How many colleges offer courses on COVID?

An analysis of 51 course titles including the words COVID, pandemic or coronavirus shows that the big topic from 2020 is being taught in a variety of disciplines, from medicine, public health and biology to international affairs, sociology and economics.

An analysis of course catalog data from 7,275 colleges shows that at least 32 U.S. higher ed institutions offered summer or fall 2020 courses in which the title contains one or more of the words “COVID,” “pandemic” or “coronavirus.” The 51 courses fall within at least 16 academic areas, and many of them are interdisciplinary.

The data comes from CollegeSource, which compiles, archives and publishes U.S. higher education course catalogs, mainly for degree equivalencies, audits and transfer purposes.

The New School in New York City—which “prepares students to understand, contribute to and succeed in a rapidly changing society,” as reads its mission statement—has the most COVID-related courses, 11. A few titles include “Languages & Politics of COVID19,” “Political Media, Disinformation & Activism in the Age of COVID,” and “Cities Responding to Global Emergencies: Tools, Approaches, and the Case of Coronavirus.”

A few course title highlights from elsewhere include:

    • “The European Refugee Experience: From Populism to Covid-19” (Vanderbilt University)
    • “The Economics of COVID-19” (University of Minnesota, Twin Cities)
    • “Entrepreneurship and Innovative Responses to the Coronavirus (Quinnipiac University)
    • “Clinical and Regulatory Approval of COVID-19 Vaccine (University of California, Los Angeles)
    • “Body Politics: Environmental Justice and COVID-19” (Yale University School of Architecture)
    • “Health, Society and Wellness in COVID-19 Times” (University of Colorado at Boulder)
    • “Spacing Out, Zooming In: Coronavirus and Social-Spatial Arrangements” (Hofstra University)
    • “Topics in Ministry: Women in Prison in the Time of COVID and Black Lives Matter” (Union Theological Seminary)
    • “COVID-19: Law in a Time of Pandemic” (Albany Law School)
    • “COVID-19: The Pathogenesis of a Pandemic (The University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio)

CollegeSource’s Transfer Evaluation System database includes a total of 128,531,920 courses and 156,900 course catalogs.

Melissa Ezarik is senior managing editor of UB.

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