{"id":15589,"date":"2018-09-05T13:24:36","date_gmt":"2018-09-05T13:24:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/?p=15589"},"modified":"2018-09-05T13:26:34","modified_gmt":"2018-09-05T13:26:34","slug":"cancer-wars-alumna-and-students-tackle-science-policy-in-new-honors-college-course","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/2018\/09\/05\/cancer-wars-alumna-and-students-tackle-science-policy-in-new-honors-college-course\/","title":{"rendered":"Cancer Wars: Alumna and students tackle science, policy in new Honors College course"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2014By Lianna Farnesi \u201918<\/em><\/p>\n

This fall, 20 students from FIU\u2019s Honors College and one influential alumna\u00a0are charting a new course for education at\u00a0FIU in Washington, D.C.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Cancer Wars<\/em>\u00a0is a year-long class \u2014 taught virtually by Kate Houghton \u201906, CEO of\u00a0Critical Mass<\/a>, the Young Adult Cancer Alliance \u2014 which will bridge policy, politics, history and solutions along with direct engagement, featuring national thought leaders and an experiential capstone next Spring.<\/p>\n

The weekly class lectures investigate the interactions between patients and policy and federal agencies, the legislative branch, the White House and outside influences such as public opinion, donors and lobbyists. Many of those influencers will join the course throughout the year as guest lecturers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe value of this experience will be in going beyond students\u2019 individual discipline and exposing them to various aspects of decision-making and decision makers,\u201d explained Houghton.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, this first cohort is entirely made up of biology students, most hoping to become doctors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe opportunity to be able to have this discussion with them and get them to think outside of the scientific sphere, just for even a semester, is where I think FIU will be able to create really wonderful practitioners.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first semester of the course will\u00a0 tackle the history of the disease, beginning in 400 A.D. The second half of the course will assign students case studies in which they will track the disease\u2019s initial discovery to public awareness campaigns or even legislation that has emerged as a result.<\/p>\n

Houghton is just one example of FIU alumni making an impact in Washington who also want to help educate future generations in a practical, experiential manner. As FIU academic programs in Washington grow, it is expected many more alumni will also become short-term adjunct professors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe course is a product the relationship between the Honors College and the Washington, D.C. office. They brought me together with Kate, and I knew she should be teaching with Honors,\u201d said Juan Carlos Espinosa, dean of the Honors College.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Espinosa and Houghton<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe Honors College is proud to have Kate Houghton teach this extraordinary course on the politics of<\/p>\n

cancer.\u00a0She is\u00a0a dynamic leader, policy expert and\u00a0cancer survivor who is also an FIU alumna,\u201d Espinosa added.<\/p>\n

For Houghton, this course and her mission are\u00a0personal<\/a>.\u00a0An expert on both the biological and political viewpoints on healthcare, she was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia when she was 27 while working on the Hill with Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schulz. She\u00a0fought the disease and eventually led\u00a0Critical Mass\u00a0<\/a>\u2013 a D.C. based, non-profit dedicated to transforming cancer care and advocating for \u201cthe invisible cancer population\u201d \u2014 young adults.<\/p>\n

Teaching others about how health care and policy correlate and complement each other is a goal Houghton has been pursuing for years.\u00a0Now Professor Houghton, together with inquisitive students, aims to go beyond textbooks and understand the full spectrum of what it takes to make change.<\/p>\n

This story originally appeared on FIU News.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2014By Lianna Farnesi \u201918 This fall, 20 students from FIU\u2019s Honors College and one influential alumna\u00a0are charting a new course for education at\u00a0FIU in Washington, D.C. The Cancer Wars\u00a0is a year-long class \u2014 taught virtually by Kate Houghton \u201906, CEO of\u00a0Critical Mass, the Young Adult Cancer Alliance \u2014 which will bridge policy, politics, history and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":15591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[367],"tags":[415,12,223,397,307],"class_list":["post-15589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-network-news","tag-alumni-association","tag-fiu-alumni","tag-fiu-in-dc","tag-honors-college","tag-panther-networks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15589"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15589"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15592,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15589\/revisions\/15592"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}