Spring 2027

Mental Health, Self-awareness, and Social Justice: Working in Diverse Communities

Mental Health, Self-Awareness, and Social Justice: Working in Diverse Communities increases knowledge and skills for addressing mental health within diverse identity groups and communities.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Larissa Niec3.6/5

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Larissa Niec

The class required three to four readings weekly, some spanning hundreds of pages, plus an in-person graded takeaway at the start of each lecture.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Examine the complex intersections of well-being, mental health, and various social locations (e.g., race, class, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, religion, spirituality, (dis)ability, generation, language, nationality)

  • Engage in reflective processes to develop awareness of self and other within the context of theory, research, and best practices for and within communities (broadly defined) and in relation to various social locations

  • Examine the ways in which systems of the personal, psychological, social, cultural, contextual, and institutional influence well-being and mental health across communities

  • Examine western concepts of mental health through the lens of other cultures and cultural nosologies and develop a critical cultural understanding of western concepts

  • Examine culturally-specific expressions of distress

  • Engage in reflective exercises to understand how student’s social locations may influence their work across different communities given their own sociocultural positionality

  • Examine U.S. mental health equity and disparities across communities and contexts

  • Examine ethical considerations in mental health practices across communities

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
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All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

None

  • None
COUNPSY 237 used by

“Used by” includes alternatives; linked courses may have other requirements. This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • None

Professors

Spring 2027
Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 2.00/5 from 1 quality ratings. The adjusted rating blends this with the UW review average (3.66/5), weighted as 20 additional ratings. Smaller samples stay closer to that average. Each captured review is counted once in the prior; this does not correct who chooses to leave a review.

RMP profile ↗ · All captured review dates; profile matched by name.

Past student reviews · Larissa Niec

Larissa Niec held 7:45am lectures featuring in-person graded reading takeaways. She assigned 3 to 4 readings weekly, including some hundreds of pages long, and tested students on her own book. The student found the class easy but felt she did not provide clear assignment criteria.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2025: 3.95 GPA, 96.9% A/AB (n=191 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.86 GPA, 92.5% A/AB (n=174 letter grades).

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

LARISSA NIEC is recorded teaching in Fall 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 2000
DIS 301Classroom Instruction0 / 200
DIS 302Classroom Instruction0 / 200
DIS 303Classroom Instruction0 / 200
DIS 304Classroom Instruction0 / 200
DIS 305Classroom Instruction0 / 200
DIS 306Classroom Instruction0 / 200
DIS 307Classroom Instruction0 / 200
DIS 308Classroom Instruction0 / 200
DIS 309Classroom Instruction0 / 200
DIS 310Classroom Instruction0 / 200

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
Download part 1

Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Larissa Niec

Students described the course as easy but criticized the instructor for not providing clear assignment criteria.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.91 GPA, 96.7% A/AB (n=183 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.95 GPA, 96.9% A/AB (n=191 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.86 GPA, 92.5% A/AB (n=174 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Larissa Niec

The class required three to four readings weekly, some spanning hundreds of pages, plus an in-person graded takeaway at the start of each lecture.

Past student reviews · Larissa Niec

Larissa Niec held lectures at 7:45 AM and tested students on her own book, which one reviewer noted alongside their overall opinion of her teaching.

Topics

  • Intersectional identities at individual and group levels.
  • Mental health service access and utilization.
  • Social determinants of health in various contexts and settings.
  • Culturally-specific expressions of distress.
  • Ethical considerations in mental health practices across communities.

Skills

  • Reflective practice to develop self-awareness and understanding of how social identities influence professional work in diverse communities.
  • Examining the complex intersections of well-being, mental health, and various social locations such as race, class, gender, and (dis)ability.
  • Developing a critical cultural understanding of Western mental health concepts by examining them through other cultures and cultural nosologies.
  • Examining U.S. mental health equity and disparities across different communities and contexts.

Grades

Historical instructor

Spring 2027 · Projected

Before grades are released

– average GPA

Approximate 80% prediction interval

About this estimate

The course’s semester-average GPA, not an individual student’s grade. The center uses 4 same-season terms, weighted toward recent results.

The range uses the finite-sample 80th-percentile rank of absolute errors from earlier same-season forecasts. Each forecast uses only records from earlier terms. At least four forecasts are required; bounds are rounded outward and limited to 0–4. This is an empirical estimate: changing instructors or grading policies can reduce its coverage.

4 earlier forecasts · 0.02 GPA average error.

Grades over time

Through Spring 2027

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records
COUNPSY 237 · Spring 2027

Mental Health, Self-Awareness, and Social Justice: Working in Diverse Communities

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:270:025154",
    "course_id": "COUNPSY 237",
    "course_uid": "course_12e8238a7fa8e9295e17de79",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "025154",
    "source_subject_id": "270",
    "title": "Mental Health, Self-Awareness, and Social Justice: Working in Diverse Communities",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Fall, Spring"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
Download part 1
Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "55f78943cff04a756303ed127df0e5e039a8344ef1d9899ef25b3b6d7471bc32",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}