Department Overview

We hope that you will find this portal of information useful and that it will bring you closer to working and studying with us. This site is our public face, our first introduction, where we hope to provide you with information about who we are, what we do and how we can help you in your goal to study gerontology. Our ultimate goal is to promote the study of aging, to convey the importance of the profession we represent, and the commitment we hold to educating the finest gerontology students in the nation.

We refer to ourselves as the small but mighty department, primarily because we are the smallest department at San Diego State University, but despite this, we have a significant impact on our students, our local community, and the national and international forum. Faculty is proud of our outstanding research, our community activities, and our teaching excellence. Our instructors are the highest rated by students at San Diego State University.

Our offices are housed in Hepner Hall, only befitting the Gerontology Department that this is the oldest building on campus and the most attractive. Through the Department, we also administer the Center on Aging, the International Institute for Health and Human Services Development, and the Center for Injury Prevention and Research.

Again, welcome and warmest regards. We hope that from these pages you learn about us and that you will want to explore further the discipline of gerontology so that, as Robert Browning said, "Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life for which the first was made."

Mario D. Garrett, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair, Department of Gerontology

• What is a Gerontologist?
  
• Official Department Brochure (.pdf, 290 kb)