Cortney Hughes Rinker is Part of Two Teams awarded Curriculum Impact Grants for 2020-21

Cortney Hughes Rinker is Part of Two Teams awarded Curriculum Impact Grants for 2020-21

Dr. Hughes Rinker is part of two teams that have been awarded Curriculum Impact Grants for 2020-21 through the Provost Office at George Mason.

One funded project is titled “Enhancing Cross-Cultural Engagement and Collaboration at Mason through Explorations of Global Health Challenges” and is a collaboration with Michael Smith (INTO Mason), Andrew Lee (University Libraries), Laura Poms and Megumi Inoue (CHSS), and Steve Harris-Scott (CHSS and INTO Mason). They will develop two scaffolded, co-located courses that focus on compelling, international health challenges: outbreaks of diseases that are vaccine-preventable, increasing rates of obesity, drug addiction, lack of access to mental health care, impacts of environmental pollution and climate change on health, humanitarian crises, drug-resistant pathogens, and aging populations. Through cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary dialogue and research, the course will integrate students from CHSS and CHHS, working alongside INTO Mason students, to examine these health challenges and possible medical and non-medical solutions.

The second funded project is the development of the STEM in Society Minor with faculty from CHSS, CHHS, COS, and VSE. As science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) become more integrated into people’s everyday lives, knowledge of tech industries – how advances are developed, how they fit into the wider context of society and culture, and how historical contexts have in turn shaped advances in these fields – offers students a broad perspective of how these industries impact the human experience. This minor features coursework from across colleges to help students develop the skills and knowledge to solve pressing social, medical, technological, and environmental problems.