This summer, incoming first-year and transfer students at Butler University are invited to enroll in a free online course about how we can move forward as individuals, as a University, and as a community following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Similar to the free summer course offered last year, which covered the immediate impacts of the virus, this one-credit-hour class is designed to help incoming students grow familiar with the Butler community and the college experience before arriving on campus.

“The goals for this year’s course are similar to last year, but with the theme of ‘what have we learned, and how can we be better post-COVID,’” says Anne Wilson, Professor of Chemistry and faculty lead for the online class. “Our prepared lectures are going to be much more collaborative, with multiple faculty members contributing to a single topic. We have many faculty from last summer returning to the effort, as well as several new folks whom we are excited to include!”

Titled ID190: Building a Better World Post-COVID, the course will run from late June through mid-August. Students will be assigned to one of several faculty-led groups, alongside approximately 20 peers. They will discuss topics such as what we have learned from the pandemic, how we can maintain relationships and well-being in similar situations, why supply chain issues affected vaccine rollout, and how the community will celebrate the end of the pandemic.

“The COVID course was a great introduction into a class discussion at the college level, as the discussions were student-led,” says first-year Chemistry major Lauren Browning, who completed the course last summer. “Learning about the pandemic from not only a medical perspective but from so many different aspects really put that well-rounded liberal arts spin on the course. To be able to simultaneously share my opinion while hearing opinions from others created this comfortable environment where I could take more perspectives into consideration than I had ever realized. Apart from the course material itself, I enjoyed the great discussions and made some friends from my class, some of whom I still talk to now. It was a great first course for entering Butler, and I would highly recommend it.”

After paying the $500 enrollment deposit, students who are interested in joining the free course can either sign up during their academic advising appointments at Virtual Registration or on their student status page. Students should enroll before Thursday, June 24, 2021.
 

Media Contact:
Katie Grieze
Senior Content Manager
kgrieze@butler.edu
260-307-3403