Bowles Chapel Lectures

Bowles Chapel Lectures: Mindfulness, Compassion & Collaboration in our Diverse Community

The 31st annual 2017 Bowles Chapel Lectures presents Mindfulness, Compassion and Collaboration in Our Diverse Community featuring Rhonda V. Magee, B.A., M.A., J.D., educator, author and professor of law at the University of San Francisco. The Houston area is vast and rich in diverse cultures, spiritualities, races, genders and other communities. This means health care and psycho-social-spiritual professionals need to practice with awareness, sensitivity and compassion. Professor Magee is a teacher of mindfulness-based stress reduction interventions for lawyers, students, justice system officers and communities across the nation for minimizing social-identity-based bias. Having studied at the Oasis Institute at University of Massachusetts Medical Center, Professor Magee is founder for strategies to transform the criminal justice system and our culture through mindfulness and compassion practices. Bias of any source, including social-identity-based bias, oppresses individuals spiritually, emotionally, psychologically and socially, and can affect physical wellbeing, according to Professor Magee. Professionals need to give high importance to honoring diversity and strive for inclusivity by embracing each individual’s differentness. The body of research indicates that mindfulness and compassion practices assist in developing awareness, regulating emotions, and improving health and wellbeing, while raising our sense of interconnectedness. Professor Magee invites us, through contemplative mindfulness practices, to “The Way of ColorInsight.”

Note: Parking is available in the Medical Plaza Garage for $6 or in the surrounding lots for $5 to $6.