[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 133 (Wednesday, September 17, 2014)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1434-E1435]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         IN RECOGNITION OF NAROPA UNIVERSITY'S 40TH ANNIVERSARY

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. JARED POLIS

                              of colorado

                    in the house of representatives

                     Wednesday, September 17, 2014

  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor Boulder, 
Colorado's own Naropa University, in celebration of its 40th 
anniversary. Naropa University is this nation's leader in contemplative 
education and is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.
  40 years ago, a Tibetan-born Buddhist leader named Chogyam Trungpa 
Rinpoche, who as a young man led hundreds of Tibetans on foot from a 
besieged homeland, assembled a collection of students and guest faculty 
for the first summer session in Boulder at what is now called Naropa 
University. Trungpa's vision was to create a university that would 
combine contemplative studies with traditional Western scholastic and 
artistic disciplines.
  The first classes at Naropa University (then called the Naropa 
Institute) were held in a summer session in a vacated bus garage, now 
the site of the Alfalfa's supermarket. The organizers expected around 
three hundred people to show up. Instead, more than 1,300 students 
flocked to Boulder, and in the process, transformed Boulder into an 
energetic center of learning, culture, and the performing arts.
  As the leader in contemplative education, an approach to learning and 
teaching that integrates Eastern wisdom studies with traditional 
Western scholarship, Naropa has always been a magnet for great minds, 
intellectual curiosity, and those who search for greater meaning. 
Indeed, Naropa is renowned for its ability to attract spiritual 
leaders, such as His Holiness the Dalai Lama, political and business 
leaders, and global thought leaders. And through Naropa's vaunted 
Summer Writing Program, generations of writers, performers, and 
activists have come of age and worked side-by-side with some of our 
nation's greatest poets, authors, and performers.
  Naropa is now firmly embedded in the cultural, academic, and economic 
fabric of Boulder. Each year, 1000 undergraduate and graduate students 
seek degrees that will enable them to transform the world around them. 
Programs in counseling psychology, performing arts, art therapy, 
writing and poetics, early childhood and K-12 education, environmental 
leadership, peace studies, religious studies and pastoral counseling 
and traditional eastern arts are training a new generation of leaders. 
Thousands of Naropa alumni are changing the world for the better 
through work in nonprofits, small business and social enterprise start-
ups, therapy, counseling, teaching and writing. They studied with a 
distinguished faculty who are nationally and internationally recognized 
for their scholarship and contemplative teaching techniques. And 
finally, Naropa was recently named both a ``College of Distinction'' 
and one of the ``8 Greenest Colleges'' in the United States.
  Naropa University is truly a Colorado treasure. I'm so proud to join 
my fellow Boulderites, as well as the thousands of Naropa alumni around 
the world, in congratulating Naropa University on its 40th Anniversary.

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