Graduate Studies Reports Access
Graduate Course Proposal Form Submission Detail - MHS6494
Tracking Number - 2409
Edit function not enabled for this course.
Current Status:
Approved, Permanent Archive - 2011-07-17
Campus: Tampa
Submission Type: New
Course Change Information (for course changes only):
Comments: to GC for review 4/4/11; pending concurrence Soc Work(y), PH (Y) Nursing (Y), Criminology (y) and Rehabilitation Counseling(y). Emailed 6/28/11; updated 6/30/11. Cleared 6/30/11; GC approved 7/5/11. To USF Syst 7/5/11; to SCNS 7/13/11. Apprved eff 8/1/11
Detail Information
- Date & Time Submitted: 2010-11-15
- Department: Aging & Mental Health
- College: BC
- Budget Account Number: 58600050
- Contact Person: Marion Becker
- Phone: 8139747188
- Email: mbecker2@usf.edu
- Prefix: MHS
- Number: 6494
- Full Title: Women's Mental Health
- Credit Hours: 3
- Section Type: C -
Class Lecture (Primarily)
- Is the course title variable?: N
- Is a permit required for registration?: N
- Are the credit hours variable?: N
- Is this course repeatable?:
- If repeatable, how many times?: 0
- Abbreviated Title (30 characters maximum): Women's Mental Health
- Course Online?: C -
Face-to-face (0% online)
- Percentage Online: 100
- Grading Option:
R - Regular
- Prerequisites:
- Corequisites:
- Course Description: This course focuses on women’s mental health and substance use disorders through a detailed examination of the interaction of trauma, mental health, and substance use disorders that affect the lives of women across the life span.
- Please briefly explain why it is necessary and/or desirable to add this course: Replacing Selected Topics with Permanent number; already listed in program
- What is the need or demand for this course? (Indicate if this course is part of a required sequence in the major.) What other programs would this course service? The rationale for this course proposal is to design and offer a graduate-level course with a specific focus on the variety of issues that are important to women’s mental health and encountered in mental health services research and evaluation. A review of existing graduate courses available at the University of South Florida with a primary focus on women’s mental health was conducted by searching the on-line graduate course catalog. One course on women’s health (PHC 6532 Women's Health Issues in Public Health) was found, and the course description was reviewed. The proposed course differs substantially from the one existing course on women's health in several significant ways. First, unlike the existing course that focuses broadly on women’s health with minor attention to mental health issues, the proposed course includes substantial content associated with the epidemiology of women’s mental health, health services research, service delivery and public policy as it relates to women's mental health. Second, the women’s health course focuses primarily on individual or person-level physical health outcomes. The proposed course will include substantial content on population outcomes, the process of care and systems-level service delivery issues related to mental health. A third major distinction of the proposed course is the emphasis on “Hot Topics”, the “hot off the press” new research in women’s mental health and substance abuse evaluation. Examples of these topics are women’s-specific measurement issues (i.e., child, adult, geriatric) and measurement perspectives (e.g., self versus other report versus clinical, use of administrative data, observation). The proposed course is needed for the Behavioral Health Concentration students pursuing either a MPH, MSW, MSPH, PhD, or DrPH degree. As well as students in the MSW/MPH dual degree program. It is also available to graduate students in Nursing, Criminology and Rehabilitation Counseling.
- Has this course been offered as Selected Topics/Experimental Topics course? If yes, how many times? Yes, 3 or more times
- What qualifications for training and/or experience are necessary to teach this course? (List minimum qualifications for the instructor.) In addition to a PhD, the instructor should have substantial knowledge of women's mental health.
- Objectives: Course objectives are to provide students with an understanding of criteria for valid and reliable research on women’s mental health, mental health policy and the evaluation of mental health services. Additionally, this course provides for student discussion of important service delivery, ethical and cultural issues within a multidisciplinary public health perspective. Another course objective of the curriculum is to train students to critique current policies and health care practices as they relate to the delivery of women’s mental health services. In addition, the course is designed to help students develop and improve critical thinking and evaluation, as well as oral and written communication.
- Learning Outcomes: Students will:
1. Develop an understanding of the connection between women’s physical and mental health and identify the major physical and behavioral health issues of particular concern to women.
2. Become knowledgeable about the epidemiology of mental and substance use disorders in women.
3. Understand the public mental health system and services available to women.
4. Discuss methods for the evaluation of mental health service and policy.
5. Identify the parenting support needs of women with mental health and substance abuse disorders.
6. Understand the connection between trauma history, mental illness and behavioral health care service needs.
7. Recognize and critically evaluate methodological issues in mental health research.
- Major Topics: The women’s health movement: 1830’s to the present; historical dimensions of women’s health; gender and health: overview of important co-occurring disorders--; epidemiology of mental disorders; depression and postpartum disorders; epidemiology of substance use disorders; trauma, addiction and recovery; at-risk populations; PTSD; family violence and trauma-informed treatment for women; eating disorders; women and depression; mental health needs of older women; coercion and the treatment of women with mental illness
- Textbooks: Levin, B. L., & Becker, M. A. (2010). A Public Health Perspective of Women’s Mental Health. Springer, New York.
- Course Readings, Online Resources, and Other Purchases: The required course textbook is available online at no cost to students through the USF library website.
- Student Expectations/Requirements and Grading Policy: Class participation: 20%
Mid-term Exam: 20%
Final Exam: 20%
Final Paper: 30%
Presentation of Final Paper: 10%
The course content will be delivered through a lecture/discussion format. Regular class attendance is expected. Students will work collectively and individually in the conceptualization and completion of a class paper. Each student will select a significant topic for their term paper and obtain approval of the professor to assure applicability to women’s mental health.
All course participants are expected to respect others’ personal feelings; have the right of freedom to hear and participate in dialogue and to examine diverse ideas; and have the right to a learning environment free from harassment and discrimination; and the responsibility that free discussion represents the scholarly nature of the learning community.
- Assignments, Exams and Tests: All examinations are closed book, unless otherwise specified by the instructor. Students may not use any electronic devices or leave the classroom during the examination without the instructor’s permission. Students who fail to appear for the examination or other course-grading event and who did not receive permission in advance for the absence will only be allowed to retake the examination or other grading event based on documentation of the serious and unanticipated nature of the absence. The justification must be acceptable to the instructor.
- Attendance Policy: USF requires attendance at the first class so that the university can effectively utilize classroom space and ensure that all students have maximum opportunity to enroll in classes where demand exceeds availability of seats.
Students are required to attend the first class meeting of courses for which they registered prior to the first day of the term. Names of students who register prior to the first day of the term are printed on the first class roll for each course section. The first class roll is used by professors to drop students who do not attend the first day of class. Students having extenuating circumstances beyond their control and who are unable to attend the first class meeting must notify the instructor to the department prior to the first class meeting to request waiver of the first class attendance requirement. Students who add a course or late-register during the first week of classes will not be on the first class roll and, therefore, will not be dropped for nonattendance by the instructor. To avoid fee liability and academic penalty, the student is responsible for ensuring that he/she had dropped or been dropped from all undesired courses by the end of the 5th day of classes.
Students who anticipate the necessity of missing any presentation due to the observation of a major religious observance must provide notice of the date(s) to the instructor, in writing, by the second class meeting.
In the event of an emergency, it may be necessary for USF to suspend normal operations. During this time, USF may opt to continue delivery of instruction through methods that include but are not limited to: Blackboard, Elluminate, Skype, and email messaging and/or an alternate schedule. It’s the responsibility of the student to monitor Blackboard site for each class for course specific communication, and the main USF, College, and department websites, emails, and MoBull messages for important general information.
- Policy on Make-up Work: Each assignment is to be submitted before or on its due date. Late assignments will receive an automatic 10% penalty.
Plagiarism is defined as ‘literary theft’ and consists of the unattributed quotation of the exact words of a published text, or the unattributed borrowing of original ideas by paraphrase from a published text. On written papers for which the student employs information gathered from books, articles, or oral sources, each direct quotation, as well as ideas and facts that are not generally known to the public at large, or the form, structure, style of a secondary source must be attributed to its author by means of the appropriate citation procedure. Only widely known facts and thoughts and observations original to the student do not require citations. Citations may be made in footnotes or within the body of the text. Plagiarism, also, consists of passing off as one’s own, segments or the total of another person’s work.
Cheating is defined as follows:
(a) the unauthorized granting or receiving of aid during the prescribed period of a course-graded exercise: students may not consult written materials such as notes or books, may not look at the paper of another student, nor consult orally with any other student taking the same test;
(b) Asking another person to take an examination in his/her place;
(c) Taking an examination for or in place of another student;
(d) Stealing visual concepts, such as drawings, sketches, diagrams, musical programs and scores, graphs, maps, etc., and presenting them as one's own;
(e) Stealing, borrowing, buying, or disseminating tests, answer keys or other examination material except as officially authorized, research papers, creative papers, speeches, etc.
(f) Stealing or copying of computer programs and presenting them as one's own. Such stealing includes the use of another student's program, as obtained from the magnetic media or interactive terminals or from cards, print-out paper, etc.
Punishment for such Academic Dishonesties will depend on the seriousness of the offense and may include receipt of an ‘F’ or ‘O’ grade on the subject paper, lab report, etc., an ‘FF’ in the course, suspension or expulsion from the University. The University drop policies and forgiveness policies shall be suspended for a student accused of plagiarism or cheating or both. For further information regarding these topics, see the Graduate School Catalog which can be found online at http://www.grad.usf.edu/gradcatalog.html.
Misconduct may be identified using the following procedure:
The University of South Florida currently has the ability to use an automated plagiarism detection service (Safe Assignment) which upon the request of the instructor allows students to submit their assignments to be checked for plagiarism. I (the instructor) reserve the right to:
-Request that assignments be submitted to as electronic files.
-Request the student to electronically submit assignments to SafeAssignment plagiarism detection tool (see below for instructions).
-Submit a students’ assignment to SafeAssignment plagiarism detection tool.
Assignments are compared automatically with a huge database of journal articles, web articles, the internet and previously submitted papers. The instructor receives a report showing exactly how a student’s paper was plagiarized. For more information about the plagiarism policy at USF, go to http://www.ugs.usf.edu/catalogs/0304/adadap.htm#plagiarism.
Online Student Conduct (Adapted from Tulane School of Public Health Code of Conduct, and USF Student Handbook 2000-2001): All members of this course shall foster an environment that encourages adherence to the principles of honesty and integrity. All parties shall protect the integrity of academic materials including test materials, copyrighted documents, and all related course work.
In all work submitted the students are expected to represent themselves honestly. The presence of a student’s name on any material submitted in completion of an assignment is considered to be an assurance that both the work and ideas are the result of the student’s own intellectual effort, and produced independently. Collaboration is not allowed unless specifically permitted by the instructors.
Cheating (the unauthorized giving, receiving, or use of material or information in quizzes, assignments or other course work or the attempt to do so) or plagiarism (the use of ideas, data or specific passages of another person’s published or unpublished work that is either unacknowledged or falsely acknowledged) is not acceptable in this course. The use of Internet resources when writing a paper should be kept to a minimum. It is not acceptable to use on-line abstracts or resources of questionable authority in your paper. The web is acceptable for certain data sources e.g. CDC or census data. It is acceptable to use full text journal articles that are on-line. All citations are to follow the most current APA format.
The instructor reserves the right to re-examine any student, either orally or in writing, should an issue of academic misconduct arises related to any course grading event (homework, assignments, examinations, presentations etc).
- Program This Course Supports: Behavioral Health Concentration in the College of Public Health
- Course Concurrence Information: Social Work (MSW program), Gerontology, Criminology, Nursing
- if you have questions about any of these fields, please contact chinescobb@grad.usf.edu or joe@grad.usf.edu.