COMPASSion Immersive Experience

The COMPASSion Immersive Experience takes students on a day-long sensorial journey that engages their minds and bodies in compassion practice and reflection as avenues toward thinking, feeling, and acting to reduce suffering in service of the public good. The event “immerses” students in compassion education by engaging a sense of presence, making them feel enveloped in a different world or narrative, appealing to their senses, making use of space in creative ways, and inspiring awe and wonder. COMPASS allows students to explore questions such as, “What does it mean to be a compassionate citizen?” “What challenges in the world call me to compassion?” “Why does compassion matter?” and “How can I communicate with compassion in my relationships, work, and communities?”  

The event includes a mix of 1) a faculty keynote performance that incorporates slam poetry, storytelling, and hip hop; 2) an orienting session that prompts students to consider their “compass” or the types of suffering that call them to compassion, introduces them to compassion as a character virtue, and begins community-building; 3) workshops lead by Faculty Wayfinder Fellows that engage students in the embodied practice of compassion through art, movement, music, nature, as well as reflection and dialogue; and 4) a closing reflection session that supports students in imagining their on-going work as compassionate citizens.