Chapter 5
Academic Programs

 

Other Graduate Programs at SVSU

In addition to the various graduate and certification programs in the College of Education, SVSU offers five other graduate programs:

Master of Business Administration

This accredited program offered through the College of Business and Management promotes the development of potential executives for business, government, and other organizations, and creates and disseminates the knowledge necessary for students to become leaders in profit and non-profit organizations operating in a complex global economy.

To determine if it meets its goals, the MBA program uses the following measures:

These measures are used by the college’s Instructional Effectiveness Committee and College Graduate Program Committee to suggest changes and modifications to the curriculum or teaching methodology.

The College of Business and Management annually monitors faculty for graduate teaching assignments before submitting their applications to the Graduate Committee. To qualify, faculty must be approved by their departments and the college and have a Ph.D. in the appropriate subject that is less than five years old or two subject-appropriate refereed journal publications during the last five years. The college rarely uses adjuncts to teach graduate courses.

The College of Business and Management continually compares itself with peer institutions through a review of catalogs, websites and other information. It also surveys stakeholders, including students, alumni, individuals in the business community, university board members, faculty, and administration, regarding curriculum revisions. The new AACSB accreditation rules require the college to choose peer and aspirant peer institutions for the purpose of benchmarking and to serve on future reaffirmation committees. The college is currently selecting these schools.

The college conducts focus groups for MBA alumni and students on a two-year basis to obtain information for program change. Surveys of recent graduates by the Career Planning and Placement Office are also used in curriculum planning.

Master of Science in Nursing

This professionally accredited program in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences prepares registered professional nurses for leadership roles in advanced nursing practice. Within the program, students select one of two concentrations: one involving management, education and infomatics, or nurse practitioner and clinical nurse specialist. Both concentrations within the MSN program were developed to meet community and professional needs.

Needs are determined and the program monitored through a variety of methods: formal assessment prior to launching a program, program requests, trends in the profession, periodic evaluation surveys of alumni and employers, and regular queries from the Advisory Committee. This committee, comprised of faculty who teach in the program, is responsible for all policy and operational deliberation and decisions related to the MSN program, i.e., selection and admissions, curriculum development and oversight, and student issues. Decisions and issues then are brought before the appropriate department committees. Assessment data is regularly submitted to the national organization and a self-study report is prepared for re-accreditation; the college is currently conducting such a self-study for its re-accreditation.

Adjunct faculty are used in the MSN program on a limited, as-needed basis. Typically, the instructor is known (with credentials verified by resume) by the program coordinator, department chair, and dean. Approvals for adjunct faculty are given by the Graduate Committee.

Master of Arts in Communication and Multimedia

This interdisciplinary program, offered through the College of Arts and Behavioral Sciences, provides educational and professional development for people seeking advanced preparation in the theory, practice, and technology of contemporary organizational communication. The program offers graduate training for professionals in many fields where multimedia applications are desired, and draws on diverse specializations from several disciplines across the university.

The program supports the general mission of graduate education at SVSU by preparing student both practically (through learning multimedia design skills) and theoretically (through the study of organizational and intercultural communication and the impact of multimedia communications in contemporary human society) to work as managers and practitioners in multimedia communications positions.

The program curriculum falls broadly into two areas: multimedia production and technology, and communication theory; a few courses straddle the categories. The content of communication theory courses reflects the theoretical views current in this academic field, with emphasis on organizational processes and the impact of multimedia in human communication. The content of multimedia courses combines up-to-date technical skills relevant to workplace uses of multimedia with skill development in design and project management. The multimedia courses must be constantly sensitive to changes in community needs, because this is a rapidly-developing field where technical changes make more and more communicative power affordable for ordinary people and organizations.

Achievement of program goals and objectives is measured by required student capstone projects. Students create multimedia presentations which are technically current and demonstrate strong understanding of communication and design concepts, including assessment of client and audience needs. Constant monitoring of technological change and student capstone performance are means to assess and suggest directions for curricular revision.

Master of Arts in Leadership and Public Administration (MLPA)

This interdisciplinary program, offered by the Criminal Justice and Political Science departments in the College of Arts and Behavioral Sciences, offers emphases on public service, agency administration, leadership, and criminal justice. The objective is to provide educational and professional development for people employed or seeking employment and advancement to leadership positions in the public or private sectors, such as those in law enforcement or public and non-profit agency administration and leadership.

The program advances its objectives through the following:

Suggested policy and curriculum changes are considered by the faculty committee, comprised of the faculty teaching in the MLPA Program. If ratified by this committee, the changes are sent on to Graduate Committee. Day-to-day governance issues are either handled directly by the Coordinator under advisement of the Faculty Committee or, if appropriate, the dean.

MLPA has a fairly diverse admissions pool; a substantial proportion of students are practitioners in social service agencies. The coordinator also works with the King/Chavez/Parks Committee to identify minority students for admission. There are also a number of international students in the program.

Diversity is woven into the curriculum, which includes a course focusing specifically on the ways in which gender and race relations affect organizations. In addition, consideration of diversity issues and policies is addressed in most other courses in the program in relation to workers and populations served by agencies.

The interdisciplinary MLPA program requires a considerable amount of communication among departments within ABS. Long-term planning has been an issue with the MLPA program. The program is still evolving (having gone through several different configurations over the past several years).

The Coordinator of the program considers the greatest issue to be lack of human resources for the program: “We have difficulty getting a firm ‘buy-in’ from faculty and often have to depend on adjuncts rather than full-timers.” Adjuncts teaching in the program are generally practitioners in public agencies with education (minimally a Masters degree) and specific experience relevant to the course taught. Candidates are interviewed by the Coordinator and, if qualified, are recommended to the dean. All faculty applications for graduate teaching are reviewed and voted on by the MLPA faculty before being sent to the Graduate Committee. The Coordinator also monitors student evaluations of adjuncts.

Master of Science, Technological Processes

This interdisciplinary program is offered through the College of Science, Engineering & Technology. Program objectives are to develop the following in the technical professional:

All program course work supports one or more of these objectives. The Field Project provides an experience in which all five objectives are integrated and evaluated.

As with other SVSU graduate programs, MSTP attracts part-time students seeking to enhance their professional credentials within local industries, such as Dow Chemical and Delphi Automotive, making it subject to the same market forces as the other professional programs. The program admits approximately 15 new students each year, and currently there are about 50 students enrolled in the program overall. Because students are part-time and do not take courses every semester, the count is difficult to maintain. Current manufacturing job loss and industrial down-sizing in Michigan may be having an adverse effect on enrollments for this program.

Instructors for this program are also primarily part-time, recruited from the same local industries the program serves.