Heart & Soul Connections - Student Resource Hub
The 91次元’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences has launched Heart & Soul Connections, a new student resource hub designed to provide comprehensive support services and demonstrate the College’s commitment to being the heart and soul of campus.
Located in the atrium on the second floor of Eck Liberal Arts Building, one of the University’s most-trafficked buildings, Heart & Soul Connections operates Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The initiative represents a partnership with ASUM Bear Necessities, and Program Manager Kat Cowley notes that with the new hub they have already generated a more than five-fold increase in student contacts. “Having the opportunity to increase visibility of our program and face to face contacts with students has been wonderful! We are excited to continuing growing in this space and look forward to hearing more from today’s UM Students” reported Kat Cowley.
Heart & Soul Connections offers students free snacks and meals, including favorites like mac and cheese and soup through the UM Food Pantry’s Catering Cupboard program. Beyond food assistance, Heart & Soul Connections links students with essential campus and community resources such as TRIO programs and SNAP benefits.
Heart & Soul Connections features rotating guest services, such as staff from the Dean of Students office and Mansfield Library joining the space to offer additional support. Students can access information about campus resources and receive free academic supplies like blue books and scantrons.
The collaboration has brought new energy to the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, which serves students across disciplines ranging from English to Economics and from Philosophy to Political Science. In addition to housing 13 academic units with major and minor degree options, the College offers more than 50 percent of all General Education courses at the university. The lives they touch in our campus community are already far-reaching, and the opening of Heart & Soul Connections offers just one more element of their centrality to campus life.
“There has never been a more strategic time to focus on what it means to be human and how we relate to one another than our present moment,” notes Dr. Christina Yoshimura, the Interim Dean of the College. “Today's social, environmental, political, and ethical challenges require precisely what our college's disciplines provide: crucial context and skills for both the world we inhabit and the people we will encounter. The history, present, and future of our collective experience is all interwoven here in the Humanities and Social Sciences.”
The College comprises academic disciplines that balance specific skills in writing, speaking, thinking, and relating with the broad perspective needed to conceptualize the history, present
and future of collective human experience. Programs span Psychology, Sociology and Criminology, Communication Studies, Native American Studies, Anthropology, African American Studies, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, History, Political Science, Economics, Philosophy, English, World Languages and Cultures, and Linguistics.
Faculty research and teaching address contemporary challenges including mental health and social cohesion crises, environmental adaptation, democratic participation, and global citizenship. The college positions graduates for career success by demonstrating connections between traditional scholarship and contemporary problem-solving, preparing them to be competitive in state, national and global workforces.