Prepare to Be a Moral and Ethical Leader in Today’s Complex World

Learn to lead with integrity, communicate effectively, and build and maintain thriving organizations and communities with a Certificate in Leadership and Ethics from St. Edward’s.   

We live in a world in which organizational leaders constantly face ethical decision-making challenges. Designed with an interdisciplinary approach, the Certificate in Leadership and Ethics instills an understanding of why and how an ethical mindset is critical to being an effective leader.

In this certificate program, you’ll examine and evaluate theories, strategies and principles of ethical leadership that include leader-mentor relationships, motivation, teamwork, power, trust and negotiation. Coursework combines the analytical study of ethics with the communication skills required to be leaders in the modern workplace.

The Certificate in Leadership and Ethics can be earned while pursuing your undergraduate degree. This credential is a valuable, mission-driven addition to any major that enhances your appeal to employers.

Stand Out in the Tech Job Market with Skills in Coding 

Develop a valuable skill set that can be applied to numerous industries and job roles with a Certificate in Coding for Non-Coders from St. Edward’s.

Designed specifically for individuals without programming experience, the Certificate in Coding for Non-Coders provides a foundation in coding along with the technical vocabulary needed to communicate effectively with professionals in the tech fields. Through a sequence of three courses, you’ll develop logic, critical reasoning and other computer literacy skills,

This certificate will provide you with the basic knowledge of algorithms and scripting that enable you to program, giving you an edge in a wide variety of occupations, including digital product management, product marketing, sales development, research analysis, content management, corporate finance, and on digital journalism and content creation teams.

What will you learn?

After completing the coursework for certification, you’ll have this impressive credential to show future employers. You’ll graduate with:

• The ability to write your own programs, including basic computer games, using an easy-to-learn scripting language (Python).
• Experience with such topics as databases, client/server models, and using higher Python functions for data analysis, games and simple apps. 
• Experience with digital project planning, allowing you to apply your new coding skills by conceiving, developing, testing and deploying a game or mobile app.

Become a Bilingual and Bicultural Healthcare Professional

Promote health equity and boost your career with a Certificate in Advanced Spanish for the Health and Helping Professions.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), health equity is achieved “when every person has the opportunity to attain his or her full health potential and no one is disadvantaged from achieving this potential because of social position or other socially determined circumstances.”

Understanding that communication is one of the keys to advancing health equity in our society, St. Edward's created the Certificate in Advanced Spanish for the Health and Helping Professions to help meet the need in the healthcare sector for bilingual and bicultural professionals.

Program Benefits

This program allows you to earn certification while pursuing your undergraduate degree. You’ll leverage your skills as a bilingual speaker or advanced second-language learner of Spanish. And you’ll be prepared for health-related professions that require specific, technical vocabulary and cultural knowledge.

The methodology of this program will be grounded in an inquiry-based approach, employ best practices from translation studies, as well as refine your written and spoken Spanish. The certificate provides an experiential learning component (internship) in the area of your major.

The certificate is designed for students with advanced oral proficiency — Spanish/English bilinguals and second-language learners.

What will you learn?

The linguistic and cultural competencies addressed in the certificate will position you to become a leader in the health and helping professions as an advocate for the Latino/Latinx population in the United States. Learning outcomes include:

• Developing interpersonal communication skills in Spanish focused on in-person encounters and interviews in a clinical or medical setting.
• Demonstrating cultural knowledge of the Latinx sociocultural context through research and experiential learning.
• Applying the fundamentals of translation and interpretation necessary in healthcare settings.
• Refining and professionalizing oral presentational skills in Spanish in order to communicate in a caring and effective manner.

Inspire Individuals to Heed and Use Health Information

As a Health Communication minor, you’ll study audiences and their behaviors related to health practices to determine the format and frequency of messaging.

Students with an education in health communication can enter jobs in public relations, advertising, patient education, health administration, social media, healthcare policy and advocacy, community health, and other related fields.

Minor Requirements

Required Courses (6 hours required)

• Introduction to Health Communication – COMM 3308 
• COMM 4383 Applied Health Communication – COMM 3308 

Electives (12 hours required; at least 3 hours must be +3000)

• Interpersonal Communication – COMM 2312 
• Nonverbal Communication – COMM 2322  
•  Persuasion – COMM 2326
• Organizational Communication – COMM 2327 
• Active Listening – COMM 2357 
• Social Media for Public Relations – COMM 3309 
• Teams, Collaboration and Community – COMM 3339 
• Intercultural Communication – COMM 3344 
• Native American and Chican@x Communication – COMM 3345 
• Family Communication – COMM 3346 
• Sports Communication – COMM 3372 
• The Dark Side of Interpersonal Communication – COMM 3374 
• Public Relations for Nonprofit Organizations – COMM 4326 
• Internship (in Health Communication) – COMM 4350 
• Lying and Deception – COMM 4356 
• Special Topics in Health Communication – COMM 4390 
• General Psychology – PSYC 2301 
• Adolescent Psychology – PSYC 2307 
• Self and Society – SOCI 1301 
• Social Welfare: Historic Response to Need – SOCI 2318 
• Concepts of Physical Fitness and Wellness – KINE 2344 

Total Hours: 18

For more information about this minor and course descriptions, view and download the Undergraduate Bulletin (PDF).

Create a New Narrative for a Just and Sustainable Future

With a minor in Environmental Humanities, you’ll be prepared to help educate and bring to light the environmental injustices affecting vulnerable communities and populations due to climate change.

As the world grapples with the consequences of climate change and strives to protect natural habitats and resources, there is a need to deftly write and speak knowledgeably about nature and the environment.

A minor in Environmental Humanities allows you to investigate how cultural narratives, attitudes and perceptions, ethics, social structures, and art shape our language about nature and interactions with the environment. You’ll learn to apply methods and modes of analysis traditionally associated with the arts and humanities to explore, better understand and write about nature and the environment. 

The Environmental Humanities minor is open to St. Edward’s undergraduates of all disciplines and is based in the Department of English. Students may choose to couple this minor with related areas of study, such as Environmental Biology and Climate Change, or create other interdisciplinary opportunities with majors such as Philosophy, Religious Studies, Communication or Writing and Rhetoric in the School of Arts and Humanities.

What will you learn?

You’ll hone the creative, ethical and conceptual skills to develop a persuasive and engaging narrative for sustainability. Environmental agencies and nonprofits need clear, effective communicators to widen the reach of their programs. Government officials and NGOs need staffers with the skills and knowledge to produce clear, accurate and powerful content to explain the effects of climate change and the need to act quickly to arrest its dangers. It is difficult to imagine a field that is not already being affected by the realities of climate change.

Degree Requirements

In addition to the following 18 hours of minor requirements, students must satisfy all General Requirements for a Minor (page 49 of the Undergraduate Bulletin PDF) to be eligible to complete this minor.

Environmental Writing Required Course, 3 hours selected from:

• Special Creative Writing Workshop (when topic is Environmental Writing) – WRIT 2304
• Environmental Writing – WRIT 2316
• Topics in Intermediate Creative Writing (when topic is Environmental Writing) – WRIT 3310 

Moral Reasoning Required Course, 3 hours selected from:

• PHIL 3312 Environmental Ethics – WRIT 3310
• Topics in Social Justice and Critical Methodologies (when topic is Faith and Ecology) – RELS 2342 

Social Justice in Practice Required Course, 3 hours selected from:

• Social Movement Communication and Public Advocacy – COMM 3370
• Social and Environmental Corporate Communication – COMM 4382
• Theater for Social Change – THAR 2321
• Topics in Visual Studies (when topic is Art, Social Practice and Activism) – VISU 2399 

An additional 9 hours are selected from directed electives in visual arts, journalism, and literature or from the above areas of study. For current offerings and course descriptions, view and download the Undergraduate Bulletin (PDF).

For questions about the Environmental Humanities minor, contact your success coach or Sasha West, PhD, associate professor of Creative Writing, who coordinates the program: swest1@stedwards.edu. To declare the minor, fill out the “Student Curriculum Change Request” form on MyHilltop.

Our Faculty

At St. Edward’s, our faculty are outstanding scholars, thought leaders, teachers and mentors who bring energy and enthusiasm to our vibrant learning community. They take pride in getting to know you, helping you achieve your goals and celebrating your successes.

View a list of our faculty members and their contact information on the Department of English webpage.

Prepare for a Career at the Nexus of Design, Technology and Innovation

St. Edward’s is one of a handful of universities offering a bachelor’s degree in User Experience Design. Gain the creative, technical and communication skills to enter a career in this fast-growing industry. 

User experience design, often referred to as UX, seeks to understand how people search for information and interact with digital tools. With that understanding, UX professionals can design more intuitive, easy-to-use products — both digital products, like apps, websites and software, and other processes and systems. This ever-expanding field of technology and digital platforms provides great opportunities for UX designers to research, experiment and innovate.