Volume 4 of Ideas continues the work of past volumes, introducing a different cohort of students to a new line-up of visiting scholars, activists and artists. Student editor Fayth Schutter continued her exemplary work on editing the magazine to produce an engaging and interactive volume.

The theme for this semester again challenged our visiting scholars and students to reflect on how to prepare for a future after the pandemic. Building off of the discussions from Fall 2021, conversations this semester examined the economic, cultural, agricultural, and educational impacts of the pandemic. Each visiting scholar challenged students to break down stereotypes and conventional societal ideas and norms.

Throughout the early part of 2022, as we battled surging COVID-19 cases and variants, rising inequalities, reduced access to health care services, impacts of climate change, global conflicts, and others, the students had the opportunity to engage with diverse perspectives presented by the visiting scholars, both in-person and virtual formats. In addition to engaging with each visiting scholar, students also worked in small interdisciplinary teams to focus on one visitor and produce content for Ideas Magazine. This course and the magazine provided an ideal platform for students to explore cross-cutting and interdisciplinary themes of social equity and justice, particularly through the lens of the on-going COVID-19 pandemic. Students drew on assigned readings, personal experiences, speaker perspectives, and in-class interactions; they also conducted additional research to supplement any knowledge gaps to produce thoughtful and introspective essays that grapple with, and also explore in novel ways the ideas presented by the visiting scholars. These ideas have culminated in the Ideas magazine, presented in two formats. The first is a consolidated magazine layout, and the second, is our formal open access publication, hosted here on Purdue e-Pubs.