College of Health Sciences

Ronald De Vera Barredo, PT, D.P.T., Ed.D., Interim Dean

161 Clement Hall

(615) 963-5924

General Statement

The College of Health Sciences was established in 1974 as the School of Allied Health Professions. The mission of Tennessee State University’s College of Health Science is to promote academic quality and student success by “preparing tomorrow’s health leaders” through professional programs, interdisciplinary collaboration, clinical research, scholarly inquiry, evidence-based practice, and community service. Program offerings in the College include Respiratory Care, Dental Hygiene, Health Care Administration and Planning, Health Sciences, Health Information Management, Human Performance, and Sports Sciences, Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, Public Health, and Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology.

The Goals of the College of Health Sciences are:

1. To develop and implement educational programs designed to produce tomorrow’s health practitioners, educators, and leaders based on employment demands.
2. To recruit students interested in careers in the health field into programs offered in the College and to instill in students the basic principles of professionalism; to provide students with career counseling, academic advisement, and tutorial assistance all designed to assist them in achieving their career goals.
3. To identify, early, barriers for student success in order to achieve maximal levels of preparation required to produce a health career.
4. To maintain full accreditation by appropriate agencies for programs offered in the College.
5. To recruit and maintain faculty capable of making significant contributions to the basic and applied research efforts of the institution, College, and the world.
6. To encourage and promote the delivery of services to the community by sponsoring seminars, workshops, consultation, service learning projects and the delivery of health services when appropriate.

Values of the College of Health Sciences

We display interest in each other and in you; we maintain ethical practices and conduct all matters with integrity, courtesy and dependency; we embrace learning, working and service; and will carry out our responsibilities to you by being prepared to give our best.

Admission/Retention Requirements: The College of Health Sciences offers programs in seven undergraduate health-related fields and six graduate fields. (See Graduate Catalogue for information on master’s degree programs in Human Performance and Sports Sciences, Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Public Health and Speech and Hearing Science, and the doctorate in Physical Therapy.) Five of the seven undergraduate programs require completion of a pre-professional curriculum as a prerequisite for admission to the professional/clinical level of the program. Admission to a professional program is a competitive process separate from the University’s admissions process. Completion of the prerequisites for any health sciences program does not ensure acceptance into that program.

Admission and retention policies for each program are found under departmental headings.