About Us
The Club is extremely grateful to the current mindfulness board, a group of students aspiring to bring balanced living habits to the University of Minnesota campus:
Club Address:
126 Coffman Memorial Union
300 Washington Ave SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455
The Mindfulness Board:
Joey Cronick
Navid Dadkhah
Leland McKeeman
Caela Mitch
Laura Nelson
Katie Pyontek
Hannah Strong
History of the Mindfulness for Students Club
The Mindfulness for Students Club was founded by Miki Dezaki and Alex Haley in September 2005.
Miki Dezaki
Miki Dezaki was a Physiology student at the University of Minnesota, and has practiced mindfulness for several years. Miki describes the practice of mindfulness as something that has enriched his life in every way possible.
Alex Haley
Alex is a JD-MBA student at the University of Minnesota, and has been practicing mindfulness for ten years. Alex has practiced under the guidance of several well known meditation teachers including Thich Nhat Hanh, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, and Steve Armstrong. Alex attributes mindfulness practice to making his first year of law school a more balanced, enjoyable, and low stress experience.
Transparency initiative
You can access the club constitution, accounting details, and board meeting minutes by clicking here
Origins of Mindfulness
Mindfulness historically has been associated with Buddhist and Hindu traditions; however, the benefits of mindfulness and meditation are now relatively mainstream and the scientific community has found data positively correlating mindfulness and meditation to stress reduction and a healthy lifestyle - see Time Magazine (January 17, 2005) and National Geographic (March, 2005) for recent publications regarding the benefits of meditative stress reduction techniques. All of the instructors teach mindfulness from the modern secular understanding and stress the practical techniques and associated benefits of becoming attentive to the moment to moment experiences of life.