The College Curriculum Committee approved in March a new major in Human Health, which could join Emory's list of majors by fall 2013 if approved by the Board of Trustees and Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).
This program – the brainchild of Center for the Study of Student Health (CSHH) Director and Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Anthropology Michelle Lampl – consists of faculty members who are as interdisciplinary as the study itself.
The major would require a total of 41 credit hours fulfilled by three foundational health courses, a medical or health ethics course, a quantitative methods course, several electives, a senior project and two courses in each of the major's three sections: descriptive analysis, mechanistic understanding and translational applications.
Senior Lecturer of Religion Geshe Lobsang Tenzin, Associate Professor of Economics David Frisvold, English Professor Laura Otis and Women's Studies Professor Rosemarie Garland-Thompson are among the 100-plus scholars, scientists and leaders from Emory's College and professional schools, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other governmental and non-governmental agencies who will instruct health students.
Lampl, who initiated the major in 2007, calls it "the first of its kind." The major, she said, can benefit students "seeking careers not only in health, medicine and the traditionally-related fields, but humanities, arts, theology, business, economics and law," as well as "emerging positions we have yet to realize are out there."
After helping to launch the Global Health and Predictive Health minors in 2010 and 2011, respectively, Lampl saw the creation of a Human Health major as "the next logical step," she said.
With no peer university model to work from, more than 35 college faculty members began meeting repeatedly to develop the major starting in early fall 2012. Just a year later, it will likely be offered as an official area of study after undergoing review by the Board of Trustees, College Dean Robin Forman said.
"Nothing is even close to what we're doing, as far as health studies," Forman said of other universities' advancements. "It's what's distinctive about Emory – our ability to create these new programs."
According to Forman, who has been traveling throughout the U.S. to speak to newly-admitted high school seniors, there is "student excitement" among future undergraduates about the Human Health major. Lampl said she has already received more than 50 inquires from students at Emory. However, students may not be the only ones enthused.
"A great deal of faculty members are interested in participating in this," anthropology professor Peter Brown said of the program, which draws from a multitude of departments, including neuroscience and behavioral biology, economics, French and Italian, sociology and environmental science, among others.
Brown has been running the Global Health minor – the college's most popular minor, he said – for the past seven years and is currently teaching Introduction to Global Health, which would serve as one of the new major's three foundational courses.
National Endowment for the Humanities Professor of French Dalia Judovitz would teach "The Art of Living," which she has taught only once before.
According to Judovitz, her class "examines the idea of healthful living as an art rather than merely a science" and addresses questions like "how to think about death, illness, misfortune and our emotions in order to learn how to better value and enjoy life."
"My interdisciplinary approach ... combines theoretical and practical understandings of the body," Judovitz said. "Health is not simply about the fate of the physical body, but also its mental beliefs, imagination, desires and appetites, which are difficult to manage or regulate."
Lampl described health for individuals as "a function of their existence." She said she sees vast potential for the upcoming study, citing the Affordable Care Act, United States health care as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the Global Health Initiatives and breakthroughs in predictive and preventative research as evidence of the field's undeniable significance and rapid growth.
"These factors have led me to recognize that 'health' may be to this and the coming decades what 'tech' was to the '80s, '90s and 2000s," Lampl said.
–Contact Lydia O'Neal at
lmoneal@emory.edu
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