A class of 22 freshmen spent their final week of Intersession in the Baltimore-based class “B’More: Studying Innovation and Change Through Charm City”.
The course, now in its third year, challenged students to propose solutions to social issues on campus.
Associate Director of the Center for Education Resources and sociology graduate student Mike Reese developed the class after he was asked to teach an intersession class.
“My sociology research is on how educational innovations diffuse through higher education,” Reese said. “I decided I would teach a course on how ideas and innovation diffuse through society. I grew up in Baltimore and the key part of the B’More Program is that you have to take academic topics and tie them to something with Baltimore. I build all the case studies we study around Baltimore.”
The class was centered around class activities, discussions, guest speakers and field trips to places like the Peabody Library and the new Harbor East development. Students were encouraged to see Baltimore as a city of continued change and a birthplace of ideas that would encourage them in their final projects.
These Baltimore-inspired proposals included a “free hugs” program, a bike share program, a “reusable cups on campus” initiative, a push towards faculty-student research discussions, a “Homewood Arts Expansion Initiative” and a “Mobile Maintenance” smartphone app.
Freshmen Jae Woo, Nick Cheung and Anuja Shah developed the proposal for the “free hugs” program to combat what they perceive as a competitive atmosphere at Hopkins.
“I really got into the idea after watching a video that [Reese posted online] and I was inspired by the change in atmosphere after people were hugging,” Woo said.
The proposal involved setting up a group within the Health and Wellness Center that would get group members “free hugs” t-shirts and schedule a “free hugs picket line” on the Freshman Quad and other locations. Photos would be uploaded to a Facebook page, “premium” hugs would be offered for a dollar each and professors would also be invited to partake in the hugging.
Freshmen Ali Cox, Mustafa Buxamusa and Kalina Martinova developed the proposal for the Mobile Maintenance app, which is based off of the idea of involving the entire student-body in reporting campus-wide issues.
“The MobileMaintenance App would be interactive among the community. If a student or faculty member notices and reports a problem, other students or faculty members can see the post and ‘like’ it if they agree it is a relevant issue. When an issue is posted, the app utilizes location services in the device to record where the issue exists. The more ‘likes’ a post receives, the more priority it is given,” Cox wrote in an email to The News-Letter. “The maintenance staff will then be able to take appropriate measures to address the concern.”
In a third proposal, Liza Slutskaya worked with fellow freshman Allison Slemaker on “The Homewood Arts Expansion Initiative.” Their objective was to provide students with more variety in the arts by offering them studio space in the Mattin Center, encouraging the Homewood Arts Program to run several open exhibits for students to display their work and allowing upperclassmen and graduate students in the arts program to select the artwork and run the exhibits.
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