2023 Education Highlights

It has been another great year for IHAC’s educational programs or IHACPro! Our educational opportunities exist to provide education and training in human-animal-environment interactions for professionals working in various human service fields with a strong emphasis on ethics and animal well-being. Since starting with our initial certificate, Animals and Human Health, in 2005, our vast alumni network now includes over 1000 graduates from 30 countries and 6 continents across our programs.

As part of our professional development suite, we currently offer four certificates: Animals and Human Health (AHH), Canine-Assisted Intervention Specialist (CAIS), Equine-Assisted Mental Health Practitioner (EAMH), and Humane Education Practitioner (CHEP).

We also offer one self-paced course called Orientation to Human-Animal Interactions, and we just rolled out our new instructor-led Equine Behavior course offered for the first time this fall. This new course is focused on understanding the behavior and cognition (mental capacities and learning) of horses within the context of how to care for, handle, and train horses using best available scientific information. This course is offered twice a year, with the next offering starting in January.

In 2023, across our certificates and courses, we worked with a total of 169 students in 15 cohorts. This includes 75 students who completed their programs in 2023, and many more who are set to graduate in 2024. We were also able to provide $4,975 in scholarship funding for students to participate in our certificates. In 2024, we would love to triple this amount! If you are interested in donating to our scholarship fund to help students who would otherwise be unable to complete our programs, you can donate directly through our scholarship fund, or purchase IHAC merchandise from our store (all proceeds go to our scholarship fund).

A map view illustrating IHAC's global student network.

Another IHACPro focus in 2023 was ensuring that our programs have the most up-to-date curriculum available. With this goal, our education curriculum specialist (hired in 2022) and adjunct faculty concentrated on updates to both our AHH and CAIS certificates. Updates to the AHH curriculum included content lectures from 21 individuals working in the field, including IHAC staff and faculty, IHAC alumni, and community partners. Thank you to all who contributed and to the IHAC staff for ensuring our curriculum stays innovative and up to date!

We are very excited for new offerings and programs in 2024. A huge thank you to all our students, alumni, instructors, and staff for supporting IHACPro! Please reach out if you are considering one of our professional development certificates or courses and we hope to see you in 2024!