Faculty
| Vicki Alexander Herriott, J.D., LL.M. | |
|---|---|
| Associate Professor of Law and Government | |
| Email: | |
| Work Phone: | (641) 472 1191 |
| Home Phone: | (641) 469 6662 |
| Fax: | (641) 472 1191 |
Co-Chair of the Department of Business Administration and Associate Professor of Law and Government
Victoria K. (Vicki) Alexander received a B.A. in Psychology from Wellesley College. After graduation, she and her future husband, Charles (Skip) Alexander, attended a nine-month training program taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi to become teachers of Transcendental Meditation (TM). After receiving a J.D. from Boston University of Law and a LL.M. in Taxation from New York University School of Law, she worked as an associate in a large Boston law firm. Vicki retired from the full-time practice of law in 1983 to found, with her husband, the Institute for Research on Consciousness and Human Development. The Institute studied the effects of the practice of TM on a variety of populations including a project with institutionalized elderly and groundbreaking research in Israel on the effects of the collective practice of the advanced TM and TM Sidhi program on the society as a whole.
The research found a strong correlation between the size of the meditating group and indicators of positive and negative trends in society such as car accidents, fires, crime and the stock exchange. Most notably, when the group size exceeded the square root of 1% of Israel's population, there was a marked reduction in war deaths and war intensity in the conflict in Lebanon, in which Israel was embroiled at that time.
After completing the research, they were invited to join the faculty at Maharishi International University, (recently renamed Maharishi University of Management) a private university where all the faculty, students and staff practice TM. The university is accredited at the doctoral level by the North Central Association of Schools and Colleges and offers Ph.D.'s, master's and bachelors programs in a broad range of disciplines.
Vicki taught Business Law and Taxation in the MBA program and began a new career in university administration. She started as the Associate Dean of Faculty and the next year was appointed Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and two years later, Chairperson of the Department of Student Life, the equivalent of Vice President of Student Affairs. She continued in this position until 1993 and served as Dean of the College until 1994 when she became an adjunct associate professor. She took a leave of absence to devote more time to her husband and young son.
During this period, Skip continued his research and writing as a professor in the psychology department and founding Director of the Institute for Research on Higher States of Consciousness. He authored over 70 research articles and edited four books on advanced stages of human development, health promotion, disease prevention, and reduction of violence in society, including Higher Stages of Human Development (with E. Langer), Oxford University Press, 1990; and Self-Recovery, Treating Addictions with Transcendental Meditation and Maharishi Ayurveda (with D. O'Connell), Haworth Press, 1994. He also published (with colleagues) two articles in the American Heart Association journal, Hypertension, which showed in a randomized controlled trial that TM reduced blood pressure from a hypertensive to a normal level (by 11/6 mmHg) in three-month in inner-city elderly African Americans. This effect was equivalent to that produced by anti-hypertensive drugs and twice as large as produced by the most widely used physical approach to relaxation.
After her husband's sudden death from cancer in 1998, Vicki became Director of the Institute for Research on Higher States of Consciousness and holds the Charles N. Alexander Chair of Psychology at Maharishi University of Management. She is also an advisor to the university's Institute on Science, Technology and Public Policy.
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