Professor: Egilman Course format: Seminar Number of respondents: 8 Total Enrollment: 7 Class Composition: Froshs: 0 Sophs: 2 Jrs: 3 Srs: 2 Concs: 3 Non-Concs: 5 Don't Know: 0

Instructor Average: 1.72 Course Average: 1.62

“Conceptual Issues in Health Policy: Occupational and Environmental Health” is a mouthful, as well a course which seeks to examine what is going on in occupational and environmental health. Not only does this course try to “uncover corporate corruption” and “develop questions on issues related to making the world a better place,” it encourages students to take risks and be creative when seeking to analyze readings on these topics and apply them to life. An open mind is the only prerequisite. Knowledge of Epidemiology and health is helpful.

Professor Egilman was described as having an unorthodox, but interesting teaching style. He was unorganized, but great at giving students lots of helpful feedback, as well as incorporating a “Yahoo” chat forum, for discussion. Students were impressed by his broad range of knowledge of a great many topics, but felt he didn’t often impart it, because students led discussions. They liked his responsiveness to individual students interests, his passion for the subject matter, and his stories. “This is a very unconventional course, mostly because Dr. Egilman refuses to fulfill and conventional expectations of a professor, which made us all like him a lot.”

Most people spent three to six hours a week on work outside the class. Weekly response papers to the large amount of weekly reading were required. These were considered monotonous. Many felt the readings were at times excessive and many students didn’t do all of it. The philosophical readings were seen as dense by some but worthwhile by others. The long legal documents were boring. There was one big final paper as well as a presentation every three or four weeks.

Students loved the small class size, the flexibility, and Professor Egilman’s “different/progressive” style of teaching. They liked that there was never a dull moment, but recommend this class only if you like reading about occupational health and can deal with three and a half hours a week of , “attacking corporate America and science as you know it.”

View BC/0168 in the Brown Online Course Announcement.