ETSU Public Health Hosts Lecture On Gross National Happiness By Dasho Karma Ura

From East Tennessee State University:

October 26, 2021

JOHNSON CITY – East Tennessee State University’s College of Public Health is hosting a lecture about Gross National Happiness, featuring Dasho Karma Ura, president of the Centre for Bhutan Studies.

The webinar, which is part of the college’s Leading Voices in Public Health lecture series, will be held on Thursday, Nov. 4 at noon ET. The lecture will be presented via Zoom and is free and open to the public. A link to register is available at https://bit.ly/lvph1121.

Ura is internationally recognized as an authority on Bhutan’s unique approach to Gross National Happiness, which is the philosophy that guides the government of Bhutan. It includes an index, the Gross National Happiness Index, that is used to measure the collective happiness and well-being of a population.

“This Leading Voices in Public Health lecture promises to be truly unique,” said Dr. Randy Wykoff, dean of the College of Public Health. “Given the tenor of our times, the issue of ‘happiness’ is something that impacts all of us, so I suspect this will have wide appeal to many in our community and beyond.”

Ura worked for Bhutan’s Ministry of Planning for 12 years before becoming director of the Centre for Bhutan Studies (CBS) from its founding in 1999 until 2008 when he became president. The CBS has been at the forefront in promoting and deepening national and global understanding of Bhutan’s home-grown development philosophy of Gross National Happiness and conducting multidisciplinary research about Bhutan.

To learn more about the Leading Voices in Public Health lecture series, contact Janet Stork at storkj@etsu.edu.

This press release was produced by East Tennessee State University. The views expressed are the author's own.