Real Life Issues Introduced in Georgetown Classrooms Through Engelhard Program
The Engelhard program includes two dozen courses at Georgetown. (Photo: Tyler Rogers)
Faculty members integrate mental health topics into their curriculum. (Photo: Tyler Rogers)
The Charles Engelhard Foundation and the American Association of Colleges and Universities fund the project at Georgetown. (Photo: Tyler Rogers)
By Mark Overmann
The Ignatian ideal of cura personalis has at its heart two characteristics: care for each person’s individuality and care for his or her integral wholeness. As a liberal arts institution, Georgetown College works not only to convey intellectual content, but also to enrich all dimensions of its students’ lives. It is in this spirit of care for the mind, body, and spirit that a new initiative known as the Engelhard program has made its way into classrooms throughout Georgetown.
“Connecting Life and Learning: Engaging the Whole Person through the Integration of Academics and Student Affairs” is a Georgetown project funded by the Charles Engelhard Foundation and the American Association of Colleges and Universities. The ultimate aim of the program is to infuse the realities of student health issues into regular course curricula.
“This project is meant to expand the safety net that is present for students on campus, as well as to improve the Georgetown culture of educating the whole person,” says Mindy McWilliams, an assistant director for assessment in the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS), which administers the grant.
With 18 participating faculty members teaching 24 courses in 11 departments (including Anthropology, Biology, English, Mathematics, Philosophy, Psychology, Theatre, and Theology) in its first two years, the Engelhard project is now in its sixth semester and boasts its largest ever number of participants: 20 faculty members, 7 teaching assistants, and more than 740 students. The eventual goal, according to McWilliams, is to reach all undergraduates through at least one project course by the end of their sophomore year.
CNDLS works to attract faculty members to the project with a broad, campus-wide call for participants before the start of each semester. Professors who wish to participate then contact CNDLS in order to infuse a personal health component into one of their courses.
“Usually when professors express an interest in the project, they already have a specific idea of how they can integrate the Engelhard materials into one of their courses,” explains McWilliams.
Faculty members who sign on to participate then receive training from health professionals in student health services and the Counseling and Psychiatric Service Center at Georgetown. They are schooled in such topics as mental health, sexual health and violence, and eating disorders. They learn to detect signs that a student may be suffering from mental or personal health problems and to steer him or her to appropriate professionals for help.
Working in collaboration with CNDLS and the health professionals, professors then create week-long “modules” that cover issues of mental and personal health and that they can introduce into their courses. McWilliams describes these modules as a three step process: first, students read selected literature on a given topic; second, a speaker or group of speakers comes to class to present on that topic; and finally, students write reflective papers that allow them to draw on the covered material and relate it to their own life experiences.
Participating professors have come up with imaginative ways to integrate these modules into their classes, approaching the scientific topic of mental health from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives. For example, Dr. Jim Sandefur, chair of the Department of Mathematics, taught his students to calculate their metabolic rates based on their food intake and to mathematically determine the effect multiple drinks will have on their blood alcohol levels. Associate Professor of Philosophy Alisa Carse sent her students into local communities to see and experience people and places different from themselves and their everyday world. Adjunct Professor of Theater Karen Berman assigned her class to write and perform scenes of real-life stressful situations that students face throughout their college careers. Such exercises, embedded within the context of a typical academic curriculum, are meant to reinforce the notion for students that, quite simply, everyone has it rough sometimes.
“Many students have come forward in ways they normally wouldn’t have because of this program,” McWilliams says. “If they are stressed or depressed, they often feel they are the only ones. But the Engelhard program has a positive effect for those students who are in need of something—they now feel connected to a resource, whether that be a faculty member or health professional, when they may have felt completely lost before.”
In the end, the Engelhard program has been a success not just because it puts issues of mental and personal health out onto the table for frank discussion and provides students with coping mechanisms, but also because it forges rewarding relationships between faculty and students.
“Being able to connect with students in this personal way is something faculty members have expressed is missing from their courses,” McWilliams says. “They are not sure how they can reach out to students while still maintaining the appropriate boundaries. This program gives them that opportunity.”
Indeed the Engelhard program encompasses all aspects of the notion of cura personalis: intellectual discovery, care for personal health, and the development of lasting and meaningful relationships. St. Ignatius would surely approve.
For more information on the Engelhard program, see the CNDLS webpage on the program.
Also see various media coverage around Georgetown on the program:
The Engelhard Project: Connecting the Safety Net to the Heart of the Academic Environment