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Auburn speaker series continues dialogue about importance of humanities in health care

The Medical and Health Humanities Speaker Series continues to bring together faculty, staff, students and community members to highlight the importance of the humanities in health care.

The Spring 2026 speaker series kicks off Tuesday, Feb. 3. All talks will be held from 4–5 p.m. in 215 Tichenor Hall. The spring schedule features two talks:

Rendering the Practice of Inoculation as Universal as Possible: The Public Health Legacy of the American Revolution
Andrew Wehrman, professor of history, Central Michigan University
Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026, 4 p.m.
Part of the Revolutionary Legacies 250th Speaker Series

The American Revolution was fought during a decade-long smallpox epidemic across North America. Colonists broadly recognized that achieving political independence required protecting themselves and their communities from the threat of smallpox. In this lecture, historian Andrew Wehrman will explore how individuals and communities across the new United States demanded public access to inoculation and the long-lasting implications of George Washington’s order to inoculate the Continental Army.

The Dual Griefs of Dementia Caregiving and Climate Change: A Memoirist’s Perspective
Barbara Drake-Vera, author of "Melted Away"
Tuesday, March 31, 2026, 4 p.m.

Two rapidly accelerating crises—the rise in dementia cases and climate change—are challenging people emotionally and existentially, giving rise to unique forms of grief. Memoirist Barbara Drake-Vera will share her journey as a journalist in Peru in the 2010s, when she was racing to report on a sacred, dying glacier in the Andes while caring for her father with Alzheimer’s disease in Lima. Learning to embrace the dual griefs spurred by these “slippery” losses prompted her transformation as a writer, caregiver and environmental advocate, as described in her memoir "Melted Away" (LSU Press, 2024). Drake-Vera will also share resources for processing and channeling climate- and caregiving-related emotions and discuss ways to deepen compassion for ourselves, one another and the planet.

The series is co-sponsored by the Department of English; the Department of Philosophy; the Department of Political Science; the Department of Psychological Sciences; the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work; the Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences; the Department of Theatre and Dance; the Department of World Languages, Literatures and Cultures; and the School of Communication and Journalism.

Additional co-sponsors include the College of Agriculture; the College of Education’s Department of Special Education; the College of Human Sciences’ Department of Nutritional Sciences; the College of Nursing Outreach; the College of Sciences and Mathematics’ Biomedical Sciences Program and Pre-Health Programs; the Honors College; and the Rural Health Initiative.

All talks are free and open to the public.

Tags: History English Philosophy Political Science Psychological Sciences Sociology Speech Language and Hearing Sciences World Languages Literatures and Cultures Communication and Journalism Center for the Arts and Humanities Theatre and Dance