197842 Practical applications to integrate public health in undergraduate liberal education

Tuesday, November 10, 2009: 1:08 PM

Sherril B. Gelmon, DrPH , Mark O. Hatfield School of Government, Portland State University, Portland, OR
Shawn Smallman, PhD , Vice Provost for Instruction and Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Portland State University, Portland, OR
Carlos Crespo, DrPH, MS , Professor of Community Health and Director, School of Community Health, Portland State University, Portland, OR
Jeff Gerwing, PhD , Assistant Professor and Sophomore Inquiry Coordinator, Portland State University, Portland, OR
  
Building upon the public health/undergraduate education project of the Association for Prevention Teaching and Research (APTR), Council of Colleges of Arts & Sciences (CCAS), and Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), this presentation will illustrate strategies to integrate public health content into undergraduate general education. LEAP (Liberal Education and America's Promise) is an initiative of AAC&U that champions the value of a liberal education, and focuses on fostering essential learning outcomes for all students. The public health content areas and learning outcomes identified for undergraduate education in the APTR-CCAS-AAC&U project complement the LEAP initiative, presenting opportunities for public health faculty to become more involved at the core of liberal education. Similarly, many general education faculty may find opportunities to expand their content and illustrations by drawing upon the public health disciplines, augmenting general education with public health content as well a social justice orientation. An illustration of a model from Portland State University, which is also a LEAP pilot site, will be provided. Portland State offers an innovative multi-year general education program, with many opportunities to highlight public health content particularly through the sophomore inquiry and junior cluster tracks. These curricular opportunities can draw upon faculty from the Oregon Masters of Public Health program tracks at Portland State to respond to the public health-undergraduate education integration challenges, and build curriculum in public health, epidemiology, global health and related topics. Leverage opportunities to spread this integration will be identified, suggesting ways other institutions might adopt similar strategies.

Learning Objectives:
To identify opportunities to link public health learning outcomes with liberal education competencies. To demonstrate how public health content can be integrated into undergraduate general education. To define ways to spread such integration from public health faculty to liberal education faculty.

Keywords: Education, Students

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am a Professor of Public Health and engage in the kind of work covered by this abstract as part of my professional work.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

See more of: Undergraduate Public Health Programs
See more of: Academic Public Health Caucus