Experiential learners lend hand to fight pandemic

New placements offer students meaningful, virtual, summer field placements.

In quite a dramatic fashion, COVID-19 asserted itself in programs structured to facilitate students “learning by doing”, and the process of reflecting on those experiences which is the core of experiential learning. Both BBH’s internship program and the Global Health Minor are predicated on this learning model and this year’s “out of the box,” “out of the classroom,” and “out of the country” opportunities developed by program leaders Elizabeth Lasher, internship coordinator, and Dana Naughton, director of the Global Health Minor, were collateral damage of the  shutdowns required to stem the virus spread.

“We are fortunate,” Naughton said of the experience, “that students in our programs are particularly attuned to understanding the challenges of global and public health interventions whenever they occur and especially so during a pandemic.”

Lasher noted that while profoundly disappointed that long awaited fieldwork experiences were cancelled, “they understood the gravity of the situation and the actions needed for containment.”

In response to the domestic and international field site closings, Naughton and Lasher quickly developed partnerships with the Pennsylvania Department of Health and Penn State’s Philadelphia Outreach Office and Amit Sharma, professor of hospitality management and finance and the director of the Food Decisions Research Laboratory, to provide students with highly relevant opportunities responsive to students’ profound desire to contribute in a meaningful ways with efforts to stem spread or help people during the challenge. Over the course of the summer, nearly 25 students from both programs worked as contact tracers with the Department of Health or as research assistants for the Philadelphia site of a global study on food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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