Interdisciplinary Healthy Aging Minor
What is the purpose of the Interdisciplinary Healthy Aging Minor?
The Interdisciplinary Healthy Aging Minor, housed within the Center for Healthy Aging, will prepare TCU students to work with, or for, the growing aging population. Through the Healthy Aging Minor, you will:
- Enhance your knowledge of healthy aging and the continued contribution of adults in our society as they age;
- Understand the diversity and complexity of the older adult population;
- Create and provide products, services and programs responsive to the wants and needs of the growing older adult population;
- Help organizations to recognize and value older adults as resources as well as clients; and
- Examine the difficult decisions that they may face when older family members become vulnerable.
Program Competencies
The following are the educational outcomes that all students will achieve by the completion of the Interdisciplinary Healthy Aging Minor:
- Apply knowledge of biological, psychological, sociological, and spiritual processes of human aging when working for and with older adults
- Utilize knowledge about social location and other experiences of older adults in developing products, services, programs and policies for older adults and their families
- Apply knowledge of organizational, community, and program development to build responsive environments that value the contributions of older adults
- Develop skills and knowledge in building interdisciplinary partnerships that create community resources that support aging in place rather than forced relocation
- Contribute to the knowledge base of Healthy Aging by facilitating competence in conducting research and evaluation
- Utilize existing resources/organizations to promote collaborative advocacy for care, support, and advocacy of older adults and their families
- Develop self-awareness of one’s own embodied experience of aging
What courses are required?
In order to earn the Healthy Aging Minor, you are required to take 18 hours of coursework. Courses must be selected from at least three different departments, which may include the department of your major. Three courses totaling nine hours are required. They include SOCI 30643 Sociology of Aging, SOWO 40513 Interdisciplinary Approaches to Healthy Aging, which includes a service–learning component, and the Directed Studies course, providing you an opportunity to develop community-based research projects.
In addition to these courses, you may select nine additional hours of coursework from:
- KINE 40780 Physical Activity and Aging
- NURS 10303 Human Development
- NURS 30503 Issues in Women’s Health
- NURS/SOWO 30543 Family Health Nursing
- NURS 30632 Concepts of Gerontological Nursing
- POSC 30103/SOCI 30223 Aging Nation: Social and Public Policy Issues
- PSYC 40950-060 Contemporary Topics in Psychology: Models of Stress and Health
- SOCI 30483 Death and Dying: Sociological Viewpoints
- SOWO 30853 Human Behavior and the Social Environment II
- SOWO 40543 Social Work with Older Adults
- SOWO 40563 Death and Dying
Why is it important to consider aging from an interdisciplinary perspective?
- Texas and the nation are faced with overlapping realities of a rapidly aging workforce and of an increasingly diverse older adult population. These individuals have multiple and interlocking strengths, resources, needs and wants, which is beyond the knowledge and skills of one particular discipline.
- There is limited access to coursework in the Dallas Fort Worth area to prepare you to work with, or for, the older adult population.
- The Healthy Aging Minor will add value to your major by equipping you with skills and knowledge to address the diverse needs of a rapidly growing older adult population.
- The Healthy Aging Minor will help prepare you to work with older adults as contributing members of society and as consumers of services.
What type of career opportunities could this minor lead to?
dance instructor with older adults
developing program for older adults in religious institutions
event planner
art instructor
health professional travel companion
diversity trainer for corporations
life coach
adult educator teacher
health and long term care institutions
volunteer management
certified financial planner
nursing home administrator
senior real estate specialist
retirement communities
architect
tour guide
employment specialist
employee assistance program
Helpful career links (use words as links vs. URL)
Careers in aging
http://www.careersinaging.com/careersinaging/job_career.html
Blog article on careers in aging
http://businessandaging.blogs.com/ecg/101_careers_in_aging/index.html
How do I declare a minor?
You may go online to www.mytcu.edu and select Student Center. Click Student Center on the drop down menu. Next, click on Academic Homepage, and select View or Change Major/Minor. Fill out series of questions, save and submit form. Once the Dean approves the changes, you will receive an email notification.
Why is it important to study healthy aging?
Texas has the fourth largest older adult population in the United States. Over 2.5 million Texans are age 60 or older. An estimated 66 percent are younger than 75 and approximately 50 percent of older Texans reside in three major areas of the state, San Antonio area, Houston-Galveston region and the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex.
By the year 2040, projections indicate that with the continued growth of the minority populations, approximately 31 percent of older Texans will be Hispanic, 19 percent will be African-American and 50 percent Anglo. In addition, the 60+ population is projected to increase by 193 percent from 2000 to 2040, and of that, the 85+ population is expected to increase by 249 percent, which will make the aging population 23 percent of the total Texas population.
The collision of an inadequate workforce and a rapidly expanding older adult population demand that our TCU graduates be better equipped to work with and for older adults and their families, their communities and their workplaces.
Center for Healthy Aging
The Center for Healthy Aging is located on the third floor (room 338) of the Harris College of Nursing & Health Science at 2800 W. Bowie Street.
Center for Healthy Aging
TCU Box 298620
Fort Worth, TX 76129
Phone: 817 257-7496
Fax: 817 257-7944
E-mail: l.curry@tcu.edu
www. healthyaging.tcu.edu
(Harris College wordmark)