Dec 07, 2024  
2024-2025 Edgewood College Catalog 
    
2024-2025 Edgewood College Catalog

Thanatology, Death Education Graduate Certificate


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This certificate is designed for individuals working in healthcare, grief support, organ/tissue procurement, funeral service, counseling, clergy/chaplains, volunteers (within, for example, hospice, hospital, funeral home, faith community, senior center, or family grief center) who recognize the need for organizational or community education about death, dying, grief and loss. Also appropriate for K-12 and educators in Higher Education who want to incorporate death and dying into their curricula but are not sure how to go about it, or need better content understanding.

Learning Objectives:

  • Discern, reflect upon, and evaluate student’s own relationship with death and grief, both as an individual and a member of society
  • Examine best practices in end-of-life care and grief support
  • Develop a course in an area of expertise that meets the individual learning needs of a diverse student population

Program Requirements


All certificates are 12 credits, and all require THN600: Introduction to Thanatology or its equivalent (after consultation with the program director, this course might be waived). THN600 need be taken only once and can be applied to subsequent certificates, or students may choose a fourth course in its stead.

Flexibility is important. Students can petition with the program director to adjust the electives that are part of each certificate, in case they have a specific educational need within the program and certificate. For example, for Suicidology and Postvention, they may not work with children and teens. Instead, they may prefer to take both THN707: Suicide and Children, Teens, and Young Adults and THN708: Traumatology OR THN710: Complicated Grief, instead of THN707: Suicide in the Lives of Children and Teens.

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