Students who take \u201cClose Relationships\u201d learn the reasons why some relationships work out and others don\u2019t. After taking the class we still might not always do the right thing. But at least we\u2019ll know what went wrong.<\/p>\n
The Instructor:<\/strong> \u201cI\u2019ve always been the type where if we don\u2019t know something, I\u2019m going to go find out,\u201d Adamsons says. And unlike most areas where we know a lot about men and not as much about women, in parenting the opposite is true. At UConn, this led Adamsons to teach a Human Development and Family Sciences (HDFS) class called Men and Masculinity, as well as regularly taking on HDFS 1060 Close Relationships (this course is offered on four campuses by a range of faculty).<\/p>\n Class Description:<\/strong> Classified as general education and often fully enrolled with 350 students, it\u2019s a survey course that touches on friendship, romance, parenting, attraction, communication, intradependence, lying, and betrayal \u2014 all the good stuff. There are plenty of multiple choice tests, but that doesn\u2019t mean they don\u2019t go deep. Adamsons gives several assignments in which the students must apply something they learned in class to their own life, and then write about it. And toward the end of the course she has them write a two- to three-page reflection on one specific thing they\u2019ve learned.<\/p>\n She gets a lot of disclosures in those writing assignments. Sometimes she refers students to mental health services. Sometimes she offers to be available just to bounce ideas around. \u201cI\u2019m always struck by the number of young men who come to talk to me about their relationships. I assume they discuss stuff with me that\u2019s not necessarily socially acceptable among male friends,\u201d Adamsons says. \u201cI\u2019m not a therapist, I\u2019m not a friend, I\u2019m not their mom, but I do have some life experience and expertise to share.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nForeign relations is a natural captivation for anyone growing up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., and Kari Adamsons was no exception. But when, in college, she volunteered helping mothers prevent child abuse, her focus zoomed in from relations between countries to relations between people. The organization asked her to search the literature for information on fathers and child abuse, and she found almost nothing. Much of Adamsons\u2019 work since has focused on fathering and parent-child relationships.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a very real class. Everybody has relationships. We might as well learn to be better at them,\u201d Adamsons says.<\/p>\n