Science, Health and Living Systems - B.A. Completion Program

The Bachelor of Arts Program in Science, Health, and Living Systems teaches students to apply scientific inquiry to ethical, cultural, historical, and philosophical issues. Our students examine the philosophical foundations, principles, methods, and assumptions of scientific disciplines as well as explore the nature of individuals and their interactions with other individuals, groups, and the environment. The program fosters the development of integrative models and holistic approaches to public health and engages society's major questions concerning health risk and outcome. The curriculum is guided by the premise that a liberal arts education is defined as much by the ways of teaching, thinking, and learning as by the subject matter. Instead of requiring students to memorize lots of facts, we emphasize intellectual discovery, analysis, and synthesis. Our holistic curriculum promotes an understanding of the factors, conditions, interrelationships, and interactions that stimulate, sustain, or impede human potential.

Because we prize good relationships, we are devoted to supporting the growth and well-being of our students and to fostering a sense of community among students, faculty, and staff. Personalized advising, coupled with a dynamic interdisciplinary curriculum, facilitates both academic development and personal transformation and so serves as a powerful pathway to professional or graduate work. Our graduates have developed vital ways of understanding, creating, relating, and being that have made them successful professionals in a variety of fields: holistic studies, health education, nursing, public health research, teaching, counseling, coaching, consulting, and many others.

Degree Requirements

Sample Courses:

Special topics courses offered include:

Integrative health acknowledges the whole ecology of human health. Students focus on the integrative nature of wellness. Integrative health examines the role of socio-cultural values and experiences, and of the mind-body connection, in achieving wellness. It takes into account the influence of health beliefs and behaviors and considers risk perceptions and social networks as they impact health and well-being. The track provides a comprehensive study of the body as a living system, and as such, looks at various complementary approaches to sustaining health and obtaining health care, and evaluates the utility of alternate approaches to health maintenance.

Sample Courses: