Students may examine their own attitudes toward death and dying. This course uses a comprehensive view of human addictions that involves a person's expectations, values, sense of self-worth, and alternative opportunities for gratification and treatment. An examination of the American prison system. The course presents an historical review of prisons, as well as theoretical and practical perspectives on the current state of penal institutions. Specific topics include prison reform, the purpose of incarceration, and a variety of criticisms currently directed at the prison system.
Students volunteer their services in local nonprofit agencies for six to eight hours a week.
The course explores the values, knowledge and skills required in the profession, along with their practical application in the field, and the factors affecting social work practice, e.g., class, gender, race. Topics will vary from year to year depending on interests of faculty and needs of students, and might include social work practice with alcoholism and narcotic addiction, social work in correctional settings, social work with the developmentally disabled, social work with the aged, advocacy in social work, or the dynamics of racism in social work practice. Topics include divorce, child abuse, learning difficulties, substance abuse, delinquency, foster care, and parent-child conflict. Students learn about social science methodology from the perspective of a future practitioner and research consumer. The course addresses practical issues such as single-subject design, program evaluation and the ethical dilemmas involved in conducting human subject research.