The a conference from Thursday to Saturday to generate interest in a two-semester Health by Design course for next year, Bruce Frankel, professor of Urban Planning, said. Frankel is one of two professors who might teach the course.
The Health by Design class will bring in professors and professionals from more than 20 disciplines to Ball State to find solutions for some of the problems the American health care system now faces, Frankel said.
The program is an idea that encompasses a variety of approaches to complex solutions. Solutions could include health care delivery systems that change how hospitals and clinics operate or ways to conduct educational programs about health. The ultimate course goal is to create solutions to health care problems.
The class is interdisciplinary and will bring people from more than 20 areas of expertise to provide information for students in the class.
"We believe that problems can be formed by disciplines but rarely solved," Frankel said. "You need many perspectives and many definitions."
The class is not exclusive to Ball State students either, Frankel said. Health care professionals and students who do not take classes at Ball State are welcome as well, he said. The three-to-six-credit-hour course will be offered Tuesdays and Thursdays next year.
Stephen Kendall, director of the Building Futures Institute and a professor of architecture, has also helped bring this program to come to Ball State.
"Our symposium is happening at a time when Indiana -- as well as the rest of the world -- is recognizing the impact the health-care industry has on economic development and quality of life," Kendall said in a press release.
The symposium has five modules, each with its own key note speaker, panel of experts and audience interaction about health issues, Kendall said. There is a module to discuss the national perspective of health care, who is responsible for health care, how to reform health care, the role of environmental design in health care and the Health by Design course.
The symposium can increase campus recognition and show that Ball State has some expertise on this subject, Kendall said.
"Among the universities, IU, Purdue, IUPUI, Ball State all have some stake in teaching students and doing research concerned with this whole big sector of economy," Kendall said. "So that's also why we're doing it, too."
The Health by Design course and symposium are funded in part by a $35,000 from the Ball State University Discovery Fund as well as many individual university academic units and the Ball Memorial Hospital Foundation. The Discovery Grant is the largest given, Frankel said. The cap for grant applications was $20,000, he said, but they applied for $35,000 and got it.
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