Category: Undergraduate Education

SMU’s Global Public Health course shows how the online class meeting format can be leveraged to radically expand the borders of the classroom.

 

When SMU classes moved online in mid-March, Professor of Global Health Eric G. Bing took the opportunity to expand his Creating Impact in Global & Public Health classroom beyond Dallas and even beyond the United States. During the first month of online class meetings, Dr. Bing hosted several experts in medicine and public health for virtual guest lectures on topics related to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic; students were able to interact with the guest lecturers in real time. Guests in the course included:

• Dr. Trista Bingham, a CDC epidemiologist. Dr. Bingham spoke about how to create a career in fighting epidemics and pandemics.
• Dr. Richard Sullivan, a professor at King’s College London who specializes in cancer policy, health systems, and public health in regions experiencing trauma and conflict. Dr. Sullivan’s guest lecture focused on how the pandemic will impact countries that are currently experiencing conflict.
• Brett Newman, Director of Innovation at ACAP HealthWorks. Mr. Newman spoke about methods of creating innovative mental health outreach to first responders in times of crisis.
• Dr. Geoffrey A. Funk, a surgeon at Baylor Scott & White Health.  Dr. Funk discussed how the pandemic will impact medial care.
• Megan Brown, a doctoral candidate in Anthropology at SMU. Ms. Brown drew on her experience working in public health in Costa Rica to discuss how the pandemic will impact Costa Rica and similar countries.
• Dylan DeMuth, an SMU alum currently in his third year of a medical degree program at the Long School of Medicine at UT Health San Antonio. Mr. DeMuth focused on the impact of the pandemic on medical education.

These virtual class visits by guest lecturers from different parts of the world – none of whom were scheduled to visit the class before it became virtual – demonstrate that the virtual format can enhance learning in new and unexpected ways. In Creating Impact in Global & Public Health, the format gave future health leaders access to new opportunities and connections that they might not otherwise have had access too.

Create Impact in Your Organization
The Institute for Leadership Impact serves schools and social impact organizations of all sizes.  We offer an array of experiential, individual and team-based leadership experiences and simulations to strengthen your team and support your growth as a leader.

To learn more about our programs, visit our website, email us at leadershipimpact@smu.edu, and engage with us on Twitter.

 

Now in its sixth annual iteration, the Battle to Save Lives will feature SMU students’ strategies to suppress COVID-19 on campus.  

After the coronavirus pandemic sent students home in mid-March, Dr. Eric G. Bing’s plans for the sixth annual Battle to Save Lives case competition were thrown into uncertainty. Bing, a professor of Global Health at Southern Methodist University, typically assigns students in his Creating Impact in Global & Public Health course to work with real-life organizations in the Dallas area to create impact in public health, but with these groups occupied combating the pandemic, Bing was forced to suspend the case competition. In its place, Bing saw an opportunity for his students to study a major developing public health issue in depth, so he immediately restructured the remainder of the course to focus on the pandemic.  

However, a few weeks after the course transitioned to its new subject matter and virtual venue, an opportunity to revive the Battle to Save Lives appeared: SMU and UT Dallas’ partnership with REVTECH Ventures to issue impact grants to students who submit proposals for suppressing the spread of COVID-19 on university and college campuses when students return. The grant opportunity was unveiled only two weeks before the final class meeting, and although students in Bing’s course typically work on their case projects for six to seven weeks, he realized that they had been studying the topics required for success on the grant proposal for the whole semester. With this in mind, Bing assigned the proposal as a final project and revived the case competition. 

At the sixth annual Battle to Save Lives, students will compete before a panel of judges including Dr. Peter K. Moore (Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs ad interim) and Dr. K.C. Mmeje (Vice President for Student Affairs). Drs. Moore and Mmeje, who were recently named co-chairs of the SMU President’s Task Force for Healthy Opening Fall 2020, will provide comments on the students’ proposals. 

The sixth annual Battle to Save Lives will be hosted virtually on April 30, 2020, from 5:00pm-8:00pm CT. Guests are encouraged to join the event and will have the opportunity to help select the winning team.  

The event can be accessed starting at 4:30pm CT on April 30 using this link or the URL https://smu.zoom.us/j/98455940148. 

 

Create Impact in Your Organization
The Institute for Leadership Impact serves schools and social impact organizations of all sizes.  We offer an array of experiential, individual and team-based leadership experiences and simulations to strengthen your team and support your growth as a leader.

To learn more about our programs, visit our website, email us at leadershipimpact@smu.edu, and engage with us on Twitter.

 

When the coronavirus pandemic first threatened to send SMU students home, Professor of Global Health Eric G. Bing was in the middle of teaching his annual Creating Impact in Global and Public Health course.

Bing, a physician and epidemiologist who serves as Director of the Institute for Leadership Impact and the Center for Global Health Impact at SMU, typically uses past case studies and a month-long community health project to prepare his students to become the leaders of real-world public health projects. However, when he learned about the initial coronavirus outbreak in China, Bing altered his course to include discussion assignments on how the outbreak could be stemmed. A month and a half later, the outbreak had turned into a global pandemic, and Bing’s students were scheduled to debate in class about how international organizations could scale up effective treatments for deadly global diseases in the modern era. The class meeting – which would become the last in-person meeting of the semester – included a debate conducted over videoconference software, with the judges watching and questioning the debaters from a remote location, so that the students could practice their persuasion skills in a less familiar format before the expected campus shutdown.

Now conducted online like all other SMU courses, Bing’s course has been completely restructured to help students learn about global and public health through the lens of an ongoing global health crisis. The online format has allowed Bing to add additional educational elements such as real-time discussions with experts in the medical field.

The newly-revised Creating Impact in Global and Public Health is analyzing several topics in real time, including the growth dynamics of pandemics, the importance of shelter-in-place orders, understanding public health data, and the different methods that governments and communities can use to mitigate the impact of pandemics. Through virtual discussion groups, personal reflections, and consultations with experts, Bing’s students have the opportunity to exercise their critical thinking and evaluation skills to develop new insights about the nature of global and public health. By redirecting his course to focus on an unexpected experience that affects all of his students, Bing hopes to more effectively prepare them to address global and public health problems in their lives and careers.

Create Impact in Your Organization
The Institute for Leadership Impact serves schools and social impact organizations of all sizes.  We offer an array of experiential, individual and team-based leadership experiences and simulations to strengthen your team and support your growth as a leader.

To learn more about our programs, visit our website, email us at leadershipimpact@smu.edu, and engage with us on Twitter.