Annual ACMHE Conference

Transforming Higher Education:
Fostering Contemplative Inquiry, Community, and Social Action

The 8th Annual ACMHE Conference
October 7 – 9, 2016
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Registration will open in Spring 2016.
Fees: Regular: $395 / Reduced: $295 / Students: $50

The Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education (ACMHE) has convened conferences since 2009. The ACMHE conference is an annual interdisciplinary forum for sharing scholarship, practices, and research on contemplative methods in higher education, with an emphasis on fostering compassionate social change.

The 2016 ACMHE conference will explore questions such as:

• How do we develop the tools for inner and outer transformation? How do we foster an ability to be more alive, awake, mindful, and engaged with our inner struggles and global collective challenges?
• How are contemplative methods affecting how we teach, learn, and understand across and in our various disciplines?
• How are contemplative practices supporting and sustaining communities within and beyond academia that reflect compelling visions of a more just, peaceful, sustainable, and compassionate world?
• How can contemplative practices affect our understanding of systemic forces that shape institutions of higher education and of society at large?

The ACMHE conference schedule emphasizes concurrent sessions led by scholars, researchers, students, and practitioners that demonstrate and investigate how contemplative practices are being used in higher education to build more just and humane relationships and institutions. These sessions may take the form of research presentations, experiential workshops, contemplative practice sessions, performances, roundtable conversations, panel discussions, or other creative modes of sharing. The conference also features a poster session–a valuable opportunity to connect with colleagues across many disciplines, as well as plenary sessions, breakout groups, and other social settings for interpersonal exchange.

Faculty, staff, students, researchers, and administrators from all sectors of academia are encouraged to submit proposals for concurrent sessions, posters, or both. We seek presenters who model contemplative pedagogy and method in their sessions, and we are particularly interested in proposals emphasizing the specific context in which their work is situated (e.g., academic disciplines, contemplative modes, social identities and demographics, institutional history and location, etc.).

Our 7th conference, Building Just Communities, was held at Howard University in Washington, D.C., October 8-11, 2015. Further information is available at .

Past Conference Programs

2014 Conference:

2013 Conference:
Integrity of Practice: A Contemplative Vision for Higher Education (.pdf)

2012 Conference:
Contemplative Approaches in the Diverse Academic Community: Inquiry, Connection, Creativity, and Insight (.pdf)

2011 Conference:

2010 Conference:

2009 Conference:

2012 ACMHE Conference Keynote

Contemplating Race, Law, and Justice: Some Notes on Pedagogy for Changing the World
Rhonda V. Magee, Chair of the Board of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, Professor of Law and Co-Director, Center for Teaching Excellence, University of San Francisco