Fung Fellowship Bootcamp: Addressing social isolation on the UC Berkeley campus
The 2019 Fung Fellowship campus service project focused on the challenge of addressing social isolation in the Clark Kerr dormitory at UC Berkeley through design and technology-based solutions
Each year during the Fung Fellowship Bootcamp, a new cohort of Fellows tackle a new campus service project. This year’s service project addressed social isolation on campus.
Social isolation is an increasingly-rampant problem in all corners of college campuses, especially those as large as UC Berkeley. The problem can be exacerbated for students who live in smaller communities, such as suites or apartments, and lack a sense of belonging or community. As an aspect of individual wellness, feeling either connected or isolated in the dorm community can have extreme impacts on students’ performance in school and their overall health. Therefore, addressing social isolation was the problem that the incoming 2019–2020 cohort of Fung Fellows tackled in partnership with the Tang Center during their kickoff Bootcamp event in August.
Addressing social isolation requires identifying the unique challenges present in various locations, deconstructing those challenges and ultimately finding opportunities and areas of alignment. When considering UC Berkeley, the Fung Fellows examined where students live, evaluating the campus living options. In particular, Fellows focused on Clark Kerr Campus, which houses approximately 900 students, as a case study for this challenge. Unique aspects of this sprawling residence hall make it less socially-connected than its sister dorms at UC Berkeley.
Situated twice as far from the main campus than the majority of the school’s dorm buildings, Clark Kerr hosts a variety of students in several different styles of housing, including both dorm-style rooms and apartments. Because the apartments have their own kitchens, bathrooms and even side entrances, students living in them, often upperclassmen, are isolated from the rest of the residents, only venturing into the main part of the residential campus for the laundry facilities. Additionally, Clark Kerr is decentralized and divided into many smaller buildings that form a sprawling layout. While these smaller buildings can lead to more intra-building unity, social connectedness across the campus as a whole is strained, as students find it hard to connect across buildings.
The Health Worker Program, run by the Tang Center, is ideally situated for increasing social connectedness across Clark Kerr and other campus facilities. Health Workers are students who live in each one of UC Berkeley’s dorms to provide advising and resources for individuals and support community health. While these liaisons are equipped with first aid materials and health information to share with residents, they had not yet focused on their potential to impact social connectedness. In order to address this issue, the Fung Fellows embarked on a 36-hour design challenge to provide innovative ideas to support and enhance the dynamic Tang Center program.
The Fung Fellows were challenged to design a creative answer to the question, “How might we better utilize the Health Worker Program to support social connectedness?” First, in a presentation by Karen Hughes, Director of the Health Worker Program and Health Educator, and then by touring the Clark Kerr Campus. Fellows learned about some of the unique social connectedness challenges faced by the dorm. These challenges ranged from the decentralized layout to the stratified living styles to the individualized culture. The Fellows had a little over 24 hours to find an approach to support social connectedness in Clark Kerr. Eight teams were formed and were reflective of the interdisciplinary diversity of the cohort, allowing them the opportunity to design a solution that would combine perspectives from public health, technology, design and beyond. Many teams saw their heterogeneous backgrounds as a source of great strength, as they were able to push the boundaries of own perspectives and creativity.
After being introduced to the design challenge, the Fellows were left to work on their answers for most of Day 2 and 3 of Bootcamp, with the goal of producing a two-minute video presentation displaying their innovative solutions by Friday afternoon. Although the Fellows were given freedom to explore and decide how to tackle this challenge, they received guidance from the Fung Fellowship staff at key points along the way. Two members from each group attended a storytelling workshop that gave them pointers on how to create effective, meaningful videos using storytelling and various perspective-taking techniques.
Ultimately, the Fellows utilized the design process to develop thoughtful and creative solutions, with a focus on framing the problem around social connectedness, developing a deeper understanding of the challenge, demonstrating empathy and providing a compelling story to explain the usefulness of their solution. After working on their presentations for 29 hours, the Fellows shared their videos with the Tang Center, Karen Hughes, current Health Workers and the rest of the cohort. Some groups focused on low-tech solutions, such as placing arrows on maps of the Clark Kerr Campus to direct students towards Health Workers. Another low-tech solution entailed creating a new staff position combining the Health Worker and Resident Assistant (RA) roles so that each building would have at least one health worker.
Other groups incorporated technology more heavily into their solutions. One group designed a mobile application that could be used by both RAs and Health Workers to communicate with students and facilitate social connections among residents, while another developed a set of geographically-specific Snapchat filters that could be used to share health tips and advertise Health Worker events. Yet another solution involved creating an SMS messaging system to maintain connections with residents after the initial contact on move-in day.
The range of technology usage in the solutions represented the different ways the Fellows approached the design challenge, with some focusing on low-cost implementation and others on the integration of the Health Worker program with everyday digital technology. Fellows brought together the knowledge they gained from discussions with the Tang Center, RAs and Health Workers, along with their own experiences as Berkeley students and the diverse skills of their interdisciplinary teams. Overall, Bootcamp was not just about coming up with a thoughtful and effective answer, but also about communicating the solution’s viability through a concise and effective pitch. The Fellows demonstrated creativity, thoughtfulness and a collaborative spirit during this design challenge, and the Tang Center received these solutions with great enthusiasm. We’re excited to see what the Fellows come up with in the next campus service-oriented design challenge!
Written by Emma Pond (left),a Chemical Biology major. and Kamu Potharaju (right), is a Public Health major, at UC Berkeley.
Learn more about the Fung Fellowship at fungfellows.berkeley.edu.
