RISE 101, an event focused on gifts of gratitude, was hosted in the Calabasas Campus on Sep. 25, and served as an opportunity for Pepperdine’s graduate students to encourage the community to practice gratitude.
The Resilience Informed Skills Education (RISE) program at Pepperdine promotes frameworks that students might use to build and develop skills in one of their six dimensions: physical, cognitive, social, life skills, service and spiritual resilience.
The program was developed in 2020 as an independent project and later implemented on the Malibu campus as one of the first-year requirements of the chapel program, according to the Pepperdine website.
Pepperdine Graduate School of Education and Psychology (GSEP) student Molly Adams, participated in the RISE coaching offered for graduate students at the Calabasas Campus.
“I thought about what brings people joy,” Adams said. “Flowers bring joy, and I was thinking that it would be nice to provide something tangible to engage in gratitude.”
The program is now making efforts to expand into Pepperdine’s other campuses, Associate Director Sergio Gallardo Palma said.
Under her new RISE graduate assistant title, Adams put together her first RISE event focused on the service dimension of the program.
Gallardo Palma, said the program is focused on giving students a platform to engage with the dimensions, and so are the events they organize.
“We provide students with the space to engage in resilience skills building practices,” Gallardo Palma said. “Gratitude is one of them.”
Student assistants also have ownership of the events, and are encouraged to be inspired by their passions regarding resilience, Gallardo Palma said.
The event pushed participants to delve deep into service. Flower pots, fresh flowers and cards were provided to make a token of gratitude for someone else.
In an attempt at reaching a larger audience, RISE has made efforts to organize events in all of its campuses.
“Hopefully this is one of many other events that we will have in Calabasas,” Gallardo Palma said. “We have another grad student who organizes events for the West L.A. and Irvine campus.”
The Pepperdine newsletter is also a good way to keep up with the RISE events.
“I read about this event in the newsletter GSEP students get,” grad student Annie Little said. “I try to go to events to stay connected to the community.”
RISE events are also an opportunity to meet new people and make connections.
“I wanted to create a space to get to know people,” Adams said. “As a grad student it’s harder to make connections because its more isolated.”
Adams’ gratitude workshop, RISE 101: Gifts of Gratitude as Service, also took place at the Malibu Drescher Campus on Sept. 26.
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Contact Karla Suzuki via email: karla.suzuki@pepperdine.edu
