We couldn’t imagine back then
what is here now.
In ways that could not have been imagined a few decades ago, the field of complementary medicine now commands more attention by both the consumer and the medical community. Our current trillion dollar health-care system is undergoing a profound change towards a consumer-driven model based upon choice, results, affordability, and service. Integrating conventional and complementary modalities, this emerging era in health care emphasizes prevention, wellness, personal empowerment, and quality of life. Yet some of the greatest change is taking place outside of the health-care arena, where the principles of wellness, transformative leadership, open communication and healing are affecting workplace culture and business growth.
Looking back on our 35+ year history is both humbling and inspiring. So many people have contributed to the growth and evolution of Tai Sophia Institute. A few of our milestones:
2010
In January, two new graduate certificate programs – Health Coaching and Wellness Coaching – are approved by MHEC (Maryland Higher Education Commission), firmly positioning Tai Sophia as a premier, anchoring academic institution for the emerging wellness-based health system.
2010 also marks the 10th anniversary of the name change from the Traditional Acupuncture Institute (TAI) to Tai Sophia Institute, a name chosen to reflect the Institute's expanding mission and graduate programs. Tai Sophia represents the meeting point of the great healing and wisdom traditions of the East and the West. The Chinese word Tai means “great,” and the Greek word Sophia means “wisdom.” Together, the two words – great wisdom – serve as the foundation of the Institute’s mission. The name also honors the foundational philosophy of the SOPHIA® (School of Philosophy and Healing in Action®) program, which is at the heart of all of the Institute’s academic offerings.
In May, Tai Sophia Institute celebrates 35 years since the opening of the Institute’s healing arts clinic. The clinic, originally located in downtown Columbia, Maryland, was among the first in the state and the nation to offer acupuncture treatments. Today, the Natural Care Center clinic, located at the Tai Sophia Institute's main campus in Laurel, offers a wide array of healing and wellness modalities including acupuncture, herbal medicine consultations, nutrition counseling, therapeutic massage, and more.
2009
As the nation assesses the current health-care system and government representatives begin to look deeper into the current “disease-care/sick-care model,” members of Tai Sophia Institute testify at the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pension’s February hearing entitled “Principles of Integrative Health: A Path to Health Care Reform," inviting the larger conversation of whole person health and wellness. Tai Sophia President and Co-founder Robert Duggan delivers his testimony: “The American Wellness System: An Alternative Way of Thinking.”
Tai Sophia Institute enhances the Master of Arts in Applied Healing Arts program and, in September, is granted approval from the Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC) to change the program’s name to Master of Arts in Transformative Leadership and Social Change. In October, Tai Sophia receives MHEC approval to offer a new, 9-month, executive format Graduate Certificate in Transformative Leadership.
Further expanding clinical services in the Natural Care Center, located at the main campus in Laurel, Tai Sophia begins offering massage therapy, Asian bodywork, craniosacral therapy, and process acupressure.
In November, Tai Sophia receives MHEC approval to offer graduate certificates in Herbal Studies and Medical Herbalism. Also in November, President and Co-founder Bob Duggan is among the 20 leading thinkers, innovators, artists, philosophers, and entertainers selected to present at the first TEDx MidAtlantic Conference, themed “The Power of Stories,” in Baltimore. View Bob's TEDx Talk.
Tai Sophia Chancellor and Co-founder, Dianne Connelly, Ph.D., releases her fourth book, Medicine Words: Language of Love for the Treatment Room of Life (Tai Sophia Press), a collection of essays revealing the profound power of language and our words.
2008
With a focus on expanding clinical services, Tai Sophia renames its clinical service sites as Natural Care Centers, offers nutritional counseling, launches several new clinical locations, and begins an important local partnership with the Claudia Mayer Cancer Resource Center at Howard County General Hospital in Columbia, MD. Through this joint venture, Tai Sophia offers complimentary acupuncture and movement classes to individuals who have been diagnosed with cancer but do not have the financial resources to seek treatment.
Institute faculty, graduates (many of them volunteers), and clinical interns provide more than 35,500 wellness treatments at Tai Sophia’s 11 clinical sites, including three new locations in the Baltimore-Washington corridor:
- Herbal Clinic for All, Silver Spring, MD: a collaborative effort of faculty, staff, alumni, and students to offer donation-based herbal and nutritional counseling to a population who typically would not be able to afford those services
- Healthcare for the Homeless, Baltimore, MD: a community clinic site, where our faculty and clinical interns offer services and support to Baltimore’s homeless population
- N Street Village Wellness Center, Washington, D.C.: Tai Sophia’s first community clinic site in D.C., where faculty and clinical interns work to empower homeless and low-income women
.jpg)
In academic news, the Master of Acupuncture program adapts and enhances its curriculum, now offering all required bioscience courses in-house. Faculty continue to deliver lectures and workshops across the country, including a portion of our signature workshop “Redefining Health,” presented by co-founders Dianne Connelly and Bob Duggan for the Smithsonian Resident Association in Washington, D.C.
Tai Sophia hosts a number of extraordinary onsite lectures, including presentations by UCI Professor of Radiological Sciences Joie Jones, Ph.D., and Classical Chinese Medicine Scholar Heiner Freuhoff, Ph.D., L.Ac. Stemming from the partnership building between the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and Tai Sophia, Barbara Dossey, Ph.D., R.N., and pioneer in the holistic nursing movement and Mary Jo Kreitzer, Ph.D., R.N., and Director of the Center of Spirituality and Healing at the University of Minnesota offer presentations at both Tai Sophia and Johns Hopkins.
Of special note, the Horizon Foundation honors Tai Sophia’s president, Bob Duggan, with its Leadership Award, citing his transformative role in healthcare.
2007
Enrollment in Tai Sophia’s graduate degree programs reaches a new high as does participation in our community wellness programs.
Tai Sophia purchases its 32,500 square-foot building and strengthens its financial position, a move made possible by the confidence placed in the Institute by the Howard County government (which authorized a bond issue for the purchase) and the Institute’s new banking partners, the United Bank and Howard Bank.
Faculty members give keynote talks and lead seminars, including a gathering for healthcare professionals at Schumacher College in England; the American Herbalist Guild Symposium in Columbia, Maryland; Baltimore Bioneers Conference; Complementary and Alternative Medicine Exposition in New York City; and the 25th anniversary celebration of the founding of national acupuncture organizations in Portland, Oregon, where Tai Sophia president Bob Duggan was honored for his seminal role in the development of the profession.
2006
Tai Sophia Institute adopts a new five-year strategic plan, which includes both a new vision and a new mission statement. The Howard County Chamber of Commerce honors the Institute, naming Tai Sophia the Howard County Large Business of the Year; and the Baltimore Daily Record acknowledges the Institute's work at our Penn North Neighborhood Center (part of our Community Health Initiative) with a Health Care Heroes award.
The Middle States Commission on Higher Education grants initial accreditation to Tai Sophia Institute. As well, the Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine renews its accreditation of the Institute's Master of Acupuncture degree program for five years, the maximum time period. The Institute honors Jim and Peggy Duke in a ceremony at their "Green Farmacy Garden"; in a life estate arrangement, the Dukes agree that Tai Sophia will inherit this national and natural treasure. The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Tai Sophia hold their second annual retreat, continuing their collaborative venture to improve the American healthcare system.
2005
In the 30th anniversary year, Tai Sophia awards degrees to the first graduates of its Applied Healing Arts program (now called Transformative Leadership and Social Change), making this ceremony the first to include graduates of all three master's programs. Other highlights: The Helen M. and Annetta Himmelfarb Foundation awards a $1 million grant to Tai Sophia, the largest donation in Tai Sophia's 30-year history.
The Maryland Higher Education Commission approves a title change for the herbal program to Master of Science in Herbal Medicine. Two thousand people attend the Institute's Second Festival of the Healing Arts. With a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Institute's Penn North Neighborhood Center joins two other organizations in a collaboration that makes services available 24/7 to persons living with drug addictions and HIV/AIDS in Baltimore's inner city.
Tai Sophia expands its partnerships to include both the Wellness Center at Howard Community College (which it helped establish) and the Chopra Institute, hosting the Chopra Center's First Annual East Coast Mind-Body Conference. The year ends with a formal gala, which concludes the year-long celbration of Tai Sophia's three decades of service.
2004
Tai Sophia graduates its first class of students from the Master of Arts in Herbal Medicine program; furthers its work with the Kennedy Krieger Institute (an internationally recognized facility serving children with special needs); completes an affiliation agreement with the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine; secures public policy support to continue its Baltimore inner-city clinic; and, on the passing of Haig Ignatius, M.D., celebrates the life and contributions of a beloved teacher and friend.
2003
At a ceremony in February, the Institute honors ten years of Meridians magazine, subsequently conceiving a new "family" of publications to replace it. Tai Sophia holds its first annual healthcare provider workshop day, which brings together almost 200 healthcare providers. The community celebrates the lives of Pere Claude Larre, Ivan Illich, and J. R. Worsley, all of whom passed away in 2003, commemorating the profound impact these individuals had on the work of the Institute.
2002
The first classes of the new master's programs in Herbal Medicine and Applied Healing Arts begin in January. At the end of April, Tai Sophia Institute moves to a new 12-acre campus south of Columbia in the Montpelier Research Park. The campus opens with a 32,500-square-foot building in a beautiful natural setting. In June, Tai Sophia celebrates the grand opening with a Festival of the Healing Arts.
2001
In November, the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools accepts Tai Sophia as a candidate for accreditation.
2000
As the Institute enters a new era of service, it takes a new name, Tai Sophia Institute, which signals its expanding mission and encompasses its new programs. The name "Tai Sophia" links the Chinese word Tai, meaning "great," and the Greek word for wisdom, Sophia. The new name continues to honor the Eastern healing traditions, while the inclusion of Sophia signals the philosophy that underpins every program offered by the Institute.
Development of two new master's programs begins. Simon Mills, one of the world's leading herbalists, is chosen to lead the nation's first Master of Science in Herbal Medicine program. John Sullivan, professor of philosophy at Elon University and cofounder of SOPHIA® (School Of Philosophy and Healing In Action®), is selected to lead the Applied Healing Arts program.
1999
TAI adopts a new mission: "to enable all of us to practice the art of living and the art of dying." The board of trustees approves a plan to build a new campus for the M.Ac. program and to offer new degree programs.
1998
TAI, with the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, presents the first of the "Building Bridges" conferences for doctors, nurses, and public health officials.
TAI develops a partnership with Howard County Public School System, including a unique program based on SOPHIA principles for teens identified as "troubled," and programs through which public school students and teachers learn about complementary medicine.
1997
The Community Health Initiative (CHI), which began by treating people with addictions at the Baltimore Detention Center, expands to additional CHI sites, including Penn North Neighborhood Center in inner-city Baltimore.
1996
A new faculty-supervised student clinic opens at Belvedere Square in Baltimore, Maryland, giving clinical students additional treatment opportunities.
1995
A new faculty-supervised student clinic opens in Wheaton, Maryland, giving clinical students in the acupuncture program a space to treat patients in the Washington, D.C., area.
1994
The M.Ac. program moves from one to two intake classes per year (September and January), enabling TAI to double new enrollment from 30 to 70 students annually - more than a 100% increase. SOPHIA is integrated into the core curriculum for all students.
TAI expands both bookstore and library. This exexpansioncreation of the Meeting Point Bookstore Cafe.
1993
TAI launches a new magazine, Meridians, written for patients and practitioners. Led by faculty member Peter Marinakis, the Community Health Initiative (CHI) establishes a pilot program in Baltimore, where TAI students and faculty provide auricular acupuncture to people with addictions at the Baltimore Detention Center.
On PBS, Bill Moyers presents the "Healing and the Mind" series featuring acupuncture and other approaches to healing that recognize the interconnection of body, mind, and spirit.
After reviewing evidence of acupunctures effectiveness, the U. S. Food and Drug Administration reclassifies acupuncture needles as medical devices for "general use" by trained professionals rather than "experimental" devices.
A landmark survey by Harvard professor David Eisenberg, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, shows that one-thirdAmerican adults use some form of alternative therapy.
1992
The board of trustees establishes a mission "to change the experience of personal health in America by the year 2000."
1988
The U.S. Department of Education recognizes NACSCAOM, thus allowing our students to apply for federal financial aid.
1987
At the request of patients, TAI begins SOPHIA® (School Of Philosophy and Healing In Action®) to teach laypersons the ancient wisdom - rooted in nature - that underpins its master's program in acupuncture.
1986
The Maryland Higher Education Commission empowers TAI to bestow the Master of Acupuncture (M.Ac.) degree.
1985
In May, TAI is the first school accredited by the National Accreditation Commission for Schools and Colleges of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (NACSCAOM, now known as ACAOM).
1981
On June 6, the first TAI acupuncture class begins with 23 members.
In Baltimore, Maryland, TAI hosts the first of five international conferences on acupuncture. This gathering brings together acupuncture leaders from across the U.S. and is the source point for the meetings that birth the three national organizations formed in 1982 - the Council of Colleges of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, the Accreditation Commission, and the Certification Commission.
1980
TAI receives approval to teach acupuncture in Maryland from the Maryland State Board for Higher Education (now the Maryland Higher Education Commission).
1978
The college amends its charter, and the name is changed to the Traditional Acupuncture Institute (TAI).
1975
One of the first acupuncture clinics in Maryland, the Centre for Traditional Acupuncture, opens on May 1 in the American City Building in Columbia, Maryland, with practitioners J. R. Worsley, Jack Daniel, Haig Ignatius, Erica Lazaro, and Warren Ross joining the founders.
1974
Tai Sophia originally is incorporated in Maryland as the College of Chinese Acupuncture, U.S., by Institute cofounders Bob Duggan and Dianne Connelly. The new institution is the outgrowth of a program begun in Kenilworth, England, in which U.S. students studied acupuncture with Dr. J. R. Worsley.
1971
Millions in the U.S. become aware of acupuncture as columnist James Reston describes in The New York Times his successful acupuncture treatment following emergency surgery in China.