Cool Cat: Cindy Bruns
story by Lily Beck
Cindy Bruns has been seen as a major part of the Central Washington University campus for 14 and a half years. She serves the student body as the Director of Counseling all while she continues her life-long passion of dance. Not only does she work hand-in-hand with college students at CWU, she also teaches dance students at a local studio. Bruns shows that there is always a way to tie all of your passions together and pursue them all.
What is your title at CWU and what do you do on campus?
“I am the Director of Counseling, which means I do several things. I oversee the operations of the Student Counseling Services (SCS), supporting in delivering high quality psychotherapy services to the CWU student body. This means I do everything from leading the team in developing our service model, evaluating our services and engaging in quality assurance, providing clinical supervision to staff to help them continue to grow in their skills and professional work, hiring, budget oversight, and all those things. I ensure our practices conform to legal and ethical standards regarding confidentiality and the practice of psychology, mental health counseling, and clinical social work. I also connect with the greater campus community has an expert mental health resource. Sometimes that means providing consultation to professors, staff, or students who are who concerned about a student's wellbeing and how to support them or refer them for help. I also do the same consultation for concerned family members. Sometimes that means serving on committees and bringing the voice of student mental health and wellbeing into broader conversations and decisions being made on campus. I also see students for counseling and crisis support. I also oversee and coordinate SCS training programs and provide supervision to graduate students who are engaging in their practicum and internships for mental health counseling.”
How long have you worked for CWU?
“I have been at Student Counseling Services for about 14.5 years now.”
What brought you to Ellensburg?
“My family and I moved to Ellensburg from Dallas, TX (though I am originally from Oregon) so I could be the Training Director for Student Counseling Services. My primary job was to oversee our doctoral internship program that is accredited by the American Psychological Association. About 6 years ago I became the Director of Counseling after a national search.”
Can you briefly describe your experience in dance?
“I started ballet when I was about 9 after seeing a production of Cinderella by the Eugene Ballet Company. My mother thought it wouldn't last as she thought I wouldn't like the structure of ballet. But I proved her wrong! I love the structure of ballet training and find so much freedom when there is a solid and predictable base from which to move and explore. It is a lot like psychology. Having a secure base allows one great freedom coupled with a safe place to come back to. I grew up in the Eugene Ballet Academy and spent every waking hour I could there taking classes. As a freshman in high school, I was cast as Clara in the Nutcracker and started touring with the company and from there continued performing alongside the company members in Nutcracker as well as other productions. My senior year of high school, I only went to school for a half-day and danced with the company during the morning and the Academy at night. After high school, I was a formal apprentice with the company for a year. I had so many wonderful experiences, including touring with the company to Taiwan and performing in the National Music Hall. I decided to go to college in psychology, but continued teaching for the Academy (I started that when I was 16). When I left for my PhD program in clinical psychology, I continued to teach ballet at Berkeley Ballet Theater. After moving to Texas for my internship, I didn't have the opportunity to continue teaching, so took a 10 year hiatus. After moving to Ellensburg, I was fortunate enough to be offered the chance to teach for Central Washington Dance Academy and then to be asked to choreograph for the performance company. I've been doing that for the last 12-13 years. I'm so grateful to the owner and director, Jane Venezia, for giving me the opportunity to reconnect with my dancer self, share my love of ballet, and to grow as a choreographer.”
What is one piece of advice you would give to a student pursuing dance?
“Pursuing dance is HARD. All artistic pursuits are hard, but with dance one is literally one's instrument. It can be hard to separate one's self-worth as a human being from what happens in the studio, but it is so important to do that. Dancers also tend to be perfectionists and hard on themselves. They fear that having compassion for themselves and the process of growing as a dancer means they won't push themselves. But the opposite is true. Having compassion doesn't mean taking the easy way out. It means understanding that all humans - including dancers - are imperfect and the focus is on the process of growth, not the evaluation of each and every movement and moment. With this perspective, it is easier to strive for progress and navigate the ups and downs of learning and growing.”
What inspired you to pursue both your career on campus and your dance career?
“As I alluded to above, I see psychology and dance as really informing each other. My dance career was inspired by seeing beauty and joy and the whole human experience represented on stage through movement and I wanted to be a part of that. It also gave me predictability and structure and expression at a time in my life where I needed those things. I went into psychology because the human experience fascinates me and I wanted to help people live more fully by working through their pain and connecting to their humanness in all its wonder and messiness. Both dance and psychology are also something you can never stop learning about - you never "arrive" in either arena or "know it all". That means I can keep learning and growing and embracing the complexity of what it means to be human - and help others do the same whether I'm in the office, in the studio, or creating for the stage. That is an amazing gift!”
What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
“I don't have a lot of free time, but when I do, I enjoy reading, cooking, getting to see my daughter perform (she's a dancer too!) or just hanging out with her. I love to attend other arts offerings in Ellensburg, especially plays and musical theater. Spending time with friends just hanging out is also a treasure.”
Who or what has inspired you the most?
“There have been so many people who have inspired me at different times of my life - ballet teachers who believed in mean and pushed me, female-identified mentors in both dance and psychology who have supported me and been a sounding board, the clients I have had the honor of working with inspire me time and time again. My dance students - they inspire me as they grow into amazing human beings in the world. I'm inspired by the people who allow me to touch their lives and who have in turn touched my life.”