The Seattle Times features Jennifer Atkinson’s popular class on climate change

environmental grief and climate anxiety

IAS faculty member Jennifer Atkinson’s Spring 2018 course, “Environmental Grief and Climate Anxiety,” is the subject of a feature in The Seattle Times. The article, “Feeling it: UW Bothell class helps students face emotional impact of a warming planet,” includes student perspectives on the issues Atkinson addresses in class, as well as Atkinson’s own commentary on the motivations for the class:

“Within the university classroom, there’s a tendency to treat a student breaking down in tears “as a detour in the conversation, something we need to patch up or steer around so we can get back to the ‘real work.’ That led me to wonder, what if instead of treating those moments as a diversion, we took them as our starting point?”