A one-of-a-kind source of solace and strength
For 30 years, the University of Minnesota’s Center for Spirituality & Healing has been a fountain of teaching, research, and emotional enrichment in Minnesota and beyond.
It has no tower or lighthouse, but the Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing is nonetheless a beacon for countless thousands of students and others seeking mental or emotional healing in Minnesota, the nation, and the world.
Anchored at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, the Center operates from space in the midst of health sciences buildings. It’s a fitting location for an entity whose staff includes doctors, nurses, and other health professionals among its teachers, all dedicated to advancing the health and wellbeing of people and our planet.
The Center’s namesake, Earl E. Bakken, received bachelor’s and master's degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota. He went on to invent the first external, battery-powered pacemaker and founded medical device giant Medtronic.
This year, the Center celebrated 30 years of educating people from all walks of life—especially members of society who have been marginalized—to take charge of their own health or health-related careers.
“From our earliest days, we did something that I think doesn’t happen often—we invited the community in so that we could listen to their needs,” says Mary Jo Kreitzer, PhD, RN, the Center’s director since its founding. “Now, our community engagement is flourishing. Last year, our community programming reached 85 of Minnesota’s 87 counties, and we received more than 100,000 registrations in our workshops, webinars, and series.”
“Our community programming is for everyone, and is always offered either free or with sliding-scale pricing,” says Sue Nankivell, director of business development and community relations at the Center.
"Now, our community engagement is flourishing. Last year, our community programming reached 85 of Minnesota’s 87 counties, and we received more than 100,000 registrations in our workshops, webinars, and series."
—Mary Jo Kreitzer, Director, Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing
Learning for life
Education is both the Center’s heart and its primary work.
Many of the nearly 2,000 students who take the Center’s almost 70 academic courses each year report that the courses help them directly address stress, anxiety, depression, insomnia, and other mental health challenges.
“It is important to note the Bakken Center has always held students as first priority,” says Kathy Marshall, who teaches a course in spirituality and resilience. “Amazing things really do happen when we are in service to our students.”
No better evidence of the effect on students exists than this excerpt from a comment by one of Marshall’s former students:
“[Marshall's course] helped me to realize more opportunity around me in the midst of having a serious mental illness. The course helped me to see this.
I would go out into the quadrangle and appreciate the beauty of the nature around me. In the midst of that freedom, I would have insights into new things that I would like to do. I ended up with more opportunities than someone with my diagnosis would normally have.
More than twenty years later, the Spirituality and Resilience class taught by Kathy Marshall is still serving me well.”
Mental health resources
Beyond the Bakken Center's courses, the University of Minnesota provides a number of mental health resources to students. A list is available through Safe Campus.
Learning for students and professionals alike
Besides offering degree programs and academic courses that focus on integrative healing and wellbeing, the Center for Spirituality & Healing offers the popular Mindful Mondays, a free, online stress-reduction experience open to the public. And its program in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, held live or via Zoom, delivers eight weeks of training in meditation based on ancient contemplative practices integrated with Western medical approaches. The Center cautions that it isn’t appropriate for everyone, but for many, the effects include reductions in stress, anxiety and depression, and chronic pain.
One person found that the program “illustrated how human experience is universal and that I am not alone in my struggles, and demonstrated practical tools for calming my nervous system.” Another said, “I have replaced my evening practice of social media scrolling with sitting meditation.”
And students aren't the only ones who benefit.
“I believe many faculty find great meaning and purpose in the courses they teach at the Bakken Center,” says Megan Voss, the Center’s director of education. “I'm a clinician at heart, which often translates into being emphatic about practical application in the classroom. So often students learn about ideas and statistics in the classroom, but are at a loss of how to apply them to their own lives or in their current or future practices.”
Bakken Pop Quiz
Community Programming at the Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing reached how many Minnesota counties last year (2024)?
85
Correct! The Center reached 85 of Minnesota’s 87 counties.
89
Minnesota only has 87 counties. Try again.
81
We suggest you choose a higher number.
A practical focus
An assistant professor in the Center’s Integrative Health and Wellbeing Research Program, Alex Haley teaches academic courses and assists with clinical research. Reaching people where they are is his dream setting.
Working with partners and community members, “We have co-created and piloted easy-to-access telehealth and in-person pain self-management programs to reach many different people, including members of society who have been marginalized because of race, ethnicity, geography, and income,” Haley says. His projects range from a study that showed how a telehealth mindfulness program could benefit veterans to research—performed in the University’s Interactive Visualization Lab—on the value of virtual reality as a tool to increase body awareness.
“This awareness is a critical part of self-regulation processes,” he notes.
Haley thrives on his work in the Center’s community health programs, which he calls “varied and far-reaching.” At least one of those projects targeted stress in a familiar setting.
“We designed and piloted a mindfulness program for K-12 teachers to enhance their stress management and emotional regulation behavior,” he says. “The goal was to help them meet the increasing demands teachers face within the school system so they could better support students’ and their own wellbeing.”
As it enters its fourth decade, the Center for Spirituality & Healing is stronger than ever. If history is any guide, it will outdo even its own sterling record of serving people in Minnesota and beyond through its wide-ranging activities in teaching, research, and outreach.
Support the Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing Purpose Fund
The Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing Purpose Fund is dedicated to cultivating lives of intention, helping individuals uncover and act upon the values and passions that bring deeper meaning to their journeys.
Support the Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing Purpose Fund
Related Links
Learn more about the Bakken Center Pioneers in wellbeing
Learn why the University is Minnesota’s healthcare leader
