All Articles: From the Director

It’s an incredibly exciting time within the arts and healing movement. While many of us have intuitively known that the arts are healing and enrich our lives in countless ways, now research has validated impressive clinical outcomes.

The three primary missions most often articulated for American universities are research, teaching, and service. All too often, staff and faculty are engaged in only one aspect of the tripartite mission and operate in silos. As a result, research fails to inform teaching, and both teaching and research are disconnected from service. In many ways, it is the service or community engagement mission of the University that offers the opportunity for true integration of research and teaching and partnership with the community that advances wellbeing for all.

This issue of Mandala gives more than a glimpse of the Center’s evolution over time – our own journey of becoming.