VOLVOX: Making Narrative Medicine Happen Alumni Speaker Series

Building a University Certificate Program Tips from the Trenches 

SPEAKER: Anu Chatterjee, PhD, CPA ’22 

MODERATOR: Cheri Henderson, PhD, MS'14

English professor Anu Chatterjee’s open-access undergraduate college didn’t have a narrative medicine course, let alone a certificate program. So, she created one. That’s easier said than done, of course! Chatterjee will share how she won over administrators and teaching colleagues in the campus associate’s degree programs in allied-healthcare fields. She has also had to get buy-in from first-generation college students living economically fragile lives and sometimes approaching academia with diffidence or even hostility – students to whom narrative medicine skills may seem impractical or even frivolous. She will also describe pedagogic successes and challenges, including assessment.