ACADEMICS - Course Descriptions
NUR
500 Transcultural Health Care
This course explores meanings and expressions of health, illness,
caring, and healing transculturally. Focus is on understanding and
developing professional competence in caring for individuals, families,
groups, and communities with diverse cultural backgrounds. Culture
is examined as a pervasive, determining “blueprint” for
thought and action throughout the human health experience. Patterns
of human interaction that foster health and quality of life are analyzed,
and health destroying patterns of interaction, e.g., stereotyping,
discrimination, and marginalization, are examined and submitted to
moral and ethical reflection. (36 hours of practice experience)
NUR 501 Topics in Transcultural Care Systems: Nursing Leadership
and Complexity Science
In this course, organizations are viewed in the context of complex
adaptive systems where continuous change and unpredictability rule
the development and course of evolution. The importance of relationships,
the role of self-organization (autopoeisis), the processes of emergence
and co-evolution are explored via readings and discussions. Attendance
at a local, national and/or international nursing leadership conference
is mandatory. Dialogue and networking with a variety of nursing leaders
to understand the context of transcultural healthcare organizations
is expected.
NUR 503 Transcultural Health, Families, and the
Life Cycle
The major curriculum concepts of individuals, health, nursing,
and society are developed further in this course as the function
of individuals living in families and in communities is explored.
Content about systems, communication, small group, and nursing
theories, introduced earlier, is applied to family constellation.
The influence of the multigenerational family is examined
in terms of culture, belief system, roles, and healthcare
patterns, values, and goals. Specific concepts related to
values and culture are expanded and applied to the more complex
social structures of traditional and nontraditional families
as they interact in and with society.
NUR 505 Theoretical Foundations for Advanced Nursing
Practice
This course focuses on nursing science and nursing theory
as foundational to advanced transcultural nursing practice.
Philosophical underpinnings of different theoretical and
research traditions in nursing are compared and related to
the provision of culturally competent care in diverse communities.
Nursing science is emphasized as a process of theory advancement
and as an accumulating body of nursing knowledge. (36 hours
of practice experience)
NUR 510 Advanced Community Health Nursing I
This course focuses on persons, families and groups living
in relationship. Emphasis is on applying the core functions
of community/public health – assessment, policy development
and assurance. Principles of epidemiology, population demographics,
and culture care are integrated into community-focused
health care delivery models. Power structures within dominant
social systems are analyzed and critiqued with regard to
resource access and distribution among underserved populations.
(72 hours of practice experience)
NUR 511 Advanced Community Health Nursing II
Emphasis is on the application of public/community health
theory and research in providing health care to populations
and communities. Essential public health services are assessed
for adequacy in meeting community health needs and addressing
health goals. The impact of diversity, privilege, resource
limits, and globalization add depth and reality to local
and global community health concerns, patterns of health,
suffering, and health care provisioning. Prerequisite:
NUR 510. (72 hours of practice experience)
NUR 515 Managing Nursing Effectiveness within Care
Systems
In planning and implementing nursing activities, health-
care organizations are considered subcultures of society,
which entail particular issues of access and utilization
for marginalized people. Strategies for negotiating structures
of privilege and professional control will be explored. Working
with marginalized populations, students will identify and
support the agency or persons who are seeking help from these
systems. Nursing action will focus on mediating subcultures
of clients with the subculture of healthcare systems. Major
emphasis will be placed on mutuality with clients in planning
actions and evaluating outcomes. (72 hours of practice experience)
NUR 520 Research Methods in Nursing
Through a combination of literature review, field experience,
and class discussion, research methods relevant to the
exploration of culture and health will be examined. Class
topics will include formulating study questions to explore
collective foundations of meaning and explanation in health
and illness, practice in data collection procedures of
field research, and issues of interpretation and analysis
in qualitative research. (pre-requisite: a college-level
statistics course)
NUR 521 Transformative Nursing Leadership
This course emphasizes transformational nursing leadership
and management in partnership with diverse groups. Transcultural
competence is lifted up as significant to the evolving
leadership and planning skills needed in emerging care
systems. Opportunities for students to engage in designing
relevant models of care delivery are woven into clinical
practica. (72 hours of practice experience)
NUR 523 Theory, Research, and Practice Seminar
Through a combination of literature review and class discussion,
conceptual models of nursing will be critiqued for their
effectiveness, their relevance, and their substantiation.
The conceptualization, investigation, and application of
nursing knowledge will be critiqued with particular focus
on the contribution to developing practice in transcultural
community health care. Through reflection and dialogue,
which includes professional experience of practice contexts,
as well as theoretical and research literature, students
will formulate a transcultural nursing model of care. (72
hours of practice experience)
NUR 525 Graduate Field Project
This course focuses on the application and integration of
knowledge to a student-selected issue or topic of concern
relevant to transcultural nursing, community health nursing,
and/or transformational nursing leadership. Working with
a nursing faculty adviser, students design and/or implement
and evaluate a theory-based model of advanced practice
nursing. Relevant coursework is integrated into the project
and the final written report. Plans for disseminating the
report for public and professional use are encouraged.
Students will defend the project to their graduate committee
(major faculty adviser and two readers) and invited guests
at the time of completion.
NUR 530 The Power of Ritual and Ceremony for Transformation
In this course, the student will explore ritual and ceremony
from a transcultural perspective. Attention will be focused
on rituals and ceremonies in specific cultures and religions,
and in the modern American medical system that sustains
its own rituals. In some cultures, formal or informal religious
practices may be integral to the ritual of ceremony and
healing. In modern American culture, the perceived division
between the mind, body, and spirit has led to ritual and
ceremony being considered adjunctive to the scientific
approach to healing. Students will have an opportunity
to interact with persons who integrate ritual and ceremony
into their lives and healthcare practices. Students will
also discuss the meaning of ritual and ceremony to their
own lives and professional practice.
NUR 532 Transcultural Healing Practices
This course will introduce students to complementary healing
practices including the historical and cultural contexts
in which they developed. Students will discuss the philosophical
underpinnings of therapeutic systems and paradigms of healing
in selected complementary therapies. Selected complementary
therapies are: music therapy, traditional Chinese medicine,
mind-body healing, spiritual and faith practices, energy
healing practices, movement therapies, homeopathy, manual
therapies, and nutrition and nutritional supplements.
NUR 541 The Politics of Health Care
This course will explore how health and illness are related
to inequities in society and dynamics of power in systems
of health care. The following issues will be examined in
the course: How widening gaps in the distribution of wealth
diminish the health of all members of society; how social
inequities become medicalized as health disparities, how
an emphasis on profit in health care affects the distribution
of healing resources in the population, and what strategies
the poor and powerless employ to gain access to healthcare
resources. This course will include an optional study abroad
experience in Guatemala. (72 hours of practice experience)
BUS 520 Management of the Healthcare Organization
This course provides an overview of the key organizational
and behavioral concepts that underlie effective management
practices in healthcare organizations. It addresses both
the theory and practice of effective management. The course
will emphasize the importance of addressing the expectations,
needs, and performances of people in organizations, and
recognizes the role of the internal, external, and global
cultures that impact organizational structure, behavior,
and change.
ECO 520 Economics of Health Care in a Global Community
At the end of the class, students will be better able to
apply economic concepts to the health systems of both the
United States and other parts of the world. The focus will
be on the public policy aspects of the healthcare system,
e.g., issues of access and cost.
For a list of Master of Arts in Leadership (MAL) courses, go to MAL course descriptions.
NUR 599 Topics
Study of selected topics that are not treated extensively
through current course offerings. Specific topics will be
published prior to registration.
