PEOPLE
Owsley Brown III
Chair, Compassionate Schools Project
Owsley Brown is devoted to sustaining healthy communities by enhancing cultural, spiritual, and civic life. He is a documentary filmmaker, a director of foundations and nonprofit boards, a student of theology and the spiritual path, and the leader of exploratory projects in community wellbeing. Owsley is also an active fifth-generation shareholder of Brown-Forman, his family’s international spirits and wine company, founded in 1870. Owsley’s films include Night Waltz: The Music of Paul Bowles, Music Makes a City, and Serenade for Haiti. His most recent film, River City Drumbeat, is a timely look at the important power of arts and culture through music in West Louisville.
In his native city and beloved hometown of Louisville, Owsley is known as host and producer of the Festival of Faiths, a founding board member of the Kentucky School of Art and Design, and Chair of the Compassionate Schools Project. Owsley also serves on the boards of the University of Virginia’s Contemplative Sciences Center, Mind and Life Institute, Sustainable Food Alliance, Center for Interfaith Relations, Roxie Theater, and the Tsoknyi Humanitarian Foundation. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia.
Team Associate
- Rhoades Alderson – Public Relations
- Stefanie Baker – Project Coordination
Alexis Harris, Ph.D.
Jefferson County Public Schools, Louisville KY
Alexis Harris is the Health and Wellness teacher at Cane Run Elementary School and former director of the Compassionate Schools Project in Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS). She has been involved in the implementation and evaluation of multiple intervention strategies to promote social emotional competence and wellbeing and to prevent the negative consequences of stress, including school-based universal social-emotional learning interventions, contemplative/mindfulness-based approaches, and professional development for educators. She received her Ph.D. in 2014 from the Pennsylvania State University, where she developed a contemplative wellness-promotion intervention for educators, the CALM (Community Approach to Learning Mindfully) for Educators program.
Alexis co-authored Flourish: the curriculum of the Compassionate Schools Project. Alexis is located in Louisville, KY, where she teaches Flourish and leads training for Flourish teachers and schools, professional development for educators’ SEL capacities and wellbeing, and an annual retreat for educators in JCPS.
Patricia (Tish) Jennings, M.Ed., Ph.D.
School of Education and Human Development, University of Virginia
Tish Jennings is a Professor of Education at the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Virginia. She is an internationally recognized leader in the field of social and emotional learning with a specific emphasis on mindfulness-based interventions for both students and teachers to promote social and emotional competence, well-being, and resilience leading to improvements in performance. She has led several federally funded studies to test a mindfulness-based intervention for teachers and is co-author of Flourish: the curriculum of the Compassionate Schools Project.
In addition to her research experience, Tish has over 22 years of classroom teaching experience. She founded and directed an experimental school where she developed and field-tested curriculum for children from infancy through 5th grade, applying a variety of contemplative approaches including mindfulness-based and compassion-based practices.
Joan Bryant, Ph.D.
Contemplative Sciences Center, University of Virginia
Joan Bryant is the Program Manager for the Compassionate Schools Project. She contributed to the second edition of the Flourish curriculum and resources and led development of the Flourishing Students Group, a small group resource. She supports program implementation and expansion.
Joan completed her Ph.D. in counselor education and a master’s in educational and counseling psychology. At Vanderbilt University, she coordinated reading, math and social-emotional learning research projects in Nashville elementary schools and taught as an adjunct instructor in school counseling. Prior to joining CSC in 2021, she served as research associate in the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence at the University of Colorado Boulder and was engaged in national dissemination of the Botvin LifeSkills Training Program for middle and high schools. Her work focuses on helping to bridge the gap between research and practice by partnering with school districts and communities in accessing and implementing evidence-based programs and practices.
Greg Fischer
Former Mayor of Louisville, Kentucky
As mayor from 2010-2022, Greg Fischer pursued three top goals for his hometown: making Louisville a city of lifelong learning and great jobs, a much healthier city, and an even more compassionate community. Both a businessman and entrepreneur, he brought a data-driven approach to city government with a goal of making it more efficient and accessible—and making sure that every taxpayer dollar was wisely spent.
Patrick H. Tolan, Ph.D.
Youth-Nex Center and School of Education and Human Development, University of Virginia (Retired)
Patrick Tolan is Director Emeritus of Youth-Nex, the UVA Center to Promote Effective Youth Development, and Charles S. Robb Professor Emeritus of Education. Patrick was the Principal Investigator for the Compassionate Schools Project, serving as its overall director. He is an internationally respected and renowned leader in the field of sound scientific evaluation of youth development and prevention of health problems. He has published 8 books and over 200 scientific articles about promoting successful youth development.