The Ripple Effect: Kripalu's Semester Intensive Teaches Leadership from the Inside Out

by Jessica L. Atcheson

“But what if I want to reach nirvana?” asks a woman in her teens, part of a small circle of 12 high school students talking with a shamanic practitioner on a summer afternoon in Burlington, Vermont. Twenty minutes earlier they were dancing with a Nia instructor in the basement. The day before? Helping out on an organic farm down the road. These students are taking part in the recently launched Vermont Institute on Health and Wellness (VIHW), getting a taste of alternative wellness as they experience speakers and teachers that include a nutritionist, holistic psychologists, a yoga teacher, and an herbalist, among many others.

The young woman nods earnestly as the shamanic practitioner starts to address her question, and Jeff Mandell, a 2007 graduate of Kripalu’s Semester Intensive, takes a moment to survey the scene with a smile. He is clearly excited. As executive director of the VIHW, a new nonprofit organization that brings Vermont students ages 14–18 together for a weeklong residential program each summer, Jeff is witnessing one of his dreams come alive. He has spent months creating and planning every aspect of this program. And Kripalu’s Semester Intensive played a key role in helping him get where he is today—an integrated young-adult leader doing great things out in the world.

The Quarter-Life Crisis

Jeff’s resume doesn’t want for impressive credentials: bachelor’s degree in zoology, study abroad, two years living and working in China, holistic health study. In spite of all that, he was experiencing the increasingly familiar “quarter-life crisis” that more and more young people are going through—often while still in college or just graduated—facing the big questions: What am I doing here? What am I here to contribute to the world? How do I go about figuring that out? He was considering giving the corporate world a try in New York when he came up with the idea of VIHW. As he was searching online for funding to make his wellness program idea a reality, he stumbled on the Semester Intensive website. It caught his attention. Jeff explains why: “The Semester Intensive is everything about life that you didn’t get in college. From communication to healthy living, it’s about the keys to life.”

So What Is the Semester Intensive?

The flagship program of Kripalu’s Institute for Integrated Leadership, the Semester Intensive—where Jeff’s idea for VIHW evolved—can’t really be compared to college, study abroad, or any program for young adults out there today. So what is it exactly?

Designed for 18- to 22-year-olds, with a college-credit option, the program is “a four-month intensive immersion experience for young adults who are really looking to tap into their innate leadership skills through learning more about who they are in the world and who they want to be,” says Holly McCormack, Director of Kripalu’s Institute for Integrated Leadership. Rather than offering a prescribed model of leadership, the Semester Intensive gives young adults the opportunity to explore who they truly are and become empowered in an authentic expression of themselves. Add to that a curriculum that covers self-study and contemplative traditions, effective communication, healthy living, meaningful work, and financial awareness—life skills to navigate change and the world around them. This unique combination is what makes the Semester Intensive a place for true leadership to develop and flourish.

The program’s focus on personal transformation surprised Jeff. Open-minded and willing, though, he dove into it. “It’s funny,” he said, “I kept waiting for the ’leadership classes‘ until I realized that these lessons were the building blocks to great leadership. With these tools, I feel confident to take on leadership roles.”

Jeffrey Triplat, the integrative shamanic practitioner who spoke at VIHW and who also teaches as a visiting faculty member once a month in the Semester Intensive, highlights a crucial aspect of the program: “The Semester Intensive is important because it gives young people the environment and facilitation to safely deconstruct the thought forms put on them while finding meaning within themselves and their personal experience.”

Transformation Happens

The Semester Intensive is exactly what its name implies—intense, challenging, and, ultimately, that much more rewarding for it. Holly says, “It’s not an all-love-and-light curriculum. It’s not ’yoga camp.‘ If we can’t become skillful at living in the nitty-gritty of life, we’re not going to be effective leaders.” In the close-knit community environment of the Semester Intensive, Jeff Mandell really delved into the way he related to people, learning how to drop a nice-and-polite front for a more authentic and kind version of how he really felt—whether it was upset or excited—without overcompensating with arrogance.

Faced with a more real and accessible Jeff, fellow Semester Intensive students were better able to be honest and unguarded with him, as he was with them. Showing up in this new, genuine way enabled him to deepen friendships and connections in a way he never had before. And, as the program integrates all spheres of experience, the work he was doing in his courses and the 10–15 hours a week he spent working on the VIHW plan shifted as well. Holly, who worked directly with Jeff in a mentor-peer group, noticed that “in the beginning, he was so driven about the VIHW project that it seemed to be more about doing and achieving, and in the inquiry about how he shows up in the world, I saw his relationship to his work dramatically change—there was far more joy in it.”

Jeff talks about what he learned in the Semester Intensive: “I got to know myself from the inside out. I learned about authenticity—to align my thoughts, feelings, and actions. I learned effective communication—to address conflict head on. And I learned to trust myself.”

Exploring the Questions

While Jeff’s discoveries were unique to him, there is a similar architecture to the Semester Intensive students’ experience. Holly explains that the semester enables students to look at strategies they have been using in their everyday lives—consciously or unconsciously—that may not be serving them. Experimenting with alternative strategies or ways of living and interacting provides a profound catalyst for growth and a deep knowledge that stems from personal experience. It’s a highly experiential inquiry into all aspects of development—emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and physical.

“It’s beautiful to watch the students evolve over four months, from isolation and symptoms of societal frustration to genuine inquiry, self-motivation, and conscious engagement,” says Jeffrey Triplat. “At the end of our time together, they’re walking into life with a new sense of confidence and connection to their personal environment.”

The Semester Intensive isn’t handing anyone the answers. And it doesn’t claim that there is just one answer. But it virtually ensures a radical shift in students’ perceptions of themselves, others, and the world. As Ariel Laugel-Schloss, a 2006 graduate of the program who volunteered as a counselor for the VIHW, puts it, “The Semester Intensive completely reoriented my life—there isn’t a part of my life that it hasn’t informed and shaped.”

From the Semester Intensive to VIHW

After graduating from the Semester Intensive in December 2007, Jeff fully committed himself to VIHW. He sought out teachers in the health and wellness fields willing to offer their expertise free of charge to cover topics that include herbalism, food production and nutrition, fitness, meditation, yoga, holistic medicine, and leadership. Jeff also recruited a solid staff who worked on a volunteer basis. Private donations have enabled him to cover more than half of students’ tuition with financial aid. And he elicited material donations from local businesses, which provided a range of products, from bread to tea to full meals.

Jeff drew on many aspects of the Semester Intensive as he designed the VIHW. In the same way that the Semester Intensive doesn’t attempt to tell students which path to take, he gave students a wide range of possibilities and ideas in VIHW’s offerings. “I know that everyone is not going to love every part of it, but I am hoping that, given the range of options, the students will discover and pursue the things that inspire them.”

On her way to becoming a physical therapist, Katherine Nelson, 18, enrolled in the VIHW program after finding out about it from her science teacher. “I’m looking for alternatives and trying to open my mind,” she said. Sixteen-year-old Thomas Taber wants to go into medicine and was interested in being around a group of peers “trying to learn more about themselves and their health.” Though skeptical of some topics, he felt intrigued and excited about ideas that he has never been exposed to. Which is exactly what Jeff was hoping for. “I want kids to come out with a totally different idea of the choices that they have. To care much more about where their food comes from, what they put in their bodies, how they treat themselves. We want to empower these kids to make healthy choices. In that transformation, they also have the ability to affect their families, their schools, and their communities.”

Out into the World

As Semester Intensive students begin to go out and do their work in the world—whatever form that takes—from a place of confidence, skill, and authenticity, the potential and power of the program begins to explode. Holly is thrilled to see how Jeff’s work has come together since the Semester Intensive. “That Jeff is taking what he learned here in the Semester Intensive—not only the interpersonal transformational developmental skills but also the content of the lifestyle curriculum—and translating that to a group of high school students gives me goosebumps,” she says. “That’s exactly what the Semester Intensive is about—empowering young adults to have the skill set that they need to go out and do great work in the world that is an expression of who they are and the contribution that they are here to make.”

Now that Jeff has seen the Vermont Institute on Health and Wellness through its first run, he is already brainstorming ways to improve the program and secure grant funding for next year. Student evaluations indicated that they all want to return next summer for a second level, and Jeff is delighted. “It was a huge success!” he says. “I am so excited to see how students returning to their schools will be ambassadors of change, empowering their peers to try healthier options.” The ripples of Jeff’s work—and the ripples of the Semester Intensive—are already spreading.

Jessica L. Atcheson is an editor and writer whose work has been published in regional newspapers and online. She currently serves as Associate Editor at Kripalu.

For more information on the Semester Intensive, visit them online.

© Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health. All rights reserved. Originally published in the Winter 2008–2009 issue of the Kripalu catalog. To request permission to reprint, please e-mail editor@kripalu.org.