Health Systems Studies BS

It is important for human service practitioners to understand the relationship between practice and research. According to social psychologist, Kurt Lewin, the best practice is founded in research and the best research is grounded in practice. Acknowledging this insight, this course will engage students in an examination of research as it is employed in the human service field. The primary focus of this course is to teach students how to be critical consumers of research, able to read, evaluate, and apply research for human service practice purposes. A second purpose is to develop students skills for their future role as collaborators with researchers in generating knowledge from the field. This course can serve as a companion course for the program evaluation offering or a foundations course for students interested in pursuing graduate study or a preview course for those intending to take social or behavioral science research methods courses.

Full course description for Understanding and Using Research for the Practitioner

This course focuses on evidence-based practice (EBP) in nursing to improve the lives of people, including the components of patient/family preferences and values, clinician experience, and best available scientific evidence. Students will engage in critical analysis of the historical development of nursing research and theory in practice. Ethical issues surrounding the use of human subjects in research and the history of racism embedded in research and EBP are explored. Emphasis is placed on critically evaluating multiple methodologies, including qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods, indigenous knowledge systems, participative action research, and applying this evidence into nursing practice. Sources from social sciences, humanities, biomedicine, and social justice are used to explore holism, the human response to illness, and co-creating conditions of health. Competency Statement: Understands evidence-based nursing practice well enough to apply research to nursing care.

Full course description for Introduction to Evidence-Based Practice

This course introduces students to scientific research methods in psychology, emphasizing the experimental method. Topics include developing research questions, reviewing background information, deciding on appropriate methodology, and collecting and interpreting data. This course prepares students to think critically about psychological claims and is generally required preparation for graduate study. This course includes assignments in the Psychology Laboratory.

Full course description for Research Methods

Intercultural Communication has a global perspective and engages students in reflectively thinking about the growing interdependence of nations and peoples. Students develop their ability to apply a comparative perspective to cross-cultural communication episodes in interpersonal interactions. Students research topics of interest that compare two or more cultures in some aspect of their social, economic, or political values and practices. Through field experiences, in class exercises, and readings, students learn the dynamics and skills needed to engage in respectful and sensitive communication with others whose beliefs, values, and attitudes are different than their own.

Full course description for Intermediate Intercultural Communication

This course emphasizes the experience of race and racism and how both intersect with various forms of human diversity in the helping arena. It will provide students an understanding of how power and privilege are operant in the human services. Students will examine assumptions, myths, beliefs, and biases that block effective relationships between groups of people and that hamper helper-helpee dynamics. Course activities involve self-assessment and opportunities for application of learning in a human service environment. COMPETENCE STATEMENT: Knows conceptual frameworks dealing with racial-ethnic identity, racial-cultural world views, oppression and power well enough to explore, develop, and evaluate personal responses and professional strategies to eliminate the myths, beliefs, biases, actions and efforts, that sustain social oppression in the helping professions.

Full course description for Intersection of Race and Diversity in Human Services

This course focuses on policies and practices for effectively managing a diverse workforce in private, public and nonprofit organizations. The current context, legal environment and historical development of equal employment opportunity, affirmative action, and diversity are addressed. Students gain theoretical and practical knowledge to understand beliefs, attitudes, biases, and prejudices to more effectively manage differences in order to enhance organization productivity. A significant amount of time will be focused on racism, origin of racism, and individual responsibility of racism.

Full course description for Managing a Diverse Workforce

This course covers theory and practice of communication in small task-oriented groups. Communication topics include team management, models of group problem solving and decision making, leadership, building cohesiveness, resolving conflict, managing diverse views, negotiating roles, and norms. Students learn to interact productively in small task groups as members and leaders. Numerous group activities, group assignments and laboratory work require an extended class time and group meetings outside of class. Overlap: COMM 351T Communication in Work Groups Theory Seminar.

Full course description for Communication in Work Groups

This course examines communication patterns and systems functioning in modern organizations in sectors such as government, nonprofit and corporate. Course simulations and topics include analysis of organizational communication models, formal and informal communication networks, external and internal communication channels, the changing shape of future organizations, mentoring, ethics, diversity, technologies, and the purpose of communication research.

Full course description for Organizational Communication

Students learn the theory and practice of group membership skills, including group development, roles, norms and leadership responsibilities. Students also learn situational leadership styles and roles, interpersonal communication styles, conflict management, problem solving, feedback skills, and group activity planning, presentation and processing. Overlap: COMM 351 Communication in Work Groups and COMM 351T Communication in Work Groups Theory Seminar.

Full course description for Group Dynamics and Facilitation

This course is designed to provide an understanding of the health care industry and the theory and practice of face to face and mediated forms of communication by health care administrators, managers, providers, and patients. Students will analyze both common and best practices in health care campaigns, training, public relations, patient satisfaction, patient advocacy, administration, media covering health issues, and public education. Significant focus is given to issues of race and racism, and how social constructions of race and racism affect perspectives and create disparities in health care access, communication, and outcomes experienced by different populations.

Full course description for Health Communication

This course covers the basics of developing an effective and compliant Health & Safety program. It will lead the student through the process of evaluating health and safety risks and developing required OSHA programs to manage those risks. Topics to be covered include: OSHA recordkeeping, hazard communication, personal protective equipment, machine safeguarding, electrical safety, ergonomics, chemical safety, employee health and wellness and workplace security. By the end of the course, the student will have the knowledge and the tools to develop a Health and Safety program.

Full course description for Managing Employee Health and Safety

This course familiarizes students with the diversity that exists in families. It is intended for students who want to gain a better understanding of the family, and for students specializing in psychology or human services related fields. Structural inequalities in society based on wealth, race/ethnicity and gender are presented as key determinants in the diversity of family forms and in differing experiences within families.

Full course description for Family: Racial, Gender and Class Dimensions

This course, designed for students in human services fields who work with older adults and their families, and students considering gerontology as a vocation, is an overview of the field. Topics include understanding the physiological, psychological, and sociological aspects of aging, as well as the myths about aging, health and social needs of the aging, and community resources and programs.

Full course description for Aging in America: A Personal and Societal Journey

This course addresses how violence is responded to at various levels. It examines the role and development of personal skills and involvement in addressing violence, community intervention resources, systems responses such as punishment and rehabilitation in violence prevention, social change movement responses to violence, and international violence and the growth of human rights movements.

Full course description for Violence: Individual, Community and Global Responses

This course is designed as an introduction to the study of family violence across the lifespan. It will introduce students to history, current theories, research, and policies in the three areas of family violence: child maltreatment, elder abuse, domestic violence. You will examine the cultural, social and political roots of family violence, as well as the dynamics of abuse in the family and in intimate relationships. You will explore the effects of abuse at the individual, family, and community levels, and be able to identify abusive and controlling behaviors. The content of the course focuses on current theories, research and policies on domestic violence (battering, sexual assault, stalking), child maltreatment (physical and sexual abuse, emotional abuse, neglect) and abuse of vulnerable adults (elderly, non-elderly vulnerable populations). This course is an introduction to the topic. It will give students a basic overview of the issues across types of family violence…

Full course description for Family Violence Across the Lifespan

This course focuses on the origins and trends in community and public health nursing, conceptual models for practice, and contemporary public health problems and issues. Students synthesize knowledge from nursing, public health and the social sciences to provide holistic care with community as client. Emphasis is on primary prevention, health promotion, and risk reduction, as well as prevalent population-based health issues; focusing on racism and inequities in delivery of health care within populations.

Full course description for Community Health Nursing

This course examines the many meanings death has for individuals. Its goals are to convey information, stimulate thought and promote a deeper awareness of this subject through readings from literature (fiction, poetry and essays) and humanistic psychology. Topics include death as an idea, death anxiety, children and death, the dying process, grief and loss, death metaphors, suicide, and longevity, survival and immortality.

Full course description for Understanding Death and Dying

This course surveys the principles and applications of community psychology, emphasizing person-environment interactions and societal/cultural impacts upon individual and community functioning. Attention is given to community-based interventions that facilitate individual and community competence and empowerment, prevent disorder, and promote health and social change. Students select and research an issue of their choice (such as, mental illness, violence, alcohol or substance abuse, HIV/AIDS, discrimination) utilizing a community psychology lens.

Full course description for Community Psychology

The course explores the risk management issues facing firms and individuals and examines how to protect firm value and personal wealth. It covers the areas of the general risk management process, property and liability insurance, life and health insurance, annuities and employee benefits. The insurance industry and regulatory concerns are also addressed. In addition, the course touches on some of the new products emerging in the risk management arena and how the insurance industry responds to them.

Full course description for Risk Management and Insurance

This course focuses on developing the skills needed to become a successful project manager and project team member. Topics covered include all aspects of project management from project initiation issues and project planning to scheduling, organization, implementation, monitoring progress and controlling to achieve desired project results. Also included are project management techniques such as PERT, CPM and project evaluation methods using Microsoft Project software.

Full course description for Project Management

This course focuses on supervision principles, concepts and theories, including how to be a facilitating supervisor and assist others in their professional growth. Emphasis is on understanding how supervisors can teach counseling theories and techniques to those they supervise, as an integral part of the supervisory process.

Full course description for Supervision in Human Services

This course focuses on the behavior of individuals and groups within diverse organizations and on organizational structure and processes. Topics include motivation, group development and dynamics, teamwork, communication, organizational structure, job design, stress, power, politics, conflict, and organizational culture.

Full course description for Organizational Behavior

This course focuses on concepts related to individual development and contextual knowledge necessary to prepare nurses to act as leaders and advocates in a variety of health-related environments. Students will analyze the roles of the baccalaureate prepared nurse within systems, utilizing holistic, anti-racist, equity-oriented, theory, and evidence-based principles.

Full course description for Leadership and Management in Nursing

This course focuses on principles and techniques of personnel and industrial psychology and applications of scientific psychology to business and industrial settings. Topics include: psychology as a science and professional practice issues; employee selection, psychological testing, performance appraisal, and training and development; leadership in organizations; motivation, job satisfaction and job involvement; organizational structure; work conditions, engineering psychology, employee safety and health, and work stress; and consumer psychology. This course is appropriate for general management, business administration and psychology students in addition to human resource management professionals. Overlap: HRM 330 Personnel and Industrial Psychology.

Full course description for Industrial-Organizational Psychology

Do business firms have obligations besides making as much money as possible for their stockholders? What are their responsibilities, if any, to their employees, their customers, and the wider community? Is it enough to obey the law, or does the law sometimes allow people to do things that are wrong? Do employees have any right to privacy on the job? To 'living wages'? To 'decent' working conditions? Does a seller have any obligation to look out for the interests of the buyer? Isn't it necessary to put the best possible 'spin' on your product and let the buyer look out for him or herself? This course will examine questions like these in light of various theories of ethics and current theories of justice. In addition to considering how we might ideally like people to act, it will also consider the challenges to personal integrity and 'doing the right thing' posed by the real world of business and by the kind of large bureaucratic organizations that dominate it.

Full course description for Business Ethics

Is it ever right to try to hasten a patient's death? Should people ever be given medical treatment against their will? How should we decide who will get access to scarce medical resources (like organ transplants)? Do people have a right to get the care they need, even if they can't pay for it? This course will use ethical theories and theories of justice to explore these questions and others like them. It is intended to be helpful not only to (present or future) health care practitioners, but also to anyone who wants to think about these issues, which confront us in our roles as patients and as citizens whose voices can contribute to the shaping of health care policies.

Full course description for Medical Ethics