By Brandon Fey, News Editor
Bloomberg terminals in the new finance lab. (Photo William Oehler/The Gettysburgian)
Gettysburg College has begun offering new academic programs in public health policy, finance and communication studies. Beginning this fall semester 2025, students have the option of pursuing curricula toward these majors. The finance and public health policy programs were approved by a faculty vote on Sept. 26, 2024, and the communication studies program was approved at a meeting the following March.
Public Health Policy
The public health policy major seeks to provide students with an interdisciplinary foundation in health science and public policy by integrating courses from the two departments. The program is co-chaired by professors Anne Douds and Amy Daily, of the departments of public policy and health sciences, respectively.
“In this new major, we cultivate critical thinkers to develop evidence-based responses to current and emerging public health policy challenges and consider public health through a social justice lens,” commented Douds.
The major consists of 14 courses, including an individualized “study-internship,” amounting to a Bachelor of Arts. Among these courses is the new cross-designated PP/PHP 222: Health Organizations and Policy offered during the fall 2025 semester, which professor Douds designed to connect students with a series of guest speakers working in positions within the public health field. Guest speakers so far have included the director of Healthy Adams County, the former director of communications at the New Jersey Department of Health and the vice president of Policy Research for the American Heart Association.
“The major gives students a real interdisciplinary home if they are interested in health but do not see themselves in a traditional health sciences track,” commented public health policy major Gavin Wilson ’27. “It pulls together policy, ethics, data and local community work in a way that exemplifies Gettysburg.”
In the upcoming spring 2026 semester, health sciences professor Megan Benka-Coker will teach HS/PHP 350 Exposure Assessment, another new course for the major. This aims to instruct students in the fundamentals of exposure assessment, including sources identification, measurement and assessment of exposures and the prevention of harmful exposures in the interests of public health.
Multiple courses required by the major are also available to complete through the College’s study abroad program in Bonn, Germany, which was introduced in the spring of 2025.
Professor Daily is confident in the major’s success based on its first semester so far.
“Student interest has been strong,” she said. “We’ve had a number of students eager to declare public health policy as their major. We’re looking forward to meeting with even more interested students next semester as they begin planning their coursework for next year.”
Finance
The finance major is intended to equip students with skills to succeed in professional financial analysis. It offers a 12-course Bachelor of Arts through the business track and a 16-course Bachelor of Science through the economics track. The program is co-chaired by professor Brendan Cushing-Daniels of economics and professor Patturaja Selvaraj of management.
About 30 students have declared finance majors as of the fall 2025 semester. First-year students are unable to declare a business track finance major until their sophomore year, and several senior students who are likely too late to pursue the new major have enrolled in courses within its curriculum.
The Bloomberg Lab’s stock ticker, visible around the Bullet Hole. (Photo William Oehler/The Gettysburgian)
The two tracks require a combination of math, economics and management courses, some of which were newly created to support the major. For the business track, this includes the new Financial Analysis, Modeling, and Forecasting course and Advanced Topics in Finance and Strategy, which counts as the capstone course for that track. Students pursuing the economics track will take the new Financial Econometrics course as a requirement, and will have the option of taking the new History of Finance as an elective. The finance and advanced finance courses previously listed under the ECON designator are being rebranded as ECON/MGT 267 Principles of Corporate Finance and ECON 367 Investments, both of which are components of the major.
To supplement the new major, the College has installed a 24/7 Bloomberg Terminal Lab on the second floor of the College Union Building above the Bullet Hole. The lab is equipped with machines with Bloomberg software that is universally used by professionals in the industry. The terminal allows students to learn Bloomberg Query Language for finance functions in Microsoft Excel, in addition to four self-paced online certification programs with the technology. This enables finance students to use real-time financial data for class assignments as opposed to synthetic data used for economics classes in previous years. The Bloomberg Lab is available for use by all members of the College community and is not exclusive to finance students.
“Finance students are enjoying the classes that they have taken in the field, where they are learning new and interesting things,” said professor Cushing-Daniels. “We have always had several dozen students who want to pursue finance coming out of Gettysburg College, and now the specialized major access to the Bloomberg technology will certainly be an asset.”
Communication Studies
The new communication studies program intends to foster skills in writing, media analysis, digital content creation and public speaking through a multidisciplinary curriculum that combines theory and practice. It includes a 10-course major with optional concentrations in public or digital communication, as well as a 6-course minor.
The communication studies curriculum involves classes across multiple disciplines, the majority of which are from the English and cinema & media studies departments. The major consists of three core courses — an introduction, methods and a senior capstone — three analysis courses and three praxis courses in written and audio communication, in addition to a full-credit practicum. These include new courses specific to the program, such as COMM 110 Introduction to Communication Studies, COMM 241 Media Advertising & Sales, COMM 221 Social Media Strategy and COMM 399 Practicum.
Communication studies is co-chaired by English professor Jack Ryan and Cinema & Media Studies professor Jack Udden.
The program seeks to engage students with experiential learning opportunities within coursework, as they are instructed to create podcasts, videos and social media content, while also writing articles with the option of pursuing publication in The Gettysburgian. Communication studies students will also have the opportunity to manage the College’s social media accounts and provide live coverage of events on campus.
This article originally appeared on pages 4 and 5 of the November 2025 edition of The Gettysburgian’s magazine.
