Graduate Course Descriptions

This course focuses on retirement savings and income planning for individuals and businesses. Topics include retirement needs analysis, Social Security and Medicare, types of retirement plans, qualified plan rules and options, key factors affecting plan selection for businesses, distribution rules and strategies, and business succession planning.

This course discusses the characteristics, uses, and taxation of investment vehicles. Also addressed are the types of investment risk, calculating investment returns, asset allocation and portfolio diversifications, and portfolio development and investment strategies.

This course provides an overview of the gift and estate tax system and basic estate planning strategies. Topics include characteristics of property titling and strategies to transfer property, critical estate planning documents, gift and estate tax calculations, sources for estate liquidity, types and features of trusts, and estate planning for nontraditional relationships.

This capstone course applies the knowledge gleaned during the program in areas of risk, tax, retirement, investment, and estate financial planning through the use of case study analysis.

This course provides an overview of the financial planning process, including the role and responsibilities of a financial planner and the analytical tools required for effective decision making. Topics include professional conduct and ethics, regulatory issues, economic concepts, time-value-of money, debt management, and education planning.

This course provides opportunities for students to understand and appreciate the developmental experiences of all people across the lifespan. This course includes: development theories related to the human growth process, and salient biological and environmental factors which affect the process of human growth and development.

This course is designed to examine comprehensive methodological approaches to qualitative and quantitative research. Rudiments of basic research process, skills in evaluating the research outcomes as valid, reliable and useful and the application of this knowledge and skill in the creation of a simulated study are included. (Prerequisite: statistics course). Students who receive a grade of B- or below in Methods of Research at the master’s level will be required to repeat the course.

This course is a study of the meaning of interpersonal relationships, focusing on key concepts; raising the level of one’s self-awareness, and developing a basic framework for understanding person-to-person and group interactions.

This course focuses on human development as a lifelong process of interaction between the individual and the environment within particular contexts with objectives to study and appreciate one’s own and others’ adult developmental process. Seminal adult development scholars and their theories art presented and discussed. Cognition, emotions, and values are seen as influencing behavior and the role people play in their own development.

This course focuses on the processes of research in healthcare professions and evidence-based practice. The historical, scientific, and theoretical context of healthcare research is examined. Ethical issues involved in the conduction of research are explored. The use of scientific evidence to improve healthcare practice and patient outcomes is emphasized.