AC 500 - Financial Accounting Standards & Analysis I

• Examine the challenges facing accounting and the need for accounting standards.
• Recognize the objectives of financial statements, the primary financial statements, and how they are used.
• Value the need for ethics in accounting.
• Demonstrate a good understanding of basic accounting assumptions and principles.
• Employ basic accounting functions and prepare financial statements.
• Understand the structure, purposes, and uses of the income statement.
• Interpret and analyze the meaning of information contained within the income statement.
• Recognize the interrelationship and interaction of the income statement with the other financial statements.
• Understand the structures, compositions, and uses of the balance sheet and statement of cash flow.
• Prepare a balance sheet and income statement from financial records.
• Interpret and analyze the balance sheet and statement of cash flow.

AC 510 - Financial Accounting Standards & Analysis II

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Case

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Know about the challenges facing accounting and the need for accounting standards.
• Understand the objectives of financial statements, the primary financial statements and how they are used.
• Demonstrate a good understanding of the liability and stockholders’-equity section of the balance sheet.
• Be able to calculate earnings per share, both simple and complex, as well as dilutive.
• Understand more complex accounting topics, including accounting for income taxes, pensions, and leases.
• Understand the various types of accounting changes and identify the economic motives for changing accounting methods.
• Be able to interpret and analyze the meaning of information contained within the income statement, balance sheet, and statement of cash flows.
• Be able to prepare the statement of cash flows from financial information.

AC 520 - Legal Environment / Business Law (Ethics)

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Research Paper

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Assess the relationship between the accounting profession, business, and regulatory agencies.
• Examine the role of accountants as it relates to ethical reasoning.
• Research cases and understand and report their implications.
• Synthesize the ethical lapses that have occurred in business.
• Evaluate the basic theories of ethical behavior.
• Understand models for ethical analysis and decision making.
• Integrate and support ethical behavior in your professional and personal life.

 

Credits: 3

AC 530 - Research for Accounting Professionals

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Research Paper and PowerPoint Presentation

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Develop competence in locating relevant sources to research financial reporting, auditing, financial analysis, and tax issues.
• Understand and analyze primary authoritative sources in financial reporting, auditing, and taxes.
• Use information technology and databases of information for professional research.
• Understand the complexity of the issues affecting financial reporting, auditing, and tax policies.
• Understand and debate relevant theoretical issues related to the accounting profession.
• Strengthen writing skills for business communications and documentation.

AC 540 - Accounting Information Systems

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Paper/Project

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Evaluate the process by which effective systems are designed and developed.
• Analyze key components of an effective entity-wide internal control system.
• Develop an efficient database design to improve accounting information flow.
• Assess current issues involved in providing assurance services for systems and database reliability.
• Examine the role of information and accounting systems in business management.
• Integrate internal controls for financial reporting and information systems.
• Investigate the accountant’s changing role in AIS.

AC 550 - Leadership & Relationship Management

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Project

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Develop contextual and practical strategies for assessing and planning your professional development.
• Interpret and apply the Professional Code of Conduct to real-world situations.
• Manage your role and contribution as an independent professional while building effective relationships among colleagues and clients.
• Utilize reasoning in the process of solving problems in which ethical and professional conduct are concerned.
• Assess your personal beliefs about leadership and evaluate their potential to influence your development as a leader.

AC 600 - Taxation (Business)

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Project

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Apply analytical-reasoning tools to assess how taxes affect economic decisions for business-taxpaying entities.
• Evaluate how taxes affect financial net income.
• Appraise the components of taxable-income determination across taxable-business entities.
• Assess possible tax approaches by using research skills to identify and evaluate strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities.
• Communicate tax conclusions and recommendations in a clear and concise manner to relevant stakeholders.
• Value the professional and ethical obligations for tax-service providers.
• Develop the technological skills necessary to undertake tax planning, compliance, and research strategies.

AC 610 - Audit (Risk Management & Assurance Services)

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Project

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Identify the primary standard-setting bodies in the audit profession and understand the role that auditing plays in a market economy.
• Discuss the audit process, including the key concepts of risk, materiality, and evidence.
• Make informed decisions about testing internal controls, sampling, gathering audit evidence, and evaluating audit findings.
• Recognize the importance of documenting and communicating audit findings to stakeholders.
• Summarize the auditor’s responsibility regarding fraud, as well as specific fraud-detection techniques.
• Plan/perform basic audit procedures for specific management assertions related to a company’s financial statements.
• Describe the different reports auditors may issue and the contents of each of these reports.
• Review the auditor’s code of professional conduct, in particular the requirement for ethics and independence.

AC 620 - Advanced Topics in Disclosure & Financial Reporting

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Exam

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Gain knowledge of the challenges facing accounting and the need for accounting standards.
• Gain a clear understanding of accounting for mergers, acquisitions, and liquidations.
• Demonstrate knowledge of accounting in the international marketplace, including international financial-reporting standards.
• Understand the need and implications for liquidation and corporate reorganization.
• Understand moral and ethical implications as they relate to stakeholder considerations, as well as business decisions and transactions.

AC 630 - Advanced Management Accounting

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Assignment

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Apply accounting systems for decision-making and providing incentives within an organization.
• Create and utilize a budget for organizational decision-making and control.
• Analyze the role of cost allocations within an organization.
• Compare and evaluate alternative-absorption cost methods.
• Appraise benchmarks to evaluate an organization’s performance.
• Assess and employ alternative internal-cost systems within an historical context.

AC 640 - (Applied) Corporate Financial Management

AC 650 - International Accounting

HR 500 - Human Resource Management - Foundations for Leadership

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Project 

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Analyze critical trends in HR for the 21^st century.
• Evaluate human resources processes within a learning organization
• Critique the role of HRM for organizational effectiveness.
• Demonstrate competency in the policies and procedures associated with people management and organizational effectiveness.
• Identify and apply ethical and moral dimensions to HRM

HR 525 - Leading People, Managing Change

This course will be helpful for career path decisions, leadership ethics, and strategic management applications.  The course will include the study of HR as a strategic and operational partner to effect purposeful and ethical organizational change.

Prerequisites & Notes
MB515, MK500, HR500

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Analyze theoretical perspectives relating to readiness for organizational change.
• Critically evaluate the role of Human Resources to lead and manage people through organizational change.
• Understand the importance of dialogue in stakeholder communication when leading organizational change.
• Compare contemporary transition models for managing organizational change.
• Demonstrate competency in the types of changes that organizations may experience. 
• Identify and apply ethical and moral dimensions to organizational change.
• Develop practical skills for managing the emotional aspects of change.

MB 500 - Business/Organizational Dynamics

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Paper

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Apply the various models of organizing. 
• Understand how an organization influences the behavior of its members. 
• Understand the internal dynamics of organizing and how they affect the effectiveness/performance of an organization. 
• Understand how the interdependent relationship between external and internal environment affects an organization’s ability to support its strategy. 
• Align organizational structure/design to an organization’s strategy.

MB 505 - Knowledge-Based Decision Making

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: None

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of the course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Formulate a decision-making process that will improve your leadership effectiveness. 
• Effectively plan for the collection of meaningful data/information. 
• Think statistically and apply the theory of variation in developing knowledge. 
• Avoid the common pitfalls and traps in choosing among alternatives. 
• Formulate and evaluate a personal ethical-decision-making framework. 
• Use the power of a group in making a sound decision. 
• Continually improve your decision making.

MB 510 - Financial Principles and Policy

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: None

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Understand the basic structures of corporate financial accounting statements, namely, the Balance Sheet, Statement of Earnings, and Statement of Cash Flows. 
• Given any scenario regarding lump sums, annuities, or perpetuities, correctly determine Present Values and Future Values, as well as related issues. 
• Given any scenario, use the discounted-cash-flow methods to evaluate lump sums versus annuities or perpetuities; lease versus buy, as well as go versus no-go investment decisions, using Net Present Value, Internal Rate of Return, Modified Internal Rate of Return, and Profitability Index analysis. 
• Given any scenario, correctly determine the Cost of Debt; Cost of Preferred Stock; and Cost of Common Stock or Equity, as well as the Weighted Average Cost of Capital for use in the Investment decision. 
• Evaluate financial assets and portfolios using modern portfolio theory and the Capital Assets Pricing Model (CAPM). 
• Assess the advantages and disadvantages of debt and equity financing using modern capital-structure theory, and evaluate the optimal dividend policy to maximize the value of the firm. 
• Understand the basics of Foreign Exchange Rate determination using the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), Interest Rate Parity (IRP), and International Fischer Effect (IFE) theories.

 

Credits: 3

MB 515 - Leadership and Lifelong Learning

Interactivity:  Discussion Board

Final Assessment:  Final Project

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Interpret theories of adult learning theory through assessments and analysis of results.
• Analyze critical thinking theory and tools of inquiry to develop practical skills in research and problem solving
• Evaluate critical thinking stage development theory as a pathway for ongoing development opportunities.
• Value the capacity to inquire in balance with the ability to answer in the context of leadership and credibility.

MB 520 - Self-Leadership

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Personal Leadership Plan

 

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Understand the human context
  • To determine the general parameters of leadership.
  • To understand leadership relative to the human condition.
  • To identify the mistaken beliefs about leadership. 

• Understand leadership in the context of the individual self
  • To identify the personal, interior dimension of leadership.
  • To establish the component of wholeness.
  • To determine the personal barriers to leadership. 

• Understand leadership in the context of the collective self
  • To determine the causes of productive relationships.
  • To determine how to create trust.
  • To determine ways to access and engage the collective will.
  • To determine the organizational barriers to leadership. 

• Develop a self-leadership improvement plan.

5 Week Course

Prerequisites: None

Interactivity: Discussion Board, with Executive Weekend on campus (4 days)

Final Assessment: Personal Leadership Plan

Course Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Understand the human context
  • To determine the general parameters of leadership.
  • To understand leadership relative to the human condition.
  • To identify the mistaken beliefs about leadership. 

• Understand leadership in the context of the individual self
  • To identify the personal, interior dimension of leadership.
  • To establish the component of wholeness.
  • To determine the personal barriers to leadership. 

• Understand leadership in the context of the collective self
  • To determine the causes of productive relationships.
  • To determine how to create trust.
  • To determine ways to access and engage the collective will.
  • To determine the organizational barriers to leadership. 

• Develop a self-leadership improvement plan.

 

Credits: 3 Offered: Online: Summer 2017, Onsite - July 13-16

MB 525 - Social Ventures

1. Explain how social entrepreneurship is different than traditional profit-driven entrepreneurship.
2. Identify a social need and analyze its potential for new venture opportunity.
3. Analyze the process of effective new social venture creation and ongoing viability.
4. Formulate a vision that leads to development of a new business plan, including a business model for a social enterprise.
5. Synthesize management and leadership imperatives and challenges with concepts of social entrepreneurship (e.g., multi-dimensional effectiveness, systems thinking, etc.).

MB 525 - Social Ventures

• Readings from textbooks, journal articles, and or websites
• Written assignments consisting of short and long essays for critical thinking and analysis
• Reflective journal-keeping
• Case studies

1. Explain how social entrepreneurship is different than traditional profit-driven entrepreneurship.
2. Identify a social need and analyze its potential for new venture opportunity.
3. Analyze the process of effective new social venture creation and ongoing viability.
4. Formulate a vision that leads to development of a new business plan, including a business model for a social enterprise.
5. Synthesize management and leadership imperatives and challenges with concepts of social entrepreneurship (e.g., multi-dimensional effectiveness, systems thinking, etc.).

MB 530 - Ethical, Social and Environmental Responsibility

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Project

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Develop a theoretical and historical framework for understanding the role of businesses and their employees in corporate and social responsibility.
• Understand how businesses shape the communities in which they operate by forming partnerships responsive to the communities’ needs.
• Recognize both the tensions that can exist between business and environmental decisions, and the opportunities for eco-friendly businesses.
• Understand that corporate responsibility’s best testing ground can be internal, where small changes to work culture and philosophy may have reverberations outside of the company walls.

MB 535 - Innovation & Entrepreneurial Thinking

 

Assignment Overview
Assignment Overview
This is an online independent study, weekly structured, 10 week course.  You will acquire the skills outlined in the course objectives through the following activities: 

• Readings from textbooks, journal articles, and or websites
• Written assignments consisting of short and long essays for critical thinking and analysis
• Reflective journal-keeping
• Case studies

• Explain the role of innovation with respect to entrepreneurship and new venture creation, process improvement, business strategy, and organizational success.
• Apply tools and techniques for creative thinking.
• Explore cognitive and political dimensions of innovation that create barriers or pathways to innovation and design thinking in organizations.
• Examine innovation as a process of individual and team dynamics with an iterative component that includes risk taking, successive learning, and failure.
• Expand the concept of design thinking with its application to servant leadership of innovative thinking via partnering and fostering others’ ideas.

MB 540 - The Economy as a System

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Project

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Explain Professor Boulding’s systems approach to viewing and describing society. 
• Describe the steps in economic policy making. 
• Compare and contrast capitalism as an economic system with a command-and-control system. 
• Describe the importance of supply and demand. 
• Be conversant with the four market models: perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly, and monopoly. 
• Define and understand the role of fiscal policy in stabilizing the economy, and understand the reasons , structure, functions, and responsibilities for the creation of the Federal Reserve. And further, understand the role of monetary policy in stabilizing the economy. 
• Explain the value of international trade via absolute advantage and comparative advantage, and appreciate the reasons why countries enjoy a comparative advantage. 
• Describe the economic and political reasons for restrictions on trade and potential consequences.

MB 550 - Corporate Strategic Leadership

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: None 

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Explain characteristics of strategic leadership and strategic thinking. 
• Define and employ strategic-leadership terminology appropriately. 
• Discuss characteristics of the macro-environment, industry structure, and the organization that may affect strategy and competitiveness. 
• Apply analytical frameworks to analyze the competitive positions and future prospects of organizations. 
• Discuss strategy-selection issues and alternatives. 
• Identify factors that facilitate effective planning processes and successful implementation. 
• Apply course concepts across a variety of industries and business settings.

MB 560 - Quality Leadership

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Project

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Describe the role Profound Knowledge plays in organizational leadership. 
• Explain the causes of faulty management practices and their respective solutions. 
• Think statistically. 
• Explain the role that quality has in the sustainability of an organization.

 

Credits: 3

MB 641 - Statistical Thinking

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Paper

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Apply a robust theory of variation for improved practices
• Appropriately construct and interpret process behavior charts
• Appropriately apply process tools for improvement
• Understand that the use of data is a process and a major hidden untapped source of waste in most organizations
• Apply knowledge of the crucial need to distinguish between common and special causes of variation to take appropriate actions when faced with management decisions
• Realize that eliminating costs does not eliminate the causes of costs

MB 642 - Systems Thinking

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Project

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Choose systems-based response strategies within both long- and short-term frameworks. 
• Assess the nature of thinking that informs behavior, producing desirable or undesirable outcomes. 
• Evaluate the value of learning, especially in regard to producing transformational changes in behavior at individual and organizational levels. 
• Analyze and describe the underlying influences and systemic structures that cause system behaviors to persist. 
• Judge the validity of foresight in decision making and strategy formulation within interrelated systems with clarity and well-reasoned arguments.

MB 643 - Leadership

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: None

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Apply understanding of the role and nature of change in organizations in regard to leading for sustained viability. 
• Apply understanding of the role and nature of order in organizations in regard to leading for sustained viability. 
• Apply understanding of the impact that fear can have on people in organizations in regard to leading change. 
• Apply understanding of the role and nature of trust in organizations in regard to leading change. 
• Apply understanding of resistance and defensive behaviors in response to change toward more effective leadership of change.

MB 650 - Cross-Cultural Leadership

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Project

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Envision yourself as a cross-cultural leader fully aware of the role culture plays in various business functions. 
• Recognize the red-button areas of cultural conflict. 
• Develop effective strategies for leading cross-cultural interaction. 
• Begin practicing cross-cultural leadership in your work organization. 
• Effectively research the business and social cultures of target nations.
• Apply cross-cultural theory to practice.

MB 651 - Strategic Leadership of Human Capital

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Paper

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Determine and assess current human-capital issues and needs. 
• Formulate a strategy to develop people in support of an organization’s strategic objectives. 
• Determine the critical factors that could foster the experience of meaning through the organization’s work. 
• Develop the environment that promotes the emergence of humanly productive relationships within an organization.

MB 660 - Economics

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Project

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Envision yourself as an organizational leader, greatly aware of competing economic visions of the future. 
• Effectively research current economic thinking. 
• Develop effective strategies for leading organizations in light of past, present, and future economic realities. 
• Begin practicing effective leadership, based on a solid grounding in economic knowledge in your work organization.

MK 500 - Strategic Marketing

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment:  Final Project 

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Assess the risk involved in creating a brand image and the consequences of gaps between ideals and reality.
• Consider the consequences and side-effects of strategic choices.
• Evaluate marketing plans through multiple lenses, including a variety of stakeholders, including customers, complementors, employees, and government.
• Apply a case study methodology to solving business problems through written submissions and in-class or online dialogue.
• Engage in civil discourse through challenge, defense, and respectful disagreement.
• Apply marketing concepts and theories to real world situations through classroom dialogue or online forum participation.
• Develop marketing plans consistent with sustainability and informed by conscious capitalism with its ethos of balancing the interests of people, profit, and planet.
• Complete a semester project involving creation of a marketing or branding plan that applies concepts and theories through an integrative approach.

SE 600 - Leadership in Sport Administration

• Readings from textbooks, journal articles, and or websites
• Written assignments consisting of short and long essays for critical thinking and analysis
• Reflective journal-keeping
• Case studies

• Evaluate how leadership is an integral part of the success of an organization.
• Apply leadership theories to the diverse roles and expectations of a sport administrator. 
• Distinguish between leadership styles and management functions based on own personal experiences and organizational needs. 

HA 500 - United States Healthcare Systems

Assignments: 12 weekly assignments

Interactivity: Weekly live session

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Understand all the primary aspects of health care administration necessary to be an effective administrator of health care systems, and determine in which areas you would like to pursue additional education and experience, as well as a foundation for your future course work. 
• Identify the foundations of the U.S. health care system, including the primary components, recent and past developments that have led to the evolution of the system, and how the system in the United States compares to that of other countries. 
• Evaluate the resources required for the provision of health services. These include technology, health care professionals, and financing. 
• Describe the types of services available in health care, including inpatient, outpatient, and long-term care.  
• Analyze how cost, access to services , and quality all work together to determine the effectiveness of the system. 
• Understand how health policy is formulated and how stakeholders shape the system.

HA 511 - Leadership in Healthcare Administration

Assignments: 12 weekly assignments

Interactivity: Weekly live session

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following

1. Understand a new paradigm is essential for healthcare leaders that is inclusive of a both/and framework for transactional and transformational leadership. The skills needed for the new paradigm include attributes of Servant Leadership.

2. Discuss the competencies needed for the future of leadership through exploring Anticipatory Leadership, The Global Leadership Psychological Contract, Strategist Model, Attentional Theory and The Competing values Framework.

3. Describe why leaders who develop emotional and social intelligence will be better equipped for managing competing values and problem solving.

4. Understand an effective leader has the ability to initiate and sustain interprofessional collaboration and effective interpersonal communication.

5. Analyze motivational strategies and techniques for managing change.

6. Utilize the Competing Values Framework to understand the relationship between the various roles of a leader and measuring goals for patient satisfaction and quality improvement.

7. Evaluate your own leadership strengths to leverage and opportunities for growth related to health care leadership competencies and create a Personal Learning Agenda for self-improvement.

8. Discuss the role of the leader as an ethical guide for the health care organization.
 

Credits: 3

HA 512 - Quality Management and Performance Improvement

Assignments: 12 weekly assignments

Interactivity: Weekly live session

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Analyze the elements of an effective quality assurance/performance improvement program to include strategic focus of support, a systems view to improvement, and a whole systems approach toward outcomes.
• Assess the role of U.S. government policy influence on health care quality improvement through laws, regulatory agencies, payers, and the quality improvement organizations (QIO’s).
• Appraise the six major aims of health care quality defined by the Institute of Medicine as the foundational methods for raising quality of care.
• Construct an understanding of the mechanical and analytical tools available to assist in formulating, developing, and implementing quality and performance improvement initiatives.
• Relate the importance of staff and patient satisfaction and identify approaches for eliciting and analyzing internal and external customers’ requirements, expectations, levels of satisfaction, and areas of concern.
• Distinguish the role of high-performing teams to organizational quality improvement efforts.
• Design at least 3 health care quality performance improvement strategies utilizing principles of health care quality improvement as tools for defining, measuring, and affecting performance improvement.
• Construct a health care ethics committee and synthesize the roles, structure and function of the group to unify organizational efforts of improving health care quality.
• Formulate the key elements of a culture of quality improvement that incorporates ethical and professional standards.

HA 515 - Health Services Administration

Assignments: 12 weekly assignments

Interactivity: Weekly live session

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Evaluate and effectively apply traditional and current management and governance models.
• Develop a rationally-based management/administrative style for use in your career.
• Understand how health care organizations are governed, managed, and structured.
• Analyze effective functional relationships among a Board of Directors, the CEO and Senior Administration, with the Medical Board and the medical staff.
• Explain the structure, functions and relationships of the various components of health care organizations.
• Evaluate effective functions and roles of health care administrators in relation to internal and external environments.
• Balance operational and strategic issues to effectively manage and lead health care organizations.
• Utilize critical thinking skills to analyze and take logically based actions for real-life problems and challenges in health care management.

HA 520 - Catholic Healthcare Leadership

• Assignments: 4 Units
• Interactivity: Discussion Board
• Final Assessment: Final Paper

• Assess the history and importance of how theology has shaped Catholic health care.
• Identify the significant events that have influenced the mission of Catholic health care organizations.
• Articulate the social teachings of the Catholic Church and how they are used for decision-making, management strategy, and reflection of current social issues.
• Express the concept of sponsorship in Catholic health care organizations.
• Explain why Catholic health care is considered a ministry.
• Explain the history and importance of mission and how it guides a Catholic health care organization.
• Explain the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic health care services.
• Apply ethics, ethical decision-making, and the context for addressing ethical issues.
• Describe the concept of community benefits, its history, and how a sponsors tradition shapes the needs, strategies, and commitments.
• Relate the concept and importance of leadership formation in Catholic health care.
• Describe the unique elements and understanding needed by Catholic health care leaders.
• Examine the challenges Catholic health care faces now and in the future.

HA 525 - Healthcare Financial Management

Assignments: 12 weekly assignments

Interactivity: Weekly live session

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Explain the current health care environment, including forms of business organizations and the third-party payer system.
• Apply basic financial-management concepts, including time value analysis and the financial concepts of risk and reward.
• Compare and contrast the various means of financing capital assets.
• Describe capital budgeting decision-making techniques.
• Explain how social responsibility and ethics impact financial decisions.
• Identify future trends in health care benefits and financing.

HA 545 - Research Methods

Assignments: 12 weekly assignments

Interactivity: Weekly live session

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Differentiate among various research designs and methods and compare their utility in various health care environments, delivery systems, and management decision-making. 
• Design, prepare to implement, and outline the analysis of a health care research project. 
• Apply research concepts acquired from the course in developing a research paper. 
• Construct and apply decision criteria to data selection and analysis for making management decisions. 
• Analyze and critically evaluate research presented in professional journals, text, and presentations. 
• Synthesize and apply relevant research findings to the professional direction, management, and delivery of health care services.

HA 560 - Health Administration Mission Integration

• Assignments: 4 Units
• Interactivity: Discussion Participation
• Final Assessment: Final Paper

1. Examine and interpret the history and importance of Catholic health care including major theological and scriptural foundations.
2. Describe the history and importance of mission integration and how it guides a Catholic health care organization.
3. Interpret and articulate the key elements of mission integration and mission integration program development in a Catholic health care setting.
4. Analyze the role of spiritual care and its importance in health care settings including ministering to the needs of the elderly and seriously ill.
5. Differentiate between and articulate the social teachings of the Catholic Church and how they are used for decision-making, management strategy and reflection of current social issues.
6. Interpret the concept of sponsorship in Catholic health care organizations.
7. Identify and interpret the role of health care ethics, explain the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic health care services (ERDs), ethical decision-making and the context for addressing ethical issues.
8. Examine and explain the role of the mission integration leader in an organization’s strategic planning, leadership team membership, forming future leaders and other contributions in a Catholic health care organization.

HA 567 - Long-Term Care Operations & Administration

Assignments: 12 weekly assignments

Interactivity: Weekly live session

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Determine the key characteristics of the various populations to be served in the broadening array of long-term care environments. 
• Evaluate the components of quality care and the administrative responsibilities required to create, provide, measure, and sustain quality services in the long-term care environments. 
• Establish a network of resources integral to sound administrative decision-making in the long-term care industry. 
• Apply the components of effective management and leadership to daily, fiduciary, and strategic functions in long-term care administration at all levels. 
• Analyze current and future trends and issues including consumer-driven services, regulatory and reimbursement impacts, staffing and workforce development challenges, and market opportunities.

HA 571 - Healthcare Informatics

Assignments: 12 weekly assignments

Interactivity: Weekly live session

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Define healthcare informatics and medical data and their roles in the healthcare mission of cost effective quality care.
• Gain a broad understanding of the major federal regulations that has passed in recent years to promote the adoption and meaningful use of electronic health records and updates to the privacy and security HIPAA Rules.
• Explain personal technology issues (e.g. smart phones and tablets, data backup, and Internet access and security.) for mHealth (mobile health).
• Discuss examples of the steps required for information system acquisition, implementation, support, and post implementation analysis.
• Describe cost effective quality of care opportunities for online patient/ portal.
• Explain where to obtain reliable sources for healthcare informatics knowledge.
• Contrast the different perspectives of those using information systems (e.g., IT managers, clinicians, administrators, consumers, patients, and clinical technologists).

HA 575 - Ethical and Legal Perspectives

Assignments: 12 weekly assignments

Interactivity: Weekly live session

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Explain the ethical issues that are inherent in the delivery of health care services. 
• Discuss the personal values and life experiences of both self and others, and how these values and life experiences may influence the decision-making process within health care organizations. 
• Describe the role of government and the American legal system in shaping policy and regulations related to the health care industry. 
• Explain the relationship between the current health care environment, important court decisions, and the legislative process. 
• Apply ethical models and legal concepts in order to address problems, evaluate complex issues, and develop policy and solutions relevant to professionals in health services administration.

HA 605 - Healthcare Marketing

Assignments: 12 weekly assignments

Interactivity: Weekly live session

 

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

•  Define what marketing means in a health care context including what characteristics distinguish a Marketing-driven organization.
• Differentiate strategic planning, business planning and marketing planning.
• Apply established marketing principles to a health care setting.
• Identify trends in the organization, delivery, and financing of health care services that are particularly market-sensitive.
• Explain factors that present special challenges when marketing a health care product or service.
• Develop a marketing plan for a health care organization.

HA 615 - Strategic Human Resources Management

Assignments: 12 weekly assignments

Interactivity: Weekly live session

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Demonstrate knowledge of the organizational, legal, and environmental forces that create the framework for human resource management. 
• Evaluate and redesign processes and programs to target the organizational mission and goals. 
• Understand the strategic components of human resource management, and analyze opportunities in your workplace. 
• Apply the principles and practices of this course in the health care field, particularly as it relates to the following:
  • Diverse personnel working in the health care field.
  • The role of human resource management as it applies to all aspects of the workplace.
  • Changes in the workplace due to changes in the demographics of the workforce.
  • The relationship of workplace components and their collective ability to meet health care industry demands.
  • Legal requirements pertaining to the labor force.

HA 655 - Gerontology

The focus is on family caregiving and health / enabling technologies to support aging-in-place.  Aging, spirituality, and spiritual care are explored within the context of adapting to transitions along the continuum-of-care.  Interfaith and cross-cultural aspects of religious beliefs and practices are noted, especially as they shape health practices and outcomes.  We then address ethical decision-making and end-of-life care, issues often confronted by health and senior care leaders.  

Assignment Overview
Term-Based

Assignments: 12 weekly assignments

Interactivity: Weekly live session

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Recognize and refute the prevalent myths about aging in contemporary U.S. society. 
• Describe the key demographic characteristics of older adults that may impact the field of health administration. 
• Analyze the factors that may influence life expectancy, especially the achievement of extreme longevity. 
• Apply the major theories of aging from biology, psychology, and sociology to understand the aging process in U.S. society. 
• Examine age-history, period-cohort effects as they relate to an individuals experience of aging. 
• Identify the important cultural competencies needed to serve elder health consumers of diverse racial-ethnic backgrounds. 
• Develop a public policy model that is responsive to the long-term care provided by families and informal support networks. 
• Identify ways in which GeroTechnology can be used in providing home-based care by family and informal support networks. 
• View the range of functions served by spirituality and faith-based practices in elder care across the continuum. 
• Recognize the ethical issues central to end-of-life care and decision making. 
• Envision older adults as mentors, teaching us how to prepare for our future selves.

HA 660 - Administrative Practicum

• To provide a planned, progressively comprehensive, supervised training program, combining academic learning with practical experience. 
• To introduce the student to a dimension of health care management that will expand his or her knowledge base. 
• To require the student to apply management principles learned in class to real-life situations and problems. 
• To provide an opportunity for interaction between the student and health care professionals, and to instill in the student an appreciation of professional attitudes and values. 
• To reinforce in the student a sense of responsibility toward the profession of health care management, colleagues, resident/patients or clients, and the community. 
• To allow the student an opportunity to assume administrative responsibility. 
• To develop the student’s communication skills through written reports (including the Project Paper), and through interactions such as meetings and presentations. 
• To engage the student in a participatory learning experience that will benefit the organization providing the field experience. 
• To develop a confident, professional administrator, possessing the necessary skills and expertise. 
• To assist the student in preparation for any required licensure exams.

 

Credits: 3 or 6

HA 700 - Strategic Planning and Management

Assignments: 12 weekly assignments

Interactivity: Weekly live session

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Evaluate the effectiveness of strategic management in a turbulent health care environment.
• Recognize that strategic planning is an iterative process and not just a written document.
• Explain the importance of strategic thinking in the conversion of data into strategy formulation.
• Recognize the importance of both an internal and external environmental assessment in the strategic planning process.
• Distinguish between a strategic and operations orientation and analyze the importance of each for organizational success.
• Utilize a customer and stakeholder needs and expectations approach as key elements in strategic management.
• Apply the elements of strategic planning models to direct organizational success.
• Create a strategic plan for a health care organization.

HA 715 - Health Policy and Politics

Assignments: 12 weekly assignments

Interactivity: Weekly live session

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Describe and assess the major factors affecting health care policy. 
• Describe the development of health policy in the United States. 
• Describe and evaluate the roles of political institutions and structures in forming and implementing health policy. 
• Describe and evaluate the role of special interest groups and special populations in the formation and implementation of health policy. 
• Describe and evaluate the various issues in the policymaking process. 
• Apply this knowledge of health policy and politics to a specific issue that relates to your work in health care.

HA 727 - Applied Capstone Project

 

Prerequisites & Notes
All other required and electibe graduate courses.

Assignment Overview
The capstone is designed by the student, with the approval of the designated supervising instructor, to address an issue relevant to healthcare administration. Each Capstone student develops a project based on relevance and contribution to the field, as well as individual interests and abilities.  Each project will include original research done by the student.  Monthly progress reports are required.  Students have six months to complete the capstone.

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Make a substantial professional contribution to the organization in which you work or to the healthcare profession in general.
• Integrate and apply the knowledge you acquired during your studies in the MHA program.  Hone your skills to state-of-the-art proficiency in the particular project you have undertaken.
• Be proficient in the particular topical area of the project you have undertaken.
• Broaden your understanding of research methods and reports.
• Sharpen your ability to apply the findings of research toward the solution of healthcare management problems.
• Exhibit your abilities to complete a major scholarly document.

HA 730 - Capstone Course

This capstone course requires the student to focus on substantive health administration issues and to develop solutions. The student is required to complete a scholarly article under the direction of a faculty member, which synthesizes knowledge and skills to address an issue agreed upon between the student and faculty member.

This is a challenging and time intensive course. In general, students will need to spend approximately 3 to 4 hours per credit hour each week preparing for class. This time includes reading, thinking, and researching material in order to complete assignments and meet course objectives. As this is a 3-credit course, it is anticipated that you will need to spend 9-12 hours per week on this class. There will be a variety of learning strategies employed so that you will have multiple opportunities to approach the material from various perspectives.

The final deliverable for this capstone class is a manuscript suitable for publication in an academic journal of the student’s choosing.  Each assignment contributes to the final manuscript that will be turned in and evaluated as the culminating activity of the graduate program.  

Prerequisites & Notes
All Required and Elective Health Administration courses.

Assignment Overview
Assignments are due for each of the 12 weeks of the term.

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

1. Integrate theory, evidence, and published research to develop solutions for an issue in healthcare administration practice.
2. Perform a rigorous critique of evidence to generate solutions for the practice issue.
3. Apply the best available evidence from published literature as the foundation for the health administration practice solution.
4. Produce a publishable theoretical article related to the identified practice issue.
5. Verbally present the article via videoconference with MHA program panel.

 

Credits: 3 Offered: February, May, August, and November

NP 600 - The Advanced Practice Nurse as Provider

1. Analyze the legal and ethical challenges of the advanced practice role and prescribing. (AACN I, IX);
2. Analyze the intricacies of billing and coding. (AACN IX);
3. Analyze legal challenges of collaboration in regards to advanced practice nurses. (AACN II, IX);
4. Analyze the need for professional development in the search for employment (AACN IX);
5. Demonstrate appropriate and effective oral and written communication with  patients,  their families, and other health care professionals. (AACN VII);
6. Analyze the role and responsibility of the advanced practice nurse as a healthcare provider in providing culturally humble care. (AACN VIII);
7. Understand the role and responsibility of the advanced practice nurse in prescribing and managing pharmacological therapy as a part of safe clinical practice. (AACN IV);
8. Discuss state regulation as it applies to advanced practice nurses and prescriptive authority. (AACN VI, IX);
9. Analyze state licensure requirements and national certification as a part of safe clinical practice. (AACN III, VI);
10. Recognize and address issues of substance abuse into safe clinical practice. (AACN III, IX);
11. Demonstrate understanding of the components of a prescription as it relates to safe practice. (AACN III V, IX)

NP 612 - Family Theory: Young and Middle Age Adult

 

Course Learning Objectives

1. Uses ethical principles when making decisions based on the patient visit (AACN I);
2. Discuss health care across the lifespan incorporating ethical, legal, cultural, economic, political and psychosocial principles. (AACN III, IX);
3. Demonstrate appropriate and effective oral and written communication with adults ages 18-60, their families, and other health care professionals. (AACN VII, VIII);
4. Integrates teaching and learning principles and environmental data in providing culturally humble care and developing the role of the family nurse practitioner as health educator. (AACN VIII, IX);
5. Illustrate the elements of developmentally appropriate comprehensive and focused health histories and physical examinations for ages 18-60 (AACN IV, IX);
6. Use current research related to diagnostic and treatment protocols to improve the delivery of health care to individuals 18-60. (AACN IV, IX);
7. Interpret the effectiveness of interventions and care management strategies in improving the health status of individuals. (AACN VI, IX);
8. Use the principles of human growth and development in the assessment, plan and treatment of patients ages 18-60. (AACN IV, IX);
9. Apply research, adaptation and related theories to develop management plans for health promotion, disease prevention, and stable chronic illnesses for those ages 18-60. (AACN IV, VIII, IX)

NP 613 - Primary Care Practicum: Young and Middle Age Adult

Corequisite:  NP 612

 

Course Learning Objectives

1. Uses ethical principles when making decisions based on the patient visit  (AACN I);
2. Uses interprofessional communication to collaborate with other disciplines to achieve positive patient outcomes (AACN III, VII, IX);
3. Demonstrates an advanced level of skill in using healthcare data bases, electronic health records and medical apps in patient evaluations in the direct care setting. (AACN V, VII, VIII);
4. Demonstrates an advanced level of communication skills in patient evaluations in the direct care setting (AACN II, VII);
5. Applies knowledge of culturally humble care concepts to the care of patients across the lifespan (AACN VIII);
6. Applies knowledge of anatomy, physiology , disease processes and evidence based research for an in depth  clinical evaluation of the patient across the lifespan (AACN I, IV, IX);
7. Demonstrates safety in care of patients across the lifespan (AACN III, VI);
8. Demonstrates an advanced level of understanding in patient evaluations in the direct care setting (AACN IX)

NP 614 - Family Theory: Children and Women of Childbearing Years

 

Course Learning Objectives

1. Uses ethical principles when making decisions based on the patient visit (AACN I);
2. Discuss health care of women, infants and children incorporating ethical, legal, cultural, economic, political and psychosocial principles. (AACN III, IX);
3. Demonstrate appropriate and effective oral and written communication with pediatric patients,  women of childbearing age, their families, and other health care professionals. (AACN II, VII);
4. Integrates teaching and learning principles and environmental data in providing culturally humble care and developing the role of the family nurse practitioner as health educator. (AACN VIII, IX);
5. Illustrate the elements of developmentally appropriate comprehensive and focused health histories and physical examinations for pediatric patients and women of child bearing age (AACN IV, IX);
6. Use current research related to diagnostic and treatment protocols to improve the delivery of health care to pediatric patients and women of child bearing age (AACN IV, IX);
7. Interpret the effectiveness of interventions and care management strategies in improving the health status of individuals. (AACN VI, IX);
8. Use the principles of human growth and development in the assessment, plan and treatment of pediatric patients and women of childbearing age (AACN IV, IX);
9. Apply research, adaptation and related theories to develop management plans for health promotion, disease prevention, and stable chronic illnesses for pediatric patients and women of child bearing age (AACN IV, IX)

NP 615 - Primary Care Practicum: Children and Women of Childbearing Years

NP614 - Can take as a co-requisite

Course Learning Objectives

1. Uses ethical principles when making decisions based on the patient visit  (AACN I);
2. Uses interprofessional communication to collaborate with other disciplines to achieve positive patient outcomes (AACN III, VII, IX);
3. Demonstrates an advanced level of communication skills in patient evaluations in the direct care setting (AACN II, VII);
4. Applies knowledge of culturally humble care concepts to the care of patients across the lifespan (AACN VIII);
5. Demonstrates an advanced level of skill in using healthcare data bases, electronic health records and medical apps in patient evaluations in the direct care setting. (AACN IV, V, IX);
6. Applies knowledge of anatomy, physiology , disease processes and evidence based research for an in depth  clinical evaluation of the patient across the lifespan (AACN I, IX);
7. Demonstrates safety in care of patients across the lifespan (AACN III, VI);
8. Demonstrates an advanced level of understanding in patient evaluations in the direct care setting (AACN IV, IX)

NP 616 - Family Theory: Older Adult

 

Course Learning Objectives

1. Uses ethical principles when making decisions based on the patient visit (AACN I);
2. Discuss health care across the lifespan incorporating ethical, legal, cultural, economic, political and psychosocial principles. (AACN II, VII);
3. Demonstrate appropriate and effective oral and written communication with older adults, their families, and other health care professionals. (AACN VII);
4. Integrates teaching and learning principles and environmental data in providing culturally humble care and developing the role of the family nurse practitioner as health educator. (AACN VIII, IX);
5. Illustrate the elements of developmentally appropriate comprehensive and focused health histories and physical examinations for older adults (AACN IV, IX);
6. Use current research related to diagnostic and treatment protocols to improve the delivery of health care to older adults (AACN IV, IX);
7. Interpret the effectiveness of interventions and care management strategies in improving the health status of individuals. (AACN VI, IX);
8. Synthesize the theoretical, scientific and contemporary clinical knowledge for the evidence based assessment and management of both health and illness states in older adults. (AACN I, IV, IX);
9. Apply research, adaptation and related theories to develop management plans for health promotion, disease prevention, and stable chronic illnesses for older adults (AACN IV, IX)

NP 617 - Primary Care Practicum: Older Adult

NP 616 - Can take as a co-requisite

 

Course Learning Objectives

1. Uses ethical principles when making decisions based on the patient visit   (AACN I);
2. Uses interprofessional communication to collaborate with other disciplines to achieve positive patient outcomes (AACN II, VII);
3. Demonstrates an advanced level of communication skills in patient evaluations in the direct care setting (AACN II, VII);
4. Applies knowledge of culturally humble care concepts to the care of patients across the lifespan (AACN VIII);
5. Demonstrates an advanced level of skill in using healthcare data bases, electronic health records and medical apps in patient evaluations in the direct care setting. (AACN IV, V, IX);
6. Applies knowledge of anatomy, physiology , disease processes and evidence based research for an in depth  clinical evaluation of the patient across the lifespan (AACN IV, IX);
7. Demonstrates safety in care of patients across the lifespan (AACN VI, IX);
8. Demonstrates an advanced level of understanding in patient evaluations in the direct care setting (AACN IX)

NP 660 - Adult Gerontology Acute Care Theories for Advanced Practice I

Co-requisite:  NP 661

Course Learning Objectives
See Nursing Handbook.

Credits: 3

NP 661 - Adult Gerontology Acute Care Practicum I

This course serves as a companion course to NP 660 and consists of two components, a clinical practicum (200-240 hours with an approved preceptor) and an online seminar. The diagnostic reasoning skills needed for clinical decision making in the advanced practice role are emphasized,  including refining skills in the performance of a comprehensive health status assessment, development of differential diagnoses, planning, health promotion and care management of adult patients. The course provides the AGACNP student with supervised clinical practice to apply the theoretical concepts from NP 660 in the evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment of medically complex and/or acutely ill adult and geriatric patients.

Prerequisites & Notes
Prerequisites:  MSN Core, NU 601, NU 607, NU 608 and NP 600

Co-requisite:  NP 660

Course Learning Objectives
See Nursing Handbook.

Credits: 3

NP 662 - Adult Gerontology Acute Care Theories for Advanced Practice II

Co-requisite:  NP 663

Course Learning Objectives
See Nursing Handbook.

Credits: 3

NP 663 - Adult Gerontology Acute Care Practicum II

Co-requisite:   NP 662

* Students are required to complete a mandatory on campus skills session in either NP 663 or NP665.  This mandatory skills session will account for 24 hours of clinical time.

Course Learning Objectives
See Nursing Handbook.

Credits: 3

NP 664 - Adult Gerontology Acute Care Theories for Advanced Practice III

Co-requisite:  NP 665

Course Learning Objectives
See Nursing Handbook

Credits: 3

NP 665 - Adult Gerontology Acute Care Practicum III

 

Prerequisites & Notes
Prerequisites:  All MSN core, NU 601, NU 607, NU 608, NP 600, NP 660, NP 661, NP 662 and NP 663

Co-requisite:  NP 664

Course Learning Objectives
See Nursing Handbook.

Credits: 3

NP 801 - Capstone

This course must be taken alone after completion of all other courses.
 

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Integrate theory, evidence, clinical judgment, research, and interprofessional perspectives to develop solutions for a nursing practice issue (AACN III, 1).
• Perform a rigorous critique of evidence to generate solutions to the nursing practice issue.
• Apply the best available evidence from nursing and other related sciences as the foundation for the nursing practice solution (AACN IX, 2).

NU 501 - Nursing Informatics

• Analyze current and emerging technologies to support safe practice environments, and to optimize patient safety, cost-effectiveness, and health outcomes.
• Evaluate outcome data using current communication technologies, information systems, and statistical principles to develop strategies to reduce risks and improve health outcomes.
• Promote policies that incorporate ethical principles and standards for the use of health and information technologies.
• Provide oversight and guidance in the integration of technologies to document patient care and improve patient outcomes.
• Use information and communication technologies, resources, and principles of learning to teach patients and others.
• Use current and emerging technologies in the care environment to support lifelong learning for self and others.

NU 503 - Nursing Research Methods: Utilization for EBP

• Integrate theory, evidence, clinical judgment, research, and interprofessional perspectives using translational processes to improve practice and associated health outcomes for patient aggregates.
• Advocate for the ethical conduct of research and translational scholarship (with particular attention to the protection of the patient as a research participant).
• Articulate to a variety of audiences the evidence base for practice decisions, including the credibility of sources of information and the relevance to the practice problem confronted.
• Participate, leading when appropriate, in collaborative teams to improve care outcomes and support policy changes through knowledge generation, knowledge dissemination, and planning and evaluating knowledge implementation.
• Apply practice guidelines to improve practice and the care environment.
• Perform rigorous critique of evidence derived from databases to generate meaningful evidence for nursing practice.

NU 508 - Policy, Quality & Safety

• Analyze how policies influence the structure and financing of health care, practice, and health outcomes.
• Participate in the development and implementation of institutional, local, and state and federal policy.
• Examine the effect of legal and regulatory processes on nursing practice, healthcare delivery, and outcomes.
• Interpret research, bringing the nursing perspective, for policy makers and stakeholders.
• Advocate for policies that improve the health of the public and the profession of nursing.

NU 513 - Organizational and Systems Leadership

• Apply leadership skills and decision making in the provision of culturally responsive, high-quality nursing care, healthcare team coordination, and the oversight and accountability for care delivery and outcomes.
• Assume a leadership role in effectively implementing patient safety and quality improvement initiatives within the context of the interprofessional team using effective communication skills.
• Develop an understanding of how healthcare delivery systems are organized and financed (and how this affects patient care) and identify the economic, legal, and political factors that influence health care.
• Demonstrate the ability to use complexity science and systems theory in the design, delivery, and evaluation of health care.
• Apply business and economic principles and practices, including budgeting, cost/benefit analysis, and marketing, to develop a business plan.
• Design and implement systems change strategies that improve the care environment.

NU 514 - Population Health & Interprofessional Collaboration

• Synthesize broad ecological, global and social determinants of health; principles of genetics and genomics; and epidemiologic data to design and deliver evidence-based, culturally relevant clinical prevention interventions and strategies.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of clinical prevention interventions that affect individual and population-based health outcomes using health information technology and data sources.
• Design patient-centered and culturally responsive strategies in the delivery of clinical prevention and health promotion interventions and/or services to individuals, families, communities, and aggregates/clinical populations.
• Advance equitable and efficient prevention services, and promote effective population-based health policy through the application of nursing science and other scientific concepts.
• Integrate clinical prevention and population health concepts in the development of culturally relevant and linguistically appropriate health education, communication strategies, and interventions.

NU 601 - Advanced Health Assessment

• Describe the role of the master’s prepared nurse in advanced physical health assessment process across the lifespan.
• Incorporates the bio-psychosocial, environmental, cultural, and spiritual factors that enhance or impede an individual.
• Conduct a comprehensive and systematic assessment as a foundation for decision-making (AACN I, IX, ).
• Use effective verbal and non-verbal communication skills in the comprehensive health assessment process.

NU 607 - Advanced Pharmacology

 

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Examine how principles of pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, pharmacogenetics and pharmacoeconomics influence pharmacological therapeutics (AACN I, IX).
• Analyze pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic characteristics such as indications, contraindications, mechanism of action, therapeutic effects, clinical response, adverse effects and toxicity of major drug categories (AACN I, IX).
• Correlate the pathophysiology of a disease with the therapeutic action of an intervention (AACN I, VII, VIII).
• Evaluate safety factors for the efficacious use of pharmacological agents in the context of disease and health states, lifespan, culture and gender (AACN I, VII, VIII).
• Synthesize and apply evidence-based guidelines and research findings in the pharmacologic management of major health problems (AACN IV, VII, VIII, IX).
• Develop comprehensive and appropriate patient education concerning drug regimens, side effects, interactions with – other prescription and/or nonprescription drugs, herbal preparations and food supplements (AACN V, VII, VIII, IX).
• Discuss the need for community resources, patient education, and adherence to therapy within various cultures (AACN VI, VII, VIII, IX).

NU 608 - Advanced Pathophysiology

• Differentiate between normal & abnormal compensatory mechanisms as the body responds to disease (AACN I).
• Identify the etiological factors that contribute to specific alterations in health status of clients across the life span (AACN I, VII, VIII).
• Use knowledge of environmental factors that influence genetically linked diseases (AACN I, VII, VIII).
• Describe the etiology, developmental considerations, pathogenesis and clinical manifestations of major health problems (AACN I, VII, VIII).
• Correlate and analyze select diagnostic and laboratory findings from a physiological/pathophysiological perspective (AACN I, V).
• Integrate concepts of pathophysiology to clinical reasoning to provide health teaching, health promotion, disease prevention & management (AACN I, VII, VIII).
• Synthesize and apply evidence based guidelines and research findings to manage and/or teach about major health problems (AACN IV, VII, VII).

NU 610 - Practicum in Nursing Administration

1.  Identify, formulate, analyze, and evaluate an appropriate project relating to the advanced role of the nurse manager/administrator in a health-care setting.
2.  Conduct a comprehensive and systematic assessment as a foundation for decision making. (AACN Essential IX)
3. Use knowledge of illness and disease management to provide evidence-based care to populations, perform risk assessments, and design plans or programs of care.  (AACN Essential IX)
4. Employ knowledge and skills in economics, business principles, and systems in the design, delivery, and evaluation of care.  (AACN Essential IX)
5. Apply theories and evidence-based knowledge in leading, as appropriate, the healthcare team to design, coordinate and evaluate the delivery of care. 
6. Apply advanced knowledge of the effects of global environment, individual and population characteristics to the design, implementation, and evaluation of care.  (AACN Essential IX)
7. Demonstrate mastery of subject matter learned within the graduate curriculum as it relates to the topics presented in the course.
8. Achieve individualized objectives.
9. Analyze and evaluate the role of the master’s prepared nurse administrator.
10. Apply the best available evidence from nursing and other sciences as the foundation for practice. (AACN Essential IX)
11. Advocate for patients, families, caregivers, communities and members of the healthcare team.   (AACN Essential IX)
12. Use leadership skills to teach, coach, and mentor other members of the healthcare team.  9AACN Essential IX)
13. Use information and communication technologies to advance patient education, enhance accessibility of care, analyze practice patterns, and improve health outcomes, including nurse sensitive indicators.  (AACN Essential IX)
14. Integrate an evolving personal philosophy of nursing and healthcare into nursing practice.  (AACN Essential IX)
15. Establish therapeutic relationships to negotiate patient-centered, culturally appropriate, evidence-based goals and modalities of care.  9AACN Essential IX)
16. Incorporate scientific and ethical principles in identifying ethical issues arising from practice, including the use of technologies, and in assisting patients and other healthcare providers to address such issues.  (AACN Essential IX)
17. Analyze informaiton and design systems to sustain improvements and promote transparency using high reliability and just culture priniciples (AACN III).

 

Credits: 3

NU 641 - Faculty Role in Nursing & Healthcare Education

• Learn and manage the teaching, scholarship and service domains as influenced by the requirements of the institutional setting.
• Analyze the role of the nurse educator and establish measurable goals for your academic trajectory.
• Understand and apply theoretical, evidence-based knowledge and teaching and learning principles to impact future educational or health organizations through design, coordination and evaluation of health care education programs and/or the delivery of patient care. (AACN IX).
• Integrate the values of collegiality and professionalism to build an organizational climate that foster the development of learners and colleagues.
• Advocate for nursing education and higher education in the political arena (AACN VI).
• Analyze trends and issues effecting the role of the nurse educator.

NU 642 - Teaching Strategies in Nursing & Healthcare Education

• Compare and contrast teaching methods and materials used in classroom, clinical, and non-traditional learning settings.
• Analyze research reported in the literature regarding effectiveness of selected teaching methods and materials. 
• Explore personal strategies for learning and self-development as a teacher.
• Use information technologies to support the teaching-learning process (AACN V).

NU 643 - Assessment and Evaluation in Nursing & Healthcare Education

• Demonstrate the ability to use complexity science and systems theory in the assessment and evaluation of health care education (AACN II)
• Perform rigorous critique of evidence derived from databases to generate meaningful evidence for assessment and evaluation in nursing education (AACN IV)
• Use current and emerging technologies in the care environment to support lifelong learning for self and others (AACN V).
• Apply the best available evidence from nursing and other sciences as the foundation for assessment and evaluation of learning (AACN IX).
• Incorporate core scientific and ethical principles in identifying potential and actual ethical issues arising from assessment and evaluation in nursing education. (AACN IX).
• Analyze assessment and evaluation data using statistical methods.
• Apply theories and evidence-based knowledge in leading, as appropriate, the healthcare team to design, coordinate, and evaluate the delivery of care (AACN IX).
• Apply learning, and teaching principles to the assessment and evaluation of health education programs for individuals or groups in a variety of settings AACN IX)
• Design strategies that promote lifelong learning of self and peers and that incorporate professional nursing standards and accountability for practice (AACN IX).
• Integrate an evolving personal philosophy of nursing and healthcare into one’s nursing practice (AACN IX).

NU 644 - Curriculum Design in Nursing & Healthcare Education

• Lead quality improvement initiatives that affect the delivery of nursing and healthcare education (AACN III).
• Employ interdisciplinary collaborative strategies in the design, coordination, and evaluation of curriculum in academic nursing, allied health education, and community or agency-based healthcare education (AACN VII).
• Perform rigorous critique of evidence derived from databases to generate meaningful evidence for nursing practice (AACN IV)
• Apply learning, and teaching principles to the design, implementation, and evaluation of health education programs for individuals or groups in a variety of settings (AACN IX).
• Integrate appropriate change theories and strategies into curricular revision processes
• Structure into curriculum design knowledge of curriculum development and design processes
• Justify curriculum design, implementation, and evaluation decisions based on sound educational principles, theory, and best practices.

 

Credits: 3

NU 647 - Teaching in Nursing & Healthcare Education Practicum

• Demonstrate the ability to use complexity science and systems theory in the design, delivery, and evaluation of health care education (AACN II).
• Articulate to the chosen audience the evidence base for practice decisions, including the credibility of sources of information and the relevance to the practice problem confronted (AACN IV).
• Perform rigorous critique of evidence derived from databases to generate meaningful evidence for nursing practice (AACN IV)
• Use information and communication technologies, resources, and principles of learning to teach nurses and/or student nurses (AACN V).
• Apply the best available evidence from nursing and other sciences as the foundation for practice (AACN IX).
• Incorporate core scientific and ethical principles in identifying potential and actual ethical issues arising from the practice of nursing education (AACN IX).
• Apply learning and teaching principles to the design, implementation, and evaluation of health education programs for individuals or groups in a variety of settings AACN IX).
• Design strategies that promote lifelong learning of self and peers and that incorporate professional nursing standards and accountability for practice (AACN IX).
• Integrate an evolving personal philosophy of nursing and healthcare into one’s nursing practice (AACN IX).

NU 801 - Capstone

 

Prerequisites & Notes
All MSN core courses and specialization courses.

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Integrate theory, evidence, clinical judgment, research, and interprofessional perspectives to develop solutions for a nursing practice issue (AACN III, 1).
• Perform a rigorous critique of evidence derived from databases to generate meaningful evidence for nursing practice (AACN IV).
• Apply the best available evidence from nursing and other related sciences as the foundation for the nursing practice solution (AACN IX, 2).
• Synthesize evidence for practice to determine appropriate application of interventions across diverse populations (AACN I).

ED 505 - Curriculum Design, Development and Assessment

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Project

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Reflect on what you already know about curriculum and connect that knowledge to a broader perspective about the various types of curriculum typically used in the United States. 
• Demonstrate your understanding of current curriculum dilemmas with supporting evidence drawn from both your own practice and from other resources. 
• Develop, explain, and show evidence of your ability to apply insights gained from the text Understanding by Design to design a specific curriculum piece. 
• Discuss a variety of ways to evaluate curriculum choices. 
• Demonstrate a working familiarity with the following terms: behaviorism, curriculum mapping, cognitive science, horizontal and vertical mapping, Constructivism, designing curriculum backwards, neuroscience, and student misconceptions.

ED 512 - Educating the Exceptional Student in the Classroom

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Project

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Discuss the laws that are the basis for special education and how they affect the classroom teacher. 
• Reflect on expectations you have for students with disabilities in your classroom. 
• Demonstrate the ability to accommodate and modify instructional materials and teaching methods to meet the needs of students with disabilities, ELL, and gifted students. 
• Become familiar with high and low incidence disabilities and the barriers to learning presented with each disability.

 

Credits: 3

ED 515 - Instructional Strategies

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Paper

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Clearly articulate your vision of teaching and learning with regard to best practice. 
• Consciously make instructional decisions to effectively implement the teaching-learning cycle. 
• Use additional and/or fine tune existing instructional strategies to improve learning. 
• Create a learning-focused classroom. 
• Increase students’ involvement and responsibility for learning in the classroom. Demonstrate an understanding of how to assess learning in a multitude of ways, and how to utilize the assessments to promote higher student achievement.

ED 516 - Personalized Learning & Engaging Learners

This course is offered online as part of the MSEd curriculum with monthly start dates.

Assignment Overview

• Assignment: 4 Units
• Interactivity: Discussion Forum Participation
• Final Assessment: Final Paper & Final Project

• Recognize the basic components of a performance /proficiency-based system as they relate to the roles of teacher, student, parent, and community.
• Evaluate the roles of students, parents, and teachers in bringing about changes in the roles and structures necessary to meet the challenges and prepare students for twenty-first century learning and living.
• Apply the tools necessary to build procedural transparency in a learner-centered classroom.
• Evaluate these tools and their impact on students as they become active participants in their learning.
• Identify content learning targets based on the State Common Core of Learning, 21st Century Skills, and the Key Cognitive Strategies. These standards will be used to guide and inform instructional goals and student progress as well as measure the depth and application of thinking and learning.
• Develop a sample unit of instruction that incorporates the ideas, tools, and procedures outlined in this course.
• Develop a plan of action to transform a learning community from traditional to performance based through systemic changes, learner-centered culture, transparency, and the development of procedures to aid students in navigating their own learning.

ED 517 - Standards-Based Curriculum

This course is offered online as part of the MSEd curriculum with monthly start dates.

It will also be offered during the 2017 summer session with an on campus component.

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to:

• Reflect on prior knowledge of curriculum and connect that knowledge as required to develop curricula that are rigorous and aligned to standards and learning outcomes in a standards-based learning system.
• Demonstrate current curriculum dilemmas with supporting evidence drawn from both your own practice and from other resources.
• Develop, explain, and show evidence of your ability to apply insights gained from the text Understanding by Design to design a specific curriculum piece.

ED 518 - Standards-Based Grading & Assessment

This course is offered online as part of the MSEd curriculum with monthly start dates.

It will also be offered during the 2017 summer session with an on campus component.

Course Learning Objectives
Using Standard-Based Grading:

• Improve student achievement by focusing instruction and the alignment of curriculum to identified standards
• Teachers will create a clear picture of what the student has learned and will be able to effectively communicate this to students, parents, teachers and administrators on what each student knows and is able to do according to established identified standards
• Teachers will provide a learning scale or rubric that describes exactly what the student should know or be able to do. The rubrics identify criterion for proficiency and are used consistently throughout the unit and semester.
• Understand proficiency scales
• Create and use grading and assessment methods to collect evidence of achievement that support student learning

ED 520 - Research Design in Education

This course is offered online as part of the MSEd curriculum with monthly start dates.

It will also be offered during the 2016 summer session with an on campus component.

Assignment Overview
Assignments: 5 Units

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Paper

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Identify the most frequently used types of educational research designs, their various purposes and applications, and the situations and contexts for which they are most appropriate. 
• Characterize the differences and similarities between quantitative and qualitative research designs. 
• Frame formally researchable questions, identify appropriate data to collect for them, and select proper procedures and instruments for their collection. 
• Identify the different types of variables and their central roles in research, the uses of some and the dangers of others, and learn to beware of extraneous variables and surrogate indicators. 
• Characterize how hypotheses are framed and tested and how the issues of validity and reliability are involved with different research designs. 
• Recognize how research projects may emerge from workplace situations and the potential opportunities and limitations of applying their results to the workplace. 
• Recall the five standard component sections of a research report, particularly as they are required in the ED 600 Research Project capstone course, and become familiar with the requirements of the formal literature review for research reports.

ED 522 - Educational Psychology

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Paper

Course Learning Objectives
Upon successful completion of this course, you should be able to illustrate, in writing, an understanding and application of content as it applies to:

• Developmental and behavioral theories in education.
• Strategies used to encourage motivation and thoughtful learning.
• Teaching to diverse learning styles.
• Creating learning environments.
• Formative and summative assessment tools.

ED 523 - Teaching Methods in Secondary Education

 

Prerequisites & Notes
NOTE: This course is not available from May through August.

Assignment Overview
Assignments: 5 Units

Interactivity: None

Final Assessment: Final Project

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Articulate and evaluate the influences of your own past experiences on current or future classroom decisions, attitudes, and beliefs.
• Formulate a clear, personal philosophy of teaching.
• Develop ways of observing and describing what goes on in classrooms.
• Articulate and evaluate the complex influences of a teacher upon the learning and social development of his/her students.
• Understand current educational research.
• Define and develop effective teaching practices, including strategies for planning, instruction, management, and assessment.

ED 524 - Digital Strategies for 21st Century Learning

This course is designed to serve as an introduction and exploration of current and emerging technologies and their applications for classroom instruction. The course focuses on best practices for 21st Century learning and teaching with technology in the classroom. 

Assignment Overview
Assignments: 4 Units
Interactivity: Discussion Board
Final Assessment: Final Project

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Analyze the role of technology in the twenty-first-century classroom
• Determine how you will demonstrate digital literacy in your classroom
• Use basic technology tools
• Determine key variables in evaluating and selecting technologies and applications appropriate for your professional life
• Examine current trends, new technologies, as well as critical challenges, in educational technology

ED 525 - Childhood Literacy and Language

Interactivity: None

Final Assessment: Final Project

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Understand and describe the structure and subsystems of language development, including phonology, morphology, semantics, syntax, and pragmatics. 
• Understand and describe the processes of literacy development from birth through the school years. 
• Define and understand the importance of key literacy concepts including metalinguistic awareness, decontextualized/contextualized language, and pragmatic awareness. 
• Identify characteristics, possible causes, and treatment options for various speech and language disorders, including atypical development.

ED 526 - Collaborative Independent Study

ED 531 - Supervision and Evaluation of Educational Personnel

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Identify and describe the historical role and framework of human resources in the educational organization. 
• Create activities that could be used to support new and continuing staff (administrators, teachers, and support staff). 
• Discuss current trends and issues in professional development programs for all levels of employees. 
• Identify in-service activities that are likely to put employees in a receptive and active role. 
• Connect staff developmental needs to school improvement and student achievement. 
• Describe steps in data collection and analysis and the tools needed for employee performance assessment. 
• Evaluate the relationship among performance appraisal criteria, job responsibilities, employee feedback, and local requirements. 
• Compare and contrast the characteristics of formative and summative performance assessment. 
• Describe leadership techniques that enhance goal-setting and feedback for personnel improvement. 
• Describe delegation of authority and its use in the educational setting.

ED 532 - School Finance and Budgeting

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Project

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Identify and analyze the sources of resources for schools and local education agencies (LEAs). 
• Understand and be able to use and explain to lay people the technical language used to discuss education finance issues. 
• Analyze, interpret, and present financial data, trends, and issues to the public served by the schools, and outline possible actions and their implications. 
• Develop an effective budget-planning process that is driven by school and LEA priorities, that meets state requirements, and that involves the staff and community. 
• Understand and apply basic concepts and practices of budget administration, accounting, and reporting.

ED 533 - Federal and State Civil Rights and Education Laws

Interactivity: None

Final Assessment: Final Project

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Articulate the major legal issues related to students.
• Explain the major legal issues related to teachers and credentialing.
• Understand the major legal issues related to special education and entitlements to a free and appropriate public education.
• Become familiar with the major federal issues impacting schools today, with special emphasis on the No Child Left Behind Act.

ED 534 - Community Relations and Communication

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Project

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Understand the context and need for communications and community relations programs in educational organizations. 
• Organize the communications function in schools. 
• Identify and determine the communication needs of the various internal and external education publics. 
• Use basic interpersonal and mass media communication skills. 
• Develop and evaluate a school communications and community relations plan. 
• Communicate in crises and other special situations.

ED 535 - Organizational Theory and Planning

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Paper

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Identify and discuss historically representative organizational theories and models. 
• Understand how organizational structure helps and/or hinders organizational and individual behavior. 
• Apply organizational theory to practice by developing a personal plan of action. 
• Understand principles, and practice sample techniques of strategic planning. 
• Understand a leaders role in the organizational planning, change, and improvement process.

ED 536 - Educational Leadership

• Assignments: 5 Units
• Interactivity: Discussion Board and electronic communications log
• Final Assessment: Final Paper

• Expand your knowledge, through inquiry and reflection, about the roles and responsibilities of educational leaders, and educational leadership theory.
• Understand and apply the ISLLC Standards for School Leaders.
• Evaluate and discuss the leadership roles vital in the vision, energy, mission, and culture of the school organization.
• Evaluate and discuss the leadership roles vital in achieving meaningful and purposeful educational change in schools.
• Research and describe how different leadership theories apply to your school or organizational setting.
• Research and incorporate recent leadership issues and challenges into your discussions and writings.
• Participate in an ongoing, dynamic electronic dialogue with the instructor and classmates through the Discussion Board.
• Communicate with local and distance leaders about leadership roles and approaches.
• Examine and analyze case studies by applying educational leadership theories to practice.
• Act as an educational leader, integrating theory and practice, in your written work and electronic communications.
• Create an Academically Based Service Learning Project (ABSLP) which you will implement in your educational setting.
• Reflect upon and summarize your plan for your own development as an educational leader.

ED 537 - Professional Development in the 21st Century

• Assignments: 5 Units
• Interactivity: Discussion Board

• Know the various models of professional development and apply them to workplace
• Analyze the connection between professional development, professional learning communities, and student achievement
• Evaluate existing professional development in light of the new definition and the new national standard
• Use case studies to analyze and compare effective professional development to the new national criteria
• Dialog and network with colleagues about effective professional development
• Design, present, and evaluate a staff development presentation for a specific goal in the workplace

ED 538 - Maine Special Ed Law

This course is offered online as part of the MSEd curriculum with monthly start dates.

It will also be offered during the 2017 summer session with an on campus component.

Assignment Overview

• Assignments: 4 Units
• Interactivity: Discussion Board
• Final Assessment: Final Project

• Analyze the importance and substantive requirements of Maine Special Education Law for administrators working in the State of Maine.
• Understand the legal foundations for special education including relevant legislation, litigation, and vocabulary.
• Analyze the relationship among IDEA, Section 504, and ADA.

ED 540 - Adult Education and Self-Directed Learning

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Paper

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Adopt a personal philosophy of adult leaning. 
• Differentiate the three main theories of adult learning. 
• Demonstrate two models of facilitating self-directed learning. 
• Facilitate two methods of transformational learning. 
• Distinguish between dialogue, questioning, and discussion in adult education settings. 
• Create an adult learning lesson using three theories of adult learning. 
• Critically reflect on your learning from this course.

ED 545 - American Education: the Search for the Public Good

Interactivity: None

Final Assessment: None

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Understand the social and political implications of the knowledge taught in schools.
• Expand your knowledge of the complex historical and cultural forces that have shaped the development of American public schools.
• Discuss the ongoing tension between issues of freedom and social control in American public schools.
• Recognize the history of the philosophy of education.
• Describe the influence of social Darwinist thought on the development of public education and the resulting influence of the industrial and/or corporate elite on educational goals.
• Compare and contrast the views of Washington and Du Bois over the education of African-Americans.
• Analyze the causes and consequences of race, gender, and class inequality in schools.
• Evaluate the impact of contemporary school reforms, including standardized testing and other educational mandates.
• Assess the current challenges to American schools, such as equitable funding, multiculturalism, resegregation, school choice, homeschooling, school violence, etc.
• Predict the future of American education in the twenty-first century.

ED 550 - Classroom Management for Effective Learning (K-12)

Interactivity: None

Final Assessment: Final Paper

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Identify the influence of your personal background on your teaching. 
• Develop ways of describing classrooms. 
• Understand the philosophical basis for classroom management models. 
• Analyze the teaching and learning implications of classroom management models. 
• Make informed decisions about applying classroom management models. 
• Integrate management systems into an engaging learning environment. 
• Apply knowledge of educational research to classroom practice.

ED 555 - Measurement and Evaluation

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 1. Develop a personal Assessment Plan based on current research, course components, and personal classroom practice. 2. Using course reading and personal classroom practices, critically reflect on assessment and evaluation practices. 3. Develop specific assessment techniques to involve students or workers in their own process of learning and assessment. 4. Collect and use a variety of valid and reliable assessments to make well-informed judgments regarding student or employee performance. 5. Critique accountability models used in your school, district, and/or state, and identify strengths and weaknesses of current models as well as suggesting alternative approaches.

Credits: 3

ED 560 - Intercultural Communications and Learning

Interactivity: None

Final Assessment: Final Paper

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

Become familiar with the major theories and models of cross-cultural interaction.

Enhance your appreciation of the diverse ways of communicating in different cultures.

Become aware of the influence of culture in your own thinking and behavior and the thinking and behavior of others.

Credits: 3

ED 570 - The Reflective Educator

Interactivity: None

Final Assessment: Final Paper

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Through the art of reflection, examine, assess, and appreciate your own personal life journey and critically reflect upon the responsibilities, challenges, and personal rewards of your vocation as a teacher.
• Identify and develop those vocational ideals that have the potential to nurture contemporary schools and society.
• Examine some of the ethical, communal, and spiritual dimensions of the teaching/learning act and formulate a personal ethics of teaching.
• Recognize teaching as a moral act; identify the moral dimensions of the school environment (including both the implicit and explicit curriculums); and assess the moral climate of your own educational setting.
• Identify the impact of culture, societal values, and moral ideas upon contemporary education.
• Examine and critique recent school reform proposals, emphasizing the quest for individual and spiritual fulfillment and an authentic experience of community.
• Articulate a professional point of view that is guided by reason rather than rhetoric, a personally appropriated value position, and vigilant self-reflection; act with the integrity that comes from knowing what one is doing and why one is doing it; and define who the self is that teaches.

ED 572 - The Catholic Principal as Educational and Spiritual Leader

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Paper included in Unit 5

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Spirituality of Leadership: Applying the Biblical model of servant-leadership, students will examine the issues of leadership style, vocation, and faith witness as they both reflect the identity and integrity of the individual Catholic school administrator, and serve to promote and articulate the mission and goals of Catholic education.Through self-assessment and reflective exercises, students will identify and evaluate their own spiritual leadership styles.
• Catholic Identity: Students will define and examine Catholic identity, and consider and apply practical and concrete means to effectively institutionalize this fundamental component of a Catholic school primarily in terms of catechesis, and secondarily, in terms of climate, culture, programs, and services. Students will identify and define the roles of liturgy, prayer, charism, history, and heritage; parental and student involvement; and mission articulation in fostering Catholic identity in the school community.
• Private School Law: Students will familiarize themselves with the law as it affects private/parochial education, be cognizant of the principles of law involved in landmark court decisions, and be able to understand and explain the court’s reasoning. In doing so, students, as practicing or prospective Catholic School administrators, will be able to apply the appropriate legal concepts to their own policy making and administrative practices.
• Finance, Development, Marketing, and Public Relations: Students will identify and examine fiscal and marketing issues and challenges as they relate specifically to Catholic schools. This includes cultivating and maintaining a healthy development program, public relations, student recruitment and retention, understanding the budgeting process, and strategic planning.
• Discernment and Assessment. For Practicing Catholic School Administrators: Using a process developed by the Diocese of Galveston-Houston for the N.C.E.A., practicing administrators will engage in a practical assessment of the viability of one’s own educational setting to identify weaknesses in areas that are vital to the Catholic school’s future, and then formulate a plan to improve those areas.
• For Prospective Catholic School Administrators: Using William Campbell’s Self-Directed Principal Formation Program, prospective administrators will engage in a comprehensive, self-paced discernment process to help identify one’s vocational ideal and assess one’s readiness for Catholic school administration.

ED 580P - School Leadership Internship

Students are required to pay an additional $300 Internship Fee for this course.

Assignment Overview
Final Assessment: Community Paper, Proposal, monthly reflections tied to ISLLC Standards, Capstone, Mid and Final evaluation demonstrating progress toward standards.

Course Learning Objectives
The objective of this course is to guide interns in the field of educational administration so that they can gain knowledge and develop skills in the following: Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium Standards (ISLLC). Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Standard 1 Promote the success of all students by facilitating the development, articulation, implementation, and stewardship of a vision of learning that is shared and supported by the school community.
• Standard 2 Promote the success of all students by advocating, nurturing, and sustaining a school culture and instructional program conducive to student learning and staff professional growth.
• Standard 3 Promote the success of all students by ensuring management of the organization, operations, and resources for a safe, efficient, and effective learning environment.
• Standard 4 Promote the success of all students by collaborating with families and community members, responding to diverse community interests and needs, and mobilizing community resources.
• Standard 5 Promote the success of all students by acting with integrity, fairness, and in an ethical manner.
• Standard 6 Promote the success of all students by understanding, responding to, and influencing the larger political, social, economic, legal, and cultural context.

ED 590P - Student Teaching

Note: Each participant will develop, deliver, record, and analyze lesson plans; keep a daily log and weekly reflective journal; accumulate appropriate artifacts; and periodically record his/her performance by video, using INTASC (Interstate New Teachers Support Consortium) core standards. Regular conferences between the student candidate, the classroom teacher, and the course faculty member will be held. Students should contact their advisers and the Program Director to initiate the registration procedure for the course. This is normally a twelve-credit-hour course, but ED 590P can be adapted to meet the requirements of the state in which the student seeks certification, upon discussion with the Program Director.  The on-site mentor must be a certified teacher with three- or more-years experience in the same content area.

 IMPORTANT NOTE: Even though ED 590P is a twelve-credit course, it will only satisfy one of the elective course requirements if taken as part of a degree program. Further information and clarification can be obtained from an admissions counselor or advisor. 

Students are required to pay an additional $300 Internship Fee for this course.

Prerequisites & Notes

1. Praxis I at a score deemed passing in the state of certification (or Maine’s score if state of certification does not require Praxis I).
2. Appropriate Praxis II “PLT” at a score deemed passing in the state of certification (or Maine’s score if state of certification does not require Praxis II).
3. Transcripts of required content courses at the credit level required by the certifying state (in Maine, 24 credits). In rare cases the Praxis II Content Area exam may substitute for this requirement, upon petition of the MSEd Program Director.
4. State authorized fingerprint and background checks (if not required in state of certification then to the level necessary to satisfy the requirements in Maine for certification).
5. For matriculated MSEd students, one of the final courses of the master’s degree program (must also have successfully passed ED 512 and ED 523 or equivalent courses).
6. For non-matriculated students, a transcript analysis by State Certification Department of the state where the student is seeking certification confirming all required courses have been successfully completed for certification except for Student Teaching.

• Placed in a school site and gradually assuming the full responsibilities of a teacher, the student teacher will better understand the meaning of professional cooperation, teamwork, principles of parental involvement, social organization of the school, legal aspects of education, the INTASC Standards, and professional ethics through direct participation.
• Placed in a school site, the candidate will have the opportunity to observe, assist, tutor, instruct, research, and apply comprehensive knowledge in the preparation, presentation, assessment, and evaluation of lessons and learning.
• Faced with a diverse population in the classroom, the student teacher will develop effective communication skills with all children.
• Having a heterogeneous class of children, the student teacher will enhance his/her knowledge of and application of different learning theories, learning styles, teaching strategies, assessment techniques, and effective practices.
• Faced with daily classroom tasks, the intern will develop and sharpen his/her skills in effective classroom and time management, in using positive guidance with children with challenging behaviors, in transitioning smoothly to different activities, in making judgments and overall supervision.

ED 591 - Standards and Practice for Teaching Gifted and Talented Children

Notes: 

Currently this is available as a cohort course only.

Prerequisites & Notes
None

Assignment Overview
The course is divided into 4 Units and a final project.

Course Learning Objectives
 

• Describe and demonstrate understanding of the InTASC standards as they apply to Gifted & Talented education.
• Understand the needs of the learner, learning, and the impact of learning differences and environments.
• Evaluate current processes and programs, reflect on their alignment to standards and impact on student learning and engagement.
• Analyze various aspects of learners, learning programs, instructional design, delivery, and assessments.
• Create a professional plan of action and portfolio of best practice and procedure that is aligned to both the InTASC standards as well as the National Gifted and Talented Standards.

ED 592 - Practicum in Curriculum Design Specific to the Nature & Needs of Gifted and Talented Learners

Note:

Currently this is available as a cohort course only.

Prerequisites & Notes
None, However ED 591 is suggested.

Assignment Overview
The course is divided into 4 Units and a final project.

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completing this course, students should be able to do the following:

• Demonstrate an understanding of the needs of gifted and talented learners by applying instructional strategies in the classroom and analyzing the degree of effect on the learner.
•  Utilize a planner to provide an overview of a differentiated unit that includes using a formulaic system to create three levels of questioning. 
• Create a video that demonstrates students who are gifted and talented in action, engaged in a lesson designed to promote depth and complexity. 
•  Adapt existing curriculum to create acceleration and/or enrichment lessons, modify assessment descriptors and describe management techniques.
•  Analyze, evaluate and reflect upon different ways to modify required curriculum to meet the needs of students who are gifted and talented through interactive, collaborative discussions and readings.

ED 600 - Research Project

• Demonstrate your deepened understanding of an important aspect of teaching and/or learning on a topic of interest , as reflected in the scope and quality of your project. 
• Integrate your understanding of issues that you studied in other courses in the MSEd program. 
• Research topics connected to teaching and/or learning both by literature review and by applied research methods. 
• Strengthen your personal sense of reflective practice and professional knowledge.

ED 650 - Theories & Principles in Adult Education & Training

This course is open to students in the M.S.E.d. Adult Education & Training concentration only.

Credits: 3

ED 654 - Educational Objectives for the Sebago Plan

This is a 15-week course. This course is available only to students in the M.S.E.d. Adult Education & Training concentration.

Assignment Overview
Assignments: 4 Units

Interactivity: None

Final Assessment: Final Project

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Relate Adult Learning Theories to the development of learning objectives, assessments, and professional development.
• Create measurable learning objectives based in the Cognitive, Psycho-motor and Affective domains.
• Create assessments that effectively measure learning objective in the Cognitive, Psycho-motor and Affective domains.
• Develop personal learning objectives for the Masters of Science Adult Education and Training degree program.
• Incorporate Personal Learning Philosophy and Professional Code of Ethics into professional development plans.
• Envision your personal and professional development based on Adult Learning Theories.
• Exhibit writing skills that incorporate APA formatting standards.

ED 658 - Literature Review in Adult Education & Training

This is a 15-week course. This course is open only to students of the M.S.E.d. Adult Education & Training concentration.

Credits: 3

ED 662 - Technology in Adult Education & Training

This is a 15-week course. This course is available only to students in the M.S.E.d. Adult Education & Training concentration.

Assignment Overview
Assignments: 4 Units
Final Assessment: Project

Credits: 3

ED 668 - Needs Analysis & Evaluation in Adult Education & Training

This is a 15-week course. This course is available only to students in the M.S.E.d. Adult Education & Training concentration.

Credits: 3

ED 672 - Case Study in Adult Education & Training

This course is available only to students in the M.S.E.d. Adult Education & Training concentration.

Assignment Overview
Assignments:  4 Units
Interactivity: None
Final Assessment: Final Project

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Complete a case study of adult education or human resource training in an area of your choosing.
• Develop learner objectives relevant to understanding case study design and application in your own work environment.
• Identify to what extent the guiding core value is evident in the case study.
• Utilize technology to some degree in the design, execution, and report of the case study.

ED 680 - Program Development - Needs Assessment Plan

This course is available only to students in the M.S.E.d. Adult Education & Training concentration.

Credits: 3

ED 684 - Program Development - Evaluation Plan

This course is available only to students in the M.S.E.d. Adult Education & Training concentration.

Credits: 3

ED 685 - Special Topics and Current Issues in Education

ED 685A - Special Topics: Child Sexual Abuse Awareness for Educators: A Teacher Training Symposium

ED 685B - Special Topics: Enhancing Student Support Processes: RTI/PBIS

Examines response to Intervention, along with a focus on the fundamental components of RTI and RTII, complimented with an overview of Positive Behavior Instruction and Support (PBIS). Students will collaborate with their peers to explore the different facets of RTI, while using their own experiences and backgrounds for the context of their assignments. The class is closely modeled after the implementation and action steps by Response to Intervention best practices.

Credits: 3 Offered: Summer 2014; Semester 201503: Summer 2013; Semester 201404

ED 685b - Special Topics:Teaching & Learning in a Standards-based Environment

Assists teachers in working with identified standards and developing clear learning targets while offering student voice and choice as they demonstrate progress in their learning. Opportunity will be given to build a performance-based system that will promote student engagement as well as maximize opportunities for students to lead their own learning.

 

Prerequisites & Notes
This course is available to GPS Students as a summer course only.

Credits: 3 Offered: Summer Session 2012: Semester 201304

ED 685C - Special Topics: Autism in Society: Youth & Adults, High School and Beyond

ED 688 - Program Development - The Project

This is a 15-week course.  This course is available only to students in the M.S.E.d. Adult Education & Training concentration.

Credits: 3

ED 692 - Current Topics in Adult Education & Training

This is a 15-week course. This course is available only to students in the M.S.E.d. Adult Education & Training concentration.

Credits: 3

ED 696 - Critical Reflection of the Sebago Plan

This is a 15-week course. This course is available only to students in the M.S.E.d. Adult Education & Training concentration.

Assignment Overview
Assignments: 4 Units

Final Assessment: Final Project

Course Learning Objectives
 

Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

 

• Given a variety of adult learning theories, assess the degree in which at least three adult learning theories guided coursework in the master’s degree program.
• Given a completed AET project, validate the depth and breadth of the AET project.
• Given a set of course objectives, determine the depth and breadth to which the objectives were met.
• Given a core value, illustrate the depth and breadth in which the core value infused course work and the AET project.

JST 517 - Comparative Liturgy of Judaism and Christianity (Gratz College)

Comparative Liturgy of Judaism and Christianity focuses on the history, structure, and meaning of Jewish liturgy as it develops in Rabbinic Judaism, in comparison with the Roman Catholic Mass in Christianity. Common themes will be studied between the two liturgies, including penitential prayer, petitionary prayer, doxologies, and liturgical creeds, as well as the Jewish roots of the Mass in the ancient Israelite Temple rituals, ancient Jewish belief, and Jewish liturgical practices.

*Master of Divinity Students without transfer courses from other institutions may take this course.

Prerequisites & Notes
None

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, students will be able to do the following:

• Articulate the main themes and theological concepts in the Jewish liturgy;
• Articulate the main themes and theological concepts in the Roman Catholic Mass;
• Articulate the differing values expressed in Jewish prayer and Catholic prayer;
• Evaluate academic research on Jewish and Christian prayer not covered in class.

JST 529 - Jewish and Christian Interpretation of the Bible (Gratz College)

Recognizing that the Hebrew Bible is a heritage shared by Jews and Christians in common, this course studies major portions of the Torah, as well as passages from Isaiah and the Psalms, from both the Jewish and Christian points of view, in order to discover where the two traditions are parallel and are different. Topics to be explored include the Jewish and Christian views of Creation; Adam and Eve; Cain and Abel; the significance of Abraham; the Exodus from Egypt and the concept of redemption; ritual sacrifice and its symboilism; mitzvot, the law, and faith; and Moses as a symbol of prophetic leadership. Classical Rabbinic interpretations of the Torah will be compared with early Christian interpretations as well as modern Jewish and Christian understandings of the biblical text.

*Master of Divinity Students without transfer courses from other institutions may take this course.

 

Prerequisites & Notes
None

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, students will be able to do the following:

• Identity the major historical, social, and religious themes in classical Rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity;
• Identify the major texts of classical Rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity;
• Articulate the similarities and differences in Jewish and Christian interpretation of biblical texts studied in class;
• Analyze the similarities and differences in Jewish an dchristian interpretation of a biblical text not studied in class.

JST 603 - Comparative Theology of Judaism and Christianity (Gratz College)

Comparative Theology of Judaism and Christianity focuses on some of the major theological beliefs in both ancient Judaism and early Christianity. While the course will be based primarily on the Thirteen Principles of Faith of Maimonides as well as the Nicene Creed and basic dogmatic theology of early Christianity, a variety of later Jewish and Christian points of view also will be covered. The primary concepts covered include God the creator; the unity of God and the Trinity; idolatry and icons; prophecy and the Holy Spirit; Scripture and tradition; reward, punishment, and forgivenss; and the Messiah, the world to come, and the resurrection.

*Master of Divinity students without transfer courses from other institutions may take this course.

 

Prerequisites & Notes
None

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, students will be able to do the following:

• Articulate the similarities and differences between major theological beliefs of Judaism and Christianity;
• Recognize the diversity of beliefs between Judaism and Christianity and within Judaism and Christianity;
• Analyze and compare theological beliefs of Judaism and Christianity.

TH 015 - The Catechism for Catechists

 

Prerequisites & Notes
None

Assignment Overview
Pass/Fail

Course Learning Objectives
 

• Understand and articulate the foundations of Catholic doctrine;
• Converse on matters of Sacred Scripture;
• Differentiate between missions and natures of the Trinity and the Church;
• Explain the liturgy and the sacraments;
• Discern the different aspects of Catholic spirituality;
• Understand and articulate Catholic moral teaching.

TH 501 - Youth Ministry and Family Faith Formation

TH 505 - Catholic Moral Theology

It will also be offered during the 2016 summer session with an on campus component.

Assignment Overview

• Assignments: 6 Units
• Interactivity: Discussion Board

 

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Describe what faith and reason reveal about the nature of human personhood, especially man as created in the image of God, as bodily and spiritual, and as social. 
• Explain how Christian moral teaching responds to the basic human question, “How does one attain happiness?” 
• In the light of metaphysical and moral realism, analyze the prevailing ideology of moral relativism, tracing its sources in Medieval nominalism and describing how it distorts human freedom. 
• Explain how baptismal insertion into new life in the Spirit of Jesus Christ transforms one interiorly, in terms of both the natural law and the New Law of grace. 
• Discuss how the virtues perfect the powers of the human soul, enabling the spontaneous embrace of the goods concretely indicated by the Ten Commandments. 
• Apply moral reasoning to analyze the fate of love and sexuality in a culture of death, showing the intrinsic connection between moral theology and Catholic social doctrine. 

TH 511 - Catholic Spirituality

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: Final Paper

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Identify the specific features of Catholic spirituality as Catholic. 
• Reflect intellectually on the sources of Catholic spirituality. 
• Discuss how the saints are unique sources for understanding Catholic spirituality. 
• Recognize that life in Christ is the essence of Catholic spirituality. 
• Identify the roles that prayer, meditation, and contemplation play in Catholic spirituality. 
• Relate the history of Catholic spirituality to the history of the Church.

TH 512 - Catholic Bioethics

• Assignments: 5 Units
• Interactivity: Discussion Board
• Final Assessment: Final Paper

 

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Identify and explain the various theological sources and topics that inform and guide Catholic Bioethics.
• Understand the dynamics of medical and health care ethics constructed on the basis of Catholic moral theology. 
• Critically apply theological sources and topics to inform and guide analysis of pertinent issues in bioethics.
• Apply Catholic bioethics to specific issues in the areas of life, death, sexuality and reproduction, reconstructing and modifying the body, mental health, suffering and death, social responsibility, and pastoral care, among others. 
• Recognize and explore political, social, pastoral, and theological considerations.

TH 515 - Pastoral Counseling: Theory and Practice

Interactivity:  Pastoral Conversation

Course Learning Objectives

• Understand theories and techniques in pastoral counseling.
• Apply techniques of listening to enhance pastoral conversation.
• Write verbatims of pastoral conversations as a learning tool.
• Incorporate an understanding of the stages of faith in pastoral conversation.
• Demonstrate professionalism and responsibility in pastoral counseling.

TH 520 - The New Testament

This course is offered online as part of the Theology curriculum with monthly start dates. 

It will also be offered during the 2017 summer session with an on campus component.

 

Assignment Overview

• Assignments: 5 Units

 

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Utilize the tools of biblical criticism.
• Explore the New Testament community.
• Explain the ecclesial and historical development of the New Testament Canon.
• Demonstrate knowledge of the New Testament writings.
• Learn about authorship and sources of the writings.
• Discuss literary forms.
• Apply biblical knowledge to the sacramental and ecclesial life of the Church.

TH 526 - Theology of Pastoral Ministry

• Assignments: 5 Units
• Interactivity: Discussion Board
• Final Assessment: Final Project

• Explain the definition, purpose and nature of Church.
• Identify the ministry of the Apostles and their co-workers on whom the Church’s foundations are built.
• Define key terminology concerning pastoral ministry.
• Identify the task, nature, and purpose of pastoral ministry.
• Identify the vocations and ministries within the Church in light of the teachings of the Second Vatican Council.
• Identify the specific mission of the laity.
• Recognize the elements of the “call narrative” and understand ones own call emanating from the Sacrament of Baptism and ones Baptismal promises.
• Survey contemporary culture in which the Church exists and explore contemporary challenges in bringing the Good News of Jesus Christ into culture.
• Explore the “Catholic view” and its relevancy to contemporary culture.
• Examine the pastoral initiatives set forth for the third Millennium.

TH 527 - History and Culture of the Church in Spain

TH 527 - Reading Theology through the Sacred Arts

TH 527 - Special Topics

TH 527 - Special Topics: Beyond Secular Faith - Politics as Theology

ABOUT THE SCHOOL AND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE:

The title of our fifth annual Summer School and International Conference, Beyond Secular Faith, stems from our conviction that only a faith liberated from the conceptual restraints and ideological presuppositions imposed by secular culture - a faith centered radically on Christ - can offer a word of hope and reason to human life. This year our summer school will be dedicated to explore the question of the political, and specifically the ways in which every theology is political and every politics, theological. The question thus becomes, for Christian life, what is the adequate theological form of political narratives? Or better, what form of political practice and belonging does theology entail.

For four years our summer school has facilitated a rich and friendly theological, philosophical and cultural dialogue in freedom, in the unique setting of Granada, a breathtakingly beautiful city that lies at the historic crossroads of modernity and the Christian tradition.

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS AND CALL FOR PAPERS

Deadline: 1st May 2017

We invite graduate and PhD students as well as postdoctoral researchers to take part in the International Summer School and Conference.

Please send a short CV and a letter of intent to:   secretaria@institutoifes.es  
 

If you would like to present a paper for the Conference (besides participating in the summer school), please also send an abstract (400 words) on a topic related to the theme, preferably on:

The Political Theory of Liberalism
Economic and Civil Economy
Constitutional Theory – The Crisis of Democracy and the Issue of Mixed Government
Liberal Culture and Formative Education
International Relations in Theory and Today in Practice
Church and State — The Question of the Body Politic
The Relation of Temporal and Eternal Justice
Biopolitics and Sovereignty
Democracy and Christianity

Successful candidates will be informed by 8th May 2017.

ORGANIZATION AND FEES:

Seminars will meet Monday through Thursday, for a total of 4 hours of class time a day. The initial paper proposals will be enriched and revised by the students through participation in their classes, and will then be presented in a conference format on Friday and Saturday.

Accommodation in two lovely Hotels located in the heart of Granada, near the Albaycin, the old Moorish quarter of the city.

See registration form for costs.

To register for the conference: http://www.institutoifes.es/index.php/es/noticias-es/ultimas-noticias/1464-5th-annual-international-summer-school-and-conference-2017

Granada, Spain travel experience: June 25-July 1

Course runs: June 25-July 30

 

Credits: 3 Offered: Summer

TH 527C - Special Topics: Being Christian in Rome - Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

The Saint Joseph’s College Theology Rome Program is held at The Lay Centre at Foyer Unitas, located near the Colosseum in Rome, Italy.

Prior to the course, from July 10-16, 2016, The Lay Centre is organizing a week-long program, God’s Mercy Endures Forever, which includes daily opportunities for prayer and fellowship, guided tours to each of the papal basilicas, and several summer cultural activities. This program is not run by Saint Joseph’s College and does not count for college credit, but it is open to all Saint Joseph’s students. For more information email: director@laycentre.org or go to https://laycentreblogsite.wordpress.com

Prerequisites & Notes
Offered summer session 2016 in Rome, Italy.

Credits: 3 Offered: Summer Session 2016: Rome, Italy: July 18-25, 2016

TH 530 - Christology

• Recognize the New Testament portraits of Jesus as a foundation of the Church’s Christology;
• Articulate the Church’s faith in the mystery of Christ as on the living reality of the crucified and risen Christ;
• Chart the intellectual development of the Christological doctrines of the Chruch, especially in the first seven centuries;
• Identify and explicate the major themes of Christology and Soteriology in the Fathers of the Church, the great Medieval theologians, representative Protestant theologians, and contemporary Catholic theologicans;
• Synthesize the conclusions of Christology with the doctrine of the Trinity.

TH 541 - Church Management and Leadership

Interactivity: Discussion Board

 

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Demonstrate an understanding of leadership theory and principles as well as the difference between leadership and management. 
• Cite examples of the primary activities of leadership and management with regard to team building, collaboration, and conflict management. 
• Construct a plan that includes vision and mission statements, goals, action steps, and evaluation processes for a specific leadership focus. 
• Identify and apply ethical principles to leadership situations. 
• Articulate a spirituality of leadership that synthesizes the course learning in the context of Gospel imperatives. 
• Produce an annotated bibliography of relevant resources in a chosen field of leadership. 
• Design, implement, and evaluate a Leadership Project which integrates course material and demonstrates course application to a concrete area of leadership need.

TH 545 - Catholic Theology of Ecumenism

• Assignments: 5 Units
• Interactivity: Discussion Forums
• Final Assessment: Final Paper

• Discuss the call to Christian unity and the history of the divisions of the Church.
• Identify the areas of divergence of major Christian communities.
• Name the key efforts toward unity.
• Recognize the major Catholic documents on ecumenism.
• Apply the principles of Catholic ecumenism to the issues of Christian division.

TH 550 - Foundations in Catholic Theology

• Assignments: 6 Units
• Interactivity: Discussion Board

 

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Undertake a systematic study of the foundations and nature of Catholic theology and tradition. 
• Trace the evolution of Christian thought and history of doctrinal proclamation. 
• Explore the development of a doctrine from earliest Christian times. 
• Demonstrate how the Church’s liturgical worship relates to doctrine, spirituality, and the nature and mission of the Church. 
• Explore how various forms of Church-related media such as art, music, literature and contemporary technological advances contribute to understanding the theology of the Church. 
• Gain a foundation for subsequent courses in the Master of Arts in Theology (MAT) curriculum.

TH 555 - The Old Testament

It will also be offered during the 2017 summer session with an on campus component.

Assignment Overview

• Assignments: 6 Units
• Interactivity: Discussion Board

• Describe the history (major time periods), literature (genres), and theologies of the Old Testament, as well as methods for studying them.
• Explain the meanings of these ancient Israelite sacred texts by learning to discriminate among the literary, social, and religious dimensions of the texts.
• Demonstrate the method of “close reading” of particular passages in the Old Testament with special attention to genre, using relevant secondary sources.
• Explain the ways that the canon of the Old Testament is joined with the New Testament as “The Bible.”
• Study the ways in which the Old Testament is used as Scripture within the Catholic community.

TH 557 - Wisdom Literature: Bridging the Testaments

TH 520 Introduction to the New Testament

Course Learning Objectives
Describe and demonstrate close reading of biblical texts.

Analyze various aspects of Wisdom literature in the Old Testament and its Ancient Near Eastern literary, historical, and cultural contexts.

Integrate this literary corpus into the Christian canon by analyzing how its themes continue as a vital part of the New Testament gospels.

Evaluate the importance of Wisdom theology in ancient Christology.

Integrate ancient Wisdom theology and Christology into modern Christian spirituality.

Credits: 3

TH 560 - Ministry with the Aging, Sick, and Dying

• Assignments: 5 Units
• Interactivity: Discussion Board
• Final Assessment: Final Project

1.      Identify and explain characteristics of the nature of Christian ministry and apply them to ministry to the aging, sick, and dying.

2.      Identify and explain fundamental elements of Christian anthropology (view of the human person), morality, and spirituality that relate to this ministry.

3.      Identify and evaluate resources for this ministry according to an intellectually sound and spiritually hopeful Christian view of the human person.

4.      Support and learn from people involved in this ministry in your area, for example, in your church (Protestant) or in your parish, local religious community, deanery, or diocese (Catholic).

5.      Develop a plan for this ministry adapted to your area and using ideas and methods compatible with Catholic faith.

Credits: 3

TH 562 - Foundations in Religious Education

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Understand the ministry of Catechesis, its tasks, nature, and purpose and the object of Catechesis. 
• Grasp the Source and sources of Catechesis. 
• Understand the Deposit of Faith. 
• Become more deeply familiar with the Symbol of Faith. 
• Become familiar with the significant historical moments within Catechetics. 
• Become acquainted with selected key catechetical figures throughout history and recognize the methodology used throughout history. 
• Strengthen your own knowledge of the Catholic faith by reading primary catechetical resources throughout the Church’s history. 
• Engage with the key genres of Catechesis: initiation homilies, catechisms, and directories. 
• Understand “evangelizing catechesis.”

TH 565 - Theology of Family Ministry

• Assignments:  4 Units
• Interactivity:  Discussion Forum

• Define both traditional and non-traditional family units. 
• Understand the impact of sexuality both within and outside of marriage. 
• Understand the issues of ministry with adolescents. 
• Understand how the stages of faith development impact ministry with both children and adults. 
• Understand the unique gender-related challenges of ministry with men as a specific topic of study and, thus, its impact upon women and children. 
• Understand the ministry needs of single people and single parents. 
• Understand potential societal threats to the family structure. 
• Develop an understanding of your own individual ministry style through journal entry and personal reflection. 
• Connect Scripture with family ministry issues.

TH 572 - Ministry in the Intercultural Church of America

• Assignments: 5 Units
• Interactivity: Discussion Boards

1. Demonstrate an understanding of the guiding principles of the practice of Catholic intercultural ministry.
2. Demonstrate a general knowledge of the history of the Catholic Church in America.
3. Explain the nature, mission, and constitutive elements of evangelization in the Catholic Church.
4. Articulate the basic elements of intercultural communication skills.
5. Develop a plan to apply the tools of intercultural communication and ecclesial integration to one’s own parish or Catholic institution.

TH 575 - Spiritual Direction

• Describe the structure and discipline of the Christian spiritual life;
• Distinguish the ministry of spiritual direction counseling, professional coaching, and other forms of self-growth and self-care programs;
• Characterize the essential components of the formation of the spiritual director;
• Identify common pitfalls within spiritual direction;
• Interpret the writings of great spiritual directors within Catholic tradition, and explain their contemporary applications;
• Practice theological reflection, and direct others in the method;
• Determine if your present experience and knowledge makes you ready to consider a call to spiritual direction.

TH 580 - Theology of the Sacraments

Students have the option of choosing a Community-Based Learning section of this course.

Community Based Learning:

Community-based learning (CBL) is an experiential instructional strategy that engages students in solving problems within their schools and communities as part of their academic studies, transforming them from passive recipients to active participants in their education and community while providing a deeper understanding of theories and course content.

Prerequisites & Notes
This course is offered online as part of the Theology curriculum with monthly start dates. 

 

Assignment Overview

• Assignments: 5 Units
• Interactivity: Discussion Board
• Final Assessment: Final Paper

• Show how the sacraments fit into God’s plan of salvation through the grace of Christ working in the Church. 
• Demonstrate knowledge of classical terminology pertaining to sacramental theology. 
• Understand the main theological emphases of the sacramental teaching of the Council of Trent and the Second Vatican Council. 
• Relate the sacramental characters to the role of the visibility of the Church. 
• Explain significant theological aspects of each of the seven sacraments. 
• Show a familiarity with the history of sacramental theology.

TH 581 - Catholic Social Teaching

This course is offered online as part of the Theology curriculum with monthly start dates. 

It will also be offered during the 2017 summer session with an on campus component.

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Define Catholic social thought and its sources within the Roman Catholic tradition.
• Summarize the seven themes within Catholic social thought as described by the USCCB.
• Compare the origins of Catholic social thought within the papal thoughts of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
• Develop an understanding of several prominent papal encyclicals that have contributed to Catholic social teachings.
• Assess contemporary controversial issues that involve Catholic social thought and American culture, such as abortion, capital punishment, euthanasia, and immigration, among others.
• Discuss the role and influence of Catholic social thought on public policy issues, such as health care provisions, military interventions, the economy, etc.
• Discuss the USCCB’s voice in all these matters.

TH 582 - Theology of the Body

 

Prerequisites & Notes
TH 505

This course is offered online as part of the Theology curriculum with monthly start dates. 

It will also be offered during the 2017 summer session with an on campus component.

Assignment Overview
Assignments: 6 Units

Interactivity: Discussion Board

Final Assessment: None

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following: 

• Identify the structure of the work and its main points. 
• Explain the major themes of John Paul II’s theology of the body. 
• Analyze the text against the background of Catholic doctrine concerning theological anthropology, sin, and sexual ethics. 
• Assess the theological value of John Paul II’s theology of the body.

TH 586 - Theology of the Liturgy

• Outline the historical development of the liturgy;
• Describe the liturgical reform promulgated in Sacrosanctum Consilium, including early twentieth century influences;
• Assess the implementation of the liturgical reforms of Vatican II from 1965 to the present;
• Identify the role of liturgy in the development of culture;
• Compare and analyze the form and content of a variety of liturgies.

TH 590 - Ecclesiology

• Assignments: 6 Units
• Interactivity: Discussion Boards

• Define “ecclesiology” and its sources within the Roman Catholic tradition.
• Summarize the transitions in Roman Catholic ecclesiology.
• Compare Roman Catholic ecclesiology with prominent perspectives in Protestant and Orthodox traditions.
• Develop an understanding of the Vatican’s organizational and operational structures.
• Assess controversial issues that involve Roman Catholic ecclesiology and American culture.

TH 600 - Master’s Thesis

1. Completion of Theology Core Requirements.
2. Consultation with advisor: TH 600 requires a three-month pre-enrollment period for preliminary research done before the student’s start date; therefore, the student must begin the process three months prior to the actual enrollment start date. 

• Integrate your understanding of various subjects in your area of study.
• Engage in deep, sustained, and focused research into a particular area of theology.
• Apply critical thinking, reading, and writing skills in the research and composition of a scholarly paper.

TH 601 - Theology of Grace

• Assignments: 5 Units
• Interactivity: Discussion Board
• Final Assessment: Final Paper

• Articulate the theology and history of the development of the doctrine of grace within the Catholic tradition.
• Describe the post-lapsarian human condition, the consequences of the fall from original justice.
• List the main controversies between the Catholic and Protestant understandings of original sin, grace, justification and predestination.
• Describe the paradigms of divine indwelling, transfiguration in Christ, adoption, and theosis.
• Examine the integral relationship that exists among grace, free will, and the Beatific Vision.
• Analyze the efficaciousness of grace, supernatural merit, and the infused virtues and gifts.
• Explicate the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of grace.
• Study the role of the sacraments as a means of sanctifying grace.
• Articulate the relationships among freedom, grace, divine foreknowledge, predestination, and perseverance.
• Discuss the various nuances in schools of thought with regard to grace within the Catholic tradition.
• Provide cogent critiques and defenses of popular theologies on grace and nature.
• Describe the Four Last Things in relationship to the operations of grace. 

TH 602 - The Trinity

 

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you will be able to do the following:

• Study the development of Trinitarian doctrine from the perspective of Scripture and Tradition.
• Read the early Councils of the Church and major Patristic works in light of the trinitarian and christological controversies that gave rise to them.
• Articulate how the development of the dogma of the Trinity is integrally related to participation in Divine Life.
• Understand the nature of the Trinity and the operations and relationships among the Persons and with creation, especially with humanity.
• Demonstrate how the life of the Trinity is central to the economy of Salvation.
• Perceive the imprint of the Trinity in creation, especially in the human person.
• Articulate the ways in which the human person is created in the image of the Trinity and the operations of the Trinity for the transfiguration of the body and soul.
• Study the impact of Trinitarian dogma on the history of Christian spirituality.

 

Credits: 3

TH 604 - Canon Law

This course is offered online as part of the Theology curriculum with monthly start dates. 

It will also be offered during the 2016 summer session with an on campus component.

Assignment Overview
Assignments: 5 Units

Final Assessment: Final paper

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:

• Discuss the development and function of the laws of the Catholic Church as found in the 1983 Code of Canon Law;
• Demonstrate proficiency in navigating the 1983 Code of Canon Law and the inter-relationship of the canons;
• Evaluate varying interpretations of particular canons, appraise their merits, and apply the canons to unique situations.

TH 605 - Practicum in Ministry

1. TH 505, TH 530, TH 550, TH 580;
2. Consultation with advisor: TH 605 requires a three-month pre-enrollment period for preliminary research and practicum setup before the student’s start date; therefore, the student must begin the process three months prior to the actual enrollment start date. 

 

Assignment Overview

• Final Assessment: Final Paper

• Plan and execute a pastoral field experience.
• Integrate theological knowledge and reflection with practical experience.
• Sharpen communication skills through collaboration with the practicum supervisor, faculty mentor, and any persons involved with or affected by the field experience.
• Deepen your understanding of vocation.
• Explore, with a view to discerning, a specific vocational direction.
• Develop a Program Model that can be adapted for wider use.
• Assess the outcomes of the practicum experience according to the objectives set forth in the Practicum Contract.

 

Credits: 3

TH 610 - Theology of Orders: Bishop, Priest, Deacon

This prerequisite may be waved in special circumstances with the permission of the Theology Program Director.

Assignment Overview

• Assignments: 5 Units
• Interactivity: Discussion Board
• Final Assessment: Final Paper 

• Discuss the relationship of the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Orders to the Priesthood of Christ.
• Identify the connection between the development of the doctrine of the degrees/orders of ministerial priesthood and their roots in the New Testament.
• Explain the essential difference between the priesthood of the faithful and the sacrament of order of Holy Orders.
• Distinguish the three orders/degrees of the sacrament of Holy Orders:  deacon, priest, and bishop.
• Understand and articulate the teachings of the Magisterium on the male priesthood and diaconate.

TH 613 - History of Black Catholics in the Church

• Assess the social, intellectual, cultural, and religious characteristics of the major periods of Black Catholic history;
• Identify key figures of Black Catholic history;
• Critically evaluate personal, religious, and cultural assumptions;
• Contribute to the ways the history of Black Catholics can be maintained and nurtured for future generations;
• Practice basic skills in the area of presenting on the history of Black Catholics.

TH 614 - Pastoral Leadership among Black Catholics

 

Course Learning Objectives
Upon completing this course, you should be able to do the following:

• List and describe Church documents and statements relevant to ministry with Black Catholics;
• Analyze and evaluate pastoral issues regarding family life in Black Catholic communities;
• Analyze and evaluate pastoral issues regarding spirituality and liturgy in Black Catholic communities;
• Analyze and evaluate pastoral issues regarding religious education and evangelization in the Black Catholic community.

   

TH 615 - Mariology

• Incorporate the scriptural, historical, and philosophical fundamentals of Catholic Marian doctrines, prayers, art, and devotional practices in Marian discussions and written work;
• Incorporate thoughts conveyed in key magisterial texts when discussing and writing about Marian topics;
• Assess Mary’s relevance to contemporary social and econnomic issues;
• Develop and defend a thesis concerning the Marian thought of an important Catholic figure.

TH 616 - History of Latino Catholics in the Church

• List and explain the significance of key figures in Latino Catholic history;
• Describe key historical evens affecting the Latino Catholic faithful;
• Analyze the Latino Catholic experience in the United States;
• Evaluate Latino Catholic devotions and culture in relation to the universal Church.

TH 617 - Pastoral Leadership among Latino Catholics

• List and describe Church documents and statements relevant to ministry with Latino Catholics;
• Analyze and evaluate pastoral issues regarding family life in the Latino Catholic community;
• Analyze and evaluate pastoral issues regarding spirituality and liturgy in the Latino Catholic community;
• Analyze and evaluate pastoral issues regarding religious education and evangelization in the Latino Catholic community.

TH 700 - The Prophets as Ministers of the World

• Describe the historical, literary, and cultural context of prophecy in ancient Israel.
• Understand the main differences between the classical (pre-exilic, exilic, post-exilic) prophets in the Old Testament.
• Discuss the tasks and roles of prophets in ancient Israel.
• Understand the main differences between the classical (pre-exilic, exilic, post-exilic) prophets in the Old Testament.
• Explain the unique nature of prophecy in ancient Israel.
• Classify and discuss various forms of prophetic speech.
• Analyze different types of prophetic oracles.
• Explore the connections between prophecy in the Old and in the New Testament.
• Reflect on the main themes in prophetic books and their enduring validity .
• Evaluate both the time-bound and the enduring message of the prophets.
• Recognize prophetic voices in our times.
• Apply the prophetic message to your current ministries. 

 

Credits: 1

TH 701 - Faith in Paul and John

1. Describe and demonstrate close reading of biblical texts.

2. Integrate the understanding of our faith as sharing in “the faith of Christ” with the larger context of the Pauline view of following Christ.

3. Analyze the depiction of faith as “divine abiding” in the Gospel of John.

4. Evaluate the relationship between the crucifixion, faith, and love in the Gospel of John.

5. Formulate a transposition of faith in Paul and John into contemporary ministry and spirituality. 

Credits: 1

TH 702 - The Synoptic Gospels

1. Describe the chronological series of events that led to the creation of the gospels.

2. Identify the synoptic gospels and explain their literary origins.

3. Summarize the Two-Source Hypothesis.

4. Identify the nature and character of the Q-Source.

5. Explain the fundamental approach of Textual Criticism.

6. Explain the fundamental approach of Historical Criticism.

7. Appraise the major features & unique narrative themes of the New Testament Gospels.

8. Appraise the major similarities & differences between the Gospels’ portrayals of Jesus.

Credits: 1

TH 703 - Liturgical Theology

• Demonstrate that the essence of the liturgy is the priestly work of Christ, which is continually celebrated by the Church, the body of Christ.

• Argue that Catholic liturgy is a liturgy that re-enchants the community into the time and space of the Son’s worship of the Father.

• Connect the roles that the body and signs from the cosmos play in the liturgy to the unique history of God in relation to man in Jesus Christ.

• Discuss how and why the Eucharist is constitutive of the Church’s being and activity.

• Evaluate one specific contemporary liturgical issue according to the insight of Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI.

TH 704 - Baptismal and Matrimonial Preparation

1. Assess the catechetical and spiritual needs of those requesting the sacraments of baptism and matrimony

2. Evaluate the usefulness of catechetical resources for baptism and matrimony

3. Recommend appropriate responses to hindrances to effective evangelization in modern culture

4. Integrate catechesis and spiritual formation in baptismal and matrimonial preparation

 

Credits: 1

TH 705 - Pastoral Care of the Sick and Dying

1. Integrate perspectives about sickness and death, especially in light of the Franciscan tradition.

2. Develop a deeper personal spirituality in the face of one’s past, present and/or future sickness and death.

3. Integrate theory and practice regarding sickness and death in a pastoral care context.

4. Plan symbolic rituals to minister to the sick and dying.  

 

Credits: 1