WINTER PARK The assignment was simple: Think back to those hours stuck in the emergency waiting room or about the physician who put you at ease when you received treatment, Dr. Chet Evans told his Rollins College students.

The essay is part of a new class, as the private college is offering a health-care management bachelor's degree for the first time. Evans, a medical educator and surgeon, wanted his students to reflect on their past experiences as he trains them to be future hospital administrators or run a nursing home someday.

Rollins is following the national trend of more small liberal-arts schools offering degrees in the health industry, one expert said. By 2016, the Winter Park school expects to offer three masters-level health degrees as well.

"A lot of time people think liberal-arts education means religion and history and philosophy," said Georgia Nugent, a senior fellow on the Council of Independent Colleges.

Not so, she said, as many schools now teach about health care just as they added degrees in business and environmental studies in past years.

"What remains really crucial for a college like Rollins, you remain faithful to your core mission," Nugent said.

Rollins can do both be a liberal-arts school and offer professional training, said David Richard, the dean of the Hamilton Holt School, which runs the evening health classes.

"This is part of a bigger issue going on at Rollins. What does a 21st-century liberal arts institution look like?" Richard said.

Rollins professors are supportive but asked questions to understand the rationale behind the changes, said faculty president James McLaughlin.

"I think the reactions would be what you expect from a small liberal-arts school," Richard said.

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Rollins expands to add health-care degrees