A Retreat to Build Faculty Capacity for Mindful Leadership

This initiative brings together a group of College of Built Environment (CBE) faculty to explore the relationships and synergies of three themes that inform our theory and practice—resilience and well-being; systems thinking; and biophilic design—as a potent means by which to enrich CBE faculty, pedagogy, and students in not only what our students need to know, but how their learning process reflects these interrelated concepts towards greater compassion. Building from insights gained through our course pilot this Spring, and as part of the Well Being for Life and Learning (WB4L&L) faculty community of practice, we look forward to engaging interested CBE faculty in collaboratively developing, applying, and reflecting on approaches.

We emailed all CBE faculty an invitation to participate and held an information meeting about the project. Interested faculty are responding to a Catalyst survey, and we hope to draw faculty from across the College’s five departments. This group will co-create a three-day faculty retreat (up to 10 people) at UW’s Friday Harbor Labs on San Juan Island this September to:

1. better understand and find common ground among each other’s disciplinary framing of these concepts;
2. explore results from the UW WB4L&L Spring Course Pilots and models of well-being and resilience practices from other universities;
3. experience and reflect on affordances of different environments for active learning and fostering well-being;
4. create a framework of approaches to incorporate into our Autumn courses.

We will meet early, mid- and post-Autumn quarter to share findings, successes, failures, and next steps. Students enrolled in these courses will be asked to share feedback through optional Catalyst surveys. Our process and findings will be shared across the College and with the UW Resilience Lab, and we aim to explore potential for continued development within CBE.