Another Michigan difference

One of the cool things about the University of Michigan is that it is so big that one is constantly running across new bits of it, even after six years.

Today I discovered, as a result of a friend of ours taking a job there, that we have something called the Program in Creativity and Consciousness Studies.

From their web page:

More significant may be the introduction of practical strategies for cultivating creativity and consciousness within the classroom. The Contemplative Practice Fellowship program of the American Council of Learned Societies, launched in 1997, has supported coursework to integrate meditation and a range of contemplative modalities at over 80 institutions—including Amherst, Vassar, Brown, Smith, Wellesley, Columbia, Harvard, Yale, Bryn Mawr, Michigan, UMass, and UC Berkeley—might be noted as a landmark development along these lines. Extending from this initiative is an expanded epistemological continuum that includes silent meditation, contemplative approaches to reading, writing, movement, nature awareness practices, and creativity in and beyond the arts. When integrated with community engagement, diversity studies, and rigorous intellectual engagement across a variety of fields, this continuum is unique in bridging interior and exterior engagement. Creativity and Consciousness Studies thus offers today’s students the best of both conventional pedagogical approaches and strategies at the cutting-edge of educational thought.

When it comes to expanded epistemological continuums (continuii?) I say: Go Blue!