Congrats to Our Best of Region Winners!

Wiona Porath and Tim Beaucage of Johns Hopkins University (MD) are the recipients of this year’s “Best of Region” at the 2021 Virtual Region 1 and Region 2 Conference held in March. Their presentation, Navigating Burnout in Academic Advising through Mindfulness, was selected for its excellence and relevance.

We had a chance to catch up with the advising rock stars to learn more about their experience in designing and presenting on the topic.

Wiona:

“I approached Tim about presenting on this topic because there were mindfulness presentations being held on campus [Johns Hopkins].  Since I had done some work in this area, along with some on burnout, I thought it would be a great topic for us to present on together, as we really enjoy working together and we both can be honest with our feelings with each other.  We originally submitted for the 2020 R2, but the conference was cancelled.  We retooled it a bit to fit in 2021 as the topic became more relevant.

My big takeaway from this presentation was that supporting colleagues is more important than ever.  We have all had such a challenging year, and many people are feeling burned out, while at the same time feeling lucky to still be employed.  For me hearing people say how much they need this type of conversation, means we need to keep having them. As Tim would say, “Walk Your Turtle!"

Tim:

“I was super excited to present with Wiona on this topic as it has been a passion of mine for many years now.  I am a member of a wonderful organization (in addition to NACADA 😉) called the Association of Contemplative Mind in Higher Education (ACMHE).  As I navigated graduate school, I found a deep connection between mindfulness and contemplative practices with the amazing transformative work education in all forms can accomplish.  I wanted to bring the practice into as many lives as possible.

The major thing I took away from presenting on this topic is what I learned from the challenge of engaging in mindfulness practices in a relatively novel virtual world - a world that appears to be one in which we will exist in some capacity for the time to come.  At first, I thought that there was no way to do the type of training I have been doing in person virtually, so I was inclined to decline.  After a while, I realized that one of my greatest joys in life is to learn, and to learn how to communicate the messages of our presentation in a virtual space was and continues to be a challenge worth meeting head on.”

In recognition of being named Best of Region (2), Wiona and Tim have been invited to present their session at the 2021 NACADA Annual Conference, October 6-9, 2021 in Cincinnati, Ohio! We hope to see you there!