The newest episode of our university podcast, ‘Mindful U at Naropa University,’ is out on iTunes, Stitcher, and Fireside now! We are excited to announce this week’s episode features Olivia Meikle, adjunct faculty teaching Gender and Women’s Studies at Naropa.
Olivia Meikle: Gender and Women’s Studies at Naropa
“It’s our mission to grow more awareness of women’s issues, women’s voices, women’s history, women’s studies worldwide. We’re still so far behind in knowing what we should know about the history of women in the world and their contributions, as well as the lived experiences of women, and the way it informs everything about the way our country operates, the way the world runs now. One can’t really teach a gender studies class effectively any way but contemplatively. All of the best practices of contemplative education are what make gender studies unique, and they also make gender studies possible. Approaching this from a lecture standpoint, or from any other standpoint than just really being very aware of your students, being invested in them – not just intellectually but emotionally – is not going to end in success. Students are doing so much hard work, so much hard emotional work. They’re breaking into traumas, trying to correct ways of seeing things they’ve experienced their whole lives. There is going to be serious emotional labor with these students, and Naropa is a wonderful place to do this.”
Olivia Meikle teaches Gender and Women’s Studies at Naropa University. She co-hosts and co-produces What’sHerName, a women’s history podcast, and is the creator of Around the World in 80 Diapers, a website that empowers parents to travel internationally with their kids. She has an MA in English Literature and Women’s and Gender Studies from the University of Colorado Boulder.
