Class Close-Up: Freshman Seminar Examines Recipes for Disaster

Prior to the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, “people were really very safety conscious” at sea, according to Edward Tenner ’65, a lecturer in the sociology department, but safety measures were based heavily on recent shipwrecks, many of which were attributed to fog. Icebergs simply weren’t on people’s minds, and thus caught the crew and passengers unprepared.

That misleading thinking — known as recency bias — is one of the concepts taught in Tenner’s freshman seminar course Understanding Disasters, offered for the first time this fall. Using four case studies, the course examines how disasters happen, as well as the methods and value of history. In addition to the Titanic, the Challenger space shuttle explosion, the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, and the implosion of the Titan submersible are covered.

Tenner chose to focus on disasters because the events “have been studied so much by people from very different disciplines.”

Hannah Feinberg ’28, who is intending to major in neuroscience, realized through this course that even in STEM industries, “you are also dealing with power dynamics and pressure from higher ups,” and in some cases, such as the Challenger explosion, additional factors like public opinion and government oversight.

“Innovation and technology and more STEM-related advancements don’t happen without politics and sociology and the more humanities-based fields as well,” she said.

For each disaster, the students scrutinize common attitudes and thinking before the tragedy, contemporary coverage of the event, and lessons learned. During the first half of the semester, the class of 15 wrote weekly response papers to readings including first-hand accounts, historical documents like newspaper articles, and post-event analyses. They have now turned their attention to a final paper on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nicole Muradov ’28, who intends to pursue the pre-med track, plans to examine how inequality can affect one’s experience during a disaster when it comes to health-care treatment and access.

“Especially as I go into a more technical field, this class is helpful and giving a reminder of what’s at stake,” she said.

Students also heard from guest speakers, such as historian Richard R. John, a professor at Columbia who has written about the Titanic and other disasters, and James Glanz *91, a reporter at The New York Times who covers disasters and co-authored City in the Sky: The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center. They also visited the National September 11 Memorial & Museum together.

For Feinberg, the course has given her a lot to think about in terms of innovation, technology, and human error, “but also how we as students, as we continue in our Princeton journeys, can positively contribute to group settings and making things work.”