Behavioral Science Degree

This course prepares students for success in their academic and professional careers in behavioral science. The foundation for learning is established for professional skill development through practical experience. Learner strengths are assessed and analytical, relational, and resilience skills are developed.

Each of the many professions involved in human services approaches client and community needs from its own specialized perspectives and uses tools for assessment and treatment that vary from uses of media to prescription medications. Professional skills development in the interaction with social workers, counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, and other professionals will be explored.

All human service professionals must be able to find and accurately utilize information published in journals and scholarly books. This course puts emphasis on learning to recognize and analyze research types relevant to human services to extract key information. This course also will facilitate learning of basic descriptive statistics and standardized scores in measurement. The evaluation of ethical research will also be discussed.

Addresses cultural, social, religious, and economic factors applicable to cultural, ethnic, and minority populations; both from the perspective of the culturally diverse client and the counselor. Experimental methods of learning are emphasized, including the development of self- awareness in the helper. Traditional counseling theories, as well as more recent approaches to counseling diverse groups are analyzed for ethical and practical implications. The helper’s role in addressing advocacy and justice are explored.

This course will explore evidence-based conceptualizations of both normal and disordered mental states, together with an examination of the etiology, development, manifestation, and potential treatment of mental disorders in infants, children, adolescents, and adults.

This course provides opportunities to practice a basic set of interviewing and helping skills commonly used in individual and group counseling. An integrative approach will be used which allows students to learn, understand, and use skills taken from major counseling approaches, and to integrate these into a sequential process that maximizes the possibility of facilitating change in clients.

Counseling theories are useful guides for human service professionals because they identify key factors in assessment and treatment. This course introduces “traditional” theories such as psychodynamic, humanistic, and cognitive-behavioral. Other more specialized counseling theories and techniques are helpful for ethnic identity issues, family problems, and recovery from substance abuse. Many of the theories also identify specific counseling techniques such as problem solving, goal setting, Motivational Interviewing, empathy, and exploring cognition and behavior.

This course will merge the complex and comprehensive understanding of the nature and needs of persons at all the developmental levels and in multicultural contexts. Individual and family developmental theories and transitions, as well as theories of learning and personality development including knowledge about neurobiological behavior and resiliency are emphasized. Knowledge about human behavior as it relates to developmental crisis, trauma-causing events, addictions, psychopathology, disability, and other factors that influence normal and abnormal behavior will be presented.

Human Services professionals will be most effective if the strategies they use are validated by clinical research. A range of validated methods are analyzed in areas such as clinical assessment, empathy, parenting, depression, anxiety, phobias, and pain management. Additionally, instruction includes application designed to strengthen the ethical reasoning skills of the professional as related to substance abuse.

The Behavioral Science Capstone reflects on professional identity and development in the human service field.

This course focuses on the political and philosophical traditions of the American republic, especially as embedded in the ideals, values, traditions, founding documents, and institutions of the United States , and considers how these traditions relate to individual citizenship and global society. Prerequisite: 60 Credit Hours

This course focuses on the creative tensions that exist between the forces of tradition and change as the country undergoes social, cultural, and political change. It considers the manner in which change can renew the vitality of a republic. Prerequisite: 60 Credit Hours

This course examines civic engagement in relation to individual freedoms and responsibilities. It fosters engaged citizens, empowered to effect positive change. Prerequisite: 60 Credit Hours