Humanitarian certificate electives
We have specifically selected a broad range of possible electives to allow certificate students to customize their learning experience to their exact area of interest. However, alternative courses may be suggested and accepted as satisfying the certificate requirements on a case-by-case basis by the certificate program coordinator.
School of Public Health electives
ENV H 506 Disasters and Public Health (3) I&S/NW
Introduces students to the public health and environmental health consequences of common domestic disasters, and the role of public health agencies and practitioners. Students will describe and evaluate the public health community’s role in preparing for and responding to disasters through case studies, discussions, debates, course lectures and readings. Offered: A.
ENV H 545 Water, Wastewater, and Health (4)
Review of water supply, water quality, and water/wastewater treatment as they relate to human health. Includes water law and regulations, source water protection, basic treatment technologies for water and waste, chemical and microbial contaminants, and recreational water. Offered: A.
ENV H 547 Environmental Change and Infectious Disease (3)
Uses multidisciplinary approach to address the impacts of environmental change (including climate change) on infectious disease. Concepts include categories of environmental change; infectious disease emergence/re-emergence; environmental aspects of infectious disease exposure, acquisition, and progression; pathogen growth/survival in the environment; historical and societal perspectives; surveillance; and strategies for control. Offered: Sp.
EPI 520 Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases (3)
Infectious diseases from a public health perspective. Topics include analytic methods, study design, outbreak investigations, surveillance, vaccine evaluations, global eradication, screening, modeling, and infectious causes of chronic diseases. Homework and discussion based on current examples from the published literature. Prerequisite: EPI 511, EPI 512, or permission of instructor.
G H 515 War and Health (4)
Explores the health consequences of war (injury, infectious diseases, mental health, chronic disease, malnutrition, infrastructure) and the role of health professionals and others in preventing war (advocacy, measurement and application of epidemiology methods, promotion of social equity). Offered: jointly with HSERV 515; SP.
G H 516 / LAW 540 Health and Human Rights (3)
Examines the basic concepts in the fields of human rights law and public health, and uses those concepts to examine the interdependence and tensions between the two fields. Introduction to the fields of public health and human rights law, examining the impact of health policies and programs on human rights. Offered: jointly with LAW H 540; Sp.
G H 541 Fundamentals of Implementation Science in Global Health (4)
Provides an introduction to the emerging field of implementation research by outlining various methods that are applied to improving implementation (including applied engineering, management tools, health systems, and policy research), and using experiential case studies from global health leaders. Addresses barriers to effective replication and scale-up in local settings. Offered: Sp.
G H 555 Nutrition in Developing Countries (3)
Introduces issues of nutrition in developing countries, with an emphasis on the control and prevention of under-nutrition and micronutrient deficiencies. Offered: jointly with NUTR 555; Sp, odd years.
G H 556 Global Mental Health (2 – 3)
Examines the socio-cultural and political forces that impact assessment, manifestation, and treatment of mental illnesses worldwide. Students take a critical view of diagnostic systems and examine cultural differences in presentation of mental illness. Also reviews treatment practices in low resource settings, cultural-specific communication, and stigma. Offered: Sp.
G H 558 Global Violence and Health (2 – 3)
Examines the socio-politico-cultural forces that give rise to violence and the impact of violence on population health. Discusses public health methods, policies, and interventions that can be used to decrease the occurrence and severity of violence in real world circumstances, including countries at all economic levels. Offered: Sp.
School of Law electives
LAW H 540 Health and Human Rights (3)
Examines the basic concepts in the fields of human rights law and public health, and uses those concepts to examine the interdependence and tensions between the two fields. Introduction to the fields of public health and human rights law, examining the impact of health policies and programs on human rights. Offered: jointly with G H 516; Sp.
LAW A 574 International Law (2 – 4)
Introduction to the international legal system. Coverage includes sources of international law, creation and continuity of states, the rights, duties and jurisdiction of states, international organizations, the relationship between international and domestic law in the U.S. and resolution of international disputes. The course also provides selected coverage of several substantive international law topics. Those topics vary from year to year.
LAW B 596 International Protection of Human Rights (2 -4, max 6)
Course examines international treaty and customary law protecting fundamental human rights against abuse by governments. Major international systems studied will be the U.N., the Council of Europe, and the O.A.S. Readings include international and American judicial opinions, treaties, and studies by human rights groups and scholars.
Evans School of Public Policy & Governance electives
PUBPOL 531 Development Management and Governance (4)
Addresses the connections linking governance systems, the management and implementation of public policies, and policy and program outcomes, with focus on capacities and strategies of a broad array of actors engaged in international development. Covers management challenges faced by government bureaucracies and civil society actors, the changing landscape of development assistance, public sector reforms, and human rights in development context.
PUBPOL 533 Economics of International Development (4) – if not taken as a core course
Economics of International Development critically examines the validity and reliability of most common economic development indicators of poverty, growth and inequality, and provides an overview of, and basic literacy around, international macroeconomic topics including debt, aid, trade and financial markets. W
PUBPOL 536 Diagnosing and Reforming Corrupt Systems (4)
Corruption – one of the greatest obstacles to social, economic, and political development around the world – has become a focal point for efforts to improve public sector performance. This course explores strategies for the prevention and mitigation of corruption across a range of contexts and takes an action-oriented approach, drawing lessons from corruption cases and focusing on what approaches might be undertaken under different circumstances.
PUBPOL 539 Values in International Development (4)
Examines and clarifies international development values, including underlying theories of justice on which they seem to be built, the ways in which they are justified to stakeholders, the general public, and impacts they have upon people, especially the poorest and most vulnerable. W
PUBPOL 541 The Role of Nongovernmental Organizations in International Development (4)
Explores issues faced by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) working in developing and transition countries, including perspectives from international and indigenous NGOs and community-based organizations. Topics covered include relationships between NGOs and the state, the market, intended beneficiaries, and funder relationships. Key issues discussed include the challenges of funding, participation, advocacy humanitarianism, and social change.
College of Engineering electives
CEE 576 Water Resources Planning (3)
Engineering, social, and economic factors involved in water resource development and management; water policies, programs, and administration; use relationships and conflicts; considerations for regional water resource systems.
CESG 526 Earthquake Engineering I (3)
Earthquake mechanism and ground shaking, response spectra, linear elastic methods for prediction of behavior, displacement prediction methods for inelastically behaving structures, modeling and solution schemes, earthquake design philosophy, capacity design. Reinforced concrete, steel, and base-isolated structures. Prerequisite: CEE 501, CEE 502. Offered: Sp.
CESG 527 Earthquake Engineering II (3)
Performance-based design, development of fragility curves, characteristics and effects of ground-shaking records, design methods, passive and active control, dynamic inelastic time history analysis, design of parts, system detailing, soil-structure interaction, repair and retrofit of structures. Prerequisite: CEE 515. Offered: A.
College of the Environment electives
ATM S 587 Fundamentals of Climate Change (3)
Examines Earth’s climate system; distribution of temperature, precipitation, wind ice, salinity, and ocean currents; fundamental processes determining Earth’s climate; energy and constituent transport mechanisms; climate sensitivity; natural climate variability on interannual to decadal time scales; global climate models; predicting future climate. Offered: jointly with ESS 587/OCEAN 587.
ESS 544 Applied Tsunami Hazard Science (4)
Broad introductory overview of tsunami science and physical, social, and economic impacts of tsunami hazards. Designed for scientific, engineering, earth-science professionals, and graduate students interested in tsunami hazard assessment, mitigation, or warning. Prerequisite: MATH 126; PHYS 123; AMATH 301, or equivalents.
SEFS 530 Introduction to Restoration Ecology (3/5)
Provides introduction to ecological restoration of damaged ecosystems. Examines the philosophical base of restoration as well as the social, biological, and political forces that impact the success of any restoration project. Includes lectures, readings, case studies and field trips. Offered: A.
College of Built Environment electives
IPM 501 Comprehensive Emergency Management (3)
Covers the principles and practices of risk reduction, presenting disasters as realized risk and benefits as realized opportunities. Provides the ability to use emergency management approaches and tools, along with insights into intergovernmental programs and relationship and their broader social context. Offered: S
IPM 505 Climate Change and Infrastructure (3)
Takes an in-depth look at climate change and examines each of the six major infrastructure systems in relationship to climate change phenomena. Includes climate change causes and effects; global, national, state, and local mitigation and adaptation strategies; and mitigation and adaptation strategies for infrastructure systems. Offered: Sp.
IPM 516/URBDP 596 Community Resilience (3) – if not taken as a core course
Applies a resilience lens to stressed communities. Students apply resilience concepts to real world communities and infrastructures impacted by real events, and gain practice in supporting policies, programs, and projects that enhance overall resilience. Offered: Sp.
URBDP 549 Hazard Mitigation Planning (3)
A survey of the field of planning for managing risks of natural hazards-earthquakes, floods, coastal/meteorological hazards, and human-caused technological hazards/terrorism. Covers pre-event mitigation through building and land-use controls; disaster preparedness; post-even response, recovery, and mitigation of future hazards. Emphasizes hazard mitigation as a long-term strategy for achieving sustainability of communities.
URBDP 598 Resettlement Infrastructure (3)
This course takes a human-centered approach to understanding displacement, migration, and resettlement infrastructure. Students will learn about resettlement options including the need for critical and social infrastructure in temporary settlements within and across countries.
School of Nursing electives
NSG 540 Telehealth Systems and Applications (4)
Prepares consumers, managers, and researchers of telehealth systems through guided exploration into the components of such systems. Introduces challenges and opportunities facing designers and managers of telehealth and remote healthcare delivery networks. Offered: jointly with BIME 581.
NSG 553 Foundations of Health Systems and Health Economics (3)
Examines health systems and care delivery in the context of principles of business, finance, and economics. Concepts applied in the design of cost and care effectiveness system-level health improvements. Prerequisite: either NMETH 536, which may be taken concurrently, or permission of instructor. Offered: Sp.
NURS 576 Assessment and Collaboration with Communities and Systems (3)
Examines, critiques, and applies theory in assessing communities, populations, and systems cross-culturally. Focuses on advanced practice, executive leadership/policy, and practice inquiry; broad definition of community includes organizations. Emphasizes team work in assessment implementation, i.e., survey, interview, focus groups, observation/participant observation to advance understanding of social determinants of health.
NURS 581 Global Health Nursing (2-3)
Reviews global health topics and the complex local and global conditions that affect the health and illness of individuals, communities, and populations. Emphasizes the multi-faceted roles of health care providers.
School of Pharmacy electives
PHARM 581 Global Health Pharmacy: Medicines, Practice and Policy (2)
Introduces the critical role of pharmaceuticals in addressing the major diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, affecting persons in resource-limited settings. Multidisciplinary faculty address the wide range of relevant issues, including burden of disease, human resource capacity, regulation, drug safety/pharmacovigilance, drug distribution, pharmacoeconomics, financing, intellectual property, and drug trade policies.
PHARM 582 Special Topics in Global Health Pharmacy and Medical Products ([1-3]-, max. 6)
Provides in-depth instruction on selected special topics relating to the use, access to, and impact of pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and diagnostics/medical devices in global health. Credit/no-credit only.
PHARMP 580 Preparation for Global Health Experience in Low-resource Countries (3)
Prepares students to safely and fully engage in clinical healthcare experiences in low-resource countries. Helps students understand common barriers to healthcare access and to appreciate the communicable and non-communicable health issues that individuals and communities experience in these countries. Credit/no-credit only. Offered: Sp.
College of Arts & Sciences electives
GEOG 567 Research Seminar: Geography and Economic Development (5, max. 10)
Explores ways in which economic and social changes affect the well-being and development of subnational, regional economies. Explanatory roles of such factors as labor and labor institutions, governments, technical change, corporations, capital markets, information costs, and international trade in the process of global restructuring. Specific focus changes annually.
GEOG 580 Medical Geography (3)
Geography of disease, consideration in health systems planning. Analysis of distributions, diffusion models, migration studies. Application of distance, optimal location models to health systems planning; emergency medical services; distribution of health professionals; cultural variations in health behavior. Prerequisite: familiarity with social science research; health-related issues. Offered: jointly with HSERV 586.
JSIS 533 Frameworks for Health Development (5)
Examines the history and economic and development determinants and impacts of global health problems. Health problems and unequal access to affordable health services contribute to global poverty and inequality. Explores the important relationships between global trade, access to essential medicines, nutrition, the environment, and health.
JSIS 537 Trends in International Migration (5)
Explores the causes, mechanisms, and consequences of contemporary global population movements, with a focus on migration to the United States and Europe from the top sending world regions. Topics include the relationship of persecution, conflict, and poor economic prospects to migration; the extent to which state policies can control migration.
JSIS 541 Religion and Conflict in International Politics (5)
Covers global issues of religion, politics and internationals conflicts as they relate to question of fundamentalism, nationalism and terror. Investigates fundamentalism as a response to globalization and modernization. Reviews connections between religious violence and international relations, human security and global security.
JSIS B 541 Forced Migrations (5)
Provides an interdisciplinary understanding of the causes, characteristics, and consequences of forced migration experiences across the global system. Explores how international policy makers, humanitarian workers, and scholars have constructed forced migrations as a problem for analysis and actions, including some of the ethical dilemmas involved.
JSIS 542 Dimensions of Security (5)
Examines the evolution of global security agendas in response to security challenges that are increasingly non-military and longer term in nature. Through a Middle East lens, students examine traditional security issues, and the emergence of non-conventional challenges and threats, such as environmental degradation and resource scarcity.
JSIS 549 Crisis Negotiation (4)
Guides students in applying their knowledge to realistic analyses of current problems in international studies through an intensive simulation experience that emphasizes leadership, negotiation, and real-tie crisis management and decision-making.
JSIS 578, Humanitarian Assistance & Disaster Relief (2)
This course looks at the evolution of humanitarian assistance and the guiding principles of a growing humanitarian community made up of non-governmental organizations, governments, international organizations, the private sector, and philanthropic donors. Sample discussion topics will include humanitarian principles, motivations for relief, aid delivery and logistics, global health challenges, refugees/internally displaced persons, disaster risk reduction, civil-military coordination, and the many roadblocks that stand in the way of effective humanitarian response.
JSIS 578 C, Special Topics: Tools to End Conflict and Rebuild (5)
The first half of this course will examine the current tools available to the international community to end armed conflicts – multilateral, formal, and informal. We will also seek to understand which tools work better and why. The focus will be on the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan, Libya and Syria; conflicts in which the instructor has direct experience. The second half of the course will review the institutional tools most often used to rebuild conflict-torn countries, and to determine which are most effective and why, in both the short and long term.
JSIS 598 Field Seminar in Peace, Violence, and Security (5)
Exposes students to theoretical and foreign policy debates about global security challenges, conflicts, and violence, and issues of their prevention. Topics include balance of power, nationalism, ethnic conflict, genocide, offense-defense balance, weaponry, intelligence, invasions, interventions, peacekeeping, arms control, and national security.
POL S 524 International Security (5)
Introduces some of the major debates concerning the use of force in international politics. Covers traditional issues in international security such as alliances and the causes of war, as well as some of the new and important questions, such as explaining war outcomes and war termination.
POL S 525 International Law and Institutions (5)
Inputs of international law into the decisional process in foreign policy. Effect of policy on law. Relevant roles of individuals and institutions in routine and crisis situations.
