Students to Benefit from Field Experience
While Serving Local Community

Columbia College is launching a new undergraduate program in Public Health Advocacy to begin Fall Semester 2010. Designed collaboratively with Eau Claire Cooperative Health Centers (ECCHC), the program will prepare students interested in medical school, physicians’ assistants programs, graduate studies in public health, and other allied health fields with an understanding of the needs and dynamics of public health. Importantly, the entire program is designed to embed a 4-year service-learning component in public health care delivery, to challenge students’ moral and character development, and enhance their disposition for life-long service-learning. ECCHC is a community health organization working with uninsured and under-served populations to address community needs in the Eau Claire community located in North Columbia.

Reflecting Columbia College’s emphasis on the 4Cs of Leadership (Courage, Commitment, Confidence, and Competence) the program is designed to continually challenge students’ critical thinking skills, their leadership skills and the relationship between their sense of civic engagement and their moral and character development. Students will also be continually challenged to examine how classroom learning is translated into participatory service-learning. The service-learning component is designed so that students will rotate through different public health delivery settings, growing in complexity and responsibility throughout the program, and receive training to perform public health care delivery support.

“Our partnership with ECCHC is win-win for everyone, and allows Columbia College to offer a ground-breaking program that could easily become a national model.” said Dr. Ned Laff, Director for General Education and Director for Service Learning at Columbia College. “Through the program, undergraduate students will be continually mentored. They will be challenged continually to examine the relationship among their personal commitments, their vocational calling, and educational choices. They will also be challenged to examine and explore their sense of leadership through the opportunities that service-learning provides,” added Laff.

In Year 1, each course will incorporate service-learning developed in cooperation with ECCHC to introduce students to the critical dynamics of public health delivery. In Year 2, the students will examine “justice as fairness,” distributive justices and equity, and the problems of health care delivery. In Year 3 students will begin to opt for their focus area in public health delivery support through service-learning. These areas will include among others patient management, patient intake, public health ombudsperson support (a bi-lingual service), chronic disease management, teen sexuality and pregnancy. In Year 4, students will strengthen and refine their public health delivery provider skills, assume leadership roles of co-overseeing first- and second-year students entering the program, assist third years as they engage in their area of public health delivery support, and more.

Applications are being accepted now by Columbia College’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions. Apply online or call 803.786.3871 for more information.


The Eau Claire Cooperative Health Centers, Inc. (ECCHC) is a federally qualified, community-based comprehensive medical safety net that provides access to primary healthcare services for a traditionally underserved population. The Centers provide access to quality primary care and are a "medical home" to many, especially those with children in nearby medically underserved areas of Columbia and the Midlands. The Centers are a private, non-profit corporation. They are supported through revenue from patient services and gifts from many individuals, churches, civic groups, corporations, and foundations.