Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #115431

Nella Mupier, Center for Community Health Development, School of Rural Public Health, Texas A&M University System Health Science Center, 1103 University Drive, Suite 100, College Station, TX 77840, 979-845-6953, npmupier@srph.tamhsc.edu and Stacy Maines, BS, Center for Community Development, School of Rural Public Health, 1103 University Dr., 200, College Station, TX 77840.

Public health graduate level curricula alone often fall short of thoroughly preparing public health professionals on a practical level. The Center for Community Health Development, (CCHD), at the Texas A&M University System Health Science Center's School of Rural Public Health, (SRPH), utilizes a service learning model for graduate training. The CCHD, with their foundation in community leadership and partnerships, connects students with various health agencies and academic opportunities within the community. By supplementing classroom scholarship of traditional graduate training, the CCHD enhances the experience of graduate-level training and further prepares students to serve as effective public health professionals. The CCHD provides both masters and doctoral level graduate research assistants the opportunity to actively participate in a number of activities that reinforce and supplement their graduate training and experience. These activities include (1) managing community health resource centers, (2) facilitating community discussion groups, (3) collaborating with various agencies to coordinate services, (4) coordinating outreach efforts, and (5) grant writing and evaluation opportunities. The ability to successfully engage in the aforementioned activities require graduate assistants to attempt to acquire levels of understanding and application that ‘in-class' instructions simply cannot provide. In addition, the ability to utilize graduate students for research fieldwork greatly enhances the capacity of the Center to interact with the community. The benefits to the students, school, and community will be discussed.

Learning Objectives:

• To provide a clear understanding of the roles and responsibilities required of a graduate level student.
• To illustrate how these roles do, in fact, encourage “innovative practice-based teaching methods” thus strengthening graduate level programs producing well trained public health professionals.

Keywords: Service Learning, Students

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation