About Meeting the Moment

Meeting the Moment was born of a global pandemic and an urgent question: How do we support Stanford students during this extraordinary time? 

By way of answering that question, ORSL created a program to equip students with the meaning-making tools and practices that will allow them to meet the inevitably difficult moments with self-sovereignty and presence, and to fully inhabit the vibrantly joyful moments too. 

We cultivate these capacities together through the examination of a monthly theme in a repeatable, 1-unit class called Meeting the Moment: Inner Resources for Hard Times, and expand from there.

Meeting the Moment participants are poets, philosophers, artists, and seekers. They are students and staff who co-create a dedicated time and space to consider the biggest and deepest question of all: How do we be human?  

To get involved with Meeting the Moment, email Colleen Hallagan Preuninger at cpreunin@stanford.edu.

Staff

The Rev. Dr. Colleen Hallagan Preuninger

Associate Dean for Religious & Spiritual Life and Director of Student Engagement

Rev. Dr. Colleen Hallagan Preuninger serves as Associate Dean for Religious & Spiritual Life and Director of Student Engagement in the Office for Religious Life. She is passionate about exploring the intersections of life, love, and deeply held values. She understands her role on the Meeting the Moment team as one who holds space, asks thoughtful questions, as she journeys with each cohort of student fellows as poets, philosophers, artists, storytellers, scientists, and engineers. She loves to feed people, belly laugh, and watch Miyazaki movies. Her pockets are always full of stones and shells. She is most herself when she is traveling. You can find her serving fresh baked chocolate chip cookies every Friday of the quarter on the first floor of Old Union.  She holds a B.A. in German Language and Literature from Hamilton College, Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary, and Doctor of Ministry from Wesley Theological Seminary.

 

Emma Master

Program Coordinator

Emma Master graduated from Stanford in 2019 with a B.S. in Symbolic Systems. She is interested in spirituality, storytelling and narrative, creativity, depth psychology, somatics, and holistic healing. Emma has served as a Teaching Assistant in Psychology, Psychiatry, Education, Asian American Studies, and LifeWorks courses, and a consultant for businesses, professors, and schools on emotional intelligence, habit science, forgiveness, and socioemotional learning.

Andrew Todhunter

Lecturer, Health and Human Performance and Biology

Andrew Todhunter is an award-winning writer and lecturer at Stanford University, where he teaches writing, interdisciplinary creativity and contemplative practice. He is the co-founder of two programs at Stanford—The Senior Reflection, a creative capstone program in Biology, and the LifeWorks Program in Integrative Learning. He has also offered courses or workshops in collaboration with the Stanford Storytelling Project, Honors in the Arts, the Program in Writing and Rhetoric and other programs. His book A Meal Observed won the PEN USA Literary Award for Creative Nonfiction. He is also the author of Dangerous Games and the San Francisco Chronicle best seller Fall of the Phantom Lord. A longtime practitioner of meditation and Aikido, he often integrates these practices and wilderness experience into his courses at Stanford.

 

Jonah Willihnganz, PhD

Lecturer, Director of the Stanford Storytelling Project

Jonah Willihnganz is the Bruce Braden Lecturer of Narrative Studies and director of The Stanford Storytelling Project, an arts program that explores how  narrative practices can help deepen natural human capacities such as courage, empathy, and gratitude.  His main research interests have been in the fields of narratology and psychology and he has published fiction, essays, and articles on American literature.  He teaches courses in creative writing, American literature, media studies, and critical theory, and collaborates extensively across disciplines to explore how story craft and practices can be used to create personal and social change.  A long-time meditator and student of Aikido, he incorporates their practices of attention and intention into many of his courses. He received a bachelor's degree in political economy from Georgetown University, an MFA in creative writing from Hollins University, and a PhD in English from Brown.