Health and Community Studies
Health and Community Studies
Contact Us
Department of Health and Community Studies
Miller Hall 318D
516 High Street, MS 9091
Bellingham, WA 98225-9091
(360) 650-7644
(360) 650-7792 fax
Mission Statement
The Department of Health and Community Studies values the identities, capacities, and histories of all individuals and communities. We advocate for dignity, equity, and self-determination for the public good. We facilitate strong, inclusive, participatory learning communities through anti-oppression work, ethical and critically reflective practices, scholarship, and community engagement.
The Department of Health & Community Studies is comprised of six programs and one institute: a Minor in Palliative Care, Compass to Campus (C2C), a Bachelor of Arts in Human Services, a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, a Master of Education in Adult and Higher Education, a Master of Arts in Rehabilitation Counseling, and the Palliative Care Institute (PCI). Each program is committed to an academic learning experience that integrates theory and practice and incorporates a strengths-based model of professional practice.
Adult & Higher Education
Offering a Masters of Education in Adult & Higher Education, the program prepares both entry-level and advanced practitioners as teachers, trainers, educators, policy-makers, consultants, administrators in diverse educational, business, and healthcare settings for adults. The approach emphasizes a social justice and a progressive approach to the adult and higher education field; academic, critical, and digital literacies; inquiry-based learning with action research; and issues of identity, reflection, and diversity.
Human Services
Offering a Bachelor of Arts, the program prepares Human Services professionals work in a variety of settings, working to enhance the well being of individuals, groups, communities, and society and to be a proactive force in:
- creating systems that benefit the human experience
- sustaining systems that improve the human condition
- changing systems no longer benefiting people.
Rehabilitation Counseling
Rehabilitation Counseling is a systematic process that assists persons with physical, sensory, mental, developmental, cognitive, and emotional disabilities while emphasizing the holistic nature of human function.
This Masters of Arts program is accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling & Related Educational Programs.
RN to Bachelor of Science in Nursing
As a completion program for existing licensed Registered Nurses, graduates earn a Bachelors of Science degree in Nursing upon completion. The program combines practical applied hands-on field work with rigorous academic coursework at an accredited regional four year university. The RN-to-BSN program fills an important role in meeting the increasing need for highly trained and educated nurse professionals in communities throughout Washington State.