Bakken Center celebrates 30 years

The Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing’s 30th anniversary was celebrated at an event in October, with Jon Kabat-Zinn, left, and Mary Jo Kreitzer.

As the Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing celebrates its 30th anniversary, its dedication to advancing health and wellbeing — through vibrant community outreach, interdisciplinary education, and groundbreaking community-based research — is more critical than ever.

“I certainly had a vision for what I hoped the Center for Spirituality & Healing would become,” says Professor Mary Jo Kreitzer, PhD, RN, FAAN, FNAP, the center’s founder. “But I would not have imagined that 30 years later that we would be as large, complex, diverse, and global. From our earliest days, we did something that I think doesn’t happen often — we invited the community in so that we could listen to their needs.” Today, the center’s community engagement flourishes, reaching 85 of Minnesota’s 87 counties, and receiving more than 100,000 registrations in workshops, webinars and series last year.

The center’s commitment to student, staff and faculty wellbeing has also been present since its beginning. 

“Initially, we sought to understand the needs of students in health professions and offered a few academic courses, however, there was a desire among all students to learn more about how they could take charge of their health and wellbeing,” says Kreitzer. 

Today, the center offers nearly 70 academic courses, which are taken by students in every college around the University of Minnesota and beyond. The demand for center courses — many of which are required in academic programs — continues to surge with nearly 2,000 student enrollments in 2025. 

Health coaching, a relatively new health profession focused on helping people make behavior changes related to lifestyle patterns, has been a strategic center priority. The center’s master’s degree in integrative health and wellbeing coaching was the first of its kind in the United States at a university.

Listening to the needs of the community has also been a key strategy in the center’s research, which utilizes deep community connections and guidance to shape studies and recruit participants. Over the last decade, the Bakken Center’s Integrative Health & Wellbeing Research Program has secured more than $25 million in extramural funding. The center continues to focus on new ways of thinking, recently becoming a convenor for neuroarts through The NeuroArts Network at the University.

“The center has always drawn staff and faculty who are passionate about wellbeing,” says Kreitzer. “I have deep gratitude every day to work with a team of people who are really committed to innovative, novel, and relevant solutions. I look forward to the next 30 years and beyond.”