Gerontology

Courses
Course Code and Number, Course Title, Credit(s)

GERO 672/POLI 672/SOCY 672 Issues in Aging Policy (3)
This is an upper-level undergraduate or introductory graduate course on issues in aging policy.  Its purpose is to provide an overview of the salient issues in aging policy and provide the student with a context for understanding the public policy process.  The course will provide basic information and knowledge which will be useful to the student in more advanced policy-related studies in aging and health.

GERO 681/PREV 681 Epidemiology of Aging (3)
This core course covers applications of the principle and methods of epidemiology and preventive medicine to the study of aging.  There is a review of health assessment techniques that are potentially useful for conducting epidemiological studies of older people; the epidemiology of selected disease common to old age; primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention, as applied to older people, focusing on psychosocial and environmental aspects of health; differing ideas of long-term care, and their roles in the prevention, intervention, and treatment of illness in older people. Students learn how to critically evaluate and present research in a specific area of gerontological epidemiology with faculty supervision.

GERO 700 Sociocultural Gerontology (3)
A required advanced interdisciplinary seminar addressing the fundamental concepts, theories, and interests of social scientific inquiry on aging and the aged.  Topics include: social demographic aspects of aging in the United States and elsewhere; the cultural contexts of age as a basis for social status, stratification, and social organization; societal change and aging; the history and development of social scientific theory and methodology in gerontology.

GERO 703 Policy Analysis of Aging Issues (3)
This required core course will help students understand how and why aging policies reflect the political system in which they are enacted and implemented.  Further, students will learn how research can inform and possibly transform the policy process.

GERO 711 Biology of Aging (3)
This course provides opportunities to learn about several aspects of biological aging. They include what it is; how it happens; what effects it has on the structure and operations of the human body; how it affects social, psychological and other aspects of life; how it is related to diseases; and what can or cannot be done about it.

GERO 742 Economic Issues in Aging (3)
The main objective of this course is to provide students with the basic tools necessary to understand, critique, and evaluate alternatives to issues in aging that have economics implications. The course is divided into four main sections.  The first part of the course familiarizes students with tools used in micro-economic analysis.  The section will also provide students with necessary computer related activities to obtain and process data for economic/policy analysis.  The second part of the course will focus on understanding issues at the macro level.  Accordingly, this part will address the nature and magnitude of current issues, implications of these issues for the future, and issues that need to be addressed to increase income and health security in old age.  The third part of the course will examine the circumstances under which current programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other related Welfare programs that address economic and health security in old age were implemented, their performance under current circumstances, and issues related to their continuation.  The final part of the course is designed to view issues discussed in prior units through an aging or life-course perspective that emphasizes the impact of events and issues in younger ages on income and health security in old age.

GERO 750 Gerontology Theory/Methods Seminar I (3)
The first of a two-semester sequence integrating theory and methods in gerontology.  The course provides students with the information and skills to think like a gerontologist, utilizing both theory and methods unique to the field and understanding the language and techniques utilized by a wide range of gerontological researchers.  Key to these understandings is making connections between style and techniques of research and theorizing in varied disciplines, application of critical thinking skills, and being able to bridge both linguistic and paradigmatic barriers in an interdisciplinary field.  Students completing this sequence will be able to approach problems from an interdisciplinary perspective, “speak the language” of gerontology across disciplinary barriers of jargon, employ the work of contributing disciplines in their own research, and work as part of an interdisciplinary research team.

GERO 751 Gerontology Theory/Methods Seminar II (3)
The second of a two-semester sequence integrating theory and methods in gerontology.  The course provides students with the information and skills to think like a gerontologist, utilizing both theory and methods unique to the field and understanding the language and techniques utilized by a wide range of gerontological researchers.  Key to these understandings is reading, evaluating and understanding the connections between research questions, theory and appropriate methods of research.  Application of critical thinking skills, and being able to bridge both linguistic and methodological variation in an interdisciplinary field are emphasized.  Students completing this sequence will be able to employ the work of contributing disciplines in their own research, produce a “real world” proposal for research and work as part of an interdisciplinary research team.

GERO/PSYC 786 Psychological Aspects of Aging (3)
A core course that examines psychological and biological changes associated with aging.  The topics of the course include theories of aging, research methods in aging, learning, memory, intelligence and problem-solving, personality, stress and coping and illness.  Emphasis is placed on the contribution of longitudinal studies to understanding the individual aging process.

GERO 801 Independent Study in Gerontology (1-3)
The student selects a topic of professional interest and studies with a graduate faculty member who is competent in that field.

GERO 899 Doctoral Dissertation Research (1-12)

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