As Professor Kathy Maguire-Zeiss prepared to teach her Synaptic Transmission course with an Engelhard component on sleep, she made it her mission to live up to the content emphasized in the unit. Enrolled in her course were a few international students, and to ask these students to ‘Zoom in’ from different time zones across the world would contradict the course’s message of practicing good sleep hygiene. So, she ensured that all resources presented in class were also made available for asynchronous consumption. Through Professor Maguire-Zeiss' previous work with Engelhard, she knew that a huge part of well-being that students were struggling to maintain year after year is sleep. Given the topics discussed in her neuroscience courses, this connection seemed like a natural fit for an Engelhard component. In this course, students gained an understanding of the importance of sleep for clearing the brain of toxins and having a healthy brain more generally. She adds that the effect that Engelhard had on her classroom environment was reciprocal: “this way of us [faculty and campus resource professionals] knowing and seeing them [students], they get to see us in a way. I too share about my sleep habits and what’s going on in my life.” Outside of cultivating a deeper relationship with students, she also leaned on her Engelhard faculty colleagues that provided a supportive community surrounding inclusive teaching. “There’s no way I’d want to be doing this alone. I knew that I had people to reach out to about ideas and ways forward, and ways they were teaching in their classes...I have a lot of gratitude for that community.”
“I like to think that Engelhard itself is a movement, not just about a course”
