At Tembusu College, students are not just learning about society—they are learning with it. Through carefully designed, socially responsive learning experiences, the College’s Communities and Engagement (C&E) Senior Seminars invite students to step beyond their disciplinary boundaries and confront real-world complexity head-on.
Engaging directly with community partners, students co-create knowledge and build mutual understanding with individuals such as elderly residents, migrant workers and public health officers. For these students, such conversations become the curriculum—they are not only taught to think critically, but also to act meaningfully.
Each Academic Year, over 220 students from diverse academic backgrounds participate in small, interdisciplinary seminars that extend beyond classroom walls. Rather than relying solely on textbooks, they immerse themselves in complex social environments, engaging in participatory research and reflection to cultivate both intellectual rigour and emotional intelligence.
“As part of our diverse, humanistic, interdisciplinary, inquiry-oriented programmes that broadens students’ perspectives, we connect theory with practice, and transform ideas into impact,” explained Dr Connor Graham, Director of Studies at Tembusu College. “People-centred learning allows students to develop an awareness of others and their worldviews, reflexivity and adaptability in addition to the more academic outcomes of thinking critically and questioning with relevance”.
Building empathy through action
Tembusu College’s people-centred pedagogical model fosters openness across disciplines—from sociology and biomedical science to engineering and the arts—while uniting students under a shared ethos: Helping People and Species in Need, Engaging the World, Developing Creativity, and Promoting Interdisciplinarity.
In small-class settings and interdisciplinary teams, students apply methods such as ethnographic field notes, interviews, and participatory observation to tackle pressing social issues. These are not short-term projects. Many are rooted in longstanding partnerships with community organisations, allowing successive cohorts to build on previous work and deepen engagement over time.
One such course, Health and the Community in Singapore, is part of an ongoing partnership with the Health Promotion Board. It aims to bridge the STEM–non-STEM divide and understand gaps in public health literacy.
In April 2024, students conducted research into the health needs of youths using community-based participatory methods. One group designed a low-sodium dietary intervention tailored for NUS undergraduates, featuring a visually intuitive labelling system to nudge the making of healthier food choices. Their project received a grant from NUS Health & Wellbeing and is under plans for a collaborative pilot study with Associate Professor Alberto Salvo from the NUS Department of Economics.
In another course, Technologies and Ageing in Singapore, students explored the ageing process and the lived experiences of elderly citizens through interviews, fieldwork, and person-centred therapy frameworks. Between February and April 2024, one group developed an assistive tool to facilitate end-of-life planning conversations with seniors, which was piloted at the Evergreen Circle Active Ageing Centre and later adapted for use at St Luke’s Eldercare (Ayer Rajah).
Another group created Dig Deeper, a reflective card game designed to prompt family conversations about end-of-life matters. One parent who participated in the exercise said, “As a family, we’ve never really talked about end-of-life topics. We’re not that old yet, but this game really made us reflect on our beliefs and values, and the legacy we want to leave behind.” The student participant added, “It’s funny how I haven’t felt this close to my parents in such a long time. Sometimes we’re so busy doing our own things that we forget how important it is to connect.”
Understanding happiness through dialogue
The Happiness by Design course also exemplifies Tembusu College’s people-centred approach. Partnering with social enterprises such as Happiness Initiative Singapore, students explore the multifaceted nature of well-being and life satisfaction through interviews, focus groups, and thematic analysis.
Over the semester, students develop the interpersonal and professional competencies needed for working in real-world contexts. Their conversations with members of the public helped to ground abstract academic concepts in lived realities, often challenging assumptions and leaving a lasting emotional impact. Through these interactions, students expand their conceptual vocabulary and come to understand well-being as a dynamic, deeply personal process that includes resilience, self-transcendence and growth.
Vu Bao Lien Hoa, a Year 2 student from the NUS Business School, who read the course, said, “The class discussions not only deepened my intellectual curiosity but also motivated me to communicate effectively, helping me express ideas more clearly while actively listening to others’ insights. I also became more open-minded, learning to navigate differing viewpoints with empathy and respect.”
Mr Sherman Ho, the co-founder of Happiness Initiative noted that the students’ project findings, which were shared at the course’s community engagement event, helped to illuminate the different well-being needs of various age groups in Singapore to the community participants. He appreciated how the dialogues opened up space for honest conversations about what it means to thrive today. Beyond surfacing key themes and generational shifts, many felt reassured knowing they were not alone in their challenges and aspirations—and were part of a larger, caring community.
Growing a community of learners and changemakers
With momentum building, Tembusu College is expanding its course offerings. A new seminar, Migrant Workers, Rhetoric, and Performance, marks the first NUS course centred on migrant workers. Students collaborate with Kaugnay, a migrant worker group under the auspices of the Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics, also known as HOME, to co-create inclusive and empowering activities and performances to engage migrant workers.
Associate Professor Ho Chee Kong, Tembusu College Master said, “Tembusu College’s C&E courses offer a diverse variety of channels for dialogue between the students and the communities they engage with. Arising from these dialogues are meaningful constructs for deeper understanding, compassion and gratitude towards one another in a more responsive societal development.”
By connecting classrooms with communities, Tembusu College is redefining what it means to teach and learn—where critical thinking meets meaningful action, and conversation becomes the heart of the curriculum.
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This article first appeared in NUS News.
