Category Archives: class

Roundtable:Teaching at the Intersection (9/24, 4pm)

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Middlebury professors discussed the new interdisciplinary minor that Middlebury is offering in Global Health.

1. Svea Closser, Department of Sociology-Anthropology, Middlebury College

Discussed the creation of the minor

-Outlined some of the courses she teaches for the minor (Core course is SOAN 267 Global Health)

-Growing interest in global health led to creation of minor (Supply and demand)

2.Sarah Stroup, Department of Political Science, Middlebury College

Discussed goals of program: To teach humanitarian and charitable action at home and abroad

-“The causes and solutions to disease are political and economic”

This connects to the theme of the keynote speech given by Dorothy Roberts who claimed that social inequalities created by race lead to higher mortality rates for African-Americans.

-Teaches class on international humanitarian action

-Difference between humanitarian relief on a global scale and community scale

a. Global- Developed countries like the US see disasters as oppurtunities for change, but this is impossible because of pre-existing political problems (Rwanda)

b. Community- Easier to take action because easier to understand social/political dynamics of a smaller group.

3. Steve Viner, Department of Philosophy, Middlebury College

Discussed moral responsibilities we have as wealthy citizens of a developed country and moral dilemmas of global health

-Who should get what in terms of relief

-What moral responsibilities do we have to the global poor

Example: 18 million children die prematurely worldwide due to diseases like malaria.

–Unicef has a program where you can donate 25 dollars to pay for all the vaccinations for a child in a poor country

-It should be our moral duty to donate this money, yet some don’t

-Those who do donate feel like they did something above and beyond the scope of their duties when in reality just did what they should do

-In the case of natural disasters more people likely to give because no one is to blame for situation

-We need to see global poor as our equals

-Thinks that liberal arts leads to better understanding of global health issues because more in tune with social and political issues

4. Robert Cluss, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Dean of Curriculum, Middlebury College

-Discussed the role of liberal arts in minor (side note, this minor perfectly exemplifies an interdisciplinary program, if you look at the professors who spoke they come from chem, religion,soan, poli sci, and philosophy departments)

–Study Abroad plays big role in program

5. Q and A session led by James Davis, Department of religion

  1. [Senior student who started globomed at mid] How do you see the future for Middlebury and the study of global health? Are there any limitations?

-We are lucky to have J-term, allows for lots of innovative and creative classes

-No plans to create major out of minor

2. [Linda White Japanese/WAGS] How much is gender a topic in these courses?

-Courses stress that women’s rights are just natural human rights but applied to women.

3. [Sophomore student] What are we not doing as developed countries to help the underdeveloped countries?

-People aren’t doing the easy things like donating 25 dollars.  Many people can do this but don’t

-We need to realize it’s our duty to help, not optional

4. [Jeremy Greene prof. at Harvard]

How does the combination of all these fields lead to a comprehensive minor?

-The beauty of liberal arts is that everything doesn’t have to make sense.  If you pull knowledge from many different fields and it doesn’t all add up to something understandable, you’ve still learned.

Best,

Cooper and Nick

Roundtable: Local/Global (9:30-11)

In this session, we learned of both local (Middlebury) and global (Bangladesh and NE Brazil) health and sustainability projects.

Abul Hussam, Center for Clear Water and Sustainability Technologies, Dept of Chemistry and Biochemistry, George Mason University.

Dr. Hussam’s project originated because his family has been drinking water laced with arsenic, a huge problem in Bangladesh.  His talk emphasized sustainable technologies (SONO arsenic filter) and the social implications, though he dealt less with this aspect.

He highlighted 3 UN Millennium Goals that his project is tackling:

  1. MG1: eradication of extreme poverty and hunger
  2. MG7: ensuring environmental sustainability (water <>sanitation<>hygiene)
  3. MG8: develop a global partnership for development

Water is interconnected with sanitation and hygiene — the problem of sanitation has to be solved simultaneously.  In Bangladesh, people get their water from 5 sources:

  1. surface water, the most popular and dangerous
  2. groundwater (tube- wells) — where we find a lot of arsenic
  3. deep tube wells
  4. dug wells
  5. rainwater harvesting (very difficult to do  because if it sits it develops bacteria and other organic “things” and it has to be filtered quickly, which is difficult and expensive)

People who drink water with arsenic for long periods develop Arsenicosis, which can look like this.  Thus, from arsenicosis multiple problems arise: marginalization, lack of opportunity, and the labeling “poor.”  Arsenicosis is a disease of poverty.

So Dr. Hussam and colleagues developed the Sono arsenic filtration system.  They’ve been able to get this filter to thousands, but new technologies have to be developed and the commercial segment has to enter into the picture thus lowering costs.  It took 2 years to get people to buy into the filters because once the water is cleaned it tastes different and people were used to drinking their polluted water and saw this as the “right” water.

Maria Carmen Lemos, School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan

Professor Lemos’ work concerns how people use information, particularly climate change, to make informed decisions about development.  She said that all issues of development are linked to — or have to be linked to climate change since it affects everything we do.  The affects of climate are not distributed evenly. For instance, those who have affect climate change the most, will be least affected by these changes; those that have affected climate change the least, the poor,for instance, will be most affected.

She gave us a vulnerability function, which makes a lot of sense: Vf(E,S, AC) = Vulnerability is a function of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity.

The rest of her talk focused on Adaptive Capacity:

  • the ability of a system to adjust to climate change, to moderate potential damages, to take advantage of opportunities, or to cope w/ consequences
  • set of resources, and the ability to employ these resources, that are prerequisites to adaptation

Thus, Adaptive Capacity is a positive (+). But we’ve lived with the notion that more is better — more knowledge, more spaces, more of everything is better (sounds like McKibben, here, in our reading/syllabus).  More, says the professor, has failed so we have to change this idea.

How do we reframe adaptive capacity in climate change since the following characteristics [of adaptive capacity] make it difficult? :

  • latent nature
  • dynamic
  • lack of baseline date
  • difficult to measure
  • what scale?
  • there are many unknowns (such as how do we measure social capital?)

She advocates a 2 tier approach: Generic (income, education, health, safety, political access) and Specific (drought response, disaster relief, climate information)

You have to build adaptive capacity before the disaster, before the risk becomes manifest.

Dr.  Brian Saltzman, Dentist, Middlebury, Vermont, Open Door Clinic, Addison County

Most prevalent childhood disease in childhood is dental decay.  Dr. Saltzman is therefore tackling this issue through his Open Door Clinic and through education, focusing on the marginalized, particularly the migrant worker.

He spoke about “Dental IQ,” which is the knowledge  of diets and foods, which really comes into play with socio-economics.

Dr. Saltsman sees EDUCATION as the primary problem and the solution — we need more people and more bodies to help in this.

Panel: Finding Meaning

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The main idea of the panel was to discuss the complicated issue of global health. The first speaker was Katherine Ott, a curator at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.  She argued how culture relates to the issue of public health. Ott says, “We live in a world surrounded by stuff,” referring to the material objects that control and manipulate our society. She discusses the fact that medicine has extended its purpose into mainstream society. It is no longer just a remedial drug, something used to help people recover, but it is now a part of everyday life. With this progression, society has also developed a fear of medicine such as date rape drugs and workout pills.  This transformation from a drug used strictly to help people to something that assists and enhances many facets of someone’s life shows how society has become just as concerned if not more concerned with profit and material wealth as the well being of humans.

The other speaker was Richard Keller, a professor of medical history and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.  He suggested that medicine was essential in building strong empires which is a concept taken directly from Dr. Paul Chatinieres.  Throughout history, powerful nations such as the United States and France have offered medicine to people in underdeveloped countries.  Keller questions why these institutions would provide such help. To most it may seem as if these powerful nations are providing help to be moral and helpful but in reality, some countries are simply trying to gain more resources and expand their nation. There seems to be a linked distrust in two areas you might not necessarily expect- warfare and medicine. In both cases, less fortunate countries are concerned about the help that “wealthier” or more advanced countries are providing. For example, in Morocco, a French based country, Hubert Lyautey stresses the necessity and power of physicians due to their ability to assist and save the lives of those who are suffering. In addition, in recent time, Colin Powell talks about the importance of NGOs  and how they are an important part of our combat team. Obviously the military is the most significant facet, but Powell considers the NGOs almost as important due to their daily interaction with the people in these struggling nations. Due to the language barrier and the dissimilarities of their culture, citizens of impoverished countries do not believe the intentions of countries such as America to be honorable. For instance, David Brooks talks about how many countries such as Haiti resist assistance of different cultures which is often the cause of their problems. There is an existence of a voodoo religion which some believe causes Haitian people to reject and resist outside help. As a result, they are are unable to deal with problems such as the earthquake.

-AJ and Joey

Are We Pulling in the Same Direction?

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Or are we pulling against what we need, since, as Thomas Friedman says, all we have are big problems?

In Too Many Hamburgers, Friedman says that, “For democracy to be effective and deliver the policies and infrastructure our societies need requires the political center to be focused, united and energized. That means electing candidates who will do what is right for the country not just for their ideological wing or whoever comes with the biggest bag of money. For democracies to address big problems — and that’s all we have these days — requires a lot of people pulling in the same direction, and that is precisely what we’re lacking.”

The editorial is interesting in that it points to a particular need for changing our perspective — and our energies, particularly when it comes to work.  It’s very similar to what I said in class, Tuesday, about doing rather than waiting to be told what to do?

Since you guys all determined that geography establishes a context for success — kids with mothers and fathers that are college grads are more apt to go to college and succeed, for instance, to say it in a general way, and the concomitant social class follows this success, thus the inverse is true, too — might the malaise America is in have had some collective affect on the psyche of our citizens, including you?  I mean, your generation’s touchstone is 9/11, since, you’ve experienced decline after decline, negativity after negativity, politically speaking, and you’ve experienced the dumbing down of the public sphere where nothing but a gloss of contemporary America is possible, particularly when mixed with hatred, so I’m wondering what your opinion might be concerning how these conditions affect us psychologically and perhaps hinder what we focus on?

A Recovery’s Long Odds

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In A Recovery’s Long Odds, Bob Herbert, of the New York Times, discusses how “Americans are not being honest with themselves about the structural changes in the economy that have bestowed fabulous wealth on a tiny sliver at the top, while undermining the living standards of the middle class and absolutely crushing the poor.”

Herbert is pointing us in two directions: first, that Americans appear to be delusional — or that somehow we’ve been complacent with the direction leaders — and the media — say we’re heading.  The notion that American citizens are dormant is beginning to get some notice.  Arianna Huffington, in her new book, Third World America, evolves this notion, but gives us some solutions — how to turn this around.  You can hear a good interview with here in On Point: “All countries have rich and poor. What Third World countries don’t have is a strong middle class. Neither, right now, does the United States,” says Huffington.  The second notion is that of course, following on Huffington’s notion of a declining middle class, is that we have a huge gap in wealth acquisition — the disparities are now too great not to be noticed.

The middle class is finally on its knees. Jobs are scarce and good jobs even scarcer. Government and corporate policies have been whacking working Americans every which way for the past three or four decades. While globalization and technological wizardry were wreaking employment havoc, the movers and shakers in government and in the board rooms of the great corporations were embracing privatization and deregulation with the fervor of fanatics. The safety net was shredded, unions were brutally attacked and demonized, employment training and jobs programs were eliminated, higher education costs skyrocketed, and the nation’s infrastructure, a key to long-term industrial and economic health, deteriorated.

Of course, this has everything to do with sustainability – can we sustain the America we have or, perhaps better put: can we sustain the America we’ve had?

Since we’re heading towards Bill McKibben’s End of Nature, it’s appropriate to wonder how deeply the human alterations of nature have gone; that is, it may be that our processes and procedures, our ways of living — socially, economically, intellectually and spiritually — have genuinely altered our ways of being, socioeconomically, and now we find ourselves, like nature, on the ropes.

After reading End of Nature, Herbert and Huffington, I wonder what you think about where we stand in America — and where we may be heading?  To put it another way, as first years, what do you see down the line for you in 3 or so years?  Or, what do you have to do now to prepare to what seems to be an alternate state of being, one quite different than you’re perhaps accustomed to?

Katrina Victims Revisited

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Since we’re at the anniversary and several of you have experience in NO, this photo essay is quite interesting and, of course, totally relevant to our class, given that we begin with Katrina early on.

Hurricane Katrina Victims Revisited

It’s worth following this up with Children of the Storm.

What do you think?  When examining these images, what are you thinking about?  Have any of you guys who have experience in NO anything to add to this?
On Sept 21 we read “Mirror on America” and “Leaving the Trailer.”  How do these pieces contribute to the images, above?

Welcome!

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Welcome to Class and the Environment  First Year Seminar, Fall 2010. This is the first course of this nature at Middlebury.  I’m teaching it because I’m interested in investigating how issues pertaining to capitalism, the environment and class intersect.  I have no agenda, other than inquiry; that is, my only goal is to collaborate with you in developing the relevant questions that get at this complex intersection.

It is true, however, that if you’re an African American, it’s more likely that you’ll live next to a sanitation dump, a power station and have to deal with problems of poor air and water; it is more likely that you’ll also suffer from health problems — asthma, for instance.  Therefore it is not surprising or even illogical to surmise that placing poor and helpless people that may lack wealth and therefore political power next to environmentally dangerous is systematic.  For instance, one of the largest and most compelling wind turbine projects is proposed for the ocean off the coast of Cape Cod.  This project has met resistance in courts, lead by the Kennedys and the Duponts.  The primary argument the Kennedys and the Duponts have put forth is that the turbines will ruin the natural beauty of the view.  There is something, then, to how we develop our infrastructure and class.

The course could have been longer, of course; however, I tried to select material that is theoretical and contemporary. It’s a difficult subject because it’s evolving faster than we can think about it.  Nevertheless, I’ve tried to provide you with enough materials to ensure you get a wide sense of the ideas and tensions that exist when we speak about class and the environment.

Given the nature of the material, its ongoing change, I’ve made the call to have you write one piece, that you will revise weekly, but that gives you ample creative room to tell your story and simultaneously engage the materials in the course.

This section of the course, the Blog, is just that, a blog.  This page is open to each of you.  What I expect, as part of my assessment of you, is that you use this space to place ideas, materials, anything at all you consider or run into after class; it is a place to continue talking about ideas we’ve raised in class, and it’s a place for you to give us resources you find in materials that haven’t been included in the course.  For instance, in A Glimpse of the Future, columnist Bob Herbert, of the New York Times, tells us that, “President Obama made an appearance in Florida last week that should have gotten more attention. At a time when many Americans are apprehensive about the state of the economy and uncertain about the nation’s long-term prospects, Mr. Obama delivered an upbeat speech that offered a glimpse of a broader overall vision and a practical way forward on the crucial issues of energy and jobs.” Unfortunately, this positive vision received little to no coverage; there was no excitement, leaving Herbert — and his readers — wondering where the American public may be in terms of new development along green lines.

Notice that I provide a resource, a quote, properly cited on the web or for web use, and a statement.  I’ll end it with a question: what, indeed, do you think is going on with the American public? Apathy? The issues to complex?  Is the public overwhelmed by wars, the economy and simply survival to consider such future-looking and complex ideas?

This is the use of this section.  Hopefully, then, others in the class would discuss this one idea and see where it takes us.

Please feel free to add your “welcome”!