{"id":156435,"date":"2019-11-14T09:18:14","date_gmt":"2019-11-14T14:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?post_type=school-college-post&p=156435"},"modified":"2019-11-14T09:21:10","modified_gmt":"2019-11-14T14:21:10","slug":"human-development-family-sciences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2019\/11\/human-development-family-sciences\/","title":{"rendered":"The Science of Families and Human Development"},"content":{"rendered":"

UConn students can now declare a major or minor in human development and family sciences<\/a> (HDFS) in the Department<\/a> of the same name.<\/p>\n

Formerly human development and family studies, the Department\u2019s new name more accurately represents the rigorous research involved in the curriculum, according to Eva Lefkowitz, professor and head of human development and family sciences.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people hear \u2018family studies,\u2019 they think that we\u2019re all working one-on-one with families as clinicians,\u201d she says. \u201cSome of our faculty do this, but more broadly, we study the healthy development and wellbeing of individuals and families over the lifespan, processes within families, and societal and cultural contexts that impact individuals and families.\u201d<\/p>\n

The name change also helps better reflect the Department\u2019s increasing focus on applied research and translational sciences\u2014or science that has applications in the real world\u2014according to Lefkowitz.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have people using advanced statistical analyses and collecting longitudinal data or doing really intensive qualitative research to understand family processes,\u201d she says. \u201cThese studies are not just about understanding families or individuals in context, but how the science informs intervention, prevention, and policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lefkowitz says that the new name will help undergraduate students in particular, who can complete the HDFS major and minor on four out of the University\u2019s five campuses.<\/p>\n

\u201cStudents have a vision of what science is, and it tends to be labs and people in white coats,\u201d says Kari Adamsons, associate professor of human development and family sciences and associate head of undergraduate studies. \u201cWe want to expand the diversity of what science looks like to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lisa Famularo, a career consultant for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in the Center for Career Development, says that the name brings attention to the quantitative elements of the major.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile students in HDFS have always been required to take math and science courses, the name of the major didn\u2019t necessarily reflect that,\u201d she says. \u201cBecause of this, students in the major had to specifically outline their quantitative know-how to employers in order to show that they could be successful in jobs that rely on those skills.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many recent UConn HDFS graduates go into a variety of professional fields and work with populations across the lifespan, from infants to the elderly, according to Adamsons. Many also carry on to graduate programs in social work, education, counseling, law, and medicine.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing a shift, particularly in the medical field, about the importance of studying families and the social science of those relationships,\u201d says Adamsons.<\/p>\n

Other departments around the country have made similar name changes in the past few years, including at The Ohio State University, University of Texas, University of Delaware, and University of Kentucky, according to Lefkowitz.<\/p>\n

The name change matches this national trend and adds to what Lefkowitz perceives as the Department\u2019s many competitive advantages.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the strengths of our program is that, even though we\u2019re located in rural Connecticut, we have a lot of faculty who study diversity and culture\u2014both people who study diversity in the U.S., such as the wellbeing of children of immigrant parents or interracial families, as well as people who study children and families in cultures around the world,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Starting this academic year, students can declare a major or minor in human development and family sciences in the Department of the same name.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":156436,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2226],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[117],"class_list":["post-156435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clas"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 07:14:11","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/156436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156435"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=156435"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=156435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}