The Dowd/Sanders Wellness
and Resilience Summit
from the Positive Psychology Center, and in collaboration with Wellness at Penn, University Life, and College Houses and Academic Services (CHAS)
The Wellness and Resilience Summit is a free, fun, one-day, interactive learning session that teaches strategies and skills to help you reach your goals, manage stress, and strengthen your relationships. These tools have been used by leaders in medicine, business, sports, as well as by college students, to navigate the ups and downs of life and be at their best.
Dates for the Fall 2024 Summit will be announced soon. The Resilience Summit is open to all Penn students. It’s a great opportunity to meet and build relationships with other Penn students, to share your experiences, and to learn skills that will help you now and in the years ahead.
The Summit focuses on actionable strategies to help you:
- Build strong relationships
- Juggle the demands of student life
- Manage stress, change, and adversity
- Increase well-being, focus, and confidence
- Meet your academic goals
- Launch your post-Penn career
Over a million people around the world have attended these popular Penn workshops, including college students, corporate executives and managers, physicians and nurses, government leaders, and professional and collegiate sports teams, and we are thrilled to offer these to students here on Penn’s campus.
Why does the monarch butterfly symbolize resilience?
Monarch butterflies are considered one of the world’s oldest and most resilient species. The monarch butterfly is a powerful symbol that represents change, hope, optimism, and revival in many cultural traditions. The butterfly is a reminder that change is constant and that every ending brings with it the potential for new beginnings.
Resilience Skills
Positive Psychology Center instructors will teach the following skills and strategies during the Summit:
- An Optimistic Mindset: Students will learn how to build the mindset of optimism. We will discuss the differences between unhelpful optimism and helpful optimism and we will explore the six strategies of an optimistic mindset and how we can use these strategies to enhance our mental health, physical health, relationships, and performance.
- Avoid Thinking Traps: Students will learn about common patterns of thinking that get in our way of connecting with others, feeling confident and focused, and responding to setbacks and challenges. We will explore the thinking traps we sometimes fall into, how they affect us, and a menu of simple strategies to pull ourselves out of them and readjust our mindset.
- Positive Emotions: Students will learn how positive emotions increase resilience and well-being and help us manage stress. We will review common positive emotions and design brief activities and habits that help us increase and enrich our experience of positive emotions.
- Joy Multiplier: Students will learn how we can build trust and strengthen our relationships by responding with authentic engagement to other people’s positive experiences. We will explore four common ways we respond when others share their positive experiences with us and will share strategies for being authentic and engaged more often.
Dates, Times, Locations
Dates for the Fall 2024 Summit will be announced soon!
Pamela and Arthur Sanders Family
This program was created by the generosity of the Pamela and Arthur Sanders Family Foundation to underscore the power and importance of instilling resilience and wellness among Penn students.
About the Collaborators
Wellness at Penn is dedicated to caring for students during their academic journey while creating a campus-wide community of care. Our team is committed to offering a wide range of opportunities to access support, clinical resources, and practical tools to meaningfully engage with one’s health and wellbeing.
University Life departments serve undergraduate, graduate, and professional students, providing academic and career support, campus and community engagement, and much more. Together, University Life works to nurture an inclusive campus life environment where students grow intellectually, engage in meaningful experiential opportunities, and deepen intercultural and interpersonal understanding in preparation for a life of meaning and purpose.
College Houses and Academic Services (CHAS) at Penn brings together the thirteen College Houses' students, faculty, and staff to form vibrant residential communities within the larger context of our renowned urban campus. Together, their mission is to bring the academic life of the classroom into the living spaces.
The Penn Positive Psychology Center is widely recognized as a leading organization for state-of-the-art, evidence-based resilience and well-being programs, attended by more than a million people.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Will I receive academic credit for this program?
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No, academic credit will not be given for attending these workshops and students will not receive a grade.
- Can this program benefit anyone or just particular students?
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Anyone can benefit from the skills we will teach at the Resilience Summit to navigate the ups and downs of life and be at your best. Over a million people around the world have attended these popular Penn workshops, including college students, corporate executives and managers, physicians and nurses, government leaders, and professional and collegiate sports teams.
- Is this program only open to students living in College Houses?
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No. This program is open to all Penn students, undergraduate or graduate, whether or not you live in the College Houses.