Last fall, when 25 undergraduate students enrolled in HST308H1: Aging and Health showed up for their first lecture, they walked into a classroom unlike any other.
For starters, the course, offered by the University College Health Studies program in partnership with the Institute for Life Course and Aging, did not take place on campus or online. Rather, it was held in a well-appointed space on the ground floor of Christie Gardens, a unique retirement community located a short walk from the University of Toronto’s St. George campus in downtown Toronto.
Among those assembled for class on that first day were the students you might expect, aged twentysomething, scrolling through course materials on their devices. But there were also older adults in their eighties and nineties, residents of Christie Gardens, who came prepared for class with printed-out and highlighted copies of the readings.
At first, and perhaps not surprisingly, the twentysomethings and eighty-somethings did not interact much. “Ageism works both ways,” says course instructor Raza Mirza, an assistant professor in the Institute for Life Course and Aging at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at U of T. To break the ice, Mirza had students play “the age card,” a game he developed to facilitate intergenerational networking that poses questions like, "At what age does someone become old"?
“I asked them about younger people, older people, and there are these stereotypical views that they have,” he says. But after a semester spent engaging with one another and exploring topics such as the health-care system, caregiving, and medical assistance in dying, “When I asked them again at the end of the course, their views had changed.”
Not only that, but the twenty-somethings and eighty-somethings had become friends, with students continuing to visit their elder classmates at Christie Gardens long after fulfilling their course requirements.
“It’s blown my expectations, the impact that a course like this can have,” says Mirza, who spearheaded the intergenerational classroom initiative, just one of the experiential learning opportunities offered by the Health Studies program.
A quarter of the students who take the course, unique at the undergraduate level for its focus on aging, go on to further studies in or a career related to gerontology—an impressive feat given that the field is difficult to recruit for, despite a desperate need for workers to support Canada’s aging population.
Connecting what happens in the classroom to the needs of society-at-large is a priority and a joy for Colleen Dockstader, an associate professor in the human biology program in the Faculty of Arts and Science, and the newly appointed director of the Health Studies program at University College.
Under her leadership, the interdisciplinary program, which equips students to solve health challenges, is developing the Health Studies Alumni Project, a new initiative to connect current students with program alumni through career panels, workshops, mentorship opportunities, and more.
Dockstader is also collaborating with colleagues at U of T’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, “to ensure that our program provides students with knowledge and skills that will cultivate both the competence and confidence to excel in that field,” she says.
The program also recently launched a bi-weekly newsletter to help keep the health studies community informed and connected. Prepared by a work-study student, the newsletter contains notices of upcoming events, profiles of current students, and information about mental health and career resources specific to the program.
While Dockstader’s own research looks at the brain and human behaviour—she has a doctorate in neuroscience from U of T and spent 12 years as a researcher at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto before returning to the university— she is keenly interested in health policy and its application. “I have always been on the discovery and basic knowledge side of human health,” she says, so when the opportunity arose to take the reins at health studies, she “jumped at the chance.”
If her enthusiasm and the dedication of innovative instructors like Mirza are any indication, students and alumni alike should stay tuned for more great things to come from health studies at University College.
Click to learn more about the Health Studies Alumni Project