of the Clinical Mental Health Counseling: Mindfulness-Based Transpersonal track. She is an avid writer, rock climber, gamer, and reader. She’s interested in getting involved in the applied research of human sexuality with Naropa professors and AASECT and making a career of helping others on their healing path to authenticity, integrity, and wholeness.
Humans of Naropa: Austin Gates 🌼
“If I had one spiritual belief, it would be that the point of nature and evolution is authentic expression. There is no such thing as the optimization of nature. Nature isn`t evolving to be optimized and perfect. It is optimized to be good enough so that it can be free to express itself—like birds dancing, or flowers doing what they do, or the way certain seeds move through the air or can attach to animals or spread out from their roots. There`s this one particular plant in the Amazon that looks like half a coconut, and it sheds off these little paper thin layers with its seed in the middle, and then it takes off like a paper airplane that flies through the jungle until it lands. And just the fact that it’s been evolved to do that is such a beautiful thing. What a full expression, like little paper planes that descends everywhere. Things like that are just absolutely to be admired about nature. That`s definitely a spiritual belief I hold. That and the view that the ground of all being is ultimately good and that evil is the distortion of the good. So I think the ground that allows for existence to express itself fully is ultimately good.”
Austin completed his Bachelor’s in Psychology at Naropa in 2023 and is a first year graduate student of the Mindfulness-Based Transpersonal Counseling program. Outside of Naropa he’s a neuro-feedback technician, practices jujitsu, likes hiking, and takes trips in his truck. He leads the Radical Futurist Student Group, and even helped initiate a new class next semester that will be offered to students by Naropa professors in the Spring on Radical Futurism: an intensive weekend class for creating collaborative dialogue and creative solutions for moving forward in an increasingly complex world.
Humans of Naropa: Austin Gates 🌼
“If I had one spiritual belief, it would be that the point of nature and evolution is authentic expression. There is no such thing as the optimization of nature. Nature isn`t evolving to be optimized and perfect. It is optimized to be good enough so that it can be free to express itself—like birds dancing, or flowers doing what they do, or the way certain seeds move through the air or can attach to animals or spread out from their roots. There`s this one particular plant in the Amazon that looks like half a coconut, and it sheds off these little paper thin layers with its seed in the middle, and then it takes off like a paper airplane that flies through the jungle until it lands. And just the fact that it’s been evolved to do that is such a beautiful thing. What a full expression, like little paper planes that descends everywhere. Things like that are just absolutely to be admired about nature. That`s definitely a spiritual belief I hold. That and the view that the ground of all being is ultimately good and that evil is the distortion of the good. So I think the ground that allows for existence to express itself fully is ultimately good.”
Austin completed his Bachelor’s in Psychology at Naropa in 2023 and is a first year graduate student of the Mindfulness-Based Transpersonal Counseling program. Outside of Naropa he’s a neuro-feedback technician, practices jujitsu, likes hiking, and takes trips in his truck. He leads the Radical Futurist Student Group, and even helped initiate a new class next semester that will be offered to students by Naropa professors in the Spring on Radical Futurism: an intensive weekend class for creating collaborative dialogue and creative solutions for moving forward in an increasingly complex world.
🌼 Humans of Naropa: Celeste Da Silva Cunha
“As a first-generation student, I am the first in my immediate family of grandparents, parents, and siblings to go to university. I feel that a lineage chain of education for the women in my family has been broken, and I am grateful to be the generational chain breaker having received the opportunity to attend Naropa as a mature age international student. The students and faculty are what make Naropa the magical institution that it is. It has given me the freedom to expand on previous knowledge, enhance my career and life interests, integrating both Eastern and Western philosophy into a mindfulness-based practice. It takes courage, confidence, and discipline to go back to college and enter spaces where everyone is half your age. Naropa has offered just the right amount of sanity and chaos for creativity to emerge, as most students who attend are not your average age and are looking for diversity in a liberal arts education to transform their lives. I would like to encourage those who are entering the next stage of life and have been thinking of going back to college to take a leap into the unknown. Challenge yourself, ask questions, speak up, don’t be afraid to stand out, you were born to be different, that is the only way to experience this one precious human life you have been given.”
Celeste is a senior with a double major in Psychology and Creative Writing and Literature. She co-chairs the Student Union of Naropa (SUN), is a Resident Assistant, and founded the student group InterNations in 2021, for international and out of state student to connect which she is now an administrator for. Also a former yoga teacher, her interests lie in somatic mind-body movement and embodied, experimental poetry and children’s literature. She is in the middle of publishing her first children’s book this year on yoga and mindfulness. She is a mother of 4 adult children and in her spare time, enjoys yoga practice, walking, hiking, reading, writing and traveling. She is a life-long learner and believes that everyone deserves a chance to be educated and pursue their dreams.
🌼 Humans of Naropa: Celeste Da Silva Cunha
“As a first-generation student, I am the first in my immediate family of grandparents, parents, and siblings to go to university. I feel that a lineage chain of education for the women in my family has been broken, and I am grateful to be the generational chain breaker having received the opportunity to attend Naropa as a mature age international student. The students and faculty are what make Naropa the magical institution that it is. It has given me the freedom to expand on previous knowledge, enhance my career and life interests, integrating both Eastern and Western philosophy into a mindfulness-based practice. It takes courage, confidence, and discipline to go back to college and enter spaces where everyone is half your age. Naropa has offered just the right amount of sanity and chaos for creativity to emerge, as most students who attend are not your average age and are looking for diversity in a liberal arts education to transform their lives. I would like to encourage those who are entering the next stage of life and have been thinking of going back to college to take a leap into the unknown. Challenge yourself, ask questions, speak up, don’t be afraid to stand out, you were born to be different, that is the only way to experience this one precious human life you have been given.”
Celeste is a senior with a double major in Psychology and Creative Writing and Literature. She co-chairs the Student Union of Naropa (SUN), is a Resident Assistant, and founded the student group InterNations in 2021, for international and out of state student to connect which she is now an administrator for. Also a former yoga teacher, her interests lie in somatic mind-body movement and embodied, experimental poetry and children’s literature. She is in the middle of publishing her first children’s book this year on yoga and mindfulness. She is a mother of 4 adult children and in her spare time, enjoys yoga practice, walking, hiking, reading, writing and traveling. She is a life-long learner and believes that everyone deserves a chance to be educated and pursue their dreams.
🌼 Humans of Naropa: Cari Lewis
“I had never got involved with my community in this way before. I didn’t want to be part of the stereotypes. I grew up around politics. I grew up in the D.C. metropolitan area, my stepdad worked for the government at one point and so politics were part of my experience growing up and it was terrible. The energy was heavy, and it was overwhelming. So for awhile, I just thought, I`m going to focus on my bubble and what I can control and live life peacefully. However, when MCIC spoke at orientation, and I mean all of MCIC: JEDI, the Joanna Macy Center, CACE, it was like, wait, I want to be part of this. I want to help my community for the first time. My heart strings were pulled.”
Cari is a first year graduate student in the Clinical Mental Health Counseling program with a Mindfulness-based Transpersonal focus. They serve as a behavioral health specialist doing boots on the ground work at a UC Health rehabilitation facility working with addictions and disorders, and are also the Mission Culture and Inclusive Community (MCIC) graduate assistant work-study. Their dream is to open a wellness center after completing a graduate degree where people can come for mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional health.
🌼 Humans of Naropa: Cari Lewis
“I had never got involved with my community in this way before. I didn’t want to be part of the stereotypes. I grew up around politics. I grew up in the D.C. metropolitan area, my stepdad worked for the government at one point and so politics were part of my experience growing up and it was terrible. The energy was heavy, and it was overwhelming. So for awhile, I just thought, I`m going to focus on my bubble and what I can control and live life peacefully. However, when MCIC spoke at orientation, and I mean all of MCIC: JEDI, the Joanna Macy Center, CACE, it was like, wait, I want to be part of this. I want to help my community for the first time. My heart strings were pulled.”
Cari is a first year graduate student in the Clinical Mental Health Counseling program with a Mindfulness-based Transpersonal focus. They serve as a behavioral health specialist doing boots on the ground work at a UC Health rehabilitation facility working with addictions and disorders, and are also the Mission Culture and Inclusive Community (MCIC) graduate assistant work-study. Their dream is to open a wellness center after completing a graduate degree where people can come for mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional health.
