Each week, Honors students gather in a small classroom in Knoll Residential Center to unravel one of the greatest drivers shaping human history: disease. For these Honors students, their studies go beyond symptoms and treatments to include an understanding of people, societies, and the evolution of medicine.
Students in the Honors seminar “Plagues, People, and Public Health,” taught by Dr. Angela Bolen from the Department of History and the Humanities in Medicine program, learn about a different disease and trace it throughout history each class period. Bolen structured the class to gradually reveal how scientific knowledge has developed and how those discoveries are tied to the human experience.
“It’s plagues, and then it’s people,” Bolen said. “The point is to understand how these disease agents affect human society.”
This human-centered approach is furthered by class discussions about medical ethics. For example, students examined how the Nuremberg trials reshaped medicine and emphasized accountability. Bolen said these discussions “help humanize medicine and bring the people back into it.”
Much of the classwork involves engaging with both primary and secondary sources to inform their debates. “You cannot learn any of this without talking about it,” Bolen said. “A lot of the class involves presenting information, asking questions, and then just working through it together.”
At its core, the course is part of the Humanities in Medicine program, which aims to highlight the emotional and cultural dimensions of healthcare. Bolen said one of her primary goals for the course was to challenge stereotypes about medicine.
“Medicine is not just science,” she said. “It’s feelings, history, perspectives. Diseases do not just exist in nature; they shape how societies see themselves.”
The course’s unique position as an Honors seminar plays a key role in making that exploration possible. Smaller class sizes and highly engaged students allow for deeper, more nuanced discussions. Bolen said Honors students bring a level of curiosity and willingness to tackle difficult topics that elevate the course.
“The discussions never fall flat,” she said. “Students are not afraid to ask hard questions or sit with complex and sometimes uncomfortable ideas.”
The class fosters a personal learning environment through meaningful and personalized engagement between Bolen and the students. Bolen said she works to understand each student as an individual with their own experience, rather than just a name on a list.
“I love this class because it makes learning interactive,” second-year actuarial science major Ruby Barger said. “Dr. Bolen values engagement and individual interactions, which makes learning feel very personal.”
Bolen first proposed the course during the COVID-19 pandemic, drawing on her long-standing interest in the history of medicine through a human lens. “I had been wanting to teach a class like this for a long time, and during COVID it felt especially relevant,” she said.
“Plagues, People, and Public Health” offers more than a history of illnesses. It provides students with a deep understanding of how medicine continues to evolve in relation to the human experience. For students like Barger, this experience meant taking ownership of her learning on a personal level, which meant a transformation in how she saw the history of medicine.
