Make a Move into Management

Your Human Services Administration degree will help you become a leader in your field. Move with confidence into supervisory or administrative roles in the human services or in related settings like education, health care, or human resource administration.

The Human Services Administration major emphasizes knowledge and skills in several areas:

  • Human development across the span of life
  • Principles of effective management and the functioning of organizations
  • The wider social context of organizations
  • Skills for effective management

Human Services Administration majors are well prepared for leadership roles in any organization. They also have the strong academic background they need to pursue graduate study in such fields as:

  • Social service administration
  • Public administration
  • Education
  • Human resource administration

General Education (18 cr)

  • GNED-3210 Experience and Expression (3)
  • GNED-3250 Modes and Methods of Learning (3)
  • GNED-3310 Literary Analysis & Argumentation (3)
  • GNED-3350 Culture, Conflict, and Social Research (3)
  • GNED-3450 Foundations of Civilization (3)
  • GNED-3510 Ecology, Technology, and Society (3)
  • GNED-3550 Leadership (3)

Major Requirements (27 cr)

  • MGT-3680 Accounting and Budgeting (3)
  • MGT-3900 Human Resource Management (3)
  • MGT-4880 Strategic Marketing for Non- Profit Organizations (3)
  • MGT-4960 Organizational Behavior (3)
  • HDV-4020 Child and Adolescent Development (3)
  • HDV-4030 Adult Development (3)
  • HSA-4200 Human Services Systems and Grants (3)

One elective

  • HWL-4000 Economics of Health Care (3)
  • HWL-4010 Integration of Health Care (3)
  • HWL-4020 History of Health Care and Medical Ethics (3)
  • HWL-4030 Nutrition and Fitness Within the Family (3)
  • HWL-4040 Gender and Multicultural Issues in Health Care (3)
  • HDV-4140 Behavioral Physiology (3)
  • HDV-4150 Psychology of Women (3)
  • HDV-4190 Dying as a Stage of Life (3)

Senior Project (3)

  • PRO-4970 Senior Project (3)

GNED-3210 Experience and Expression

Students discover the uniqueness of each human life by reading, comparing and
comparing life stories about transformative experiences. They learn to write in their own voice from their own life experience employing rhetorical modes such as narration, description, example, comparison and contrast, process analysis, classification, cause and effect, and argument and persuasion. Students develop a new view of the world, of themselves, and of their interconnectedness to others.

GNED-3250 Modes & Methods of Learning

This course shows ways to identify and apply diverse modes of learning to achieve ends such as acquiring knowledge of self and world, solving problems, producing works of art, or engaging in public speaking. Students learn to distinguish facts from values, intuition from logic, imagination from objective  representation, beliefs from arguments, synthesis from analysis, and qualitative from quantitative reasoning. They practice selfawareness and employ evidence and logic as foundations of inquiry.

GNED-3310 Literary Analysis & Argument

Students travel the world in literature to explore ideas, passions, and the lives of people in other times and places. Discussions focus on viewpoints and aims of characters, narrative techniques, cultural contexts, and intentionality in reading and writing. Students refine their ability to read closely and critically and to analyze literary texts using a variety of academic approaches. They learn both how to construct analytical arguments about literary themes and how this skill can be transferred to other professional situations. Prerequisite: GNED-3210.

GNED-3350 Culture, Conflict & Social Research

Introduces students to the historic and cultural origins of contemporary conflicts and the attitudes and institutions that perpetuate them. They learn methods of research that can effectively address the issues and questions that arise in conflict situations. Students learn how to pose productive questions, formulate hypotheses, design logical and effective research strategies, address issues of reliability and validity, and observe ethical protocols. They each conduct and compose a modest research project and make an oral presentation according to professional standards. Prerequisite: GNED-3250.

GNED-3450 Foundations of Civilization

This course focuses on understanding differences between cultures and civilizations, including how both evolve from specific environmental conditions, and are shaped to address local challenges. This course examines the religious, economic, and political systems in such foundational zones as ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, India and China, and Greece and Rome.

GNED-3510 Ecology, Technology & Society

This course explores the interdependency of natural and social systems, the factors that contribute to the evolution and disappearance of species, and the human impact on natural environments by factors such as overpopulation, pollution, war, and excess consumption. It also examines more sustainable initiatives in waste management, and agricultural production, the use of alternative energies and technologies, and policy efforts to both conserve natural resources and ecosystems and build more sustainable communities.

GNED-3550 Leadership

 The course explores the concept of Leadership as science, as art, and as service. In the process of studying cases of successful and failed leadership the course requires students to reflect on how to make their lives meaningful and productive through the cultivation and exercise of leadership skills. They learn how to employ creative means to achieve constructive ends and how, in the process, to serve with integrity as they draw upon the capacities of diverse human resources and deploy the skills of community building.

MGT 3680 Accounting & Budgeting

MGT-3680 Accounting and Budgeting  This course introduces the students to fundamental principles underlying the accounting function as it relates to the management of organizations. Students develop an accounting model, starting with simple concepts, and build toward a system overview by taking a practical approach to the subject. This course also examines the basic concepts and issues underlying budget planning as well as the relationships of budgeting, planning, accounting, and information systems to organizational goals, program objectives, and performance measures.

MGT-3900 Human Resource Management

This course introduces students to a critical examination of theoretical and practical issues of human resource management and strengthens their decision-making skills in personnel cases. It is designed to benefit all students of management.

Strategic Marketing for Non-Profit Organizations

Marketing is the business function which links a society’s needs and its pattern of organizational response, has become critically important to not-for-profit organizations seeking to survive and prosper in increasingly competitive environments. Students learn the principles of strategic marketing, including marketing research, segmentation, targeting, and positioning, and how to apply these principles.

MGT-4960 Organizational Behavior

Organizations are complex social systems with external environments and internal goals. Organization behavior includes the processes of determining how organization resources shall be employed (toward the 28 goals) and under what rules. Decisions may be made through rational or political processes or through observation, analysis, discussion, and experimentation. This course examines personal and organizational behaviors employed in achieving personal and organizational goals.

HDV-4020 Child and Adolescent Development

 This course examines the major theories and research findings in human development from conception and infancy through adolescence with an emphasis on physical, cognitive, and psychosocial development. The impact of contextual variables on the developmental process will be an ongoing focus of discussion.

HDV-4030 Adult Development

This course covers the development of the individual from young adulthood through old age in the context of contemporary society. Physical, psychological, and social changes are examined as they relate to individual and family functioning.

HSA-4200 Human Service Systems and Grants

This course explores the broad range of human services available in most large communities and the social policy context in which these services are delivered and funded. Topics include the ways in which services are delivered, the interconnections among the various agencies and organizations providing services and how to access these services including the writing of grants. Students have the opportunity to investigate services that are of particular interest to them as well as develop a philanthropy project. In this course, the student develops skills useful in conducting library research on and writing about topics in human development and human services and writing about topics in these fields. It emphasizes the preparation of grant applications in human services settings.

HWL4000 Economics, Politics, & Access in Healthcare

This course investigates the tripartite relationship between Medicine, Government and Business. Topics for investigation include the privatization of health care delivery, HMOs and government regulation of health care financing and delivery, employer and employee funded health care, publicly funded health care initiatives such as Medicare, Medicaid, and indigent care, and the political economy of nationalized health care system.

HWL4010 Integration of Healthcare Modalities

This course introduces students to emerging methods of holistic medicine, and combinations of health and wellness practices. This course will investigate ways in which ‘alternative’ treatments and natural therapies such as massage therapy, yoga, reflexology, meditation, homeopathic medicines, herbal remedies, etc. can work in conjunction with, or in place of, traditional Western medical treatments. This course also includes ways of rethinking health care professions and relationships between various treatment providers and treatment recipients.

HWL4020 History of Healthcare & Medical Ethics

This course introduces students to healing practices that have endured from ancient to modern times in both the Eastern and Western traditions. The course surveys ancient beginnings of institutionalized medical practice, important historical divisions of medicine and resulting models of ethical reasoning in response to moral dilemmas in medical practices today. It involves such topics as: patient rights, end of life decisions, uses of genetic screening and the availability and distribution of health services.

HWL4040 Gender & Multicultural Issues in Healthcare

This course will examine ways in which gender and culture affect healthcare and approaches to medicine. In particular we will explore gender role expectations, the rise of the “women’s health” movement, ethnomedicine, and the psychology of health. The course also explores various ways in which individuals, households, larger groups of people and various medical systems and practitioners attempt to define, interpret and create health, as well as problems that arise from perceptions of difference.

HDV-4140 Behavioral Physiology

This course reviews major anatomical structures and physiological systems affecting human behavior cognition and emotion. Emphasis is on normal and abnormal functioning of the brain. Topics such as left/right hemisphere differences, the physiology of chemical dependency and brain disorders are examined in depth.

HDV-4150 Psychology of Women

This course covers women’s psychological development, moral development, and feminist critique of adult development theories.

HDV-4190 Dying as a Stage of Life

 This course explores personal death awareness and acceptance, looks at the issues facing dying persons and their families, evaluates the potential for growth at this ending phase of life, examines death through a number of cultural and religious understandings, studies the dynamics of grief, and practices skills for caring for the grieving.

PRO-4970 Senior Project

 In this seminar, each student develops and carries out a project relevant to professional goals. The project generally involves background study or research, planning, implementation, evaluation, and preparation of a written report. Instructor permission required.