Artifact one - Task Force Report
During winter quarter of senior year, all JSIS majors are required to take the capstone class called Task Force. This is a course where, along with about 12-15 other students, you create a written policy report on an issue assigned to you by the end of the quarter. Typical reports are about 200 pages long, and are read after publication by an evaluator, usually a high-ranking politician or visiting professor.
I decided to take Task Force during my junior year, in order to free up time as a senior for medical school applications. Though I decided to take a gap year instead, I am very grateful that I did Task Force a year early. This was simultaneously the most challenging and rewarding class of my major. I chose to be one of the two editors of the report, which meant I was responsible for writing the introduction, conclusion, and abstract as well as editing the sections of the other students. Taking on this extra burden challenged me to be concise and practical in my time management, and taught me about group work and how to help coach and encourage other students - all of whom were older than I was, and many of whom were already accepted to graduate school.
Our Task Force was lead by Congressman Brian Baird, who was a very influential leader for all of us. As he was still an active politician at the time, he was called to South Africa for about two weeks right before our paper was due. There was a particularly tense and funny moment where myself, the other editor, and the two student coordinators huddled around a cellphone in the courtyard of Molly's Cafe below the Henry and shouted updates and questions to him - on his terrible satellite phone reception, he could barely hear us, and came back after the report was turned in to admit he had trusted our judgement but had no idea what we were saying. The class taught me more about working in a real-world environment than any other academic situation I have been in at the UW.
I decided to take Task Force during my junior year, in order to free up time as a senior for medical school applications. Though I decided to take a gap year instead, I am very grateful that I did Task Force a year early. This was simultaneously the most challenging and rewarding class of my major. I chose to be one of the two editors of the report, which meant I was responsible for writing the introduction, conclusion, and abstract as well as editing the sections of the other students. Taking on this extra burden challenged me to be concise and practical in my time management, and taught me about group work and how to help coach and encourage other students - all of whom were older than I was, and many of whom were already accepted to graduate school.
Our Task Force was lead by Congressman Brian Baird, who was a very influential leader for all of us. As he was still an active politician at the time, he was called to South Africa for about two weeks right before our paper was due. There was a particularly tense and funny moment where myself, the other editor, and the two student coordinators huddled around a cellphone in the courtyard of Molly's Cafe below the Henry and shouted updates and questions to him - on his terrible satellite phone reception, he could barely hear us, and came back after the report was turned in to admit he had trusted our judgement but had no idea what we were saying. The class taught me more about working in a real-world environment than any other academic situation I have been in at the UW.
Artifact two - Summer institute in the arts and humanities
Over the past summer I participated in SIAH, the Summer Institute in the Arts and Humanities. I enjoyed being able to participate in an intensive summer research experience, with a dedicated group of students of all ages and disciplines brought together by our mutual passion for the humanities. Our topic was on global outbreaks of disease, adding in personal narratives and viewing them through a social science perspective rather than a purely scientific. The following excerpt is the abstract of the paper I wrote on smoking behavior at the University of Washington. I was interested in analyzing hidden and silenced narratives that big tobacco purposely obfuscates, as a way to target minority groups and hook them on their harmful products. The summer research experience challenged me to delve deeper into a topic I would otherwise not have become so familiar with, and I enjoyed having the chance to truly devote myself to an in-depth research experience.
Clearing the Air: Examining Tobacco-Related Health Narratives and the Legitimacy of Smoke-Free College Campus Initiatives
Abstract
The purpose of this research is to investigate hidden health narratives on campus regarding the use of tobacco products to contextualize the legitimacy of smoke-free and tobacco-free university initiatives. This academic endeavor will also reveal the structural and institutionalized violence of the tobacco industry which targets marginalized communities to entice the uptake of regular smoking habits. Finally it will examine the ways in which they recruit new employees and potential smokers from students seeking employment opportunities or internships at campus career fairs.
An analysis of biopolitical power, structural violence, and social theory will help to reveal the hidden narratives of these populations, twice-targeted by the social stigmatization of tobacco use and the manipulative advertising of the tobacco industry. By exposing, analyzing, and deconstructing patterns of profit-driven tobacco marketing directed at student demographics, geographies of blame regarding tobacco use can be examined, the impact of tobacco use on non-smoking populations can be better understood, and the misleading agendas behind the dominant narratives of tobacco industry advertising can be revealed. By identifying and bringing to light these messages, it is possible to legitimize the anti-smoking and anti-tobacco movements happening at the University of Washington, and U.S. universities at large, with a critical analysis of the health risks involved.
Methodology
Given the subversive nature of tobacco use on campus, I will use a combination of personal interviews with smoking and non-smoking university students and staff, as well as tobacco-cessation support personnel, and student government members both in favor and against a student senate resolution to ensure the UW becomes a tobacco-free university. This examination will be grounded in biopolitical theory through textual analysis promoting the tobacco-free movement as a student-supported initiative while simultaneously linking it to the global effort of combating and delegitimizing the power of the tobacco industry. If the tobacco-use status quo is not significantly altered, severe economic, social, and biological consequences will continue to impact the overall health of University of Washington students and staff.
Clearing the Air: Examining Tobacco-Related Health Narratives and the Legitimacy of Smoke-Free College Campus Initiatives
Abstract
The purpose of this research is to investigate hidden health narratives on campus regarding the use of tobacco products to contextualize the legitimacy of smoke-free and tobacco-free university initiatives. This academic endeavor will also reveal the structural and institutionalized violence of the tobacco industry which targets marginalized communities to entice the uptake of regular smoking habits. Finally it will examine the ways in which they recruit new employees and potential smokers from students seeking employment opportunities or internships at campus career fairs.
An analysis of biopolitical power, structural violence, and social theory will help to reveal the hidden narratives of these populations, twice-targeted by the social stigmatization of tobacco use and the manipulative advertising of the tobacco industry. By exposing, analyzing, and deconstructing patterns of profit-driven tobacco marketing directed at student demographics, geographies of blame regarding tobacco use can be examined, the impact of tobacco use on non-smoking populations can be better understood, and the misleading agendas behind the dominant narratives of tobacco industry advertising can be revealed. By identifying and bringing to light these messages, it is possible to legitimize the anti-smoking and anti-tobacco movements happening at the University of Washington, and U.S. universities at large, with a critical analysis of the health risks involved.
Methodology
Given the subversive nature of tobacco use on campus, I will use a combination of personal interviews with smoking and non-smoking university students and staff, as well as tobacco-cessation support personnel, and student government members both in favor and against a student senate resolution to ensure the UW becomes a tobacco-free university. This examination will be grounded in biopolitical theory through textual analysis promoting the tobacco-free movement as a student-supported initiative while simultaneously linking it to the global effort of combating and delegitimizing the power of the tobacco industry. If the tobacco-use status quo is not significantly altered, severe economic, social, and biological consequences will continue to impact the overall health of University of Washington students and staff.