Curriculum
MS in Non Profit Leadership and Population Health Management

This course will provide an overview of core disciplines and theories in population health learning and practice, including behavioral and community assessment, program development evaluation, policy and advocacy, and environmental and occupational health. Learners will also begin to understand the management and administration principles that define this degree, with a particular focus on business and sustainability.

3 Credits

This course is an introduction to the dynamics of organization development, organization behavior, and the creation of intentional practices designed to foster collaboration and high performance. Adult learners learn and understand the importance of using themselves as an intentional instrument of change as a foundation for their leadership practice. The course introduces a consulting model and several models of organizational change that can be practiced inside the class laboratory and applied immediately to the adult learner’s work settings.

3 Credits

Part One of the Managing and Leading Population Health Orgs course is designed to address business structures and processes in the not-for-profit environment, grant development processes, ethical and social responsibility, and risk management.

3 Credits

This course focuses on helping adult learners see the systemic conditions in which they live and work. An important purpose of the course is to provide an understanding of what is needed to create powerful human systems - systems with outstanding capacity to perform their functions and carry out their mission. During the first day of the course, students will be immersed in a “living case study” of organizational life as related to complex systems. This experience and the related frameworks will provide the basis for exploring issues of empowerment, partnership and collaboration. Appreciative Inquiry, a dynamic social construction practice will be introduced as a generative learning engagement that supports a sustainable model of integrative leadership and transformative learning at multiple levels of systems.

3 Credits

Part Two of the Managing and Leading Population Health Orgs course is designed to address financial concepts and strategies that can support and sustain public health organizations in today’s environment. Accounting and budgeting practices will be covered in addition to a more macro perspective on cash and fundability.

3 Credits

This course helps leaders to think with a whole system approach as they develop and implement innovative policies that facilitate change and identify strategies and processes to successfully implement the policies. Students in this course will understand that the innovation process includes the importance of working collaboratively with all stakeholders: policy decision-makers within all levels of government; funders; and, providers with a variety of constituent interests and viewpoints. As leaders, students will be introduced to and learn the legal rights and responsibilities of stakeholders in public health systems. In addition, students will learn to analyze different aspects of the evolving landscape of judicial rulings, including legislative and administrative regulations that impact public health systems.

3 Credits

This social innovation lab is a hallmark experience offered by Social Innovation Partner’s co-founders Tine Hansen-Turton (Woods’ CEO) and Nick Torres. You will experience Social Innovation Partner’s approach in taking teams through a sustainable innovation process that includes: idea exploration, testing and plan execution to hone in on entrepreneurship skills and innovative thinking that leads to the development and execution of new or improved business innovations/models. Social Innovation Partner’s believe that the strongest ideas are created through a cross-disciplinary process and that these ideas will take root, attract the needed capital/support, and ultimately have a significant impact regionally, nationally, and globally. This experience will be the framework process for starting and completing your capstone project.

3 Credits

This in-depth leadership learning lab experience will cover the theory and practice of diversity, equity and inclusion (D.E.I.) in a leadership and organizational context. This course identifies culture as the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes a community. These communities exist around gender, race, color, age, different-ability, sexual orientation, class, religion, ethnic, and nationality. This lab examines differences that characterize people of various communities and what happens when they come together in organizations to fulfill the mission of the organization by delivering services to their diverse partner and population groups. As a learning community, we will explore and experience system dynamics at the interpersonal, inter-group and whole system levels to strengthen our D.E.I. lenses. In addition, we will explore the use of power and privilege, the construction of social identities and the tensions within ourselves to manage the dominant and subordinated roles we step into and often maintain in our lives. This course will culminate in the development of strategies for engaging people of various cultures more successfully to deliver optimal services to/for internal and external populations.

3 Credits

This course is intended as continued preparation and support for the final Capstone project. It reinforces action research as a critical tenet of public health, organization development, leadership and change. The learning experiences will focus on enhancing action research practice and data collection skills to facilitate deeper-level inquiry, reflection, critical thinking and assessment into the issues that are impacting performance and results. Adult learners will learn how to appropriately design the data collection methodologies and interventions with the identified organizational issue(s)/problem(s). As a definitive outcome, adult learners will align strategies to improve performance based on evidence-based practice to inform their decision making at these levels: individually, group, system/organization and community.

3 Credits

This course introduces a comprehensive set of communication skills available to leaders including theoretical background, practical applications and on-camera practice sessions delivering critical messages to diverse audiences. Students will examine core components of messaging and powerful presentations in organizational settings—including media applications. Students will learn how to effectively communicate from organizational and individual settings, including creating a strategic organizational communication plan.

3 Credits

Meetings are where collaboration happens. Well planned, designed and facilitated meetings tap a variety of different perspectives, expand everyone’s understanding of the situation and increase the likelihood of good decisions that benefit the system – the common good. The purpose of this course is to become familiar with basic concepts, to practice the skills and methods, and to develop the habits of mind essential to designing and facilitating task-focused, collaborative meetings while delivering optimal results in projects they are managing.

3 Credits

Adaptive challenges differ from technical challenges. They are characterized by complexity, ambiguity and require a sustained effort over time. They require shifts in relationships and shifts in mindsets. Leaders need to be equipped with frameworks and practical tools to utilize the thinking, skills, and experiences of others. They need to be able to do this by shaping a culture that fosters learning, self-awareness, and creativity. This lab provides a practice field for cultivating these capabilities.

3 Credits