Bachelor of Science in Data Science

at Northern Arizona University - Flagstaff Campus USA

The Northern Arizona University Dental Hygiene Department offers the only Bachelor’s Degree in Dental Hygiene in the State of Arizona. With a national reputation for educating dental hygiene professionals since its inception in 1973, the program offers a high-quality education. Students complete two years of prerequisite didactic instruction in preparatory areas such as human anatomy and physiology, chemistry, microbiology, nutrition, human behavior and statistics and then apply to the program. Once students enter the program, a strong emphasis is placed on gaining extensive clinical experience.  Regular clinic rotations require students to provide dental hygiene care at the NAU Dental Hygiene Clinic, the Hopi Health Care Facility, the Yavapai Apache Dental Clinic, Flagstaff Medical Center, and at North Country Healthcare. Faculty connect these field experiences to coursework, so students actively apply their knowledge of Oral Pathology, Oral Medicine, Pharmacology and Periodontics to their work with patients in the clinic.  In addition to regular clinical rotations, students must complete a minimum two-week summer externship in a dental public health facility serving American Indian, military, or underserved populations throughout Arizona, in selected sites outside Arizona,  or Internationally. Graduates are prepared to practice in diverse settings with special emphasis on rural communities and other underserved populations through a curriculum centered in public health. Their capstone project requires the origination of a public health project that requires exhaustive assessment and planning. Projects are then implemented and outcomes are evaluated in a final written report.  This public health emphasis specifically prepares graduates to write grant proposals and serve in public health administrative roles. The future of dentistry is moving towards the development of a dental therapist; a new Masters prepared dental midlevel provider. Students graduating from NAU’s Bachelor of Science in Dental Hygiene are optimally poised to enter advanced dental therapy programs, work in independent practice, and/or work in affiliated practice.

Suzuki Pedagogy (Violin) Emphasis
Students develop skills in the Suzuki Pedagogy method that will prepare them for careers as Suzuki violin teachers or for further study of the Suzuki method.

• Articulate and utilize Suzuki philosophy and concepts while teaching individual students and groups of students.
• Demonstrate teaching skills and mastery of repertoire appropriate to beginning, intermediate, and advanced students.
• Perform the Suzuki repertoire at a professional level.
• Demonstrate knowledge of child development, parent education, and parent engagement in the learning process.
• Identify appropriate repertoire for public performance and skill development for use with students with varying skills levels.

The Environmental and Sustainability Studies program at NAU constructs an interdisciplinary base of knowledge and skills that integrates humanistic disciplines and perspectives with natural and social scientific approaches to develop real-world solutions to our environmental and sustainability challenges, from the local to the global.

Our BS degree program begins with a firm grounding in natural systems, to ensure all students understand how physical and biological processes maintain life, and how humans are affecting, and are affected by, the natural world. In addition to the natural sciences, students will also obtain a solid understanding of the environment through focusing on the social sciences and humanities in order to develop a critical appreciation of the historical, political, economic and ethical forces that have shaped our current environmental issues. This will prepare students for work in non-profit, government and community-action organizations.

Students will work together in field and lab environments to apply rigorous qualitative and quantitative methods to environmental and sustainability issues, exploring interdisciplinary impacts and solutions that range across space and time. Interdisciplinary experience is centered around focus areas or specific environmental problems, rather than disciplines. This structure produces students well-trained in both the fundamentals of multiple disciplines as well as specific knowledge needed to understand, analyze and become engaged in particular issues and professions. Additionally for the BA degree, students will attain foreign language competency and experience with cross-cultural communication to better understand the impact of environmental issues on global communities.

The mission of the Master of Arts in Sustainable Communities is to provide interdisciplinary face-to-face graduate education on the complex issues of sustainability and social justice, encouraging students to pursue important social and environmental issues concurrently. The program seeks to educate students as critical thinkers for community leadership and to enable its graduates to contribute to the well-being of communities. At the same time, the program aims to push students intellectually, looking to produce thoughtful and critical graduates who can think theoretically. The curriculum is student-centered; students bring their intellectual, ethical, and practical concerns to bear on their particular academic inquiry. These skills are sharpened in collective collaborations between students and different communities through praxis.

Society’s demand for essentials such as clean air, food and water, sustainable land use and consumer products pose large-scale, practical problems.  Environmental engineers use engineering, biological and chemical principles to design and operate pollution control and impact mitigation systems.  Environmental engineering is a newer engineering discipline, growing out of civil and chemical engineering.  This exciting engineering field requires a solid understanding of core concepts including mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, statics, thermodynamics, surveying, and fluid hydraulics.  These courses serve as a basis for advanced content in:

• Air quality, emissions and pollution control (sampling, modeling and the design of devices to remove particulate and gaseous pollutants)
• Water and wastewater quality and treatment (sampling, modeling and the design of biological/chemical/physical treatment methods for large and small communities)
• Hazardous and solid waste engineering (site assessment, risk assessment, remediation methods, landfill design)
• Environmental health (toxicology, industrial hygiene, ecological impacts)

In addition to this content, our environmental engineering curriculum will provide you with a solid foundation in design, project management and preparation for professional licensure.

The Bachelor of Arts in English prepares graduates for any future that demands proficiency in literature, language, and writing, as well as general excellence in resourceful, well-informed communication. Our graduates recognize the close weave of logical thought and effective expression, strive for more persuasive or more creative uses of English, possess the sense and insight to appreciate the value and quality of literature, have developed their historical and cultural imaginations by studying the marks of other times and diverse peoples in language and text, and recognize the global contexts of English as well as the social, civic, and environmental responsibilities that come with a liberal education. Our graduates have attained the high-level literacy skills and have practiced the research methods needed to compete in graduate and professional schools and to succeed in the workplace. With our help, they have prepared themselves to become productive, responsible members of the communities in which they live and work.

The Linguistics emphasis introduces students to the scientific/analytic study of language, including such topics as how language is constructed, and acquired, and processed and how language use is affected by social and cultural factors, context, and goals of communication.

The Environmental Science program at NAU constructs an interdisciplinary base of knowledge and skills to explore and develop real-world solutions to environmental problems.

Our program provides a firm grounding in the natural and social sciences to ensure all students understand how chemical, physical and biological processes maintain life, and the complex relationships among humans and the environment. Students work together and individually in the classroom, field and laboratory to practice applying the scientific method to address environmental problems and explore creative solutions that apply cutting-edge technologies.

The broad range of emphases available within our program allows students to delve deeper into a specific knowledge base, then work individually and often together in Environmental Science courses to solve problems by applying the perspectives and knowledge they developed in their emphasis with students from other emphasis areas. To culminate the learning in the program, students develop an individually designed research project or internship addressing an environmental issue of importance to them, which in turn, is expected to further prepare students for a range of professional or graduate opportunities.

Environmental Management

• Explore the basic principles of conservation of biological diversity and ecology, multicultural perspectives on environmental management, adaptive management, and the implementation of environmental regulations and through collaborations with those of other disciplines and viewpoints, apply this information to generate sustainable solutions to environmental problems.

In the Personalized Learning Liberal Arts program, students will explore ideas from many different areas of study, including sociology, philosophy, psychology, history, literature, and the arts.  The coursework for this program provides an opportunity to explore ideas from many different angles and perspectives.  The mission of a Liberal Arts education is to broaden the mind, encouraging students to think critically and creatively, and to make informed decisions on a wide variety of topics.
 
The skills students learn in the Liberal Arts degree prepare them for further study in a graduate program or to work in any workplace.  The ability to write effectively, to communicate clearly, and to think analytically will serve students well in any field.  Students will also practice problem solving and the application of ideas in new and different ways. This program provides the opportunity to explore the interrelationship of concepts and ideas from varying disciplinary subjects.
 
The bachelor of science degree takes students beyond their major coursework to also explore more closely the science of the world around them.  Students will learn about water management and green technologies, as well as astronomy and the intersection of science, technology, and religion.

The Bachelor of Arts in Modern Languages provides students with a socio-cultural and historical background as well as linguistic abilities to engage with French, German, Japanese, and Spanish speaking populations from around the world in a variety of social and cultural contexts. Through linguistic, literary and cultural approaches to the study of the French, German, Japanese, and Spanish language, our students develop speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills that allow them to understand and interact effectively with diverse cultures. Throughout this process the students develop cognitive skills in critical thinking and analysis and recognize the importance of being able to function in a global society. With their linguistic abilities in French, German, Japanese, and Spanish, they are better able to compete for career opportunities in the domestic and global job markets and are prepared to become productive, responsible members of the local, national and international communities in which they live and work.

Emphasis in German

• Create with language to express meanings orally on concrete topics relating to work, school, home, and leisure activities using all major time frames (present, past, and future). They can interact with native speakers unaccustomed to dealing with non-natives, and handle complicated or unexpected communicative tasks. (Speaking skills)
• Identify and use main ideas and details from connected aural discourse involving description and narration in different timeframes or aspects, and about a variety of topics beyond immediacy of the situation for communicative purposes. (Listening skills)
• Identify and use main ideas and details from authentic, connected, longer, written texts involving description and narration in different formats about a variety of topics for communicative purposes. (Reading skills)
• Create with language to express meanings in written form about familiar topics using the major timeframes with some control of aspect. (Writing skills)
• Think critically and analytically in response to socio-cultural, historical, and linguistic issues and/or classic and contemporary literary texts related to the culture of the target language. (Critical thinking and analytical skills)
• Understand the cultural, political and artistic diversity of perspectives, practices and products of the target language populations including how racial and ethnic diversity relates to those perspectives, practices and products. (Globalization - Diversity)
• Recognize, investigate, and produce written and oral discourse in the target language communicating findings about historical and contemporary issues important to life in countries of the target language.
• Explore how historical, political, religious and economic forces have shaped the current world system with its power inequalities and efforts to address them with a focus on the culture of the target language. (Globalization – Global Engagement)
• Analyze the structure and use of the language at the sound, word, and sentence level.
• Summarize different linguistic features observed in different dialects in terms of historical change, geographical location and social variables.
• Explore and analyze the role of human interactions with the environment and its relation to the root causes of many global problems focusing on those occurring in the culture of the target language. (Globalization - Environmental Sustainability).

This bachelor of science degree in Strategic Communication offers a strong core of advertising, public relations, and communication courses, to engage students in a variety of professional communication environments. Students may pursue one of two emphases to allow deeper skill mastery in advertising or public relations.

Communication develop an understanding of communication theory and how messages are spread among groups of people. They apply analytical skills to the development and evaluation of communication plans. They also master practical skills needed for the implementation of those communication plans.

Upon graduation, students emphasizing one area of strategic communication will often find themselves working closely with other professionals focusing on skills in other areas of Strategic Communication. However, the emphasis areas tend to differentiate from each other in the following broad ways.

Public Relations focuses more on the use of earned and owned media for the development and maintenance of ongoing relationships with important publics. Courses tend to focus on understanding the dynamics of group communication and developing strategies for building strong relationships between organizations and important publics. Coursework tends to focus on writing and oral communication skills for digital and analog channels, as well as communication analysis skills necessary for planning and evaluating communication efforts.