Meet Shondrea McCargo, MAPP15

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Meet Shondrea McCargo, MAPP15

I spoke with Shondrea as she was gearing up to virtually teach her 5th grade class in Baltimore. Fresh from wrapping up her capstone, she’s far from putting MAPP behind her, like the rest of us newly-minted grads are figuring out how to do. Nope! She’s joining the program as an Assistant Instructor in Marty’s 600 class, which makes the class of 2021 MAPPsters a darned lucky bunch to have Shondrea’s calming presence and wisdom to lean on (especially as they chew upon Jaynes’ The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind). I chatted with Shondrea before her evening plans of a pescatarian dinner and a personal training session

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COVID-19’s Implications for Wellbeing, Resilience, and Positive Education: A MAPP Meet-Up with Mathew White

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COVID-19’s Implications for Wellbeing, Resilience, and Positive Education: A MAPP Meet-Up with Mathew White

Mathew A. White, PhD, Associate Professor of Education and Deputy Head of the School of Education at the University of Adelaide, recently spoke to the MAPP community about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the landscape of education, highlighting the overwhelming need for an increased focus on wellbeing and resilience. COVID-19 has shifted the ground beneath us in many ways. It has demanded us to adapt to ambiguity, isolation, and if we are lucky, new routines. Its ripple effect on education has been far-reaching, and rebounding from this will present both challenges and opportunities. In addition to teaching and learning, schools are stable pillars of community connection and a necessary source of both resources and wellbeing. While we continue to do our very best through the pandemic, new perspectives can be leveraged to reimagine education for the future. Mathew White presents a hopeful and collective path forward.

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Well-Being Shimmers in a Sampling of MAPP14 Capstones

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Well-Being Shimmers in a Sampling of MAPP14 Capstones

From the beginning of the MAPP journey, the capstone is a term that all MAPPsters quickly learn. For every MAPP student, the capstone, comparable in many ways to a master’s thesis, is the culminating project of an intense year. For some, the topic is chosen before the first day of immersion week, with each paper written throughout the year bringing them another step closer to its completion. For others, each new subject matter within the study of positive psychology presents an additional opportunity for capstone consideration, and a topic is not chosen until the last minute (or even beyond)! Each capstone reflects its writer’s individual interest, viewpoint, and assertion about the world of positive psychology, and the topics chosen are varied and diverse.

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Body Full of Joy: Move Your Body, Love Your Mind

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Body Full of Joy: Move Your Body, Love Your Mind

Our bodies are important to how we think, feel and behave. Research demonstrates physical activity not only helps prevent disease, but it helps improve the quality of our life and health. In fact, physical activity, active leisure, and play are essential for our physical, intellectual and emotional development at all ages, and stages of life.

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From Nightmare Negotiations to More Pie for All

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From Nightmare Negotiations to More Pie for All

Why does hearing the word "negotiation" make our pulse quicken? If you close your eyes and picture a negotiation, what do you see? Many people envision a conference room with people in business attire sitting across the table from one another. More than likely, nobody is smiling, there is tension in the air, and the mood feels adversarial. What if I told you that negotiations don't have to be that way?

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Dan Tomasulo (C’12) Steps Up to Lead the Spirituality Mind Body Institute (SMBI) at Columbia University

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Dan Tomasulo (C’12) Steps Up to Lead the Spirituality Mind Body Institute (SMBI) at Columbia University

You might say that at midnight of May 31, 2020, the stars aligned for Dr. Dan Tomasulo (C’12). Earlier that day, he had received an invitation to become the Academic Director of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute (SMBI) at Columbia University. And on the following day his book Learned Hopefulness was released, soon to become Amazon’s #1 new release for the month of June.

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What’s EVOLution Got to Do With It?

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What’s EVOLution Got to Do With It?

A few years back, I was fortunate to share a cab during a downpour of Biblical proportions with MAPP lecturer and well-being expert, Dr. Isaac Prilleltensky, in which we talked about Positive Psychology’s impact on business. One of us was going to the airport and one of us to the train station – I can’t remember who was doing which. What I do remember is our brief conversation, the question I asked him, and the answer he gave me. It’s a question I’d been seeking a definitive answer to across my own decades-long careers both inside the corporate system as a manager and outside as a corporate coach. Here it is: “Is there any real evidence that if a company invests in the well-being of their people, it will impact that company’s financial performance?”

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Continuing Our MAPP of the World: A View of MAPP Across the Pond

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Continuing Our MAPP of the World: A View of MAPP Across the Pond

In our April 2020 post, MAPP Magazine caught up with Therese Sheedy, President of University of Melbourne’s MAPP Alumni Association to talk about MAPP “down under” and connections between MAPPsters from around the globe that were sparked at the 6th World Congress of the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA) in July 2019. Now we turn to Rosie Hancock (C ‘13) to hear about her experience as a lecturer at the University of East London’s Master of Applied Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology (MAPPCP) programme.

I taught at UPenn MAPP as an Assistant Instructor on three MAPP modules the year after I finished MAPP. I have also been a lecturer at the University of East London in their Master of Applied Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology (MAPPCP) programme from 2017 to 2019, where I was jointly responsible for the content and teaching of the main positive psychology module: Perspectives on Wellbeing.

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Letter from the Editor - Cultivating Hope, Influencing Our Future

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Letter from the Editor - Cultivating Hope, Influencing Our Future

Almost six months ago, as we hurriedly sequestered ourselves in response to the spread of COVID-19, finally succumbing to the fact that we were indeed in the midst of a pandemic, I would never have guessed that we would still be under its shadow as we now roll into August. What started as an enthusiastic effort to muster my courage and make the best of the lockdown has spiraled into a deflated resignation to ride out this strange time for the long haul, tabling plans and becoming used to a global and diffuse ambiguity about the future. And in the midst of the pandemic,

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Reframing the Stigma Around Uncontrolled Clutter: A Strength-based Approach

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Reframing the Stigma Around Uncontrolled Clutter: A Strength-based Approach

Danny Torrance wants to clear up some misconceptions you may have about people who suffer from hoarding disorder.

Despite the impressions promoted by reality TV shows and urban legends, Danny finds that the majority of those with hoarding disorder are neither lazy nor dirty. He finds that people who hoard are, well, people -- people with strengths, just like you and me.

“There are so many good things about people who hoard,” observes Danny with sincere appreciation.

Danny came to his interest in hoarding disorder around the time that he earned his MAPP degree in 2015,

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Letter from the President - Exploring our biases: Race, justice and the MAPP Alumni Association

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Letter from the President - Exploring our biases: Race, justice and the MAPP Alumni Association

At the end of May, as Black Lives Matter protests gathered momentum across the United States and around the world, many within our MAPP community were grieving. Viewed afresh after the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmed Arbury, Tony McDade, and so many more, the historical and ongoing trauma of injustices against Black Americans was astounding and the emotional pain undeniable. As people were crying out for justice, many MAPPsters were asking what action we could take that might make a difference.

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Everybody Matters? Might This One Day Be Real!

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Everybody Matters? Might This One Day Be Real!

As we reflect on the extraordinary and tumultuous days of spring and summer 2020, I am struck by a few fundamental questions. How do we live in the U.S. as if everybody matters? Do organizations, neighborhoods, systems, policies, and places where we live, work, worship, and play encourage wellbeing? Who has access to wellbeing, and is it equitably actualized in the daily lives of Americans?

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What We Owe To Others

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What We Owe To Others

(Article is reposted with permission from www.highperformanceinstitute.com blog appearing February 13, 2020)

When I was 10 years old, I was given the opportunity of a lifetime. I began attending an elite, private school in Los Angeles on a full scholarship. I was one of two black students in my entire class, and one of only a few to wear second-hand uniforms and receive free lunch.

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Suzie Pileggi Pawelski (C' 08) Explains How Relationships Can Make Us Stronger During COVID-19

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Suzie Pileggi Pawelski (C' 08) Explains How Relationships Can Make Us Stronger During COVID-19

Suzie Pileggi Pawelski began contributing to the field of positive psychology while she was still a MAPP student in 2007. That year, she was invited to write a daily interview column for the newly launched IPPA (International Positive Psychology Association), and she continued to write this column for over a decade. Today, she’s become a sought-out expert on positive relationships, which she believes are fundamental to thriving during COVID-19.

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A Burgeoning Business with Bees: Carin Zinter (C’11) Applies Positivity Psychology to Beekeeping

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A Burgeoning Business with Bees: Carin Zinter (C’11) Applies Positivity Psychology to Beekeeping

When I think about the “B’s” in positive psychology, I immediately think of the A – B – C’s of resilience, Barb Fredrickson and Biswas-Diener, and the unfortunate grade on my last theory paper. I recently learned that there is a new and exciting “B” buzzing around positive psychology these days: the honey bee!

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Lunch with Psychology Giants Beck and Seligman: Revelations and Tools for Uncertain Times

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Lunch with Psychology Giants Beck and Seligman: Revelations and Tools for Uncertain Times

In a historic session on April 18, 2020, Martin E. P. Seligman, PhD and Aaron T. Beck, MD welcomed 260 Zoom guests to join their monthly lunch and discuss the evolution of their respective practices and how psychology practitioners can help people cope during COVID-19.

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Confronting Loneliness: A Talk with 19th Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy at the 2019 MAPP Summit

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Confronting Loneliness: A Talk with 19th Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy at the 2019 MAPP Summit

Graduates of UPenn’s MAPP program know well that social connection is a powerful and necessary ingredient for well-being. At the MAPP Summit last October, students were treated to a visit from the 19th Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Vivek Murthy, who has made it his mission to spread the message that lack of human connection poses a significant public health risk to our nation. In fact, lack of connection, experienced as loneliness, can affect our health in profoundly negative ways.

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Sowing A Garden of Positivity during a Pandemic: MAPP’s Strategies to Thrive Series

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Sowing A Garden of Positivity during a Pandemic: MAPP’s Strategies to Thrive Series

It was a spark of an idea in the first days of the “lockdown” into physical distancing instigated by the COVID-19 crisis: share positive psychology with the public to counteract what was beginning to feel like a collective emotional tailspin. Penn MAPP alumni Sharon Danzger (C’18), Lisa Sansom (C’10), Senia Maymin (C’06) and Sean Doyle (C’07) got busy and organized Strategies to Thrive, a forum for Penn MAPP alums to present a series of webinars, available free to the public. Now drawing to the end of a 42-day outpouring of information and know-how, the positivity inherent in the 70 presentations has been viewed 5,869 times and counting.

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Strength in Community: Special MAPP Meet-Ups during the COVID-19 Crisis

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Strength in Community: Special MAPP Meet-Ups during the COVID-19 Crisis

On Saturday, April 4th, the Penn MAPP community held an unprecedented video call with founder Dr. Martin Seligman, affectionately known to MAPPsters as Marty.  This “Massive Meet-Up with Marty” brought together more than 180 MAPP alumni and current students to offer one another support, to learn about alumni efforts to address the COVID19 crisis and to find ways to collaborate and build on these efforts.

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Uncertain times. Anxious times. Times to write: Tips for Getting Beyond Writer’s Block

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Uncertain times. Anxious times. Times to write: Tips for Getting Beyond Writer’s Block

We are in the middle of a world-wide crisis as humans face the threat of COVID-19. Is this the right time to write? I answer this question for myself by thinking about two audiences.

  • The people whose anxiety and uncertainty might be eased by what I have to say.

  • Our children, grandchildren, and others in the future who may wonder, “What was it like in the middle of a global pandemic? What did you do? What worked? How did you feel? What helped you get through it?”

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