Alumna Tana Jean Welch joins multidisciplinary panel for FSU's Festival of the Creative Arts Arts-Health-Humanities Symposium
By Kaylee Morrow
English department alumna Tana Jean Welch and other distinguished speakers took the stage Feb. 10 at the Arts-Health-Humanities Symposium, one of many events hosted during Florida State University’s annual Festival of the Creative Arts.
Campus faculty and students conducting research in the design, medicine, music education, music therapy, and musicology fields participated in the symposium. 
Approximately 30 people gathered in the Claude Pepper Center to hear each speaker discuss their current work. Presentations also discussed campus initiatives and new research developments.
Welch is associate professor of medical humanities in FSU’s College of Medicine, and she earned her doctorate at FSU in 2014 in 20th-century American literature. She used her platform at the symposium to discuss her role as managing editor for the creative arts journal Humanism Evolving through Arts and Literature. The College of Medicine publishes HEAL, and each issue features works of prose, poetry, and art as a medium to bridge art and medicine.
Welch said she is especially interested in the ways writing and medicine complement one another to forge a deeper understanding of how medical professionals and patients interact and to provide an outlet to reflect on human experiences surrounding health.
“Creative and reflective writing is important for any field,” she said. “It is a critical thinking tool—the act of writing can reveal hitherto unknown knowledge and emotions. Searching for the right words forces us to think deeper, which can be quite valuable in the medical profession.”
At the symposium, Welch also announced that the newest issue of HEAL is currently accepting submissions until Sept. 1, 2026. Anyone, regardless of major or year of study, is welcome to submit to the magazine.
Members of the editorial team review each submission and assign a score of 1-5 to the article. The process, Welch explained “may take anywhere from 2 to 12 months to receive a response.”
“Pieces earning an average of 4 points will be considered for publication in one of our quarterly issues,” she added.
All written work and artwork should be sent to Welch via her email by the deadline. Submissions chosen for publication will be published in the 2027 volume of HEAL, which is expected to be published in February 2027.
Welch also is the director of the Chapman Humanities and Arts in Medicine. Other scholars joined her for the symposium: Professor of Ethnomusicology Michael Bakan; Associate Professor of Interior Design Daejin Kim; doctoral students in music therapy Adriana Lizardi-Vázquez, Parintorn “Pim” Pankaew, and Shun Ee “Racheal” Yap; and James Riley, who earned his master’s degree in music therapy from FSU in 2013.
“The symposium demonstrated that many people at FSU are passionate about the power of the arts to improve lives,” she said, reflecting on her experience. “This makes me very happy.”
The Festival of the Creative Arts began Feb. 6 and continued through March 1.
Kaylee Morrow is a senior at Florida State University, majoring in English-Editing, Writing, and Media, with a minor in marketing.
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