Fran Grace

Fran Grace, Ph.D., serves as Professor of Religious Studies and founding Steward of the Meditation Program at the University of Redlands in California, where she has helped to pioneer a contemplative and intergenerational approach to university education. She has received numerous recognitions for her teaching and research into spiritual life, including appearances on CSPAN and NPR. Her academic awards include a Pew Fellowship from Yale University, Luce Fellowship in Comparative Religion and Theology, Lily-Luce Teaching Fellowship, and many teaching awards. After receiving her Ph.D. in 1997 from Princeton Theological Seminary, she wrote the biography of iconic moral reformer, Carry A. Nation: Retelling the Life (2001), called a landmark biography by Publisher's Weekly. In 2004, a life crisis opened up a deeper interest in the existential and spiritual sides of life, and thus she spent many years investigating the inner arts and sciences, expressed in publications such as Meditation and the Classroom (2011, co-edited with Judith Simmer-Brown) and the 50-minute documentary film she directed, A Semester Within (2008). Her quest was unexpectedly enriched by an encounter with a spiritual teacher who introduced her to a path of inner freedom that respects the foundational teachings of all spiritual traditions. Before her teacher's death in 2012, she edited and wrote the Forewords to his widely popular books Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender (2012) and the revised edition of Power vs. Force (2012), both by Dr. David R. Hawkins, who taught her: Love is both the means and the end. In 2008, she founded The Institute for Contemplative Life, a 501c3 nonprofit organization dedicated to the inner pathway common to all religions: compassion, forgiveness, love, beauty, humor, and joy.