Hannah Haney | Echo
Taylor launched its newest major, public health, this fall.
The major was officially announced last fall but was delayed due to construction on the Euler Science Complex and lack of a program leader. Finally, the program is officially up and running under the direction of Bob Aronson.
"It's been a really wonderful surprise to see the enthusiasm of students," Aronson said. "They just treated me so nice. I love that."
Aronson was hired over the summer and started developing the curriculum. While the major was officially approved last spring, classes were not. Aronson quickly began to work on developing a class that could be taught this fall semester.
Twenty-seven students are currently enrolled in the Introduction to Public Health class. One of their first projects was to look at the difference between market justice and social justice from a theological perspective. This required the students to integrate their faith into their class.
Biology professor John Moore realized the need for a public health major through a conversation with a medical director in Ecuador. The director informed him that he had performed 5,400 surgical procedures and the health of the community had not been impacted.
"There was a need for public health, a need for prevention, to slow that flow of people coming in needing health care," Aronson said. "If you talk to medical missionaries around the world, they will say similar things."
According to Dean of the School of Natural and Applied Sciences William Toll, public health seemed to be a good fit for the campus.
"If (you're) interested in missions, you typically can't get into countries now because you're a missionary, but you can get in there if you're interested in public health," Moore said.
At the moment, Introduction to Public Health is the only class available, and Aronson is working on getting a global health class approved for this spring. Aronson is also busy working on the overall curriculum.
Because the program will incorporate a lot of classes from several majors, Aronson is working with a committee to determine what classes will comprise the major. This committee includes Toll, Cheri Brown from social work, Hadley Mitchell from economics, Michael Jessup from sociology and Stephen King from political science.
Aronson hopes to partner with the environmental health, biology, psychology, physical health and performance, mathematics, economics, political science and sociology departments to build a repertoire of classes that will comprise the public health major.
Despite the fact that the curriculum won't be fully developed until the end of this school year, a few freshmen have already declared public health majors.
Senior Andrew Parrish is in charge of Alpha Pi Iota (API), which is a pre-health professionals club. The students come from various majors, but are all interested in healthcare and public health. The group will hold several events throughout the year and feature guest speakers from across the country. For more information, contact Andrew Parrish or watch the student announcement emails.
