M.U.M.?s educational change series continues Monday

The education department of Maharishi University of Management will host the fourth in its colloquium series on educational change from 7:45-9:15 p.m. Monday in the Festival Hall of the Argiro Student Center.

This colloquium will feature speakers involved in the Center for Wellness and Achievement in Education and its flagship ?Quiet Time? program.

CWAE serves more than 2,000 students and 400 teachers and administrators in the San Francisco Bay area, and the Quiet Time program promotes meditation within the schools as a stress management technique.

The colloquium is titled ?The Future of American Education: Major Successes of the TM/Quiet Time Program,? and features main speaker Sanford Nidich, professor of education at M.U.M., and respondents by video-link: Jamie Grant, co-director of the San Francisco Quiet Time program; and Jim Dierke, principal of Visitacion Valley Middle School in San Francisco.

Nidich will speak on the theme of the colloquium, ?The Future of American Education.? He will discuss the current state of American education and some of the major reforms which have taken place. He will highlight the newest educational reform, the TM/Quiet Time program, presenting recent research showing improved graduation rates, college acceptance, academic achievement, and attendance and decreased student and teacher stress, as well as the cost/benefit to society of implementing the Transcendental Meditation program in inner-city schools. Nidich received his doctorate from the University of Cincinnati and has been conducting research on educational innovations for the past 40 years.

Grant is director of school programs and research for the CWAE. He has been working with the implementation of the TM/Quiet Time program in San Francisco Bay Area public schools for the last 6.5 years, and is one of the leading experts on implementation of the Quiet Time program in the country. He received his doctorate in education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and served as a faculty member in the education department at M.U.M. for 16 years.

Dierke is an American Federation of School Administrators regional vice president and president of the United Administrators of San Francisco, AFSA Local 3. He has been active in UASF for 19 years, and its president for 11. He also served as Region 5 president for the Association of California School Administrators in 2009-2010. He led a team of professionals in transforming Visitacion Valley Middle School from a low-performing school to a model school in its local school district. He just completed his 38th year of service to the school district, and was awarded the 2008 MetLife/NASSP National Middle Level Principal of the Year Award.