Do Good, Feel Good
Illustration by Mary Kate McDevitt
Neuroscientists who study our brains on happiness tend to agree that a key ingredient for one’s own contentment is helping others.
As the Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus famously told a room full of Forbes 400 billionaires, “Making money is a happiness. Making other people happy is a super-happiness.”
We are all in need of a little happiness and a little inspiration lately, so we’ve devoted this issue of the magazine to stories of just a few of the many UConn faculty, staff, students, and alumni who spend their days doing good in the world, making it a better place for all of us.
These folks are called to their vocations because they are passionate about what they do and about making a difference — it just so happens that doing so may be making them happier in the process. We know that reading and writing about them made all of us just a little bit happier, too. And we hope you share that feeling.
Humanizing Human Rights
“My clients restore my faith in humanity,” says Ellen Messali ’10 JD of her immigration work with New Haven Legal Assistance.
Read MoreHelping Kids Decode Their Brains
After nine months of Covid-19 quarantine and endless online meetings, Fumiko Hoeft has webinars on the brain.
Read MoreMaking the World More Poetic
Where some poets turn ever inward, Marilyn (Waniek) Nelson turns outward, and there is compassion in every line she writes.
Read MoreStoking Our Apocalyptic Fantasies
“They have popped like crazy,” says literature professor Pam Bedore of the apocalyptic and dystopian books that are one of her specialties.
Read MoreRaising Her Voice to Amplify Other Voices
Saving a festival youth program in her hometown of Paraty, Brazil, made Pauline Batista ’16 MA a hero there.
Read MoreAdvocating for Animals
Professor Jessica Rubin worked with animal rights groups to pass and implement the groundbreaking 2016 Desmond’s Law.
Read MoreKeeping Students Crafty
Sommer and her colleagues are using their teaching skills in the war against Covid-19 by bringing virtual arts to students.
Read More
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