Happiness and Wellbeing CLASS
the Well started hosting a new class on the theme of The Science and Practice of Happiness and Wellbeing:
Class title: "Introduction to strategies for promoting happiness and wellbeing"
MSL F492 and MSL F692 Fridays 11:45A-12:45P
contact Mat for more details - mjwooller@alaska.edu).
Class Number: MSL F492/ MSL F692 - 1 credit (1 hour per week)
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Research indicates that the mental health of many students, staff and faculty in higher education is declining. This class investigates strategies that promote self-care, happiness & wellbeing within university life. Participants will have opportunities to practice activities known to promote happiness & wellbeing, drawing from areas including physiology, positive psychology, ancestral knowledge, mindfulness and nutrition.
COURSE GOALS: The overarching goal of the class is for participants to learn about, experience and experiment with practices that can promote happiness & wellbeing and to transfer and extend this to their own lives and to share with others in their communities.
The class will next be offered Spring 2023.
Our happiness and wellbeing class was joined during the Spring of 2022 by one of the world's most eminent stable isotope biogeochemists - Dr. Marilyn Fogel. This was shortly before Dr. Fogel died from ALS.
Dr. Marilyn Fogel was a Emeritus Professor at UC Riverside studying interdisciplinary research in geoecology. After her bachelors from Penn State and PhD from University of Texas, Marilyn worked at Carnegie’s Geophysical Laboratory where she was only the second female hire. She was also the first female to be awarded geochemistry’s highest honor, the Alfred Tribe’s medal. She was also been elected to the National Academy of Science.
Her research took her all over the world, including the Australian deserts, the Sargasso Sea in the Bermuda Triangle, and the Mars-like island of Svalbard north of Norway. Marilyn’s research demonstrates that we can learn a lot about our past, present and future world through the vast reservoir of the remains of living organisms beneath Earth’s surface – from predictions about climate change into the next century to understanding how life on the planet began and the ancient organisms that once lived here.
Marilyn was also my post-doc advisor back in the day and was one of my closest and dearest friends. She had an amazing love of life – and was perhaps one of the most alive people I have known. Marilyn was diagnosed with ALS a few years ago and was restricted to a wheel chair. She has an amazing husband and two wonderful grown up kids. She juggled it all. Please enjoy her sharing her perspectives on happiness and wellbeing. She also hosted a blog where she shared some of her amazing experiences and perspectives – I encourage you to check it out.
Before you meet Marilyn in the videos below, I also strongly encourage you to check out this moving youtube video Marilyn made talking about herself and living with ALS.