Cultivating empathy should be a topic of significance for all of us in higher education as we invest in our students and ourselves to engage with others in a more compassionate way.  Research also supports the fact that professionals who are able to demonstrate and convey empathy are more effective in their work and that clients (and students) who experience empathetic responses tend to have improved outcomes.  We will be sharing a 3-step model for teaching empathy that could be applied to a variety of professions, including our discipline of social work. It is a model that incorporates cognitive, affective and behavioral strategies designed to influence student understanding of and ability to provide empathy to others.  Together we will learn about the model and practice some of the exercises.  We will also share a summary and results of five years of pre/post student data.