Teaching Social Justice: Exploring the Ramifications and Lessons from Katrina and Iraq

Teaching Social Justice: Exploring the Ramifications and Lessons from Katrina and Iraq in an Interdisciplinary Student Seminar

Following the tragedy and debacle which accompanied Hurricane Katrina and in the midst of the escalating Iraq war, an Honors Course was offered within the College of Nursing at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Entitled Social Justice in Public Health Nursing: Lessons from Iraq and Katrina, it was designed as a seminar of mutual destiny. Students were invited to explore the sequelae of the war and hurricane from the dual perspective of global citizens and reflective individuals. The first half of the course established the historical context using the lens of Public Health and social justice. The remainder of the semester focused on the phenomenological implications—the individual meaning ascribed to the experience and its sequelae. Co-facilitated by two faculty in the Department of Public Health within the College of Nursing, students participated from a variety of disciplines, including nursing, philosophy, political science, women's studies, English and pre-med; among them were two veterans. Assigned readings focused on the experience of poverty, linguistic analysis of news coverage, trauma and PTSD and selected poetry. Speakers included members of Military Families Speak Out and representatives from Chicago's Kovler Center for Torture Survivors. We viewed and discussed cultural stereotypes portrayed in the film Crash. The seminar culminated in individual projects presented by participants and reflective of some aspect of the ramifications and lessons learned.