Fulcrum is an interdisciplinary research initiative that supports places of scientific, social, and spiritual resonance (health, community, faith, and education). This initiative combines the work of multiple institutions regionally, nationally, and internationally. It studies the mechanisms of formation and transformation that cultivate resilience, well-being, and hope. Primacy is given to embodied practices, experiences, and spirituality that transform character on both a personal and communal level. The initiative studies the role and capacity of the human body in helping to develop these qualities.

The project taps into national and global trauma and the concomitant rise of fear and anxiety. These factors threaten character and require the formation of resilience and hope for sustainable well-being. We work with the research in spiritual practices, rituals, and community care models as ways of recalibrating the body in the aftermath of trauma toward well-being comprising the sustained development of character. Our starting point is the body because we understand that people are formed by what they do and how they do things. Our project will answer the question: What are the ways that character is built, strengthened, and transformed through embodied spiritual practices?

In January of this year, we established our first discovery group in conjunction with St. Peter Methodist Church in Liberia to study mechanisms of resilience with single mothers through narrative methodology. We are currently working on establishing additional discovery groups whose members are from marginalized communities.