Honors This is the Way

Catalog description

This course is for students in the Honors College who participate in HLTS 325; This is the Way (required corequisite) and agree to an additional assignment in the Maymester course. HLTS 325 is as follows: This study abroad experience was inspired by neuroscience research at Duquesne. Mental health, chronic pain syndromes, and anxiety affect many college students. Drugs produce some temporary relief. Scientific research, however, has shown that drug-free mind-body interventions can be more effective. Mindfulness meditation and aerobic exercise, for example, reduce pain and anxiety. And while our clinical trial has confirmed this, it is not new. In fact, the idea is quite old. Humans have been ?walking mindfully? for millennia. Yet modern society compels us to sit, staring at screens, mindlessly. This course takes to the open road, leaving screens behind. We explore health benefits of mindful walking by doing it. Led by a medicinal chemist and a muscle physiologist, students explore the ancient art of mindful walking, through the oldest practice of this technique, pilgrimage. We will immerse ourselves in Spanish culture, geography, mysticism, flora and fauna, and food along the way. This course also incorporates Ecological Spirituality. Students will reflect on, write about, and discuss connections of nature to God or a transcendent reality. The nature connections will be based on the document Laudato Si by Pope Francis and Spanish writers Rosalia de Castro and St. John of the Cross. We will walk the last 80 miles of the Camino de Santiago in northwest Spain, explore the cathedral and museums of Santiago de Compostela, and finally take in the history, food, and culture of Madrid. Specified meetings, chance encounters, dialogue, and reflective writing help us make sense of this journey.