[Buddha-l] New Contemplative Sciences Center at UVa

[Jo]

http://www.virginia.edu/uvatoday/newsRelease.php?id=18032  

April 10, 2012 - Can meditation, yoga or mindfulness training help nurses
and teachers be more effective and resilient in stressful situations? Can
such contemplative practices be part of a more effective treatment regimen
for major depression, or for alcoholics in recovery?
What can we learn about the mind from brain scans of advanced meditators
engaged in deep meditation? And what are the commonalities between advanced
meditation and athletes or artists who report being "in the zone" - focused
on only the present task and moment, performing efficiently and gracefully,
yet with no conscious sense of effort or thinking?
Those are just a few examples of the types of research that will be fostered
by a new Contemplative Sciences Center at the University of Virginia, said
David Germano, a professor of religious studies in the College of Arts &
Sciences, who will help lead the new center.
The center is being created by a $12 million gift from Sonia and Paul Jones
of Greenwich, Conn. Paul Tudor Jones is a 1976 graduate of the College. The
gift will be announced Friday at the start of a three-day Tibetan Medicine
and Meditation Symposium at the School of Nursing's McLeod Hall.
............The center plans to offer an innovative - and perhaps
unprecedented - combination of diverse programs that integrate contemplation
and yoga into a major research university, Germano said. 
...........The center will focus on providing basic and applied research,
curricular programs and practical applications to real-life situations.
The nursing and education schools both plan to partner with the center to
study how contemplative practices could help nurses and teachers be more
effective and resilient..............
 [more about the center]
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Not sure how many similar outfits are located in US universities
today--there are plenty of them off campuses, located in large and small
cities. This one will coordinate research and teaching between different
schools of this campus, from the Medicine and Education Schools to Commerce,
and similar business-politics-oriented studies. 

Joanna