Public Health Elective Courses 

Public Health Studies is an interdisciplinary field of inquiry offering students the opportunity to acquire knowledge, skills and experiences in public health. Areas of study supporting a student's chosen major may include national and global aspects of disease prevention and management, sanitation, pandemics, HIV/AIDS, antibiotic resistant infections, natural disasters, biological/nuclear weapons threats, disability, aging and environmental hazards.

The Public Health Studies minor introduces public health as an interdisciplinary study, emphasizing a population health framework and systematic thinking. Courses within the minor seek to strengthen a liberal arts and sciences education by enabling students to use the lens of public health and population study within and across disciplines. By taking courses in a number of disciplines, all focused on aspects of public health, students construct a foundation that encourages them to take socially responsible steps and gain an enduring understanding of the field of public health while enriching their career choices.

The Public Health Studies minor draws upon courses from various disciplines that are cross-listed as Public Health Studies, including courses in Anthropology, Exercise Science, Human Services, Physical Education and Health, Political Science and Public Administration, and Psychology. While developed within their particular fields, these courses help students pursuing the Public Health Studies minor achieve the following learning goals:

• Integrate the arts and sciences and public health.
• Develop skills of inquiry and analysis, critical and creative thinking, written and oral communication, quantitative and information literacy, teamwork and problem solving.
• Incorporate public health experiential learning to advance civic knowledge through local and global engagement, intercultural knowledge and competence, ethical reasoning and action, foundations and skills for lifelong learning.
• Understand the global perspectives on learning and develop internationalist or world views: understand the concept of interdependence, and apply learning to global health challenges.
• Recognize and possess familiarity with the ten essential public health services.
• Apply what she/he has learned about public health to his/her life and the world.

If you are interested in having your course fulfill one of the Public Health Studies elective course requirements, please follow these steps:

1. Submit a draft syllabus (preferred) or a course description with potential texts to be used, along with a paragraph description of how the course relates to select public health learning goals to the Public Health Studies coordinator, Amanda Tapler.
2. The advisory committee (Eric Hall, Exercise Science; Betty Morgan, Political Science and Public Administration; Adam Short, Political Science and Public Administration; Kristen Sullivan, Human Services) will review the syllabus or course description and make a recommendation either to accept or decline the course. The program coordinator will contact the faculty with the results as soon as possible.
3. If the course is accepted, the program coordinator will ask the Registrar's Office to denote the course as a Public Health Studies elective.