ACADEMICS
The Student Experience
We prefer to think of academics as the student's experience. All the opportunities offered to each learner through their practicum's, mission trips, community outreach, research collaborations and interdisciplinary learning. It's why we consider ourselves a teaching school first.
In SPH, we continuously seek input from students to determine how to best meet their needs and improve their academic experience.
These enhancements have resulted in an improved student experience as evidenced through the feedback received through student course evaluations and comments.
Academics
Meet our academics team.
The school of public health offers 12 degrees: 7 Master's degrees and 5 Doctoral degree programs.
- MPH in Epidemiology
- MPH in Global Health
- MPH in Health Education & Wellness (Online & On-campus)
- MPH in Nutrition with a coordinated program in dietetics
- MPH in Population Medicine
- Master of Healthcare Administration
- Master of Science in Nutrition
- Doctor of Public Health in Health Education
- DrPH in Health Policy & Leadership
- DrPH in Preventive Care
- Doctor of Philosophy in Epidemiology
- PhD in Nutrition
Donna Gurule, DrPH
Associate Dean, Academic Administration,
Executive Director, Center for Teaching and Learning, School of Public Health
Debbie Paley
Sr. Administrative Assistant
School of Public Health
Academic Programs Office
Meet our APO team.
The SPH Academic Programs Office (APO) serves all students by helping them to fulfill the requirements of their Degree Compliance Reports (DCR) and graduate on time. We assist students in developing a curriculum plan based on their academic status (full or part-time). After students meet with their academic advisors, APO ensures that forms are completed so students complete their degree's within the policy timeframe (max. 5 years for masters and 7 years for doctoral degrees) and receive their diplomas.
Lisa Song
Academic Programs Coordinator
School of Public Health
Julie Pifer
Academic Programs Coordinator
School of Public Health
Office of Academic Records & Student Success
Meet our student success team.
The Office of Academic Records & Student Success aims to:
- Work together with faculty and the Academic Programs Office to identify students who may be struggling
- Be here for you, because life does not pause while you go to school
- Contact you to come and meet with us
- Come up with a plan to help you move forward successfully
- Put you on academic probation if warranted
- Contact you just because!
- Ultimately, be here to encourage and guide you to success
Wendy Saravia-Genovez, MS
Assistant Dean, Academic Support, School of Public Health
Caitriona Sansonetti
Records Analyst
School of Public Health
Practicum Office
Meet our practicum team.
The practicum is a supervised work experience for emerging public health professionals in a Master of Public Health (MPH) program. MPH students will engage in a 100-400 hour experience in a public health setting, such as hospitals, local public health departments, and community organizations. The purpose of the practicum is to provide students with the opportunity to apply academic learning in an interdisciplinary environment and to integrate public health concepts and skills from their program of study.
Sharilyn Andersen, MPH
Assistant Professor, Director of Applied Practice
School of Public Health
Camille Alaras-Whitfield, MBA
Practicum Coordinator
School of Public Health
Writing & Career Services
Molly Dougherty
Head of writing & career services,
School of Public Health
The Writing and Career Services office exists for two reasons: 1. To help LLU-SPH students and alumni improve their writing skills; 2. To provide the tools, resources, and advice to help LLU-SPH students and alumni launch themselves as public health professionals.
The SPH Writing & Career Services office is a resource for current students and alumni to improve their writing and develop their career narrative.
Geo-Informatic Systems
Seth Wiafe, PhD
LLUGIS Lab Director and Assistant Professor,
School of Public Health
The Loma Linda University Health Geoinformatics (LLUHGIS) Laboratory is a modern education/training and research facility fully equipped with professional Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and remote sensing technologies.
The lab manages the Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri) GIS software site license and maintains database management systems and other spatial analytics and visualization software packages. The lab also stores and manages a significant amount of spatial data, including demographics, population, environment, satellite images, and aerial photographs. The 40 computers in the lab are a radical improvement over what we have been using for the past few years. One significant change that is particularly exciting is the capability of gigabit networking between desktop computers and our data servers.
Accomplishments for the 2018-19 academic year include:
Held focus groups with the MHA students and Student Association to understand how to improve academic programs, new student orientation and social events. Shared information with relevant groups and identified key items to change.
Improved opportunities for Service Learning for SPH students through course-based activities. These experiences are intentionally designed for students to utilize their public health knowledge and skills through interfacing and working with community-based organizations, identifying a need and working to fulfill that need. An example was the MPH students who worked with an organization for at-risk homeless teens, interviewing where they slept the previous night, geocoding the data, producing a map and providing a report for the director for presentation to local officials.
Changed the Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) dissertation to an Integrated Learning Experience.
Starting in 2018-19, students accepted into any DrPH program will now complete an Applied Practice and Integrated Learning Experience, designed to meet the Council on Education in Public Health (CEPH) accreditation standards. These experiences will be implemented in the community or workplace and will result in data collection and analysis, along with a high-quality publishable paper. These steps distinguish the DrPH degree from a research-based PhD degree and discovery of new knowledge by the implementation of advanced practice skills within a community setting or organization.
The DrPH degree has been reduced in didactic units and can be completed in as little as three years (the first year is DrPH core coursework and comprehensive exam, the second year is major coursework and Applied Practice Experience, and the third year is the Integrated Learning Experience through the doctoral project. Throughout the degree, students will be assessed on doctoral, program and institutional competencies to ensure a high level of learning and application.
Developed and taught core courses across all DrPH programs. These courses, which were first taught in 2018-19, created learning experiences for both campus (face-to-face) and online students and assessed 20 core competencies in the areas of data and analysis; leadership, management and governance; policy and programs; and education and workforce development. This set of courses allowed students across modalities and programs to interact and learn from each other, including the PhD students for several of the courses (such as Pedagogy: The Art and Science of Teaching). This model created efficiencies in teaching as well as an experience for student cohorts across doctoral degrees and programs.
Continued transformation of the three MPH Public Health Core (PCOR) courses. In Spring 2018, SPH received feedback and recommendations from our educational design consultant, Higher Learning Partners. During the 2018-19 academic year, the faculty continued to refine the student experience through the following elements:
- in-depth orientation of the structure of PCOR and tips for student success,
- enhanced video instruction,
- skill development for team success,
- relevant Service Learning project,
- rubrics for grading and assessment, and
- re-organization of the content into five-week blocks with quizzes, an Integrated Project and assessment of assigned learning outcomes at the conclusion.
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