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Educated Citizen

Engage. Reflect. Grow.

More than classes, clinics, and credit hours, Nebraska Methodist College prepares you for what's next - in your career and in your life. Our goal as an institution is that graduates of NMC will be able to articulate and demonstrate growth in the following areas: as reflective individuals, as effective communicators, and as change agents in an increasingly educated citizenry.

An NMC graduate is an educated citizen who is a competent practitioner and engaged citizen who responds productively to the complex dynamics of the world and who utilizes a diversity of disciplines and perspectives.

Hear from Dr. Ginny Curley as she explains the premise of the Educated Citizen:

Educated Citizen

Student Porfolio Requirement

Initiated in 1998, the NMC portfolio is both an outcomes assessment measure and a documentation source for student personal, professional and academic development. Research indicates that we learn best when we are aware of how we learn. One goal of the NMC Portfolio is to develop students' skills of reflection and cognition. By exploring the significance of a particular experience, assignment, or interaction, students learn to be aware of the interconnections among topics and apply their learning to future situations.

All degree-seeking students at Nebraska Methodist College create portfolios that help them take charge of their personal and academic growth. The process builds skills in handling new and unexpected events and in interacting with people of varying backgrounds and experience.

As they practice reflection, students gain insight into relationships with friends, family, co-workers, faculty, and patients. Through their portfolios, students seek to understand and to communicate the value of their accomplishments.

A student portfolio holds samples of your work and experiences with a reflection page attached to each sample. The portfolio allows you to keep track of experiences from school, work, personal and civic opportunities that have been important to learning.

What Is Included in the Portfolio?

NMC has identified three Educated Citizen Goals that are addressed in the portfolios. For each goal, you will record your experiences on a cover sheet for future reference. You may also include the artifacts that sparked the reflection. Artifacts may include papers, assignments, newspaper clippings, book reviews or awards.

Portfolio Requirements

Bachelor's degree students - four sections (one for each year of study)
Associate degree students - two sections (one for each year of study)

Core Curriculum

Minimum requirements for the Core Curriculum are broken up into four categories: communications, humanities, social sciences and natural & applied sciences. Below is a list of all of the courses NMC offers to fulfill these requirements. Each program has specific requirements within these categories. Consult the program courses tab for more specific information.

A baccalaurette degree requires 48 credit hours and an associate degree requires 21 credit hours to complete the Educated Citizen Core Curriculum.

Communications (BS: 9 credit hours AS: 6 credit hours)

COM 101

ENGLISH COMPOSITION

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This course provides instruction and practice in writing, with emphasis on the recursive processes of generating, drafting, revising and editing. Students develop skills in producing and evaluating written communications in private and public contexts.

Credits: 3.0

COM 245

LANGUAGE & CULTURE IN HEALTHCARE: SIGN LANGUAGE

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Access to healthcare is greatly affected by one's command of language. Students in this course engage in the exploration of language and culture then apply these concepts to the healthcare environment through service-learning and community engagement. Students develop practical communication skills that enable effective cross-cultural work with health professionals and clients with backgrounds different from their own.

Credits: 3.0

COM 230

LANGUAGE & CULTURE IN HEALTH CARE: SPANISH

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Credits: 3.0

COM 320

HEALTHCARE COLLABORATION & LEADERSHIP

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This course applies leadership and management theories to the changing environment of healthcare. Students synthesize their knowledge of such topics as emotional intelligence, assertiveness, conflict management, gender dynamics, feedback delivery and systems theory in advanced writing and speaking projects. The NMC portfolio is integrated throughout this course.

Credits: 3.0
Prerequisites: Determined by major

Humanities (BS: 15 credit hours AS: 6 credit hours)

HUM 150

THE WORLD OF IDEAS: CRITICAL REASONING AND RHETORIC

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There is a strong relationship between thinking clearly and expressing thoughts in formal writing and public speaking. Using the skills of logic and critical thinking, students will examine ideas, analyze and evaluate the arguments of others, and advocate for their own ideas. Students will be introduced to the NMC Portfolio process.

Credits: 3.0
Prerequisites: HUM 150 is to be taken in the first semester

HUM 210

INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS

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Introduction to Ethics introduces students to theories and practices of individual, communal and societal obligations. Moral inquiry in the course proceeds from a philosophical basis.

Credits: 3.0
Prerequisites: Determined by major

HUM 220

THE WORLD OF IDEAS: THE ARTS

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Students use artistic modes of inquiry to develop awareness of the diversity of human feeling and experience. Students use critical thinking as they respond orally and in writing to original artifacts of human expression, including works of art, fiction, poetry, drama, and music.

Credits: 3.0
Prerequisites: Determined by major

HUM 255

THE WORLD OF IDEAS: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

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Students critically analyze the impact of history on contemporary society. Historical methods of inquiry inform students' perspectives on societal and institutional development.

Credits: 3.0
Prerequisites: Determined by major

HUM 270

THE WORLD OF IDEAS: HUMAN CONNECTION-SPIRITUALITY

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Students use the modes of inquiry unique to philosophy, religion, ecology, and anthropology to develop sensitivity to life's interconnections. Selected fields of study provide unique lenses through which to study inner connections among mind, body, and spirit, as well as connections between oneself and a world of ideas, perspectives, and both living and non-living things.

Credits: 3.0
Prerequisites: Determined by major

Natural & Applied Sciences (BS: 9 credit hours AS: 6 credit hours deterimed by program)

Social Sciences (BS: 15 credit hours AS: 6 credit hours)

SSC 215

LIFE-SPAN PSYCHOLOGY

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Determined by major The Life-Span perspective involves several basic contentions: development is life-long, multidimensional, multi-directional, plastic, historically embedded, multi-disciplinary and contextual. Three imperative developmental issues are explored: maturation and experience, continuity and discontinuity and stability and change. Students study how humans develop and how they become who they are.

Credits: 3.0

SSC 235

THE SOCIOLOGY OF CULTURE

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This course explores the ways in which human beings make and remake the meaning of their social world through the production of culture. It employs sociological methods to explore the construction of the dominant, white subculture in the United States. The same methodologies are employed to examine the construction of subcultures in the United States, including those based on race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation.

Credits: 3.0

SSC 360

INTRODUCTION TO STATISTICS

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This course is designed to introduce students to the methods used in organizing, summarizing, analyzing and interpreting quantitative information. Emphasis is placed on the application of statistical methods and on the interpretation of statistically significant data. Specific techniques for measuring the degree of relationship between variables encountered in research are presented. The course is limited to research designs involving no more than two variables.

Credits: 3.0
Prerequisites: Determined by major

SSC 370

PRINCIPLES OF RESEARCH

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This course is designed to assist the student in developing an understanding of the research process in qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods designs. The student learns to selectively apply the steps of research and to critically analyze research studies culminating in formal, oral and written projects.

Credits: 3.0
Prerequisites: Determined by major

SSC 465

CAPSTONE: THE EDUCATED CITIZEN

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This course is based in the social sciences and is designed to assist students in the integration of their roles as healthcare professionals and educated citizens. The focus of the class is on deepening students’ understanding of and facility with social and political systems that impact the health and wellbeing of the community. Students demonstrate their preparation to act as educated citizens through the presentation of their portfolio within the context of this capstone course.

Credits: 3.0

Division of Arts & Sciences

All students seeking to complete an undergraduate degree at Nebraska Methodist College must complete a set of Arts & Sciences courses entitled "The Educated Citizen Core Curriculum." These are requirements that are asked of all students, regardless of program. Additionally, there are program-specific general education requirements identified within each professional program description.

Philosophy

The Division of Arts & Sciences embraces multiple ways of knowing and integrative approaches to the enduring and emerging challenges of our global society.

Mission

Arts & Sciences prepares students with transferable knowledge from communications, humanities, natural and applied sciences, and social sciences to actively engage as educated citizens and health professionals in our world.

Our faculty is highly experienced and credentialed in their own fields, giving you constant real-world insight you can use. While any instructor can recite from a textbook, ours go a step further and draw from vast personal experience. Instructors here care as deeply about their students as they do the subject matter and it shows.