Program Overview
Type: Vanderbilt Initiative Award (ViA)
The Wisdom Working Group (WWG) is rooted in the idea that older adults are lifelong innovators and experiential researchers whose insights can prove invaluable to Vanderbilt’s goal of solving “problems of importance to society” through discovery and learning.The goal here is to showcase these insights through educational technology applications, publications, and learning opportunities for younger generations. The WWG’s guiding questions are:
- How can researchers, medical professionals, educators, and senior-serving agencies better identify and understand the sociocultural aspects of mental health-promoting behaviors of older adults, especially in underserved communities, and translate that understanding into policies, programs, and curricula?
- What impact can multimedia autobiography production and intergenerational collaboration have on older adults’ mental health, engagement levels, and well- being? What data about mental health derives from involving older adults from traditionally underserved communities in these activities?
- How can intra-curricular and co-curricular collaborations with older adults enhance undergraduate, graduate, and professional education at Vanderbilt and beyond?
- How can close reading older adults’ autobiographical portfolios help medical students and other healthcare providers-in-training to better contextualize and better treat their patients, including especially their older adult patients and patients from traditionally underserved communities?
Faculty Participants
Lead Faculty in bold
College of Arts & Science
Ifeoma Nwankwo, Associate Professor, Dept. of English- Leah Lowe, Associate Professor of Theatre Directing & Dramaturgy
- Lucius Outlaw, Jr., Professor of Philosophy
- David Schlundt, Associate Professor of Psychology
Peabody College
- Kevin Leander, Associate Professor, Dept. of Teaching & Learning
- Rogers Hall, Professor and Chair, Dept. of Teaching & Learning
- William Turner
School of Medicine
- Heather Davidson, Assistant Professor of
Medical Education and Administration - James Powers, Professor of Medicine
Law School
- Daniel Sharfstein, Professor of Law
School of Engineering
- Doug Fisher, Associate Professor of Computer Engineering