Our presentation focused on the research our group conducted over a year within our own psychology graduate school, the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. Our cooperative inquiry research focused on six facets of assessing diversity - curricular review (through syllabus analysis), student course evaluations, a brief student survey, faculty interviews, re-analysis of a recent “cultural assessment” which included a section on diversity, and our own reflections both as researchers and as community participants.

We found a number of trends, a couple of which as a faculty I find particularly interesting. One is that More »« Less

Personally I (Ryan Rominger) have moved into a formal Core Executive Faculty within the Global Programs (distance learning program) at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. Part of this move was to take on the role of Associate Dissertation Director and help reform our dissertation departments into one unified dissertation department serving the 3 Ph.D. programs at the school. We are currently serving 155 students and will likely be up to 175 by holiday break, and 190 by the end of the academic year. In addition to the organizational change, the Director and I were charged with re-creating the forms, policies, and procedures for the entire dissertation process. Whew!

Besides the teaching and Associate Dissertation Director role, I am acting as the faculty trainer for our new online learning management system - (Angel Learning). It is quite a nice system, similar to eCollege, but the transition from our (ITP’s) old system to this new system has required quite a bit of training on my part so that I could train the Faculty! It has been fun, of course, as it pertains to online education and technology.

Meanwhile, there have been conference presentations (in particular the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education held in Orlando, FL this past year) and papers (1. Diversity Bibliography and Resources published through Division 2 - Society for the Teaching of Psychology - of the American Psychological Association Div. Biblio 2. Exploring the Aftereffects of the Near-Death Experience: A Summative Report to be published by the Journal of Near-Death Studies Exploring Aftereffects). So, yea, busy. However, it has been a good busy and quite a bit of fun amid the chaos. I look forward to getting back into blogging on this site, so stay tuned.

You may recall, back in January 2007 (was it really that long ago?) - I wrote a post about my sister’s fiancé’s short film “For All the Marbles”. Well, he’s now co-written a screenplay for a feature film which he will co-produce and direct. They’ve started quite a phenomenon with their means of raising the money to get the film made - they’re making the film on pocket change!

People from all over are donating small sums (and some not so small sums) to help get this film made. It all started with a jar, and some change out of someone’s pocket, and it’s become much more.

Anyone who donates $100 or more also gets a “Funded by” credit on the film.

You can learn more at their blog Pocketchange Film, or their Facebook group I’m Making a Feature Film with Pocket Change.

Stanford School of Medicine Health Improvement Program Workshop

Wisdom Therapy™: Reducing Anxiety and Anger
at Home and at Work

Wisdom Therapy has been scientifically established as a comprehensive and effective program for addressing the cognitive, behavioral, physiological, and social components that tend to give rise to and anxiety at work and at home. Wisdom Therapy is an integration of modern cognitive-behavioral techniques, meditation, relaxation practices, and problem-solving perspectives associated with traditions. The goals of this day-long course are to teach the reducing one’s anger and anxiety and consequently improving life satisfaction and health.

The instructor Shani Robins, PhD is a licensed psychologist, author of numerous scientific journal articles and book chapters. has given presentations worldwide. He is an Assistant Professor the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, President of the Wisdom Therapy Institute, and a member of Integrated Healing Arts.

Date: Saturday, 4/19
Time: 9:00am-4:00pm
Fee: $175
Location: Hoover Pavilion, #400
Instructor: Shani Robins,
Class Code: wt-01
STAP Fund: YES

To Register, please use links below:

http://hip.stanford.edu/classes/register.html
or
http://hip.stanford.edu/ec_hipwebpages/reg_files/any_reg.php

Can also navigate there from: http://hip.stanford.edu/

Wikis are now being used in a large variety of ways, including as business web pages and as means for students and teachers to collaboratively create content for courses (be it to deliver course material or to post papers or even to create their own specialized topical wiki). Additionally, individuals are using wikis as a type of public mind-map, personal web page, or basic organizational space to help them keep projects in line.

To see examples of the use of wikis or to find out more…. More »« Less

However, when dealing with individuals in graduate schools, those conducting research, or those in the business field, it has been quite helpful to start with this simple triangle and then work into deeper issues of, for example, “am I *good enough* (whichever level you want to take that on) to succeed.” At other times we have found that intentional distractions, and even unintentional distractions, are really alternative ways of engaging the topic at hand.

Let me give an example. More »« Less

In my experience writing my dissertation (a large research project I had to complete in order to graduate with my Ph.D.), there were times that I absolutely fought against the urge to write. I knew that I wanted to write, even that I had to write, but that didn’t help me write. I would either find other things to do, sit and stare at my screen, or write something small then edit it for several hours. These behaviors were entirely unproductive, and did not help me to get to the goal of having a completed piece of work.

During our consulting we have found several ways to overcome writers block. One of my favorites is More »« Less