The Naropa Institute is a private, non-profit liberal arts college located in Boulder, Colorado, offering undergraduate and graduate degrees in the arts, social sciences, and humanities. The Institute was one of the three original divisions of the Nalanda Foundation, a non-profit educational and social service organization incorporated on January 18, 1974 by the Venerable Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche. The other two divisions of the Nalanda Foundation were: the Maitri Project, a mental health training program; and Mudra Theater, an experimental theater group.
The Naropa Institute grew out of Trungpa Rinpoche's vision of a university which would combine contemplative Buddhist studies with Western scholastic and artistic disciplines, following the example of Nalanda University, a Buddhist institution of scholastic and contemplative disciplines which flourished in India from the fifth to the eleventh centuries. The Naropa Institute was named after Naropa, a renowned Buddhist scholar, teacher, and practitioner, who had served as Nalanda University's abbot in the eleventh century.
In late 1973 and early 1974, Trungpa Rinpoche and a dedicated group of volunteers, none of whom had any prior experience in university administration, labored mightily to realize his vision, building a university "from scratch" in the space of a few months. Most of the project's financing, and many of its personnel, came from Karma Dzong, a Buddhist meditation and study center established by Trungpa Rinpoche in Boulder in 1971. These efforts came to fruition in June, 1974, when, instead of the anticipated enrollment of 300 to 400 students, almost 2000 students and faculty arrived in Boulder to take part in Naropa Institute's first summer session of over 100 courses and workshops in Eastern and Western disciplines of meditation, philosophy, psychology, poetry, creative writing, theater, dance, music, and visual arts.
Ever since Trungpa Rinpoche had begun teaching in the West during the late 1960s, his students had been recording many of his lectures on audio tape, and this activity was formalized in 1973 when Trungpa Rinpoche established Vajradhatu Recordings for the express purpose of creating and distributing sound recordings of his teachings. However, it was decided in 1974 that Trungpa Rinpoche's innovative experiment in education at Naropa should be recorded in an innovative way. The Naropa Institute obtained a grant from the United States' National Endowment for the Arts for the purchase of high-quality 1/2 inch reel to reel, black & white video recording equipment.
Although audio tape remained the favored method of recording Naropa Institute activity into the 1980s, much of the Institute's work throughout the mid-1970s was also recorded by the video project, under the auspices of its Department of Public Relations, resulting in an audio-visual record which powerfully evokes the spirit and energy of the Naropa Institute's early years. Many prominent American academics, poets, and performing artists, including Allen Ginsberg, John Cage, Harvey Cox, John Ashbery, Ann Waldman, Gregory Bateson, Herbert Guenther, William S. Burroughs, Lee Worley, and Barbara Dilley, to name but a few, came to teach at Naropa, either as faculty members or guest lecturers. This ability to attract prestigious faculty has continued to be a hallmark of the Naropa Institute.
After a second successful summer session in 1975, the Naropa Institute began offering degree and certificate programs year-round in 1976. In July, 1978, Naropa was granted candidacy for accreditation by the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, although the Institute was not fully accredited until 1986. After the initial summer sessions, enrollment at Naropa declined slightly, and the Institute weathered years of financial hardship. The Institute also generated some controversy, due largely to the somewhat unconventional instructional methods practiced by Trungpa Rinpoche and other Naropa faculty. However, positive interest in the Naropa Institute remained strong, and its position stabilized considerably during the early 1980s.
The Institute's first Executive Director was Martin W. Janowitz (this title was later changed to Dean, and then to President), with John Baker, Jeremy Hayward, and Bill Indich serving as Vice Presidents. Trungpa Rinpoche acted as president of the Naropa Institute from 1974 until its 1985 reorganization as an autonomous, non-profit educational corporation under the direction of a board of trustees, at which time he became an ex-officio member of the board until his death in 1987. The Institute's first dean, Judith Lief, was appointed in 1980, and served until 1984, when she was succeeded by Chancellor Barbara Dilley. The title of Chancellor was changed to President in 1989, and Barbara Dilley served in this position until in 1993, when she was succeeded by the current president, John W. Cobb.
Many of the individuals active in helping Trungpa Rinpoche establish Naropa, such as Jeremy Hayward, Chuck Lief, and Martin Janowitz, continue to serve on the Institute's Board of Trustees. The Naropa Institute's current address is 2130 Arapahoe Avenue, Boulder, Colorado, 80302-6697.
The video recordings in this fonds were maintained in the custody of their creating agency, the Naropa Institute, until the late 1970s. At this time, the recordings came into the possession of the Vajradhatu Office of Publications. Volunteers cleaned, packed, and inventoried the video recordings, and Vajradhatu Recordings (now Kalapa Recordings) stored them until 1988, when, following Vajradhatu's move from Boulder to Halifax, N.S. and the establishment of a formal Vajradhatu Archives (now Shambhala Archives), the recordings were housed in the climate-controlled vaults of the Public Archives of Nova Scotia to stabilize their fragile condition. At this time, the video reels were reboxed, and a new inventory was prepared by the Shambhala Archives.
The Naropa Institute donated the recordings to the Shambhala Archives in 1992. Between 1992 and 1994, the Shambhala Archives, in partnership with the Naropa Institute and the Public Archives of Nova Scotia, implemented a Video Recovery Project, in which most of the recordings in this fonds were transferred to more stable video formats.
Item level descriptions of transferred videos were prepared during the Project. At the present time, approximately 65 of the video reels in this fonds, mostly from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics series and the Naropa Institute faculty lectures and public talks series, remain to be transferred.
Fonds consists of video recordings of a wide variety of the Naropa Institute's early activities, including: the Institute's 1974 convocation ceremony; promotional and educational programs recorded by the Institute for public broadcast; lectures delivered by the Institute's faculty and guest lecturers; and numerous lectures from the Institute's summer session founder's course, delivered by the Venerable Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and his successor, the Vajra Regent Ösel Tendzin.
A generous representation of the institute's fundraising and outreach work is recorded in this fonds, with a number of videos of public lectures or readings given by Trungpa Rinpoche and many of Naropa's regular faculty and guest lecturers. While the recordings are fairly diverse in their scope and content, there is a consistent overall focus on the Naropa Institute's educational mission to explore various Western artistic and academic disciplines in a Buddhist contemplative context.
The fonds is arranged in the following series:
1. Summer session founder's course
2. Special events and promotional activity
3. "Open Secret" panel discussions
4. Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics readings and lectures
5. Venerable Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche Naropa public talks
6. Naropa faculty lectures and public talks
Title based on the contents of the fonds.
Video reels show evidence of the problems inherent to the 1/2 inch
reel to reel video format, notably deterioration of signal, loss of lubricant
or binder, and oxide shedding.
Video reels transferred in Video Recovery Project were vacuum cleaned
during transfer.
Video reels donated by Naropa Institute in 1992.
Videocassette copies, in S-VHS, 3/4inch-SP, and VHS formats, are available
for transferred videos in the Shambhala Archives.
Due to preservation concerns, access is permitted to videocassette
copies only.
Copyright for all recordings in which the Venerable Chögyam Trungpa
Rinpoche (VCTR) appears is held by Shambhala Archives and Diana J. Mukpo.
[For all recordings in which VCTR does not appear, copyright is held by
the Naropa Institute and the artist(s) appearing in the recording.]
Inventories accompany series-level descriptions. Non-RAD item-level
descriptions available for transferred videos in the Shambhala Archives'
offices.
Associated materials may be found in the Naropa Institute Allen Ginsberg
Library.
Further accruals are not expected.
Related materials may be found in the following fonds of sound recordings:
Vajradhatu fonds; Naropa Institute events fonds. These are described in:
The Guide to the Sound Recordings of Vajradhatu Recordings: VOLUME TWO
and VOLUME THREE respectively.
Photographic records relating to portions of this fonds also exist,
and are described in: Vajradhatu and Nalanda Foundation Information Office
Photographic Fonds: Finding Aid.
Researchers seeking further information about the early years of the
Naropa Institute should note that a binder of newspaper clippings relating
to the activities of the Institute and its faculty from the years 1974
to 1980 was compiled by the Nalanda Foundation Information Office, and
is now held in the offices of the Shambhala Archives.
Also held in the offices of the Shambhala Archives are photocopies
of Naropa Institute course calendars and faculty biographies from 1976
and 1977, forwarded by the institute's Allen Ginsberg Library to assist
in the preparation of this finding aid.
Another unpublished source of information held in the archives' office
is a bound volume containing photocopied excerpts from a "Status Study
Report to the Commission of Higher Education of the North Central Association
of Colleges and Secondary Schools" prepared by Naropa Institute in November,
1977 as part of the institute's bid for accreditation.
Two publications of interest are LOKA and LOKA 2, both edited by Rick
Fields, which record the Naropa Institute's 1974 and 1975 summer sessions,
respectively. Both of these journals, published by Anchor Books, contain
a generous selection of writings (or transcripts of lectures), interviews,
illustrations, and photographs prepared by faculty and students during
Naropa's first two summer sessions.
The Venerable Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche gives a brief account of
the establishment and the early days of the Naropa Institute in the Epilogue
of the 1977 edition of his autobiography, Born in Tibet (Boston: Shambhala
Publications, 1985).
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