Mt. San Antonio College brings mindfulness to the planetarium this summer

Mt. San Antonio College announced a summer run of Mindfulness and Meditation Under the Stars on June 30, and the setting is the point as much as the practice. The sessions are set for Wednesdays, July 8, July 22 and July 29, from 3:45 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in Building 26C at the Randall Planetarium in Walnut, California.

The college is pitching the series as an easy reset in the middle of summer, not a formal retreat or a long course. Each 45-minute session is short enough to fit around classes, work, commuting or family obligations, while still giving students a real pause in the day. Mt. SAC framed the experience around the planetarium itself, promising a relaxing session with striking visuals and tranquil sounds.

Andrea Torres is hosting the sessions. Mt. SAC identifies Torres as a counselor and professor who facilitates mindfulness, meditation and breath work, and the college’s health center says the program is built around mindfulness, meditation, breath work and healing sound sessions. The health center describes meditation as a practice that can help train the mind to be calmer, kinder and more patient, which matches the low-pressure tone of the summer offering.

The venue gives the program a sharper edge than a standard classroom wellness event. The Randall Planetarium has served the Mt. SAC community since opening in 1968, and its 35-foot-diameter hemispherical dome seats up to 75 people. That makes the room large enough for a shared experience but small enough to feel contained, with the dome doing half the work before anyone settles into breath or silence.

Mt. SAC has used the format before. A 2022 campus feature described weekly Wednesday sessions in Building 26C with sound bowls, meditations and positive affirmations, showing that this is part of an ongoing campus wellness rhythm rather than a one-off experiment. The summer schedule keeps that same structure, but the planetarium adds the memorable twist.

The broader student-mental-health picture helps explain why a short, in-person session like this has an audience. The American College Health Association’s fall 2024 National College Health Assessment found that 30% of students said anxiety negatively affected their academics. Healthy Minds Study data for 2024-2025 found that 37% of students reported moderate to severe depressive symptoms in 2025.

Mt. SAC’s answer is straightforward: keep the commitment brief, keep it on campus, and put it under a dome where the room itself helps set the tone.