Colgate University sophomore Aastha Ghimire is spearheading a new housing option on Broad Street dedicated to mindfulness and meditation for the 2025-2026 school year. Along with Ferdinand von Muench, lecturer in university studies, Ghimire hopes this new housing will positively impact students by decreasing their stress levels and creating a close community of like-minded students.
Ghimire was inspired to create a mindfulness and meditation housing option for upperclassmen students after struggling to find a place in her residential building to practice yoga her freshman year. This past summer, she became a certified yoga teacher and got involved in wellness activities at Chapel House, Colgate’s wellness retreat at the top of the hill.
According to von Muench, students report many benefits from practicing mindfulness and meditation.
“Where it often starts is that it helps students relax and just feel less stressed, so a lot of this stuff starts under the sort of umbrella of stress reduction,” von Muench said. “Many students report that it helps them to be physically and mentally calmer, less anxious, less depressed, less angry and less roiled up in so many ways.”
Core Conversations, one of the three required courses in Colgate’s Liberal Arts Core Components curriculum, is a class von Muench teaches. In this class, students examine five common texts that are taught in every Conversations class at Colgate including “Tao Te Ching,” a philosophical work by Laozi that proposes a harmonic and natural way of living. These texts have introduced students to mindfulness in an academic setting.
“There is only so much you can do in an academic class because there is other stuff that needs to be covered. So I was thinking, what might be other ways to give students opportunities to do this? And I have sometimes taught PE courses on wellness and meditation which is another way to come at it,” von Muench said.
After receiving positive feedback from students, von Muench wanted more contemplative outlets that would enable students to consistently practice mindfulness.
“I care very deeply about the interface of body, mind and environment, and that environment being both a physical and social one,” von Muench said. “So, the idea is to create a social environment for this where people can do this stuff together and talk about this and support each other in their various practices and they can also do it by themselves.”
Both Ghimire and von Muench support and express gratitude to the Chapel House, which regularly hosts mediation sessions. They imagine this new housing opportunity to be an additional resource that enables and supports mindfulness. The pair thinks that creating another meditation space down the hill will be beneficial and more accessible to upperclassmen and their practice. The exact space is currently unknown as its location depends on the number of students who sign up for the housing option. However, the plan is to dedicate a special room to meditation that will be open at all hours and can also be used for optional group meditations and yoga classes.
“We want to be in a house that has a room that is separate from the general living area and that can be dedicated to meditation, yoga — those kinds of things,” Muench said.
While the goal is a house for the mindfulness community, another possibility is sharing part of 110 Broad Street. This house is currently the Interfaith House. The final location depends on how much interest there is in the mindfulness community.
Sophomore Evelyn Sanchez, who is interested in joining next year, believes that the house will bolster her practice.
“I think the community will offer a peaceful getaway for all members,” Sanchez said. “I will be much more peaceful and intentional if surrounded by people with the same goals of finding inner peace and intentionality.”
