{"id":246667,"date":"2026-04-01T13:21:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T13:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/246667\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T13:21:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T13:21:08","slug":"yhc-students-bring-happiness-from-classroom-to-community-the-oakland-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/246667\/","title":{"rendered":"YHC students bring happiness from classroom to community \u2013 The Oakland Post"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the COVID-19 pandemic, college students experienced increased mental health challenges as social media use rose and face-to-face interactions declined.<\/p>\n

Professors at Oakland University place a strong emphasis on mental health. Donna Voronovich, a special lecturer, teaches a course on happiness for the Donna and Walt Young Honors College<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a result of mental health challenges during the pandemic, I began my own research into various topics related to better understand what had happened to us, and how to make it better,\u201d Voronovich said. <\/p>\n

Partially in collaboration with Arthur C. Brooks, a professor at the Harvard Business School, this course aims to study happiness. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn short, we are studying happiness; what it is, why people want it, how to achieve it, and what are the obstacles,\u201d Voronovich said. <\/p>\n

Voronovich emphasizes that a strong foundation is key to leading a successful and happy life.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving solid relationships, a good understanding of yourself and a realistic set of goals for your life are all crucial,\u201d Voronovich said. \u201cThe most important of those is to have a good understanding of yourself and others, and that\u2019s where happiness begins.\u201d <\/p>\n

Brooks co-authored the book<\/a> \u201cBuild the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier\u201d with Oprah Winfrey, exploring the four pillars of happiness and strategies for finding joy even in challenging circumstances.<\/p>\n

HC 2060 combines the book with Voronovich\u2019s personal research. In the course, students work on a final project to present to the campus community. <\/p>\n

Freshman Mila Yurenka and Genny Zielinski aim to create a space where students can openly discuss their feelings. With the introduction of \u201chappiness chats,\u201d they provide an outlet for expressing both positive and negative emotions while incorporating strategies from the book.<\/p>\n

College students often face feelings of loneliness, and Yurenka and Zielinski hope these chats will foster connection and support within the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the book, the authors talk about how human interaction builds connections and happiness overall,\u201d Zielinski said. \u201cThere\u2019s a big push of individualism in the workaholic American society, so we miss out on a lot of those connections and happiness.\u201d <\/p>\n

48%<\/a> of all podcast listeners from the ages of 18 to 29 report listening to podcasts multiple times during a week.<\/p>\n

Freshman Channing Hagen and senior Aamina Farooqi plan to launch a podcast discussing the ideas in Brooks and Winfrey\u2019s book, aiming to engage a broad audience of listeners.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to delve into some of the things that we had disagreements about when reading the book, and we think a podcast would be really great to expand,\u201d Farooqi said.<\/p>\n

The book outlines four pillars of happiness: family relationships, friendships, work, and faith. The authors stress the importance of nurturing connections with family and friends, finding fulfillment through service at work, and upholding core values that promote inner peace.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to hit on the four pillars and dive deeper into the questions that we\u2019ve grappled with in class,\u201d Hagen said. \u201cOnly the class and the professor know what we are talking about, so getting people to listen to a podcast would help others learn.\u201d <\/p>\n

Freshman Raymond Johnson-Mack plans to create a website dedicated to exploring and sharing ideas about happiness online.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that\u2019s a big modern thing, where parents are having problems with happiness, or with their children having happiness watching stuff online,\u201d Johnson-Mack said. <\/p>\n

Johnson-Mack observed that Brooks did not explore the relationship between happiness and the internet, and he plans to address this topic on his website.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe book only mentions the internet in a negative way, and you could expand on how the internet can be good for you,\u201d Johnson-Mack said. \u201cIt\u2019s really how you manage the internet, in my opinion.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the semester ends, students are aiming to present the projects to the community.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOn April 13 and 15, we are hoping to present some of our findings at events in the Oakland Center that engage with the campus community,\u201d Voronovich said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During the COVID-19 pandemic, college students experienced increased mental health challenges as social media use rose and face-to-face…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-246667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}