3 new academic programs that can change your future

Augustana will be offering three new academic programs: a film and new media major and minor, integrated health minor and disability minor. These options round out a list of over 90 areas of study you can choose from at Augustana College.

1. Film and new media major and minor 

You’ll leap into a program already grounded in success. Augustana’s current minor in entertainment and media draws more students each year, in fields from creative writing to accounting, multimedia journalism to pre-law. 

The Augustana advantage? You’ll have a rare resource right here on campus: an Emmy-nominated film studio! Fresh Films creates award-winning films, TV shows and documentaries while training future filmmakers in all aspects of filmmaking. Here you’ll combine hands-on experience with an ability to make connections among theatre, film, communication studies, business, graphic design, computer science and more.

And you’ll have at least one career-building internship, with Fresh Films or another high-impact media organization. Students have interned with Disney and Dreamworks, with Reese Witherspoon and Hello Sunshine production company, and in communications agencies around the region and elsewhere.

That’ll give you a career that’s wide open and expanding, whether you choose working for a film company or graduate school for directing, innovating public relations or designing a social media presence in your career of choice.

2. Integrated health minor 

The official title of the new minor is integrative medicine and the humanities. It’ll serve the large number of Augie undergraduates pursuing pre-professional degrees in health care fields. 

The minor integrates humanities content to nurture the ethical, emotional, spiritual and social skills necessary to prepare individuals to serve as effective, caring health practitioners after graduation, while also providing opportunities through a new internship program focused on ethics and community outreach at our hospital just down the road, UnityPoint Health.

These skill sets recognize the importance of diversity in patient and provider populations and nurture practical skills that foster genuine opportunities for greater equity and inclusion in health care.

During the past decade, health care practitioners have increasingly acknowledged the importance of emotional, social and spiritual well-being to overall health, and gravitated toward holistic approaches that treat the whole person. With this minor, you will have the technical and social skills to help fill that void in health care fields.

3. Disability minor  

This new minor will help you understand disability as an example of diversity, question and evaluate popular beliefs, and learn about systems and structures of oppression impacting the disability community.

In addition to health disparities, people with disabilities experience educational, social, political and religious barriers to participation. From fighting for free and appropriate public education to combating media representations that perpetuate harmful stereotypes, people with disabilities are constantly working for their civil and human rights. 

This struggle makes understanding the intersectionality of disabled people’s identities even more important for individuals working with diverse populations. In this minor, you will have the opportunity to think critically about how to change stereotypes and build a better society for people living with disability. 

Whether you choose one minor or two (and a lot of our students double major), these are all fabulous new opportunities to expand your future!