Health and Human Services Department
Chairperson: Matthew Symonds
Faculty: Loren Butler, Bryan Dorrel, Jeff Ferguson, Alice Foose, Karen From, Jon Gustafson, Matthew Johnson, Terry Long, Gina McNeese, Susan Myllykangas, Janet Reusser, Terry Robertson, Rheba Vetter, Kelli Wilmes
Administrative Appointments: Adam Dorrel, Charles Flohr, Tracy Hoza, Robert Lade, Darin Loe, Scott Lorek, Ben McCollum, Joe Quinlin, Kelly Quinlin, Mark Rosewell, Michael Smith, Robert Veasey, Amy Woerth, Rich Wright
The Department of Health and Human Services is comprised of three primary discipline areas including: Foods and Nutrition, Health and Physical Education, and Recreation. Each of these academic program areas are fully accredited by their respective professional organizations and all majors’ courses are taught by fully qualified faculty and staff. Within each of these disciplines, multiple options, majors, emphasis areas, certifications, and minors exist.
Statement of Vision and Mission
The vision of the Department of Health and Human Services is “lifespan health and active living.” This vision is to be achieved through our mission, which is “to prepare and develop professionals to become leaders in the facilitation of healthy active lifestyles throughout society and across the lifespan”.
The Department of Health and Human Services and the individual faculty who contribute to its existence on a daily basis are proud of their history of innovative, creative, and entrepreneurial efforts to continually grow and evolve in a manner that allows for vision to become reality. It is our desire as we move into the coming years to continue this tradition and lead the way into a new era for our college and the University as a whole. Driving this desire is our firm shared commitment to addressing health and lifestyle issues pertinent to the well-being of our society. Despite the professional diversity and various associated initiatives that exist among our faculty, we as a department share a common vision of Lifespan Health and Active Living for all people. This vision not only pertains to our local campus and our philosophical approach to developing professional leaders, but also to the surrounding region and both national and international societies. As we move forward to achieving the presented vision, our strategy will be to develop and address annually established goals to be implemented at micro, meso, and macro levels within society. Priority will be placed first on ensuring that our departmental curriculum and the approach to student preparation reflect the inherent characteristics of our vision and associated mission. In addition, we intend to systematically expand our efforts through inter-departmental and inter-agency partnerships at the local and regional level. We believe that these efforts will result in multiple inter-disciplinary opportunities to have significant impact within the human services realm at all levels. Ultimately, we hope that reframing our departmental world view and modeling the potential value of this perspective for others will lead to a positive evolution of educational and human service delivery systems.