About Health, Society, and Wellness in the Age of COVID-19 course
You may be facing a world unlike any other generation. The COVID-19 public health crisis has created a climate of pervasive uncertainty, heightened anxiety, and social isolation that coincides with a critical time in your own learning and development. The COVID-19 pandemic has also exacerbated long-standing inequities and disparities, and recent events in the United States have laid bare the historical and contemporary realities of racism and systemic oppression. These challenges make the start of college unprecedentedly challenging, made even more so by the fact that our university environment is itself complex and rapidly changing. These challenges also present unique opportunities for interdisciplinary and experiential learning.
This course aims to help you navigate this world and new learning environments with knowledge and skill. We designed this course using participatory methods, meaning we asked students to take a key role as partners with faculty in developing the content, structure, and learning experiences. Together, we aimed to combine faculty expertise with student perspectives and experiences to make the course material relevant to your lives. In this course, we will explore perspectives on illness and society, as well as systemic racism and inequality, with scholars from the natural and social sciences, arts and humanities, education, communications and media, and engineering. Drawing on these disciplines to examine the complex issues of a global pandemic and systemic racism will help you build conceptual and practical skills that you will use throughout your college experience and beyond. As well as exploring new and ongoing health and social crises, we will also explore the science and practice of individual and community wellbeing. You will gain skills around emotions, relationships, common mental health issues, and learning in the age of Zoom and remote learning. You will learn collaborative, compassionate, and anti-racist practices to ensure well-being in society. Welcome to the course "Health, Society, and Well-being in the Age of COVID-19"!
