Message to the USC Community
From: Varun Soni, Ph.D.; Vice Provost, Office of Campus Wellness and Crisis Intervention; Dean, Office of Religious and Spiritual Life
January 21, 2020
USC is an inspiring place to teach and learn, but amid the constant whirlwind of activity and information, it can be challenging to feel fully present in our lives and in our work. As a way of proactively creating a culture of well-being on campus, we launched Mindful USC six years ago as a secular, university-wide initiative focused on positive health outcomes and learning experiences for our university community, especially in terms of stress reduction, workplace happiness, emotional intelligence, and artistic expression. Indeed, research studies have shown that mindfulness practices help us to be aware of ourselves in ways that increase attentiveness in the classroom, deepen the quality of teaching and learning, encourage creativity and innovation, and improve our ability to collaborate effectively.
Accordingly, Mindful USC offers free mindfulness courses for students, faculty, and staff, and since its inception, more than 6,000 members of our university community have taken a mindfulness course on campus. The overwhelming majority of participants report significant improvements in terms of addressing stress and anxiety, and in developing more meaningful interpersonal relationships.
This semester, we are pleased to offer two sessions of the popular courses Mindfulness Lab, Mindful Creativity, Mindful Writing, Mindful Parenting, and Mindful Self-Compassion. We are also pleased to offer two additional well-being courses: Click! (cultivating healthy friendships and relationships) and Sleep (developing healthy sleeping habits and perspectives). The first session starts on January 27th and the second session begins on March 23rd.
If you are interested in taking any of these free courses on campus, please visit the Mindful USC website as enrollment is open now. If you would like to take a course at the Health Science Campus, please enroll on the Health Science Campus registration page. And we encourage everyone to download our free Mindful USC app, which offers guided meditations and other mindfulness resources.
For more information about Mindful USC, please contact mindful@usc.edu.
Cc: Carol L. Folt
Academic Senate
Academic Deans
President’s Senior Leadership Team
Provost’s Leadership Team
GSG President
USG President