Improve your attentiveness. Reduce your stress. Enhance your clarity.
The Mindfulness and Contemplative Living minor now offered at SJC Brooklyn and SJC Long Island is teaching students how to appreciate the importance of calmness and concentration in order to create an atmosphere in which clarity, wisdom and compassion thrive.
“I believe St. Joseph’s is a great place to offer this minor because the spirit of mindfulness is the same spirit as this College’s motto, ‘To be, not to seem,’ said Peter Lin, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at SJC Brooklyn.
SJC is among the colleges to offer this minor, combining Western techniques like meditation with Eastern beliefs of psychotherapy.
“I am very excited that Peter Lin has brought his extensive expertise in mindfulness to develop an extremely useful and relevant interdisciplinary minor,” said Dominique Treboux, Ph.D., professor and chair of SJC’s psychology department. “This minor will bring students an excellent overview of principles and practices that underlie contemplative practices, including mindfulness. It supplements knowledge and critical thinking skills gained in many majors, not just psychology.”
The new minor is ideal for students looking to work in helping fields, such as mental health counselors, clinical social workers, pastor counseling, creative art therapists and speech pathologists.
“I believe St. Joseph’s is a great place to offer this minor because the spirit of mindfulness is the same spirit as this College’s motto, ‘To be, not to seem.’”
– Peter Lin, Ph.D., professor of psychology at SJC Brooklyn
Mindfulness on the Rise
In recent years, mindfulness and contemplative practices have become part of the American mainstream. Mindfulness has been applied in different settings, ranging from hospitals to schools to corporations.
“This minor really started between (professor and chair of religious studies ) Tom Petriano and I,” Dr. Lin said. “Dr. Petriano and I feel that a minor that combines the wisdom from the East and West is a great gift for our students.”
In order to complete the mindfulness and contemplative living minor, students need to complete a minimum of 18 credits in contemplative and mindfulness courses in the areas of psychology, religious studies, philosophy, communication studies and physical education.
“It’s definitely something that everyone should be exposed to,” SJC Brooklyn sophomore Lauren Quesada said in reference to mindfulness. “It’s helped me grow as a person. It helps me better understand myself and who I am. I think it’s something that could be beneficial to a lot of different people.”
Quesada, a psychology major, took Dr. Lin’s course on mindfulness and meditation last fall. She declared her minor in mindfulness and contemplative living.
“No matter what career I pursue, having this background will definitely help me understand myself and other people better, and I think that through teaching other people the things I’ve learned through this minor, that together, we could just accomplish so much,” she said.
