Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ
at the John and Bayard Cobb Peace Lecture
Video: "Dead Man Walking—The Journey Continues"

Core Faculty

Candace Walworth, Peace Studies Department Chair
BA, University of Illinois
MA, Vermont College of Norwich University
PhD, Union Institute and University

Candace Walworth is an educator with twenty-seven years of teaching experience in a variety of settings and disciplines. She has taught at an alternative high school, toured with a professional theater company and offered a wide range of writing and literature courses in community colleges, prisons and universities. Since 1991, she has been a member of the core faculty at Naropa. Her teaching and research interests include spiritual models of social action, the socially engaged imagination and the practice of dialogue in conflict transformation. She received the President’s Award for Outstanding faculty in 1993 and 1999 and the Student Union of Naropa (SUN) Faculty of the Year award in 2005 and 2008. She recently completed ber doctorate in Interdisciplinary Studies with a concentration in Peace Studies.

Adjunct Peace Studies Faculty

Thomas B. Coburn, PhD
BA, Princeton University
MA, Harvard University
PhD, Harvard University

Dr. Thomas Coburn served as president of Naropa and Professor of Religious Studies from 2003 to 2009. He is currently President Emeritus and serves as an adjunct faculty member in the Peace Studies Department. Dr. Coburn was trained as an historian of religion, specializing in the religious life of India, with particular focus on the Hindu tradition of the Great Goddess. He was educated at Princeton and Harvard Universities. 

Prior to coming to Naropa, Dr. Coburn taught a broad range of undergraduate courses for more than twenty-five years, primarily at St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY. His years at Naropa deepened his conviction that Naropa embodies a much-needed transformation in higher education, educating heart as well as head, and recognizing the interdependence of all people and all life forms. He is delighted that Naropa's Peace Studies program was launched during his presidency, and he looks forward to participating in its implementation. For him Peace Studies conveys the essence of a Naropa education: bringing self-knowledge and peace to a world that is weary of conflict and war.

For a sample of Dr. Coburn’s writings, see http://www.naropa.edu/presidentemeritus/index.cfm 

Ian Feinhandler, PhD

Dr. Feinhandler earned a master’s degree in Religious Studies, studying under Dr. Reggie Ray. He wrote his thesis on Engaged Buddhism, and worked in India with Buddhist groups practicing ecologically and culturally sustainable development. After working as a human rights investigator in Burma, and managing development projects in Ecuador and Angola, Dr. Feinhandler earned a master’s degree and a PhD in political geography. His research has focused on political extremism, including Hindu Nationalism in India and the Maoist rebellion in Nepal. He has been on faculty at the University of Colorado, Sonoma State University, and is currently teaching at Front Range Community College, while consulting on issues of global conflict in both the public and private sector.

Gloria E. Nouel, PhD
BA, Stephen F. Austin University, Psychology
MA, West Georgia College, Humanistic Psychology
PhD, Duquesne University, Clinical Psychology

Dr. Gloria Nouel currently serves as assistant dean for program development and strategic initiatives at Naropa University and as an assistant professor in the Transpersonal Psychology program. She has a PhD in existential-phenomenological approaches to clinical psychology from Duquesne University.

Before coming to Naropa, she served as full-time faculty and program director of the M.S. in Counseling Psychology at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, Pa, where she also founded and directed the M.A. in Leadership and Organizational Transformation.

The Peace Studies program plans to launch her new course, “Border Studies: Lower Rio Grande Witness Immersion,” spring semester, 2010. Dr. Nouel has a lifelong commitment to—and passion for—interdisciplinary approaches to understanding human experience. She believes that a contemplative approach combined with social awareness and engagement is essential to the personal and social transformation needed at this time.

Dr. Nouel grew up in Venezuela, South America, and spent her childhood and adolescence visiting her mother’s family in Brownsville, Texas, on the US/Mexican border. She has lived in the United States for more than thirty-five years.