Join Elenice De Souza Oliveira (Justice Studies) for workshops and discussions designed to ignite your curiosity, inspire your insights, and empower you to foster a culture of flourishing in the Montclair State University community.
What is Human Flourishing?
Inspired by the transformative work of the Center for Healthy Minds (CHM) at the University of Wisconsin, led by psychologist and neuroscientist Richard Davidson, human flourishing is the development of well-being through cultivating mindfulness, awareness, connection, wisdom, and purpose. Well-being is a skill that can be learned and enhanced through training and practice.
Human Flourishing is an interdisciplinary field, and many at Montclair are already doing work in human flourishing. This series supports like-minded faculty and staff to share their wisdom and expertise so more students can gain from the art and science of Human Flourishing.
Universities and colleges around the country and beyond are developing courses and programs in Human Flourishing, finding that these programs support the well-being and success of their students.
For example, see programs at the University of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania State University,, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Harvard University, and Stanford University.
2026 Working Group on Education for Human Flourishing
Flourishing in Education: Self, Others, and Together
This six-session series invites faculty, staff, mentors, tutors, and student leaders to explore how education can become a space where individuals and communities truly flourish. Grounded in interdisciplinary scholarship and evidence-based practice, the program centers the full humanity of those who teach, learn, advise, and lead—recognizing that flourishing is not only student-centered, but ecosystem-centered.
Program Overview
The Working Group on Education for Human Flourishing is an interdisciplinary learning community designed for educators, campus professionals, and student leaders who wish to reimagine education as a space where people—not just outcomes—can thrive.
At a time when higher education is experiencing rising stress, burnout, disconnection, and questions of meaning, this program offers a holistic yet carefully bounded approach to flourishing. Flourishing is understood not simply as the absence of stress or distress, but as the capacity to live, learn, and work with meaning, resilience, connection, and purpose—even amid challenge.
Grounded in classical and contemporary scholarship on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, drawing from the Greek concept of eudaimonia as human flourishing—along with insights from neuroscience, education, psychology, and the humanities—the program explores flourishing as a multidimensional and interdependent process, with particular attention to psychological, relational, and ecological dimensions of educational life. Participants engage in both theoretical exploration and practical application, learning skills that can be meaningfully integrated into classrooms, advising, mentoring, leadership, and personal life.
Spring 2026 Training Series Schedule and Registration
The Working Group on Education for Human Flourishing is an interdisciplinary learning community designed for educators, campus professionals, and student leaders who wish to reimagine education as a space where people—not just outcomes—can thrive.
At a time when higher education is experiencing rising stress, burnout, disconnection, and questions of meaning, this program offers a holistic yet carefully bounded approach to flourishing. Flourishing is understood not simply as the absence of stress or distress, but as the capacity to live, learn, and work with meaning, resilience, connection, and purpose—even amid challenge.
Grounded in classical and contemporary scholarship on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, drawing from the Greek concept of eudaimonia as human flourishing—along with insights from neuroscience, education, psychology, and the humanities—the program explores flourishing as a multidimensional and interdependent process, with particular attention to psychological, relational, and ecological dimensions of educational life. Participants engage in both theoretical exploration and practical application, learning skills that can be meaningfully integrated into classrooms, advising, mentoring, leadership, and personal life.
All sessions meet in person, 11:30am-1pm except where noted. The sessions are open to all members of the University community. You do not need to be a member of the working group to attend or to have attended previous sessions. Feel free to bring your own lunch!
Workshop 1 – Reimagining Education Through the Lens of Human Flourishing: Foundations, Frameworks, and Shared Humanity
Friday, February 13, 2026, 11:30am-1pm in-person.
The OFE invites you to join Elenice De Souza Oliveira and guest scholar-practitioner Amrita Chaturvedi for this opening session of the Working Group on Education for Human Flourishing. This session will introduce foundational frameworks of human flourishing in education, with particular attention to their relevance for holistic learning. Led by Amrita Chaturvedi, the session will invite participants to reflect on how education can honor the whole human being—among students, faculty, and staff—while fostering meaning, belonging, and sustainable success through practical, evidence-informed approaches.
Amrita Chaturvedi, Ph.D., is the founder and chair of the Consortium for Human Flourishing and an Assistant Professor in the College of Art and Sciences at Saint Louis University. Her area of work includes youth and adult flourishing. Amrita has been engaged in designing curricula and practices that promote wellbeing and flourishing of individuals and communities, both locally and globally since 2019. She is a Senior Fellow of the Flourishing Network hosted by the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University and is the founder of Youth Flourishing Network.
Workshop 2 – Mindset, Resilience, and Positive Neuroplasticity in Human Flourishing
Monday, February 23, 2026, 11:30am-12:45pm in-person.
The OFE invites you to join Elenice De Souza Oliveira for a session that explores insights for Human Flourishing from positive psychology and neuroscience. This session will explore growth mindset, resilience, and transformation through the integrated lenses of positive psychology and neuroscience. Participants will examine how strengths, optimism, meaning, and adaptive coping—combined with neuroplastic processes—shape responses to stress, challenge, and change. Emphasis will be placed on cultivating enduring flourishing traits such as flexibility, confidence, hope, and self-efficacy.
Workshop 3 – Awareness, Attention, and Meta-Skills for Human Flourishing
Monday, March 16, 2026, 11:30am-1pm in-person.
The OFE invites you to join Elenice De Souza Oliveira for a session focused on stability, focus, and emotional clarity. Focusing on awareness as a core flourishing capacity, this session will introduce practices that strengthen attention, emotional regulation, and reflective presence. Participants will explore how meta-awareness supports thoughtful decision-making, reduces reactivity, and enhances communication and connection in educational settings.
Workshop 4 – Emotions, Needs, and Relational Well-Being in Human Flourishing
Monday, March 30, 2026, 11:30am-1pm in-person.
The OFE invites you to join Elenice De Souza Oliveira for a session that considers trust, safety, and connection in educational spaces. This session will reframe emotions as sources of information and connection rather than obstacles to performance. Participants will explore needs, boundaries, compassion, and power dynamics, learning how relational attunement supports psychological safety, trust, and healthier learning environments.
Workshop 5 – Purpose, Meaning, and Strengths for Leadership in Human Flourishing
Monday, April 13, 2026, 11:30am-1pm in-person.
The OFE invites you to join Elenice De Souza Oliveira for a session focused on living and educating with coherence. Participants explore how purpose, meaning, and core strengths—such as courage, gratitude, compassion, and a beginner’s mind—support both personal fulfillment and professional effectiveness. The session will highlight flourishing competencies as essential leadership skills for communication, adaptability, confidence, and ethical action.
Workshop 6, Part 1 – Wisdom about the Good Life from the Global Flourishing Study: A Public Talk and Workshop with Dr. Matthew Lee In-Person
Monday, April 21, 2026, 11:00am-1pm in-person.
The OFE invites you to join Elenice De Souza Oliveira for this session with special guest speaker, Dr. Matthew Lee, Director of the Human Flourishing Network and Associate Researcher at Harvard University. This interactive talk and workshop exploring insights from the Global Flourishing Study, one of the largest international studies on well-being, meaning, and purpose. This session offers a unique opportunity to engage with cutting-edge research on human flourishing and reflect on how insights about meaning, purpose, and well-being can inform teaching, leadership, and professional life in higher education.
Workshop 6, Part 2 – Roundtable on Flourishing Education in Practice: Implement, Measure, Sustainability
Monday, April 21, 2026, 2pm-3pm in-person.
The OFE invites you to join Elenice De Souza Oliveira for the second part of this session facilitated by, Dr. Matthew Lee, Director of the Human Flourishing Network and Associate Researcher at Harvard University. The session will explore what drives flourishing in education and how to make it practical and measurable through actionable approaches and scalable metrics.
Workshop 7 – Ecological Flourishing and Educational Ecosystems
Monday, April 27, 2026, 11:30am-1pm in-person.
The OFE invites you to join Elenice De Souza Oliveira for a final session that will explore context, culture, and collective well-being. This final session will broaden the human flourishing lens to ecological and contextual flourishing, examining how institutional culture, environments, policies, and relational climates shape well-being and learning. Rather than positioning flourishing as an individual responsibility alone, this session emphasizes shared accountability and collective care. Participants will develop a Flourishing Application Plan, identifying realistic, role-appropriate ways to foster healthier educational ecosystems.
Why a Working Group on Education for Human Flourishing?
Research increasingly demonstrates that well-being and flourishing are essential to student retention, learning, leadership development, and long-term professional success. However, in higher education, flourishing is often framed as a student responsibility alone, disconnected from the lived experiences of faculty, staff, and the broader institutional culture.
This Working Group is grounded in a different premise: Education for flourishing is an ecosystem. When faculty, staff, and student leaders are supported in cultivating awareness, resilience, connection, and purpose, they are better equipped to support others—and the entire university community benefits.
By attending to inner lives, relational dynamics, and structural contexts, the program strengthens the development of flourishing competencies that are increasingly recognized as essential for leadership, adaptability, communication, ethical decision-making, and sustainable professional life.
Program Structure & Learning Design
- Six 90-minute facilitated sessions (interactive, reflective, and applied)
- A blend of short talks, experiential practices, dialogue, and reflection
- Opportunities to apply learning between sessions in real-world contexts
- Ongoing reflection and dialogue via Canvas or a shared online space
- Invitation to continue into a Phase II Flourishing Teaching and Leadership Community of Practice
The Working Group aims to: By the end of the Working Group, participants will be able to: Participants who complete the Working Group series will be invited to join a Phase II community of practice focused on teaching, mentoring, research, and leadership in human flourishing. Opportunities may include supporting the Foundations of Human Flourishing course and contributing to ongoing campus-wide initiatives dedicated to advancing well-being, meaning, and collective flourishing.
Explore flourishing as a holistic framework integrating well-being, meaning, purpose, and relational life, grounded in both theory and lived experience.
Introduce practices from neuroscience, psychology, contemplative studies, and education that support resilience, emotional regulation, attention, connection, and purpose.
Enable participants to integrate flourishing practices into classrooms, advising, mentoring, tutoring, leadership, and self-care.
Build a cross-campus learning community committed to cultivating flourishing for self, others, and the broader educational ecosystem.
Contribute to a healthier, more connected, and more sustainable university culture that prepares future leaders to navigate complexity with clarity, purpose, and meaning.Learning Outcomes
Invitation to Continue
Awareness (Focus, Emotions, Mindfulness): Cultivating self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and mindfulness. This pillar encourages individuals to pay attention to their thoughts, feelings, and sensations in the present moment, fostering a deeper understanding of themselves and their experiences.
Connection (Interdependence, Compassion, Diversity): Building meaningful relationships, fostering empathy and compassion, and embracing diversity. This pillar invites attention to the interconnectedness of all beings and the power of human relationships supports well-being and collective flourishing.
Wisdom (Identity, Values, Gratitude): Self-discovery, clarifying personal values, and cultivating gratitude. This pillar involves exploring identity, aligning actions with core values, and appreciating the present moment and life’s blessings support flourishing.
Integration/Purpose (Courage, Community): Aligning actions with values, pursuing meaningful goals, and contributing to the greater good. This pillar involves finding purpose and direction in life, fostering courage to overcome obstacles, and engaging with a supportive community to create positive change and impact.
By integrating these foundational principles and pillars into the flourishing curriculum and initiatives at Montclair State University, we aim to empower students to lead fulfilling lives, nurture well-being, and contribute positively to their communities and society as a whole.
Spring 2025 Guest Speaker Dr. Tony Chambers
Dr. Tony Chambers, Director for Community Well-Being at the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, will lead an interactive in-person workshop open to Montclair faculty, staff, and students on Thursday, April 10, 2025 from 2-4pm on “The Pillar of Connection: Human Flourishing in a Culture of Belonging.”
OFE Faculty Leader Elenice DeSouza Oliveira will introduce the session, and Interim Chair of Social Work and Child Advocacy Milton Fuentes will lead a concluding Q&A.
Light refreshments provided by the Office of Student Belonging.
The Fall 2024 Human Flourishing Workshop Series
Attend any or all of the workshops in the series, offered monthly. Attendance is open to all Montclair faculty and staff. Workshops will be facilitated by Elenice DeSouza Oliveira, with guest speakers from the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Workshop 1: Pathways to Wellbeing: Nurturing Flourishing, Transformation, and Resilience: Wed., September 25, 2024, 10 – 11:30 am
The inaugural Human Flourishing workshop introduces the foundational elements of human flourishing, exploring the essence of flourishing, transformation, and resilience in the journey toward personal and collective well-being. Join Elenice DeSouza Oliveira to learn about the importance of supporting students’ flourishing and nurturing a culture of resilience within our academic environment. Bring your curiosity, ideas, and insights as we collectively craft a plan for impactful initiatives that will shape the future of our community.
Workshop 2: Awaken Within – Cultivating Awareness through Focus, Emotions, and Mindfulness: Wed., Oct. 9, 10 – 11:30 am
This workshop focuses on the pillar of Awareness. Join series facilitator Dr. Elenice DeSouza Oliveira and guest speaker Dr. Teri Pipe of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Healthy Minds to delve into the intricate interplay of emotions, mindfulness, and thoughts in the pursuit of flourishing. Through a blend of research evidence and experiential learning, participants will have the opportunity to deepen their understanding of self-awareness and develop pedagogical strategies that help students to cultivate practices that promote emotional balance, focus, and well-being.
Workshop 3: Bridges of Connection – The Power of Interdependence and Compassion: Wed., October 23, 10 – 11:30 am
Building on the foundation of awareness, this workshop focuses on the pillar of Connection. Join series facilitator Elenice DeSouza Oliveira and guest speaker Claudio Josuel Alejo, Assistant Director for Montclair’s First-Generation Initiatives, to explore the power of interdependence and compassion in nurturing meaningful relationships and fostering among students a sense of belonging. Participants will engage in interactive sessions that encourage compassion-building and collaborative problem-solving, paving the way for a more connected and supportive academic environment.
Workshop 4: The Essence of Wisdom: Unveiling Identity, Values, and Gratitude: November 20, 9:30 – 11 am
This workshop focuses on the pillar of Wisdom: Join Elenice DeSouza Oliveira to explore the intricate tapestry of identity, the guiding principles of their values, and the transformative power of gratitude. Learn about diverse methods to foster a sense of clarity and purpose among students, while also cultivating a mindset of appreciation for the richness of life’s experiences. Join us as we tailor strategies to incorporate introspection and reflection into students’ learning experiences, helping to illuminate the path of their personal growth and fulfillment.
Workshop 5: Harmony Within: Aligning Integration and Purpose: December 4, 2024, 10 – 11:30 am
This workshop focuses on the pillar of Integration and Purpose. Join Elenice DeSouza Oliveira to discover the transformative force of integration and purpose, as we delve into the realms of clarity and alignment in personal and professional pursuits. Through reflective exercises and goal-setting activities, participants will explore different methods to help students to uncover their intrinsic motivations and aspirations, laying the groundwork for purpose-driven actions that resonate both in the classroom and in daily life.
Interested in Human Flourishing initiatives outside of these workshops? Contact Elenice DeSouza Oliveira directly.
To join the associated Canvas Community for Human Flourishing, please complete this Google Form.
Baggot, A. (2020, December 17). Badgers at forefront of mindfulness training in collegiate athletics. Wisconsin Badgers. https://uwbadgers.com/news/2020/12/17/athletics-general-news-events-badgers-at-forefront-of-mindfulness-training-in-collegiate-athletics.aspx
Cahn, S. M., & Vitrano, C. (2015). Happiness and Goodness : Philosophical Reflections on Living Well. Columbia University Press. https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=69cbe0dd-2624-3dee-9cfb-b51d6993da15
D’Etcheverry, C. (2023, October 4). “Attention and the Arts” lecture. The Art and Science of Human Flourishing Course. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Global Compassion Coalition: https://www.globalcompassioncoalition.org/
Healthy Minds Program App. Healthy Minds Innovations, Inc. Affiliation: Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Killingsworth, M. A., & Gilbert, D. T. (2010). A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind. Science, 330(6006), 932. https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=fbe4f2d7-51e1-34bb-8f10-1d31bcfede2a
Siegel, D. J. (2022). IntraConnected: MWe (Me + We) as the Integration of Self, Identity, and Belonging. W. W. Norton & Company. https://montclair.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1431976805
Last Modified: Wednesday, January 28, 2026 1:27 pm
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