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[Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.]
Alex Walters: What's up everyone? Welcome back to this episode of The Learning Curve.
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For this conversation, I was joined by Doctor Lisa Kerr, an educator, scholar, author,
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and leader whose work has helped shape teaching, learning, writing, and the humanities at MUSC.
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In this conversation, we explored Doctor Kerr's journey into education, her experiences as a teacher and researcher,
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and the lessons she's learned from working across a variety of educational settings.
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At MUSC, we also discussed the creation of the Office of Humanities, the vision behind its programs and digital badge offerings,
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and the impact of initiatives such as the Dear Human Project on fostering reflection, empathy, and connection.
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So whether you're interested in teaching, scholarship, writing, or the role of humanities in healthcare,
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this episode offers a thoughtful look at how education can help us better understand ourselves and the people we serve.
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So please join me in welcoming Doctor Lisa Kerr.
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Alex: So thank you for being here.
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Uh, I always, uh, really like to start these conversations, um, really talking to people about their personal backgrounds.
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So what drew them to education and how they ultimately ended up where they are now?
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Um, so to start, if you don't mind, could you kind of take us through your personal background and your career journey to Musc?
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Lisa Kerr: Sure. I was thinking about this because 2026 is my 30th anniversary.
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Oh, wow. Okay. That's awesome. I was 24 years old.
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Um, I guess that would have been 1996.
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Um, and, uh, this is a little morbid, but my grandfather had passed away, and I got the call the night before my very first teaching.
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Um, my very first class. Oh, wow. On my own? Yeah. So I said, okay, just hold it together.
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You know, just go in there and do it. So, uh, but by the end of that first class, I, the class itself is a little bit of a blur.
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I can still see some students faces.
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Yeah, but I, I remember walking across campus and just sort of having this feeling of elation like, I'm a teacher.
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Yeah, right. Um, and it was that connection with students, um, early on that has been a thread throughout.
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Um, because I went I was there to get my master's in writing.
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Sure. Yeah. And so I had always known writing was a part of my life would be.
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But I was always sort of a solitary, you know, person. I didn't I had a little bit of theater stuff from high school and stuff.
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So the performance aspect of teaching was there. But sure. Um, it surprised me a lot.
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Okay. Interesting. Yeah. Exciting. Yeah. Alex: So, um, I've had a lot of conversations, obviously, with with teachers, with faculty members.
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And something we always talk about is like, teach. You don't always choose teaching.
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It kind of chooses you. And it sounds like that almost happened after that first class.
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When you have that, like that feeling of elation.
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Lisa: I think so, yes, I think I didn't really I think I had, um, this idea of teaching because of my own experiences with education,
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that it was a handing down of information, that it was, you know, you had to be strict, you had to keep people in line.
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That is not my nature. Yeah. And so, um, yeah, I learned that you can be kind and firm and that you, um, that it it is collaborative,
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that you're a facilitator, that you can get people excited about subjects that they wouldn't otherwise be excited about.
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Sure. Yeah, definitely. That's kind of one of my would main interest. Would you say that teaching is more of an art or more of a science?
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Oh, I. Or a combination. Yeah.
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I think I'm always going to say everything's a combination of art, and that's how I feel, because I feel like they're so bifurcated.
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Like we've always split them and and pitted them against each other. So.
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But because my work is at the intersection of those two. Really? Yeah.
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I think, um, for me now, the science part, although I'm very hesitant to say that because I'm not a scientist or an expert in anything,
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but being able to provide evidence that supports not only the the ways we're teaching things,
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but like, why would we, um, why are we interested in including the humanities, for example?
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Right. What's the evidence behind these things that we're doing?
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Right. Yes. Really. That evidence based teaching. Teaching parts. Yes. Yeah.
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Yes. Yeah, definitely. So, um, you start in USC and, you know, you start teaching and you have that have that kind of moment of elation,
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um, kind of talk us through after that, like your motivation, because obviously you earned your PhD after that.
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Can you talk a little bit about, um, how how you kind of came to do that and how your, how your journey is kind of gone, gone from there?
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Sure. So I, um, I actually think I kept choosing teaching now that we're talking about it,
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I because I could have gone on down to Florida to do my PhD only in creative writing and just gone the writing route,
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but I ended up doing a PhD in, um, American Lit, and that allowed me to keep teaching.
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And then I went on to teach high school. So my my 30 years is includes like college and high school stuff too.
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But um, and also, may I say very early on I should apologize to many of the students.
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I'm acting like it was a holiday and a party from the beginning, but there were classes I taught where I thought, oh,
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those poor students probably think of me as one of the worst teachers they've ever had, because I didn't know all the evidence.
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Like I didn't know the variety of activities early on. Well, sure. Yeah.
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I mean, and of course, you know, a lot of that improvement, of course, comes with experience.
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Or as you get more into the science, the evidence. So it can it can really obviously, um, to me, like the more you teach the better.
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It's just one of those situations where the more you do it, the better you're going to get.
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Just because you get more comfortable with whether it's your students or,
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or or the class or the content, it's just all those different kind of factors.
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It's a lot of moving parts, definitely. I always feel like one of my friends says, well, you redo your slides every time you teach them.
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Like, yes, I do, because I've learned more. I learned what didn't work.
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I know more things like that.
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But, you know, I feel like coming here and having your office where you guys can help folks with, like, evidence based teaching practices, is a gift.
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That's not that was not around when I came up. So that's part of it.
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Sure. So coming here to teach, um, to to move along my journey, as you requested.
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Um, I came here part time, temporary to work in the writing center,
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and very early on was asked to teach a literature in medicine class by the former director of the Writing center in C,
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and, um, I had I didn't know what that was, really, but it fit my background because I had literature.
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And so that became sort of a new movement in teaching for me, because I said, I can't teach something without really knowing why I'm teaching it.
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Like, what value is this bringing to the students other than Lisa Kerr likes to talk about literature with medical students.
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At the time, it was just medical students.
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Um, and so I grew again thinking, I have to really know that sort of underpinning of why I'm doing something.
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What the sort of what's going on in the brain, even to something,
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to the extent that I can understand it as a not, not a neuroscientist or anything near that.
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Um, but I sort of feel like I grew at Musk as I became full time and became sort of more invested in understanding,
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um, what what value I could bring through things like literature, medicine, the humanities.
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Definitely. And I'm sure we'll touch on more of this later as we kind of get in the conversation.
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But, um, just just since we are talking about teaching,
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can you talk a bit about your teaching philosophy and maybe how that's evolved a
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little bit from that very first class that you taught to where you all now are,
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where you are now. So just maybe a little bit of like that journey as well, in terms of how you view your teaching and your philosophy around it?
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Yes. Um, I don't know that I had a philosophy until I had to write my very first one at the end of the first year, and he knows what I said.
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Yeah, sure. Probably something about connecting with students and being supportive.
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I do feel strongly that, you know, it's people learn best when they feel safe, when they feel connected.
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Mhm. Um, and but I think what's evolved now, um, when I, when I came here, it was sort of more of that academic.
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I need to understand what I'm doing. And then I became a patient myself.
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So I became a cancer patient about five years in, uh, here at USC.
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And all of a sudden, I was realizing that the things I was talking about,
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the need for compassion and connection and listening, um, all of these things really did make a difference to me.
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And so my teaching evolved at that point because I thought not only was I even more in sort of like, this is right, this has value.
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And the way to do it is through, um, being kind by telling people that it's about context, communication and connection.
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That's kind of where I've arrived.
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So the context in terms of the humanities, I think being who are the people you're either educating or who are your patients?
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Like what? You know, what are the various contexts that impact their lives?
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This is the humanity stuff, right? Spiritual, political and cultural. All those things.
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Who are they? How can we teach students to communicate effectively with them, knowing who they are.
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Right. And then that's leading to that, what I call the connection,
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which of course can be compassion and knowing the evidence that in healthcare that makes that does make all the difference.
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So I feel like now I know that my, um, teaching philosophy involves, um, believing very strongly and,
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and the value of it, even when it's not something around here that people even really know what it is.
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Right? Um, the and having that positive regard for students.
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Yeah. Um, something that I've grown more and more to believe in.
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You know, I talked about that a little early on, um,
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that there's sort of this myth that you have to be hard on people, that you have to make them a little scared.
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You have to make them a little uncomfortable. Uncomfortable? Yes.
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They should struggle a little to learn, I get that. Um, but I really have positive regard for, for students, and I think that's important.
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Um, because if I'm sitting and thinking, oh, these students are really there, they've changed.
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They don't know this. They they have an attitude. You know, whatever it is, they don't understand what's at stake.
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They certainly do. They definitely do. And if I have that attitude, why am I why am I doing this job?
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Yeah. No, 1,000,000%. And so it sounds like from the jump,
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you kind of had some foundational bedrock around your philosophy that that have kind of kind of carried and evolved because ultimately,
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like a teaching philosophy should evolve, right? Like, yes. Like I think about the one I wrote 20 years ago at this point, and it's completely,
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probably completely different from one the one I would right now, I would say I would have those bed rocks.
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Like, I would still draw from there, but I would say I would it would still be different.
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Yes. Yeah.
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So I think the applied part then to answer your question, like for me, what two things then that I did not think in the beginning, how can I talk?
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How can am I? How can I ask them to think about something that they've never thought about in a particular way before?
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So if we're talking about if I want to get them to think about the patient, the lived experience, um,
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I can give them a case study and ask them to read it and think about a person who doesn't want to have cataract surgery.
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Right. Or I can give them a piece of literature and that says blank refuses the operation
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and have them read this poem essentially and figure out who is this patient.
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What do they value? Um, what? How does the language reveal things about them?
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So they're struggling a little bit more than reading a straight case study.
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And then they will think about it ends up it's Monet, the painter, for example, in this particular poem.
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So they've had to struggle to figure out the identity. And then it becomes a conversation more about illness and identity.
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Um, where this, um, about what we consider normal,
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what we consider disabilities and how that might be different from the patient's perspective, patient autonomy.
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So I guess what I'm saying is, can I get them to think about things in a way they have not before,
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through new lenses, making life new through the humanities? And then the other new part is the application.
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Can I give them something? Because this may seem so far away from their work, right?
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How can I get them to leave knowing I can apply this in my work?
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Or to think about how will I apply what I've just learned in my work here now as a student or my future career?
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Yeah, definitely. So to me, it's almost like how you're describing is almost like like an onion.
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Like you want to continue to like, peel back layers. Right. So I ask them to keep like going a little further, going a little deeper.
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Like thinking a little more critically rather than being like a black and white type.
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Uh, conclusion or answer it. You want them to continually uncover, um, aspects of what you're what you're asking or encouraging them to do.
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Yeah. So it's like that thinking about thinking like incorporating the metacognition.
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Metacognition. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That buzzword. Yeah. Um, but truly, like, I'm not I'm not trying to teach them to do anything in particular.
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I'm trying to get them to think about what they're doing and how that will ultimately support
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the things that support their patients or their lot down the line if they're scientists.
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You know, I'm still thinking patients. Yeah, right. No, I agree, and I think that's very empowering.
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I think that's something that's great for us as educators do, is ultimately like empower students.
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Um, so so they feel like, if there are, if they are in situations,
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they they know how to handle those or they know how to empower themselves right outside of the classroom or outside of educational experiences.
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Yeah. It's not just can you recall and nothing.
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Again, I know that there are high stakes tests that involve recall and that that's an important part of education, too.
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But. Right. Um, not just can I recall information, but can I think when it matters?
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And can I apply that thinking in a, in a humanistic way?
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And in the case of what I'm teaching? Yeah, definitely.
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Um, so I want to switch gears just a little bit, um, to talk a bit about, you know, your what we've talked about your teaching experiences.
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I want to talk a little more about about those, um, but also like your research experiences,
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your, um, workshops and things that that you've done for the, for the different colleges.
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Um, so, so you, you do work within the center for Academic Excellence and the Writing Center.
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So I thought it may be a good opportunity to maybe discuss your work there a little bit,
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just so folks can kind of hear about the work you all do and why it's so important.
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Yes. Um, we meet one on one with students all year long, several faculty members, and we have staff members in our office as well.
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Um, I think there are nine of us, but I could have that number wrong. I won't sit here and bore you with counting.
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Um, but we, um, we support students through the CAC, the center for Academic Excellence, which is kind of the umbrella, too.
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But that part's like, can we help people think about how they study the most effective ways to study evidence based?
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Right. Um, and, um, can we we help them prepare for those high stakes exams?
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Um, we, um, through the writing center, we can work on any kind of, uh, writing project that they have.
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Um, and again, it's not just. Can I correct your grammar? Can I put your commas in?
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I'm not your editor. Much more than that. Right. Yeah. Right. Can you think about your argument?
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Have you, um, sequenced things in a logical way?
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Um, and so again, it's not I, I know that AI can do certain things with writing now.
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Um, and, um, it's it continues to be that sort of interpersonal thinking about thinking,
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helping people develop those longer term skills so they don't end up with,
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like, cognitive deficits around being able to, um, to think and sequence and develop an argument.
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ET cetera. Definitely. Um, so since you mentioned AI, do you kind of have like a follow up question about that?
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I'm scared about this one. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So yeah. So yeah, a little bit of a of a sidebar question here.
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So, um, obviously AI is rampant and students are it's of course, it's permeated everything at this point very rapidly.
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Um, I would say that what's interesting about the work you do is that human element is more important now than ever,
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because I would say, obviously, if you give a large language model or AI, ask it to write something for you.
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A lot of times, at least in my experience, I feel like it really strips out like that human element,
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that personality, that touch the voice that that humans have.
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Um, what's your kind of opinion and experience with that? And, and, and what's your kind of take on?
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I'm just curious. Somebody who obviously does a lot of work within writing in this, within this area.
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Well, it's scary and it's kind of exciting in some ways. And I'm very much still learning.
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Yeah. Um, but I, you know, I, I use it for things that are convenient when I'm not looking to learn something new.
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But I do see in terms of like when I'm creating something.
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But, um, I definitely see creating even, like, PowerPoints for my classes.
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To me, it's all a creative act. So I get something out of that act. And I think everybody probably does to some degree.
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Definitely. Um, but in terms of writing, um, for me, writing has always been thinking like it is the way I do not.
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You know, you see, I've done all this writing so I can actually have a conversation.
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I'm very much someone who has to think on paper before I know what I think.
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I mean, I'm there's a line from a old writer about, you know, I write to know what I think that that very much resonates with me.
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Right. So I do think for some people, um, that will not go away because it's natural.
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It's innate to us. It's not right. Right. And I'm not sure to what extent that transfers to other people, but I do, you know,
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I do some of the things I have learned are that if when you're using AI for particular things afterwards,
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immediately afterwards, you may they may be able to measure certain deficits or something.
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So I'm concerned about that. Of course, I want us now more than ever to be able to think and connect.
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So there's where I see the opportunity. I think if AI is used in positive ways, it can free up time for us to do those things that are more human,
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including in health care, like if it's supplied properly. Um, and I don't know what properly is.
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I'm hoping smarter people than me figure that out or I can be part of the conversation.
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Maybe. But I agree with you. I think it's, um, it could be that the human element in the discussion around that is more important than ever,
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and we should keep that going as we get excited about the opportunities that it offers as well.
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I agree, and I think I think even more so now. I mean, if you really think about A12 punch, right?
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So we're coming. We were coming off a pandemic where we were all, you know, had to spend time alone and not making these connections.
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And then we're hit with AI and large language models, which again, to me is stripping another,
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in a sense, another part of that humanity and those connections in a lot of way.
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So I think it's a lot to deal with. And the timing is just kind of funny, um, that, you know, that those things happen at the same time.
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Yeah, it really is. Yeah. Um, it feels like, how is this how is it policies possible?
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Um, I know we could probably spend a whole separate podcast talking about AI, and maybe we will that way.
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More than I do, for sure. I have been a little bit of a, you know, I'm, I'm very I'm slow to sort of.
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I need a lot of time to process.
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And so I'll, like, do something and think what I think about it for a long time before I make my mind up, which is rarely final anyway.
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Final rites. I completely understand.
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Um, so I want to move on a little bit and talk about, um, as we, as we kind of move a little more towards, um, talking about the Office of Humanities,
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I want to talk more about, um, some of the work you've done for, for colleges,
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particularly around, um, like workshops, particularly around the humanities.
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So I'm just going to read a couple, um, that you've done that, that I thought were interesting.
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Maybe you can kind of talk about, um, what that's like in your experience,
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kind of, um, doing these workshops, workshops for students within these colleges.
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So within the College of Health Professions, um, you recently did a workshop called Applied Compassion for Occupational Therapist,
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um, Therapeutic Presence, reflection and Self-care and Clinical Practice. I thought that was interesting.
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So I obviously would like to hear about that. Um, and then one for the College of Graduate Studies called What's the Story?
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Fostering patient and family centered care through health humanities education.
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And that seems to and that that's a recurring one. Um, so can you kind of, um, talk about talk about those two?
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Um, just your experiences with the workshops. And then again, we'll kind of get dig more into the office here shortly.
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Yeah, sure. Um, yeah, I did the, the that was Brooke Mullins OT class.
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It was like a pediatric boot camp. And this was I've gotten to know Brooke through, like, the Gibbs work and Cindy Dodds over in Chip.
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Um, so she invited me to come talk to them about, um,
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applied compassion in terms of self-compassion and things that they could do before they go into practice, things that might be protective for them.
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Um, and so as part of my sort of applied compassion training, I learned a little bit about that.
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And again, I'm always learning. And, um, but that is, that was talking, um, about specific strategies that,
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um, we don't maybe talk about as much around like resilience and wellbeing.
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So there's like a broad and and build theory of like when you actually have
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experiences of or when you actually have experiences where there's a positive emotion.
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Um, this researcher, uh, Barbara Fredrickson, I maybe get I'm almost positive that's it.
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Yes. Um, has done many years of research around this and said that when we when we take the time to stop and notice those positive emotions,
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we can kind of build a body of a resource for ourselves that we can then draw upon in times of difficulty.
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Um, so those kinds of things are we talked about there's a lot of, um,
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there's a new book out called Art cure by Daisy Fancourt, who's done a lot of research around arts and health.
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And so we talk about how, um, engaging with the arts, having practices that you do, whether it's like arts and crafts,
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whether it's knitting or woodwork, it can be a it has to be something you enjoy and want to do, and you can do it in smaller doses over time.
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But how those kinds of things support your health. So it's things that sometimes sound like the warm and fuzzy.
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Oh, that sounds nice, but is there evidence? And yes, there's a lot of evidence.
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Um, and so, you know, I would recommend people read the book Art cure. Yeah.
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Um, there's a book called Positive Emotions by the researcher, again, Barbara Fredrickson.
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I really hope I'm not. It's not Erikson, and I'm not getting that wrong.
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Um, so strategies like that, um, that, um, students can apply to support themselves over time in their careers.
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Very cool. And then the masters of science, I think that was for the Masters of Medical Science group.
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Yes, it is um, that a lot of the names start to.
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What's the name of that workshop again? It might. So over time, that one, um, was what's the story?
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Yeah. What's the story? Fostering patient and family centered care through health, humanities education.
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Yes. So you I think, you know, I do work with Caroline DeLong.
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So she's a good friend of mine. Um, so that is not one where Caroline and I collaborate together, but it sort of draws upon the same ideas.
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Sure, so I talk. I go in there and I talk to them about the power of noticing.
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Okay. And we do some exercises around noticing as sort of the cornerstone for when we are observant,
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when we notice things, when we train ourselves to see more. That's sort of the cornerstone for.
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Oh, well, I notice how someone's feeling. Um, so I have cognitive, more cognitive or emotional empathy.
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Perhaps those things can be trained. Right. Um, there was a big question around that.
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There's lots of research. Now, we know that empathy and compassion can be trained and they are different.
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But I won't get off on that. Um, so we talk about these things in that workshop, though.
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Okay, cool. Um, so and then we talk about how narrative medicine ties into that,
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which is patient stories essentially not only but um, and so the value of the patient story, again,
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kind of knowing who the patient is, being able to listen to them in a time sensitive manner because they don't have a lot of time,
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many of them in their future careers. Right? How can you be attentive enough to hear the things that matter, the facts and the feelings,
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and to attend to those in ways that make the patient feel heard?
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And there, you know, there's a book called compassion Omics about how when patients feel heard,
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when they feel like they can trust their provider, they'll drive further, wait longer, pay more, right.
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And it impacts their outcomes. It impacts health costs over time.
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So it benefits all of us. So all of those kinds of things are folded in.
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And I would use like the Monet poem in a, in a workshop. I, I'm not sure if I still use it in that one anymore.
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Right. But I did it one time, um, to get to give them a sense of, you can do these things on your own.
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You can look at a painting and say, what do I see? What else do I see?
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You can challenge yourself to notice more. That's why literature is different from mainstream.
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Right? Um, pieces of work which also have value. Like they cause us to struggle a little more with language, with nuance, to see metaphor.
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And when we there's a little there's newer evidence around these kinds of things that those skills,
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if you learn them, are transferable to like clinical settings. Okay. Yeah.
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Interesting. Yeah. So so it transfers to clinical and ultimately you know that application as we kind
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of talked about like what's what's been the feedback from students um on this.
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Um, have they been receptive. What's been kind of kind of the vibe. Yeah I, I, I hope so.
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I mean, mostly it seems like it seems okay. That's great. Yeah, that's that's awesome.
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I don't get all of the responses through the teachers. Right.
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Okay. Occasionally, um,
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like a faculty member in pharmacy and one in nursing over the years have sent me the responses to the sessions and they've been positive.
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I think it's because students are doing heavily science oriented curricula and it stands out right.
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Um, and it's something they all care about because they came here, many of them, because they want to be, um, helping other humans.
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And sometimes that gets a little.
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They some of them feel it gets a little lost. So, um, you know, some of them may roll their eyes and think, this isn't why I'm here.
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I for all I know, I'm sure there are some. Yeah, but overall, it seems to.
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I keep getting invited back so that. Hey. That's great. Well, obviously it's having an effect.
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Yeah, possibly. I hope so. Yeah, I hope so. It feels small to me sometimes because I do.
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I do a lot of workshops over the year right. Each year, but it feels like I pop in and out and I'm like, I hope something sticks.
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That's why I'm like, make it sticky, right?
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Like, yeah, of course, give them give them something they'll that they haven't thought about before so that they'll,
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they can carry that out, hopefully take it with them and it'll stay with them.
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Definitely. Um so so before again I know keep mentioned before we before we dig into the office,
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I have one more question kind of kind of around your experiences and the work you've done.
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Um, so I noticed, um, you've done some work as an, as an author.
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So, um, books, chat books, Collections. An example of one um, uh, is uh, call it absence, which is a chat book, um, uh, Mysterious Medicine,
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The Doctor Scientist, Tales of Hawthorne and Poe, which I thought was interesting.
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So, um, you have some different, different kind of, um, works here that you've done.
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Can you just talk briefly about your work as an author and kind of what your focus has been around this type of writing?
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Yeah. Uh, my writing, it sits at the intersection sort of of arts and health.
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Right. So most of these pieces so the call it absence was about my personal sort of illness journey, um, uh, in a chapbook through through poetry.
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Um, and Mysterious Medicine is on sort of the other side of things.
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It's more of an edited collection of Poe and Hawthorne stories talking about having to struggle to learn, but they, um,
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it relates to health and medicine because they really were investigating issues around,
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um, medicine at a time when it was, you know, very much, um, the Wild West.
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We very much. Yeah, definitely the Wild West. And they had such cool insights.
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I would say Po in particular, that almost feel just prescient, right?
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Yeah. Like, um, and so asking students to like that text that could be taken as like a textbook into a class.
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I'm not sure how many people do that or not, but, um, it's not easy read.
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It's not like, go pick it up and read it at the beach. Right. Um, so yeah.
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But and then the, the one about Anaheim Huntington even is like a, a short biography of the artist's life who helped establish Brookgreen Gardens.
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But the thing that interested me there, too, was that she worked for very many years into her 90s,
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despite having tuberculosis and being very ill at points in her life.
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So I'm always I have become very interested in that intersection.
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And luckily it's a good fit for for here, and it allows me to feel like I contribute in through that sort of genre,
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which is, I mean, writing itself to me is, you know, again, that probably always been the most important thing to me.
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Yeah, definitely in my life. Well, and I thought it was interesting because again, to me, these works obviously I haven't read them,
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but they they looked very diverse, which I thought, which I thought was interesting and kind of kind of cool.
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So I wanted to mention that. Um, let's, let's talk about the Office of Humanity.
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So, so we finally, um, arrived to this conversation, which I'm very excited about.
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I'm very excited for you to for you to discuss it and, and us kind of chat about it.
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Um, so I'm going to read, um, from, from a flier that you provided to me, um,
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just to kind of kind of give folks an idea of what the Office of Humanity is and what kind of your, your mission is.
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Um, so this has our students are taught to observe closely, communicate compassionately, and learn from patients lived experiences.
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They practice skills and reflection,
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analysis and self-expression that help them connect meaningfully with others to promote better patient outcomes and build rewarding careers.
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Um. First of all, that is one of the best, like, written, um, summaries of an office I've ever seen.
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Um, just to be just completely honest, because to me, like, I read that and and I immediately I haven't without even knowing a lot about it.
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Um, reading this, I have an idea of, of of of your offerings and, and kind of again, what your mission is.
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So let's talk about the Office of Humanities. Um, like you're you obviously created it.
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So like the motivation and development for creating that office and so essentially the journey and then
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we'll kind of dig more into things like the programs and some of the offerings that you all have.
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Okay. Um, the dangerous thing is when you get me started talking about it, that's okay.
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It's why we're here. I'm always like, this is.
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I feel I told Tom before I came down here, I was like, it always feels like self-promotion to me, but it's really always about the office.
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Um, because I get so excited. But, um, so without going into, like, a whole history.
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There have been many years of humanities programs at Muskie. Um, there was Reverend Bert Keller many years ago who established used to teach courses.
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So I am not the first and and the only um, but essentially when I came along there, there was, you know,
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I was asked to teach that course, and, and there was a committee that I wasn't on in the beginning.
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It was the university Humanities committee through the provost office. And over time, I joined the committee.
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I became active, I eventually chaired it.
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And it was it became apparent to me that if I wanted to do something more substantive, um, it needed to be in office.
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And at the time, we had even had a, um, humanity Scholar in residence, Doctor Herman Blake, and we got to know each other.
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And at one point he said, I think you need to think about what you want to do.
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So as a mentor, you know, I was pretty meek and quiet.
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I kept to myself and, you know, back then and, um, I think And, um, to have that encouragement meant a lot to me.
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So I wrote up a proposal, um, took it to a couple of provosts.
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The second provost, Lisa Saladin, um, said yes.
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And, uh, it allowed me to have an actual chunk of my time to devote to this instead of it being entirely service.
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Right. Because I was doing it regardless, I wanted to. You were in. You were?
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Yeah. I was trying to recruit people to write, and there were lots of people.
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It's always been there have always been really enthusiastic people, um, doing this work here.
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And so I think I was just lucky to get to be the person who just got to formalize it a little bit more.
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Yeah, that's very exciting. And it was it was really cool that obviously you were involved, but you saw the need to, again,
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like form a formalize it to have have like that foundation of an office and, and ultimately like develop the work, work out of that.
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Yeah that was that I think that's really exciting. Um, so let's talk about the programs within the office.
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So tell me about the programs that you offer across the university.
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And then again, we'll kind of dig into some more interesting aspects of those from there.
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Yeah. Um, yeah.
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It was it's important, as I segue into talking about the programs, it was important to me for the humanities and the health humanities.
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Some people say medical humanities. I use health humanities for a reason.
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I can talk about if that is interesting, but, um, because I wanted it to be perceived not as an extracurricular, but as educational,
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like, like this is this can be and should be a part of all students education in some small way, if we can make it that way.
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So I have tried to create programs that are available to students across the colleges.
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I'm trying to meet challenges now as we have more remote and hybrid students.
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I'm not doing as well as I want to. I'm a one person office right with.
365
00:33:50,154 --> 00:33:54,314
With that, I have to nod to Tabitha Samuel, the faculty advisor of Humanitas.
366
00:33:54,994 --> 00:33:59,334
Because every time I say I'm a one person office, I'm like, she does a whale of a lot of work. But, you know, she's.
367
00:33:59,814 --> 00:34:03,134
She's that's a service thing that she does. To her credit, she.
368
00:34:03,574 --> 00:34:10,614
She does a lot. Um, so we have programs that, um, are designed for students in any college to participate in.
369
00:34:10,934 --> 00:34:13,054
And with the idea that they all have different schedules,
370
00:34:13,734 --> 00:34:23,534
I designed the Health Humanities Scholars program so that students can design a program around a topic that sits in the health humanities and,
371
00:34:24,694 --> 00:34:28,454
um, basically complete about 18 hours of work and earn a digital badge.
372
00:34:29,014 --> 00:34:33,294
Right. Um, but that would be like if someone, if a student had an interest in disability studies,
373
00:34:34,014 --> 00:34:40,414
they might read a couple of books about the lived experience of different folks and write the right reflections about everything,
374
00:34:41,014 --> 00:34:46,454
and then a capstone reflection. They might go see a couple people talk on campus if there are related talks,
375
00:34:46,854 --> 00:34:50,774
so they can cull together their own program, which makes it relevant to them.
376
00:34:51,334 --> 00:34:59,264
Right. Things they will apply. Right. Um, and also possible because They can fit it into their schedules.
377
00:34:59,824 --> 00:35:01,664
As you know, they have so much variety, right?
378
00:35:02,064 --> 00:35:08,864
Um, applied compassion and, um, student leadership program is the other kind of big one that's a digital badge.
379
00:35:09,824 --> 00:35:14,704
Um, and I developed that after going and getting my own education around Applied Compassion.
380
00:35:15,224 --> 00:35:19,184
I completed an 11 month program. Um, again, because I wanted to know the evidence.
381
00:35:19,584 --> 00:35:24,624
Why am I doing. It's nice to talk about compassion. I believe in it. But how does it work in our brains and our bodies?
382
00:35:25,544 --> 00:35:31,664
How is it producing, you know, impact on patient outcomes? And so students can apply for that in the spring.
383
00:35:32,144 --> 00:35:39,704
And, um, we usually have like we about 15 to 20 students in that, um, because sometimes we'll accept a certain number.
384
00:35:39,904 --> 00:35:47,784
And then we have some attrition when students realize their schedule. Um, but that is a program that cuts across the year from September to March.
385
00:35:48,624 --> 00:35:54,344
Six sessions, 11A month. We come and learn about, um, like a session called wired for compassion,
386
00:35:55,664 --> 00:35:59,244
talking about the difference between empathy and compassion and how they can be trained. Those things I mentioned before.
387
00:36:00,004 --> 00:36:07,084
ET cetera. Um, then we move into self-compassion. Nonviolent communication, like communication skills, um,
388
00:36:07,324 --> 00:36:12,204
and then communication frameworks in healthcare and then like leadership, partnership kinds of things.
389
00:36:12,724 --> 00:36:19,444
So it does ultimately give them a groundwork and compassion and, and self-compassion that leads to like you could lead this in the future.
390
00:36:20,124 --> 00:36:24,044
Yeah. We want you to take this. Again, it empowers them to potentially lead lead these efforts.
391
00:36:24,724 --> 00:36:30,324
And to me, I mean, obviously, if you're developing, um, folks in this field who are going to lead efforts moving forward, I think that's incredible.
392
00:36:30,884 --> 00:36:37,684
Right, I hope so. When you meet the students and hear their ideas and it's just so rewarding.
393
00:36:38,364 --> 00:36:42,404
Yeah, they're so brilliant. And they think of things I would never think of. And that to me is like, why?
394
00:36:43,004 --> 00:36:46,204
Another reason I love teaching because I am just like I.
395
00:36:46,644 --> 00:36:49,924
I'm always wanting to learn teaching. Yeah, for me is learning too. Yeah.
396
00:36:50,524 --> 00:36:53,524
Um, it's greedy in that way because you're always growing yourself. Yeah.
397
00:36:53,864 --> 00:36:58,464
Um, we have Humanitas, which is the literary arts journal that comes out once a year,
398
00:36:58,864 --> 00:37:03,024
and students can be on the board, or they can, um, they can submit. Anyone with a badge can submit.
399
00:37:03,624 --> 00:37:08,544
We offer small grants for projects like up to $1,000 if a student wants to.
400
00:37:09,184 --> 00:37:17,224
Um, one student who was an OT created a new app for parents of students with um, of children with autism.
401
00:37:18,224 --> 00:37:24,584
Um, that's just one example. Um, students have created book clubs, clubs around themes and things like that.
402
00:37:25,344 --> 00:37:31,144
Um, they there's a group that's doing something in the E.R. to help provide, um, clothes for people being,
403
00:37:32,024 --> 00:37:37,024
um, leaving the ER and then measuring the impact on students of that sort of compassion.
404
00:37:37,624 --> 00:37:44,104
So that's just variety. Um, then we got the workshops and the partnerships with various people like Caroline DeLong.
405
00:37:44,504 --> 00:37:48,624
Shaw. Right. Um, Arts and Healing is another, you know, group of friends that we have.
406
00:37:49,184 --> 00:37:52,914
Yeah. Uh, so it's really impressive to me that it's such a variety of offerings.
407
00:37:53,914 --> 00:37:57,514
So students have a lot of ways to get involved so they can of course,
408
00:37:57,754 --> 00:38:02,754
kind of they do pick and choose their flavor in terms of how they want to lead these efforts and get involved.
409
00:38:03,354 --> 00:38:08,114
The micro credentialing is interesting to me, obviously, because we've seen such a big shift potentially,
410
00:38:08,874 --> 00:38:11,994
you know, particularly the last like 3 or 4 years around micro credentials and the importance of those.
411
00:38:12,434 --> 00:38:18,434
Have those programs always been micro credentials, or do they originally start as something else and kind of evolve into a micro credential offering?
412
00:38:19,474 --> 00:38:22,474
Um, I believe you might have to help me.
413
00:38:22,794 --> 00:38:28,194
I think you're aren't you on the. Yeah, I am, I am, yes. Um, well, thank you for approving me.
414
00:38:29,154 --> 00:38:35,434
Um, I think the health humanities scholars I created with the idea that it would be a bag originally from the from the jump.
415
00:38:35,874 --> 00:38:42,314
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And applied. I've actually had to cross out the name because I need to update these fliers, the Applied Compassion,
416
00:38:42,794 --> 00:38:47,314
before I went and got new training and wanted to remake that program was called Communicating Compassion.
417
00:38:48,034 --> 00:38:51,294
Okay. And that was before it was a bat. So it existed for a few years.
418
00:38:51,694 --> 00:38:56,534
Okay. And I have to also say that the co faculty on that is Christina McDaniel who manages Christina.
419
00:38:56,854 --> 00:38:58,454
Yeah. Executive manager for palliative care.
420
00:38:58,774 --> 00:39:04,174
So students get really excited to hear what she has to say about like palliative care communication and how that can be applied to other places.
421
00:39:04,494 --> 00:39:07,774
Yeah, definitely. Just want to give her credit. Definitely. No. That's all that's all exciting.
422
00:39:08,654 --> 00:39:11,694
You know, obviously these students are seeking out these opportunities. So they're already motivated.
423
00:39:12,134 --> 00:39:16,614
But I think it's nice obviously if they have this micro credential that kind of gives them that little bit of extra,
424
00:39:17,734 --> 00:39:22,214
um, that they can of course take away. They can share, they can show that they've, you know, been involved in these efforts.
425
00:39:22,534 --> 00:39:26,014
I think that I think that's great. Yeah, I love that that exists I appreciate it.
426
00:39:26,254 --> 00:39:31,414
Yeah, definitely. Um, so before we we kind of wrap up talking about the Dear Human project, which is what I want to end on.
427
00:39:31,934 --> 00:39:38,014
Um, just out of curiosity, um, have you had any conversations with colleges or programs about what this might
428
00:39:38,334 --> 00:39:42,214
look or what this work might look like if it was interwoven into curriculum,
429
00:39:42,854 --> 00:39:45,454
or if that's ever been a possibility or a conversation. That's something.
430
00:39:46,094 --> 00:39:50,714
I mean, obviously these these separate offerings are fantastic and I think students should take advantage of them.
431
00:39:50,994 --> 00:39:53,994
But what does this look like if it's actually embedded in a curriculum?
432
00:39:54,514 --> 00:40:02,794
Have those conversations happened? Yes. I mean, so that the efforts to but but less formally maybe than than you mean.
433
00:40:03,074 --> 00:40:09,794
Right. Yeah. Um, I. I'm trying to avoid saying one thing about, like, accreditation.
434
00:40:10,714 --> 00:40:17,794
Um, sorry. That's okay. Um, I think it is part of a lot of colleges accreditation process.
435
00:40:18,274 --> 00:40:29,074
And occasionally someone will contact me, you know, with some questions. Um, I sometimes say that if it became what I would like it to be,
436
00:40:29,314 --> 00:40:37,474
which is integrated into all the curriculum in some curricula in some way, um, then I wouldn't have to do my job, which would be very sad.
437
00:40:37,674 --> 00:40:39,794
I love my job, but I won't be here forever, right?
438
00:40:40,154 --> 00:40:45,994
Um, I do think that the way I have gone about it is through relationships with a particular faculty.
439
00:40:46,594 --> 00:40:51,894
Yeah. So Christy Britton and Pharmacy or Laura Cashman and I'm thinking of the two.
440
00:40:52,254 --> 00:40:55,334
We were talking about I think earlier we weren't talking about pharmacy. Sorry.
441
00:40:56,054 --> 00:41:01,454
Uh, Brantley Broome and nurse people who allow me to come into there, come into the classroom and be a part of it.
442
00:41:01,574 --> 00:41:05,134
Right? Yes. Am I allowed to name people? I hope I'm not who you are. No, absolutely you are.
443
00:41:05,294 --> 00:41:12,494
It's all in positive ways. Yeah, but these relationships that I've tried to build with people allow me to embed a workshop or a few workshops.
444
00:41:13,214 --> 00:41:16,374
And so in that way, I try to become part of the curricula. Yeah.
445
00:41:16,694 --> 00:41:21,974
Um, I think, um, there are a couple of colleges where there's less room for it.
446
00:41:22,654 --> 00:41:26,454
Um, although I have done something in almost every college, um, over the years.
447
00:41:27,334 --> 00:41:33,734
Um, and have always, you know, appreciated that. So my mind goes in two directions.
448
00:41:34,574 --> 00:41:41,374
Like, I, I think someone can follow me and continue the work of, like, pushing to say, let's make this permanent.
449
00:41:41,774 --> 00:41:46,224
But I feel like these workshops are pretty permanent and recurring across most of the colleges I do them in.
450
00:41:47,144 --> 00:41:53,224
And then the other direction is, you know. Could we build an educational program that offers its own degree?
451
00:41:53,944 --> 00:41:58,064
That's a whole other thing. And I feel like that's not necessarily serving our students who are here.
452
00:41:58,544 --> 00:42:02,024
Correct. Yeah. So yeah, I'm not sure I'm answering your question. You are to me.
453
00:42:02,184 --> 00:42:05,744
Well, I mean, to me, it sounds like it's interwoven. It's just not, um, maybe like formally formalized.
454
00:42:06,344 --> 00:42:09,464
Formalized which which, you know, um, I mean, it's no secret.
455
00:42:09,784 --> 00:42:14,704
There's a lot of red tape around, around things like that and formalizing curricula, and there's a lot that goes into that.
456
00:42:14,904 --> 00:42:18,184
So I was just curious because I've had conversations with other folks who have talked about, like,
457
00:42:18,384 --> 00:42:22,624
work they do that affects students, and it's obviously important and things that students need.
458
00:42:22,784 --> 00:42:27,504
But it's not always formalized or like part of the part of the curriculum, which I think is always an interesting conversation.
459
00:42:28,104 --> 00:42:33,544
I think it is too. And I maybe y'all can give me more perspective on this over time too, because, um,
460
00:42:33,784 --> 00:42:39,824
I would I would like to know how these things are listed when they are going through an accreditation process,
461
00:42:40,144 --> 00:42:46,764
because it always, it often is someone popping in with a question without a lot of context for me, and I'm very happy to provide the information.
462
00:42:47,444 --> 00:42:55,724
Right. But I it's, you know, uh, time limitations have kept me from digging a little further into that.
463
00:42:55,924 --> 00:43:02,324
I've been like, I'm in the curricula, like in the number of years I've had, but I definitely think that that is the next step to think.
464
00:43:03,284 --> 00:43:10,564
Um, I want this to go on after me. Who's the person that'll keep keep it in, in in the colleges and, um.
465
00:43:11,924 --> 00:43:15,244
Yeah. How will that happen? What will that look like? The evolution of it?
466
00:43:15,524 --> 00:43:20,844
Yes. Moving forward. And it needs time. And it needs. Yeah, it needs the time for someone to really do that.
467
00:43:21,364 --> 00:43:27,124
So I want to kind of close out here talking about, um, one more offering, um, through the Office of Humanities or.
468
00:43:27,644 --> 00:43:32,724
Um, so can you talk a bit about the Dear Human Project? I thought that was interesting. I'm hoping we'll do a little more of it.
469
00:43:32,844 --> 00:43:36,284
We have a paper coming out in academic medicine. Oh. Very exciting. Just accepted research.
470
00:43:36,564 --> 00:43:41,404
Right. Nice. Congratulations. Um, about. So that's. The Dear Human project has kind of two pieces to it.
471
00:43:41,524 --> 00:43:48,464
I went and did a two week, um, writing residency there, but I also it was also connected, of course, to USC.
472
00:43:49,504 --> 00:43:55,544
Um, so as part of that, we conducted what I call an arts based, um, compassion training,
473
00:43:56,864 --> 00:44:04,544
taking some of the evidence we know around how compassion can be trained or has been found to be most effective, and putting that in the art museum.
474
00:44:05,424 --> 00:44:14,344
And so we had a workshop with em, USC folks who came in, um, and went through this dear human sort of process sequence that I had created.
475
00:44:15,344 --> 00:44:21,624
Um, and in partnership with Becky Hester at the Gibbs, Cindy Dodds, um, and one of our students, uh,
476
00:44:21,984 --> 00:44:28,024
at the time, Anna Grace Chang, participated later in, like, analyzing the, um, the data that we got.
477
00:44:28,344 --> 00:44:38,464
So, um, so, dear human was two parts in the sense that it was just me going in and writing about humans depicted in pieces at the Gibbs.
478
00:44:39,024 --> 00:44:43,044
Yeah. The idea of this is that idea of connection that we started.
479
00:44:43,364 --> 00:44:46,764
Right? Yeah. Which is nice. Nice. Nice. Full circle moment. Yes. I was hoping for here.
480
00:44:47,124 --> 00:44:54,964
How lovely. Yeah, exactly. Um. So, yeah, it's about like, can we by proxy, through connecting with humans and pieces of artwork.
481
00:44:56,124 --> 00:45:02,964
Think about the skills or develop that way of thinking. And I'm very interested in neuro esthetics now.
482
00:45:03,124 --> 00:45:07,044
And the esthetic triad, which says, you know, we definitely do learn specific things.
483
00:45:07,444 --> 00:45:10,124
And it's highly salient to learn through the arts and things like that.
484
00:45:10,724 --> 00:45:15,364
Um, so that was part of it just, you know, getting in there and writing about those pieces.
485
00:45:15,764 --> 00:45:20,324
And for me, that was incredibly rewarding. And the other part was, can we look at what those pieces?
486
00:45:21,204 --> 00:45:28,284
Can we thematically analyze what those pieces, um, to see what sort of themes stood out to see if they are?
487
00:45:28,684 --> 00:45:37,644
They did have themes. Um, if we could can, uh, I think some people say themes emerge, some people say you construct themes,
488
00:45:37,924 --> 00:45:44,614
but, um, and we did find that through a number of pieces there was obviously demonstrated empathy.
489
00:45:45,094 --> 00:45:52,694
But also some people went further to try to provide like empowerment to this figure in art or encouragement.
490
00:45:53,494 --> 00:45:58,054
So those kinds of actions are what's associated with compassion over, over empathy, for example.
491
00:45:58,414 --> 00:46:03,974
See me that's so interesting to me in such an interesting project and unlike anything else that I mean that I know of,
492
00:46:04,094 --> 00:46:07,214
that anybody is doing, doing within, within these walls here at USC.
493
00:46:07,614 --> 00:46:11,254
So, um, I want to thank you so much for being here.
494
00:46:11,934 --> 00:46:15,734
Um, I think the work you're doing now is, is more important than ever.
495
00:46:16,374 --> 00:46:18,654
Um, and it's just really exciting to hear about it.
496
00:46:19,334 --> 00:46:24,054
Um, uh, for all everybody listening, uh, we'll be sure to provide some links to the Office of Humanities.
497
00:46:24,534 --> 00:46:28,494
Some of the other things we've we've talked about today. So everybody can, um, check them out.
498
00:46:28,574 --> 00:46:32,214
But yeah, I want to thank you again for being here. I really appreciate the time. I love talking about it.
499
00:46:32,294 --> 00:46:35,334
And it was such a pleasure to talk with you about it. So thank you. Thank you, I appreciate it.
500
00:46:37,574 --> 00:46:37,734
Thank you.
