As chronic diseases continue to drive health care costs and reduce quality of life across the United States, Maharishi International University and the University of Iowa are exploring how prevention science, integrative medicine, and public health can work together to improve community health.
Researchers have identified many effective ways to prevent chronic disease. The challenge now is translating that knowledge into practical, scalable approaches that help people make healthier choices in everyday life.
That challenge was the focus of a recent invited Spotlight Session at the University of Iowa College of Public Health, where MIU’s Dr. Robert Schneider presented “Integrative Prevention and Public Health: A Practice-Based Collaboration Model.”
The invitation followed an earlier MIU visit by leaders from the University of Iowa College of Public Health and Carver College of Medicine, making the Spotlight Session part of a growing exchange between the two institutions.
The presentation highlighted areas of shared interest between MIU’s work in Consciousness-BasedSM and integrative health and the University of Iowa’s strengths in public health research, education, implementation, and community engagement. Leaders from both institutions discussed opportunities for student projects, faculty collaboration, community health initiatives, and pilot research studies.
Toward whole-person, integrative care
Dr. Schneider, Distinguished Professor of Integrative Medicine and Health and Director of the Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention, described one of the central challenges in modern prevention: helping proven approaches reach people in practical, consistent, and scalable ways.
“Public health has made tremendous progress in identifying the major drivers of chronic disease,” Schneider said. “The next frontier is implementation — creating practical, accessible systems that help people translate prevention science into healthier daily life. This is where whole-person, integrative care can make an important contribution.”
Drawing on decades of NIH-supported research in cardiovascular prevention, health equity, stress reduction, and lifestyle medicine, Dr. Schneider introduced Total Health Centers, LLC, an Iowa-based model for whole-person prevention that combines modern medicine with evidence-based lifestyle, behavioral, and integrative approaches.
Schneider’s presentation focused on major chronic health challenges, including hypertension, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, mental health conditions, dementia risk, and healthy aging. Its distinguishing feature is a whole-person framework that addresses not only biological risk factors but also behavior, stress, mental well-being, social context, and long-term resilience.
The framework reflects ideas described in a recent Heart and Mind editorial by Schneider, Fred Travis, and MIU President Dr. Tony Nader, which proposed a unified systems medicine perspective linking mind, body, environment, and consciousness in promoting health and resilience.
Peace through health
Schneider argued that prevention can be viewed at the community and societal levels. He discussed the principle of “peace through health,” connecting whole health with individual, community, and societal well-being.
Schneider also discussed research on the Maharishi Effect and the potential role of collective meditation-based practices in reducing social stress and improving community quality of life. The presentation reflected MIU’s long-standing commitment to bringing rigorous science to the study of consciousness, mind-body medicine, Ayurveda, and integrative approaches to health.
Joining prevention science and whole-person health
“Dr. Schneider’s presentation showed how rigorous prevention science and whole-person health can come together in ways that are highly relevant to today’s public health challenges”
— Dr. Robert B. Wallace
“Dr. Schneider’s presentation showed how rigorous prevention science and whole-person health can come together in ways that are highly relevant to today’s public health challenges,” said Dr. Robert Wallace, the co-host for the visit. “It was especially valuable to see how these ideas can be translated into practical models for community benefit.” Wallace is the Irene Ensminger Stecher Emeritus Professor of Epidemiology and Internal Medicine at the University of Iowa.
Dr. Mark VanderWeg, Dr. Schneider’s host, emphasized the importance of implementation and community engagement. “A central question in public health is how evidence-based practices can be developed, evaluated, and delivered in partnership with communities,” he said. “Practice-based models that connect prevention research, behavioral interventions, and real-world delivery systems offer important opportunities for student learning, faculty collaboration, and public health impact.” VanderWeg is Professor and Head of the Department of Community and Behavioral Health at the University of Iowa College of Public Health.
The discussion included possible collaboration pathways between MIU, Total Health Centers, and the University of Iowa College of Public Health, including student practica, capstone and thesis projects, community outreach, faculty collaboration, and pilot studies. The session concluded with a discussion of next steps, including the possibility of an exploratory working group to identify shared priorities.
“This kind of exchange is exactly what is needed to move prevention forward,” Schneider said. “MIU brings a long-standing commitment to the scientific study of consciousness, mind-body medicine, and integrative approaches to health. By working with public health partners, we can explore practical ways to bring these approaches into the broader systems of prevention, research, education, and community service.”
For further information:
Robert Schneider, Frederick Travis, and Tony Nader, “Addressing Clinician Burnout: A Unifying Systems Medicine Model with Meditation as a Heart-Mind Intervention,” Heart and Mind 8:1 (2023).
Robert H. Schneider, Michael C. Dillbeck, Gunvant Yeola, and Tony Nader, “Peace Through Health: Traditional Medicine Meditation in the Prevention of Collective Stress, Violence, and War,” Frontiers in Public Health 12 (2024);12:1380626.
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On a warm and sunny Saturday afternoon, June 20, MIU conferred degrees on 679 graduates at its 2026 commencement ceremony, with graduating students representing 55 countries. Altogether, MIU awarded 159 bachelor’s degrees, 493 master’s degrees, 26 Masters of Fine Arts degrees, 30 doctoral degrees, and two honorary doctorates.
Click here to see the full commencement ceremony as well as videos of the key speeches.
The ceremony opened with recognition of the broader community behind the graduates’ achievements, appreciating parents, families, and friends — many of whom had traveled long distances, including from outside the United States — as integral to the students’ success.
“I encourage you to stay in touch with joy” — Dr. Pedro Noguera’s commencement address
Dr. Pedro Noguera, Dean of the USC Rossier School of Education, delivered a spirited commencement address.
He highlighted the urgency of issues such as climate change, political polarization, and economic inequality — yet he invited graduates to reframe these challenges as “learning challenges.” Then, he said, “The problems become less daunting and
insurmountable. We must simply learn how to address them.”
“I believe education is not only the best tool we have for creating a better future — it may be all we have,” he said. “The human ability to adapt and learn has proven to be our superpower.”
“Unlike humans, AI can’t think outside the box,” he said. “We have the ability to use education, compassion, and our ability to innovate, to imagine new alternatives, to uplift humanity and protect our Mother Earth.”
“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” he said, quoting the Hopi elders’ teaching.
He described how, as a university student, he traveled to war-torn El Salvador to negotiate the release of a political prisoner, a student leader at a university. While waiting in a dark waiting room, he inadvertently walked into one of the prison areas. “I was shocked to see how close I was to the men behind bars, who looked upon me with curiosity.”
He got to talking with one of them, who said, “When I get out, I’m going to celebrate” — and though no music was playing, “he proceeded to show me some impressive dance moves.” And they both laughed.
“I thought, if that man could joke about dancing even while facing the cruelty of imprisonment under a military dictatorship,” Noguera said, “couldn’t I find a way to maintain a sense of joy?”
“Graduates,” he then said, “I encourage you to stay in touch with joy, to maintain a lightness of spirit, a smile on your face, and even a little dance in your step, so that you can counter the forces of negativity and doom with compassion, kindness, and love.”
He quoted the Sufi poet Rumi, “Love is the bridge between you and everything” — then said to the graduates: “Be the bridge.”
“The Maharishi Effect is real,” he said. “We can change the world by changing ourselves, and small actions do add up and have effects that we may not perceive at the moment, but nonetheless ripple into the universe. You have the power to be a force of good in the world, and the world needs that now more than ever.”
“Class of 2026,” he concluded, “I hope you do well, I hope you do good, and I hope you have some fun while you do both. All the best.”
President Nader honors Dr. Noguera
“You have given us more than a commencement address,” President Nader said, reflecting on Noguera’s address. “You have given us a benediction.”
Nader underscored three key ideas from Noguera’s speech: the urgency of personal responsibility, the sustaining power of joy and love even in adversity, and the metaphor of being a bridge between seemingly separate worlds. “There are moments,” he said, “when the line from the Hopi elders, ‘We are the ones we have been waiting for,’ ceases to be inspirational and becomes simply true. This is one of them.”
He also reflected on the deeper significance of the “be the bridge” metaphor. “That, in three words, is the entire mission of this university,” he said. “We have spent decades preparing young people to be exactly that. Bridges between cultures, between disciplines, between the inner life and the outer work. You have given them a single sentence to carry with them. They will carry it.”
MIU President Dr. Tony Nader presented Dr. Noguera with the degree of Doctor of Education honoris causa, honoring his lifetime of service to humanity through education.
Professor Amine Kouider, representing the Board of Trustees, then presented a second honory degree, a Doctor of Fine Arts honoris causa, to MIU graduate and Fairfield resident Dick DeAngeles, for his lifelong service to Fairfield and MIU and especially for his award-winning eight-part History of Fairfield video documentary series.
“MIU was never meant to be ordinary” — valedictorian address
Valedictorian Polo Altinsky-Ross described MIU as consistently exploring ideas ahead of their time. Long before concepts such as wellness, sustainability, and human-centered development became mainstream, he noted, they were already central to the MIU’s approach.
“MIU is not easy to explain,” he said, “because it was never meant to be ordinary.” MIU challenges conventional assumptions about higher education by combining academic rigor with daily practices aimed at developing consciousness.
He argued that MIU’s focus on human development is becoming increasingly relevant. “A more advanced society is not just one with better machines,” he said, “but one with better people — clearer, more balanced, more compassionate.”
“Established in Being, perform action” — salutatorian address
Salutatorian Chirl Dawn Saylor offered a more personal reflection, describing her educational experience as transformative on multiple levels. Drawing on the Sanskrit phrase Yogastha Kuru Karmani — “established in Being, perform action” — she emphasized the distinction between intellectual understanding and lived experience.
“There is a difference between knowing something and being it,” she said. For Saylor, MIU’s impact lay not in introducing entirely new concepts but in enabling a deeper integration of ideas she had encountered throughout her life. She described her time at MIU as a process of rebuilding “from the inside out,” affecting her health, awareness, and daily experience.
She challenged the notion that inner growth requires withdrawal from the world, instead highlighting the “householder path” — the possibility of pursuing personal development while remaining fully engaged in everyday life. Her remarks underscored a central theme of the ceremony: that inner development and outward action are mutually supportive.
“Do not underestimate your single life” — President Nader’s charge to the graduates
In his closing charge to the graduates, Nader offered them a single unifying concept: care. He described caring as an expression of consciousness itself. “Caring is what consciousness does when it recognizes itself in another,” he said.
He outlined three practical principles to sustain this orientation: distinguishing between caring and becoming overburdened, clarifying daily priorities by asking what is truly one’s responsibility, and recognizing the far-reaching impact of individual actions. “Do not underestimate your single life,” he told graduates, emphasizing that acts of care ripple outward in ways that may not be immediately visible.
Of special note, 16 of the doctoral students graduated from MIU’s PhD program in China, with five of them traveling from China to participate in the ceremony in person. As their class gift, they pledged $50,000 to help promote MIU in China, specifically by having President Nader’s two books — the New York Times best-selling Consciousness Is All There Is and his new book The Power of Caring — translated, published, and promoted in their country.
Click here to see the ceremony, here for more graduation photos, and here video clips of graduating students.
Photos by Dileep Krishnamoorthy