Students get credit for creating class
When a group of students met to discuss a possible speaker series on urban health for this spring semester and expressed their concern about possible low attendance, James Goodyear suggested turning the series into a class.
Offered this semester, Urban Health and Advocacy is an innovative one-credit course which brings health care workers, government officials, community members and advocacy workers to Homewood in order to discuss issues relating to urban health.
Goodyear, associate director of the undergraduate public health studies program, along with Anne Beckemeyer, administrator for the undergraduate Public Health Studies program, both contributed to the creation of the course with the help of around a dozen Public Health majors.
Much of the planning was done by students, particularly - Adam Milam and Sonia Sarkar, who have been the keys to the success of the class. Making the series into a course opened the door for a more involved view of Urban Health in Baltimore.
"We thought it would be important to create a series that was not simply lecture style," junior Sonia Sarkar said.
The class consists of a tour of East Baltimore housing projects, panels featuring prominent city health professionals and opportunities for students to connect with the speakers' causes.
Before the addition of this course the topic of urban studies had not been breached here at Homewood.
"The School of Public Health offers classes that focus on issues of urban health, but nothing of the sort is offered at Homewood - so we thought it would be great to fill that void," Sarkar said.
Senior Adam Milam, another organizer of the course has a personal reason for wanting urban health issues to be more visible at the Homewood campus.
"Being from Baltimore, I think the course is important because it exposes students to the problems that Baltimoreans face as a result of living in an urban environment that has been plagued with major exodus into the suburbs and disinvestments," he said.
Offered this semester, Urban Health and Advocacy is an innovative one-credit course which brings health care workers, government officials, community members and advocacy workers to Homewood in order to discuss issues relating to urban health.
Goodyear, associate director of the undergraduate public health studies program, along with Anne Beckemeyer, administrator for the undergraduate Public Health Studies program, both contributed to the creation of the course with the help of around a dozen Public Health majors.
Much of the planning was done by students, particularly - Adam Milam and Sonia Sarkar, who have been the keys to the success of the class. Making the series into a course opened the door for a more involved view of Urban Health in Baltimore.
"We thought it would be important to create a series that was not simply lecture style," junior Sonia Sarkar said.
The class consists of a tour of East Baltimore housing projects, panels featuring prominent city health professionals and opportunities for students to connect with the speakers' causes.
Before the addition of this course the topic of urban studies had not been breached here at Homewood.
"The School of Public Health offers classes that focus on issues of urban health, but nothing of the sort is offered at Homewood - so we thought it would be great to fill that void," Sarkar said.
Senior Adam Milam, another organizer of the course has a personal reason for wanting urban health issues to be more visible at the Homewood campus.
"Being from Baltimore, I think the course is important because it exposes students to the problems that Baltimoreans face as a result of living in an urban environment that has been plagued with major exodus into the suburbs and disinvestments," he said.
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