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UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute established with $20 million grant

The UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute, which will be located in the Luskin School of Public Affairs, will undertake research, engage in public outreach and educate students on kindness. The institute was established Wednesday. (Daily Bruin file photo)

By Sameera Pant

Sept. 27, 2019 1:51 a.m.

A new institute at UCLA aims to undertake research, engage in public outreach and educate students on kindness.

The UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute, established Wednesday, was funded by a $20 million grant from the Bedari Foundation, an organization that aims to bring awareness to health and wellness issues. Daniel M. T. Fessler, an anthropology professor, will serve as the inaugural director of the institute, which will be housed in the UCLA social sciences division.

The institute, funded by Matthew C. Harris, a UCLA alumnus, and his wife Jennifer Harris, will concentrate on interdisciplinary research of kindness, student education and public engagement. Its first classes are slated to run winter quarter, with a more extensive class offering planned for next fall.

The institute will also offer workshops for students, Fessler said.

“Some of them will involve mindful meditation, which is a form of meditation that includes a focus on compassion and kindness towards others,” Fessler said. “There will be less formal opportunities for students to participate in addition to (classes).”

However, the institute’s main focus will be its research. Effort will be put toward organizing faculty research and supporting graduate students who conduct research in areas relevant to the institute’s focus on kindness and positive relationships, Fessler said.

Although the institute will have a physical presence on North Campus in the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, it is intended to span multiple fields across the humanities and science, Fessler said.

“We have faculty from psychology, from psychiatry, from sociology (and) from anthropology,” he said. “(There are) people in economics who have expressed an interest. It will certainly span the entire campus.”

Fessler said that even though the institute was recently established, UCLA has already served as a home for research on kindness, positive relationships and mental wellness. For instance, for the past four years, Fessler’s own lab has researched how witnessing kindness can evoke an emotional response in people.

“Professor Michelle G. Craske in the psychology department has been using kindness as a therapeutic tool in treating depression and anxiety,” Fessler added.

UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center, which is a research and education program dedicated to studying and teaching about the benefits of mindful meditation, is another example of such research on campus.

“The folks there, Professor Michael Irwin and his team, have demonstrated very impressive effects (of meditation) on changes in blood pressure, cancer situations, and studying the biology of the consequences of reflecting on compassion for quite a while now,” Fessler said. “So we’re excited to be working with them as well.”

Overwhelming digitization, alongside rising xenophobia, fear and hatred, means that we need new scientific tools to improve individual welfare and social relationships, Fessler said. The institute intends to create those tools.

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Sameera Pant
Pant is the assistant News editor for Science and Health. She was previously a News contributor. Pant is a second-year economics student who enjoys writing about sustainability and public health.
Pant is the assistant News editor for Science and Health. She was previously a News contributor. Pant is a second-year economics student who enjoys writing about sustainability and public health.
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