The Chillon Project takes its name from the poem by Lord Byron entitled “The Prisoner of Chillon.” Life University’s founder and first president, Dr. Sid Williams, used to recite passages of this poem to convey caution regarding the environments that influence our lives. He noted Byron’s key message: “So much a long communion tends to make us what we are.” The question before us at Life University became, “Could there be a way for us to help change the calculus of the American prison environment by altering the ‘communion’ of those at the center of it all?”
Learn more ➤
Engendering a world in which people act out of an awareness of our common humanity, innate potential, and inherent interdependence, where all can give, love, do, and serve out of a sense of abundance, requires educating young persons in the inner and outer skills that can prepare them to be leaders who bring about positive social transformation in all areas of society. Such future leaders need both tools of critical social analysis and the practices of cultivating inner values: strength, resilience, confidence, courage, self-control, empathy, integrity and compassion—in other words, an education that links heart and mind.
Learn more ➤
The concept of integrity, despite being of obvious importance and relevance for a variety of reasons, has been largely under-theorized and underdeveloped in psychological science. At Life University, “Integrity and Citizenship” comprise one of the eight core proficiencies that the university seeks to encourage its students to develop and express. As such, in 2014 Dr. Riekeman, President of Life University, suggested that the next five years of the Octagon conferences would be dedicated to the exploration of integrity.
Learn more ➤
Life University and the Center for Compassion, Integrity and Secular Ethics (CCISE) is pleased to be working in collaboration with the Ireland based charity, Children in Crossfire and its Founder and Director Mr. Richard Moore to support Children in Crossfire’s innovative “Educating the Heart” program. The story of Children in Crossfire has its roots in what began as a tragedy and ended as a triumph of the human spirit to overcome adversity. In 1972, aged 10, Richard Moore was blinded by a rubber bullet fired by a British soldier at point blank range into his face. Amazingly, from childhood to the present day, he has never allowed bitterness to stunt his development. “I have learned to see life in a different way”, is how he describes his remarkable acceptance of what, for most, would be a debilitating trauma.
Learn more ➤
Compassionate Integrity Training (CIT) is a multi-part training program that teaches basic human values as skills based on the Dalai Lama’s model of secular ethics, an approach to the cultivation of pro-social values based on common sense, common experience and science. CIT is grounded in individual’s natural capacity for kindness and is built on the two pillars of common humanity and interdependence. CIT employs an integrative educational model that incorporates three foci of knowledge: 1) Personal, 2) Social, and 3) Systems. The Personal refers to how one relates to oneself, the knowledge and skills related to the inner life of the individual, including integrity, emotional awareness, emotional intelligence, self-compassion, courage, inner fortitude, forbearance, as well as the key inner values of forgiveness of others, contentment and generosity. The Social refers to how one relates to others, the knowledge and skills related to social intelligence and dealing effectively and ethically with others. This includes empathy, impartiality, gratitude, endearment, and compassion. Systems refer to how one engages with the larger world, putting the values cultivated in the program into practice in the real world.
Compassionate Integrity Training modules can be found here.
Learn more ➤
