F&M Certificates
What Is a Certificate?
Certificates are supplemental educational pathways you can pursue at F&M. Certificates
are not tied to your major or minor, but are credentials you can add to your resume
to demonstrate a specialized level of training and education in a particular area.
There are several certificates available at F&M, each one an incubator of innovation
exploring a new field of study that uniquely blends perspectives from multiple disciplines.
To complete a certificate, you must fulfill specific, for-credit activities (such
as courses or internships), similar to your major and minor course requirements.
Animal Husbandry & Primate Training Certificate
“The certificate program provides students with an experiential component that builds
on the foundational knowledge we gain from our classes.”
— Shoshana Frank '24
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Certificates Available
Animal Husbandry & Primate Training
This certificate develops your abilities to care for animals professionally as well as to reflect on your experiences as an element of humans’ relationships with the natural world. You will learn fundamentals of behavior and conditioning in the classroom, engage in hands-on animal care and primate training, and have the opportunity to view your work in a broader ethical, cultural, and social context. You will demonstrate your expertise by creating specific enrichment and training plans.
Arts for Social Change
This certificate will help you deepen your understanding of the arts as mediums for impacting culture, community, politics, education, and more. Arts for Social Change spans F&M’s dynamic arts disciplines, uniting the ethos of community-building with artistic practice that foregrounds innovation and action.
Diversity and Equality in Education
Pairing philosophy and sociology, this certificate builds a multifaceted foundation in the study of education. You will philosophically investigate important civic issues while using a sociological lens to analyze the structure and dynamics of educational systems. Hands-on experiences are an important aspect of this certificate. Through a for-credit internship, you will work with students in Lancaster County schools, experiencing firsthand the lived effects of socially patterned inequalities while exploring educational principles regarding learning and equality.
Forced Migration
Health Humanities
Health humanities is a growing field at the intersection of humanistic scholarship and health professions. This certificate blends rich perspectives from several academic fields to explore questions of health (including mental health and public health), illness, medicine, and disability. You’ll study broader questions of health from three key perspectives: historical, ethical, and literary/cultural.
Language and Communication
Combining linguistics and philosophy, you will explore foundational questions about linguistic structure, meaning, and communication. You will investigate the cognitive dimensions of language, the social-political dimensions of language, and how the study of language connects to philosophical questions concerning the nature of truth, logic and knowledge.
Legal Studies
This certificate enables you to engage and evaluate legal discourse and argument as informed citizens. You will build a foundational understanding of the legal field through a blend of government; business, organizations and society; American studies; economics; English; and philosophy. Drawing upon exploration of legal doctrines, reasoning, and policies in both public and private law, you will critically examine legal controversies from literary, economic, philosophic, and cultural perspectives. In addition to your coursework, you will gain hands-on experience with a legal internship or by participating in F&M’s Mock Trial Program.
Social Entrepreneurship
Are you interested in having a positive impact on the world around you? Social entrepreneurship leverages best practices in innovation, social change, and startups to address the social issues that matter most to you. Through this certificate, you will learn how to become aware, recognize, and think critically about societal problems and needs in the world around you; develop your entrepreneurial mindsets and techniques to create solutions that are sustainable over time; and apply what you learn in a hands-on project.
Social Justice
This certificate synthesizes critical perspectives on the social systems and structures through which dynamics of power and inequality are created, maintained, contested, and transformed. At the intersections of race, gender, socioeconomic class, and sexuality, you will have the opportunity to meaningfully engage with historical and contemporary issues germane to struggles for equity and justice between and across social identity groups.
Sustainability Planning
Sustainability planning is an increasing need in the marketplace. This certificate provides the glue that bonds earth and environment and business, organizations and society to prepare students interested in careers in sustainable practices. The courses in this certificate provide opportunities for you to acquire skills in on-the-ground communication; policy analysis; research methods; risk assessment; sustainability metrics, tracking, and reporting; sustainability philosophies and techniques; and more. Applying what you’ve learned in the field, you are also encouraged to pursue hands-on experiences through internships or independent research projects.
Legal Studies Certificate
“I love that this certificate allows me to take classes that are completely outside the scope of my major.”
"The Legal Studies Certificate involves classes within many majors such as business, organizations and society; government; American studies; philosophy; and English."— Morgan Hovan '24
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Embrace the Ampersand
The ampersand in the middle of our College’s name symbolizes the rich space of possibility that awaits you here. Meaning “both/and,” the ampersand is the purpose — and the power — of the liberal arts: recognizing and forming connections between things that at first glance don't seem to go together.
Explore the liberal arts at F&M »