HSC - Health Science

This course is a study of personal and family health and wellness. It examines the dimensions of health and recommends practices for developing healthy lifestyles. It explores health determinants, lifestyle behaviors, and risk and resilience factors associated with chronic and communicable diseases.

This course introduces the student to common word roots, prefixes and suffixes used by the medical and allied health professions. Upon completion of this course, students should be able to define common medical terminology by deciphering its parts.

This course is required of all students enrolled in the pre-professional allied health concentrations.  This introductory course examines career opportunities, history and trends, and philosophical issues specific to healthcare.  Course content includes professional development, academic planning for graduate school, introduction to interprofessional education, and blood-bourse pathogen training. 

A study of nutritional status and the effect of eating habits and food consumption on society, families and individuals.

This is a one-semester course without lab that covers the structure and function of the human body on the cellular, systemic and organismal levels. Special emphasis is given to the skeletal, nervous, cardiovascular and respiratory systems.

A study of the structures and functions of the body, with special emphases on histology and the integumentary, skeletal, muscular and nervous systems.  Permission to retake the course during the fall and spring semesters after having earned a letter grade in or having officially withdrawn from the course must be granted by the department chair.

A study of the structure and functions of the body, with special emphases on the endocrine, circulatory, digestive, respiration, urinary and reproductive systems.  Permission to retake the course during the fall and spring semesters after having earned a letter grade in or having officially withdrawn from the course must be granted by the department chair.

This laboratory course introduces the students to hands-on exercises related to the structure and function of tissues, and the skeletal, muscular, and nervous systems (including dissections of cats and brains as well as physiological concepts).  Permission to retake the course during the fall and spring semesters after having earned a letter grade in or having officially withdrawn from the course must be granted by the department chair.

This laboratory course introduces students to hands-on exercises related to structure and function of the endocrine, circulatory, digestive, respiratory, urinary and reproductive systems (including dissections of cats, hearts, and kidneys as well as physiological concepts).  Permission to retake the course during the fall and spring semesters after having earned a letter grade in or having officially withdrawn from the course must be granted by the department chair.

This course provides the student with a clear understanding of public health: the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health.

The content and lab activities in this course prepare students to work collaboratively, use critical thinking and make appropriate decisions about the care to provide in a medical emergency. The first responder skills taught include advanced first aid, single-responder-two-person responder and team CPR with AED training, administering supplemental oxygen, prevention of infectious disease transmission including OSHA bloodborne pathogen and exposure control planning. Red Cross certification(s) in Emergency Medical Response First Aid and Basic Life Support for Health Care Professionals may be earned. Permission is required to enroll in this course. Lab fees required.

This course provides the student with an overview of health science research and data analysis, the organization and summarization of data, and drawing inferences about the characteristics of sample data. Conceptual topics include study design, descriptive statistics, probability, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, power and sample size, inferential statistics, and decision-making. Statistical techniques include prevalence, incidence, odds ratio, relative risk, sensitivity, specificity, measures of central tendency, dispersion, and variability, measures of bivariate association (Pearson, Spearman, Chi-square), independent samples and paired samples (t-tests), between groups design (one-way and two-way ANOVA), repeated measures ANOVA and multivariable regression.

This course is designed to provide a solid research foundation to students interested in health education and health promotion emphasizing systematic approaches to the application of research methods, designs and data collection strategies. Students will understand and apply ethical standards related to health education research, develop pertinent research questions and hypotheses, develop proposals, design data collection instruments, identify and critique research in terms of design, technique, analysis and interpretation, as well as explore and practice research dissemination. This course is writing intensive. Thus, informal and formal writing instruction and production will occur to develop effective scholarly writing and research reports.

This course provides the student with an overview of morbidity and mortality surveillance by understanding disease etiology, distribution, and control. The course focuses on disease surveillance related to exercise, rehabilitation, public and community health through both descriptive and analytical methods. Students will examine and discuss cohort, case and experimental studies to further illustrate epidemiological concepts including study design, disease distribution (e.g., outbreaks), measures of disease frequency, and determinants of disease, disability, condition, and injury.

Lecture/discussion course emphasizing an understanding of the basic principles of pharmacology specifically aimed at the needs of allied health professionals. The application of these principles to drug categories commonly encountered by allied health professionals is covered.

This course provides a foundation of major theories and models focused on the development, implementation, and evaluation of health education interventions. Theories and models focused on individual health behavior, interpersonal health behavior, and community behaviors will be addressed. The course focuses on public health issues, social determinants of health, health risk behaviors, and intervention strategies. The course includes trends in morbidity and mortality and factors that correlate with these trends. The course introduces data on health risks associated with behaviors such as smoking, poor diet, sedentary lifestyle, and substance abuse and introduces various strategic approaches for developing behavioral interventions.

This course will utilize an experiential, evidence-based model of learning and building on global health competencies. This experiential learning course will enable students to "learn by doing." The primary goal of this experience is to enable the students to contribute toward a better quality of life for all people, especially those who are vulnerable, underserved, marginalized and disadvantaged. The course will focus on providing content and skills necessary to collaboratively plan and implement a service learning project that will address a community need.

This course addresses contemporary issues in the usage of dietary supplements and sports performance aids, including vitamin and mineral supplements, herbs and botanicals promoted to the general public and to the athlete. The focus is to use the scientific method to evaluate product and research literature and health claims, when it is known that data are often likely to be incomplete or inconclusive. The course also reviews safety data, adverse event reports and legal issues involving dietary supplements.

This course provides key concepts and knowledge regarding how health policy is formulated, enacted, and implemented. The course analyzes health policy by focusing on how and why health policy is developed at the federal, state and local levels. The course begins with a brief overview of the concepts and theories associated with public policy development in the health sector. The main emphasis will be upon providing the tools with which to understand how both public and private institutions produce health policy in its various forms. This course should provide a practical background to the study of health policy.

This course develops the student's ability to: 1) work with organizations and communities; 2) develop skills to mobilize resources and the organizational and community capacity to address public health challenges and achieve the national health objectives; and 3) enable participation and leadership in a network that fosters the future of public health. The course exposes students to concepts and theories of leadership, performance improvement, organizational behavior, marketing, operations, organizational strategy and continuous quality improvement. The general management perspective is emphasized.

An upper-level course for those looking to go onto professional/graduate school and/or those who would benefit from experiential learning in teaching various aspects of a laboratory course. Through direct involvement both in and out of the classroom, students gain hands-on knowledge of instruction in a health science laboratory. Under the supervision of the faculty, students participate in all aspects of teaching a semester long laboratory class. This may include, but is not limited to, presenting materials in the introductory component of each laboratory, working with students during laboratory hours, holding office hours, holding review sessions in the laboratory, creating and evaluating testing components, and laboratory preparation and maintenance. Counts as a general elective only.

This is an instructional, field-based experience in the allied health occupations for the pre-professionals. Both directed and self-directed experiences are required under the supervision of a certified/licensed allied health care practitioner in an approved health care setting. Students must earn program coordinator approval, provide documentation of current immunizations, health screening and CPR certification, and make provisions for transportation to the clinical affiliation site. Minimum allowable number of clinical contact hours is 120. This course may be repeated for credit for a maximum of 12 credit hours.

This course is an experiential education course that focuses on conducting undergraduate research in health sciences and working along with a faculty member. The students will be engaged in project conception, background literature study, methodology, data collection, analyzing results and possible presentation of research to larger community. At least 2 hours a week is required for each credit hour. This course can be repeated for up to 8 credit hours.

This course encompasses professional topics and current issues in the allied health professions. A seminar style class including discussions, reviews of current literature, case studies and journal article critiques will be conducted.  Competencies of interprofessional education including ethics, leadership, and teamwork are delivered in the course.

A course offered at the discretion of the Health Science and Human Performance Department. Subjects may focus on topics of current interest in the field or a topic that is of interest to a particular group of students.

This course will cover research designs and research methods for exercise and health related studies. In particular, this course will focus on qualitative, quantitative and mixed method research designs, data collection techniques and statistical analyses. This course builds on the basic knowledge of biostatistics to explore more advanced research analysis techniques with both parametric and nonparametric data. This course will enable the student to develop instruments that align with specific research questions/hypotheses.  Students will become knowledgeable of mixed methods research and a greater understanding of the usage of one design informing the other for more robust research endeavors.

This course encompasses professional topics and current issues in exercise and nutrition science. 

This course provides the student with a comprehensive overview of nutritional supplementation as it applies to body composition, performance (strength, endurance, power) and general health. The course will cover the major supplements touted to enhance energy, fat loss, strength, muscle, endurance, inflammatory status and the overall hormonal milieu.

This course is an exploration of one or more special topics in exercise and nutrition science. The course gives students a comprehensive overview of a specialized field in sports and/or nutrition.  May be repeated if content varies.

This course provides students with an advanced understanding of the role that nutrition plays in the acute and chronic response to exercise. In-depth discussion of macro and micro nutrients are discussed as they relate to exercise and sport.

The practicum provides clinical field based experiences in preparation for employment in the exercise and nutrition science related professions. Graduate students will gain insight into various practices, disciplines, techniques, administrative duties and clinical processes related to exercise and nutrition science.  Graduate students will provide documentation of their experience. Graded on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis.

This course includes the master’s program comprehensive exam which must be satisfactorily completed to graduate with the MS Exercise and Nutrition Science degree.  The course also includes review for the comprehensive exam.  Satisfactory completion of this course will also help prepare those students who plan to take Certified Sports Nutritionist Exam (CISSN) offered by the International Society of Sports Nutrition but passage of the CISSN exam is not required for graduation from the MS program.