The Discussion board on Training Overseas’s award honors educators and packages who create revolutionary, efficient, and wonderful worldwide training curricula. The award recipient might be introduced in February 2026.
Being “very demure, very aware” is just not solely an effective way to remain current and conscious of how you progress via the world — it’s additionally a well-recognized expertise for a lot of research overseas college students as they navigate new cultures. Working towards mindfulness, or noticing your ideas, emotions, and environment in actual time with out judgment, is without doubt one of the methods College Research Overseas Consortium (USAC) college students make sense of their world experiences.
It’s additionally one thing that helped spark the creation of USAC Chiang Mai’s Mindfulness & Mindfulness-Primarily based Intervention course, which was just lately named a finalist for The Discussion board’s annual “Award For Excellence In Training Overseas Curriculum Design.”
Created by USAC Chiang Mai resident director Chaidarun “Jum” Tippawan, M.A., with co-instructors Christopher Fisher, M.D., Psy.D., and Phisit Kotsupho, Ph.D., the course traces its roots again practically a decade to when a USAC visiting professor first proposed a mindfulness curriculum grounded in neuroscience.
“That dialog sparked one thing necessary for me: the conclusion {that a} course named ‘mindfulness’ might genuinely belong in Chiang Mai, particularly after observing how college students rework throughout their research overseas expertise,” Jum says.
“Many arrive in Chiang Mai excited, anxious, overwhelmed, and navigating cultural variations. As they start partaking with native tradition, and particularly with Buddhist teachings and mindfulness observe, they develop calmer, extra grounded, and extra open-minded. It grew to become clear that mindfulness might assist college students perceive themselves higher, regulate to their new surroundings, and develop lasting emotional resilience.”
“Meditating with Buddhist monks in temples throughout northern Thailand with my ‘Mindfulness and Meditation’ class was one of the crucial profound experiences of my life. I’m so grateful for every part the monks, my academics, my classmates, and the USAC employees taught me. I take into consideration and miss my expertise overseas in Thailand each single day. I can not wait to have the ability to return to my ‘second dwelling’ in Chiang Mai, Thailand, once more sooner or later.”
— Madison Westbrook, a California State College, Chico scholar.
Thailand’s mindfulness tutorial practices
College students have been practising mindfulness in Thailand for extra than 12 years. USAC Chiang Mai’s program provided a “Buddhism in Thailand” course, which centered on temple-based mindfulness classes led by Dr. Phisit.
“Each semester, college students shared how significant these experiences had been and expressed curiosity in exploring mindfulness extra deeply. Recognizing this, I started growing a brand new course, consulting carefully with USAC’s director of tutorial affairs, Kara Bingham, M.A., Dr. Phisit, and Dr. Christopher, who introduced complementary experience in Thai Buddhist traditions and Western scientific psychology,” Jum says.
“Collectively, we crafted a curriculum designed to be academically rigorous, culturally respectful, and deeply experiential.”
For the reason that mindfulness course launched, Dr. Phisit, Dr. Christopher, and Jum have centered on refining the course’s content material, practices, and places to higher assist college students’ wants and mindsets. College students study via class discussions, observe classes, essays, and journals. Jum says they need each part to stay related, supportive, and impactful.
“We respect that college students characterize various backgrounds and luxury ranges, so we construct flexibility into all observe classes. College students are by no means pressured into any exercise; what issues most to us is that they open themselves to exploring totally different beliefs and practices at a tempo that feels proper for them,” Jum says.
“College students persistently share how this course has formed not solely their tutorial understanding but additionally their private lives. They describe having instruments they will carry with them lengthy after they return dwelling — instruments that assist resilience, emotional regulation, and extra aware methods of partaking with the world.”
“I’m additionally deeply grateful for the wonder and serenity of Thailand itself. The temples, jungles, monks, and even the monkeys created a peaceable, awe-inspiring environment that took my breath away. I’ll always remember meditating with Buddhist monks surrounded by jungle bushes or wandering via temple grounds the place monkeys ran freely. I might go on perpetually about what I’m grateful for. Finding out overseas was actually among the best experiences of my life.”
— Juliet McKee, a Boise State College scholar.
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