How do we interpret “helping our fellow man?” Are we ethically responsible for helping to solve global health issues?
These are just some of the questions posed at Friday’s Clifford Symposium event, “Roundtable: Teaching at the Intersections.” At the 4 p.m. event held on Sept. 24, professors led a roundtable discussion on how global health issues cross over into classroom discussions. Professors from several different departments, including moderator Associate Professor of Religion James Calvin Davis, visitng Assistant Professor of Political Science Sarah Stroup, Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Robert Cluss, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology Svea Closser and Assistant Professor of Philosophy Steve Viner, all participated.
The discussion began with Closser’s initial question, “How do we involve global health issues in our courses?” From first-year seminars to upper-level classes, the professors explained how global health played a role in classroom discussions. Stroup explained that in the field of political science, “who gets what” is an essential question, which easily translates to questions of global health. If certain people can more readily obtain better health care than someone else, “who gets what” is crucial to solving global health issues. Not only “who gets what,” but also maybe “why” is an important question. Why are certain people getting when others cannot?
On a broader level, Professor Viner looked at the abstract concepts of poverty and global health issues. With questions like, “What moral responsibilities, if any, do we have to the global poor?” Viner forced the audience to think and reflect on their priorities. He stunned the audience with statistics from UNICEF, like the fact that $25 buys life protection from common diseases like the whooping cough for a child. Each professor had a different viewpoint to offer from their respective fields on global health issues, and several audience members walked away truly educated.
“It was very informative. I learned that we all have responsibilities and the duty to keep in mind who there are people out there that are less privileged than we are,” said Biniyam Estifanos ’14. “I was happy to see that each person on the panel, in one way or another, was doing something to bring about change. Change might not happen tomorrow, or in five years, but if it happens 100 years from now, and the gap between the rich and the poor, and the developed and underdeveloped decreases, we have done our job.”
Global health plays a major role in our lives, from classroom discussions to real life experience, and the discussion challenged listeners to stop and ask themselves if we are doing enough to end these problems.
See what the speakers had to say on different issues of global health:
- Keynote speaker Dorothy Roberts: “The New Biopolitics of Race and Health”
- Opening lecture: “Othering: Connecting through Differences”
- “Do Unauthorized Immigrants Have a Right to Health? Ethnographic Reflections on Contemporary ‘Deservingness’ Debates”
- “Making Medicines Essential: The Evolving Role of Pharmaceuticals in Global Health”
- Roundtable: “‘Doing’ Global Health Work — Different Perspectives”
The Clifford Symposium: Students and professors alike come together to take a deeper look into global health
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