Integrating Liberal Arts Learning Outcomes in the Development and Implementation of a Multisection Undergraduate Public Health Capstone Course

Abstract

As demand increases for well-trained public health professionals, academic leaders of universities and colleges must tailor their curricula to prepare students to be ready for the public health workplace, while also providing critical thinking and awareness skills through a liberal arts course context. Temple University’s undergraduate public health program has created a capstone experience that bridges these two priorities. Using public health community-based program planning and evaluation as its content, this two-semester (32 weeks) writing-intensive course provides training for students in writing a grant proposal, including conducting a needs assessment, devising evaluable program goals and objectives, creating an intervention and planning its implementation and evaluation, and developing budgeting and marketing plans. Students also complete related assignments that help develop the critical thinking skills they need to understand the context of public health within the larger society. Utilizing the LEAP Essential Learning Outcomes, we infuse integrative, interdisciplinary, and applied knowledge with the concept of civic responsibility as pathways for ensuring learning, while still providing concrete skills related to public health practice. We discuss how the course is implemented and how public health practice and liberal arts learning objectives are emphasized to ensure an “educated citizenry.” Universities and colleges that offer an undergraduate degree in public health can use this framework to implement a capstone experience that bridges both public health and liberal arts skills.