Courageous Curriculum: Expanding Students’ Circles of Care Through Out-of-the-Ordinary Experiences

Bridging Differences in Higher Education: Research-Based Practices that Build Belonging


  • Venue: Online
  • Date: March 6, 2026
  • Time: 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM PT / 2:00-3:00 PM ET
  • Price: Free

How do we learn to care–especially across difference?

When pharmacy professor Jonathan Thigpen first noticed that some students at Samford University–a private Christian school in Alabama–were hesitant to provide care to patients whose backgrounds differed from their own, he created an assignment that asked them to engage with a community that was new to them. 

In this interactive skill-sharing session, Thigpen will break down how he designed the assignment, and Briana Watson, one of Thigpen’s graduate students, will share how it shaped the kind of caregiver she wants to become. Character scientist Elise Dykhuis will share how exercises like this one don’t just change how we think, they change who we are. 

Join us to explore one of our Playbook’s bridging practices through three lenses: professor, student, and researcher. 

Together we will:

  • Explore the research-backed power of expanding students’ views and circles
  • Introduce specific ways to adapt this practice into your curriculum or other campus initiative
  • Reflect on how this practice strengthens character, cultivating courage and exercising our curiosity, patience, empathy, and intellectual humility.

Hosted by Juliana Tafur, GGSC’s Bridging Differences Program Director.

Free! Designed for higher education, open to all. 

  • Juliana Tafur

    Juliana Tafur directs the Bridging Differences program at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, advancing skills and strategies to connect across geography, race, religion, politics, and more. She’s spent more than a decade designing experiences that foster understanding and belonging, both as a social entrepreneur/workshop creator, and as an Emmy-nominated storyteller. A TEDx speaker, she leads science-based trainings for campuses, organizations, and communities, and makes bridge-building practical and accessible through partnerships, multimedia content, and workshops. Juliana is an honors graduate of Northwestern University and a 2021–22 Obama Foundation Scholar at Columbia University.

  • Jonathan Thigpen, PharmD is Associate Professor and Assistant Dean for Curricular Innovation and Professional Development at Samford University. He obtained his PharmD from Samford University before completing two postdoctoral fellowships; University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine (pharmacoepidemiology/pharmacogenetics) and Duquesne University School of Pharmacy (academia/research).His primary responsibilities are to oversee the implementation of a new and innovative curriculum while empowering faculty to grow professionally.

  • Briana Watson is a second-year pharmacy student at the McWhorter School of Pharmacy at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Her affinity for working with others has evolved into a passion for service through healthcare, and she looks forward to contributing to the continued advancement of public health and pharmacy.

  • Elise Dykhuis, Ph.D., is a character scientist and member of the Greater Good Science Center’s Character Advisory Committee. Her research focuses broadly on individual pathways for character development and her work integrates the concept of character virtues with developmental theory and metatheory. Her current work focuses on character measurement and how assessment of character development can be improved, as well as how developmental modeling of character can be more situation- and person-sensitive. Given her interest and work in intellectual humility, she has also consulted on various other character intervention projects in higher education, especially in the space of promoting civil discourse strategies on college campuses.