COURSE NUMBER: MBA 294.6

COURSE TITLE: Cultivating Compassionate Leadership

UNITS OF CREDIT: 1.0 Unit

INSTRUCTOR: Laura Kray

STUDENT ORGANIZER: Shipra Agarwal

E-MAIL ADDRESSES: shipra_agarwal@mba.berkeley.edu

CLASS FORMAT:

This is an experiential course that will meet for 2-hours each week for formal guided meditation practices (~30-40 minutes total per class), listening and communication exercises with partners and small groups, individual and dyadic reflective exercises, informal lecture, and group discussion.

CLASS DATES:

March 22, April 5, April 12, April 19, April 26, May 3

COURSE OVERVIEW:

This course is designed to help refine your compassionate nature and develop compassionate responding towards oneself and others in personal and professional contexts. This course offers an introduction to guided compassion meditation practices based on an empirically supported systematic program developed at Stanford University's School of Medicine.

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE:

Grades will be Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory. Requirements include completion of two 15-minute online questionnaires (once before class 1 and once after class 6), and weekly attendance and participation (which includes daily home meditation practice using guided audio recordings (MP3s)). Since there are only 6 classes, only 1 absence is allowed in order to receive a satisfactory grade.

ABSTRACT OF COURSE CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:

This course offers an introduction to guided compassion meditation practices based on an empirically supported systematic program developed at Stanford University's School of Medicine.

While the foundation of this course is built on basic mindfulness-based meditation practices, this course will systematically introduce different forms of compassion practices over a period of 6 weeks. Each practice builds upon the content and practice from the prior week.

This course will be covering the following content:

Week 1: Settling and Focusing the Mind

Week 2: Lovingkindness & Compassion for a Loved One

Week 3: Compassion for Oneself

Week 4: Lovingkindness for Oneself

Week 5: Embracing Common Humanity

Week 6: Compassion for Others

Learning Objectives:

• Learn basic mindfulness skills

• Describe the four components of compassion

• Understand the differences between compassion and other states (e.g., sympathy, pity, empathy)

• Apply learned compassion skills in everyday and professional life

• Cite three scientific findings that support the effectiveness of compassion training

• Describe barriers to cultivating compassion for others, receiving compassion from others, and self-compassion in relation to one's personal and professional life

• Identify judgments of compassion; who is and isn’t deserving of compassion

• Establish a daily mindfulness and compassion practice

Guest Lecturer Bio:

Hooria Jazaieri, LMFT, is a certified compassion cultivation training (CCT)TM instructor and teaches the 8-week course at Stanford University’s School of Medicine. Hooria is also a certified teacher of Search Inside Yourself (SIY), a mindfulness-based emotional intelligence program developed at Google and a PhD candidate at UC Berkeley. Hooria’s research at Stanford and Berkeley in the areas of mindfulness, compassion, emotion, and emotion regulation has been published in leading academic journals in the fields of psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience. www.StanfordCCT.com / ccare.stanford.edu