The Board of Trustees agreed to the following program changes at their recent meeting on Friday, May 15.
-- College of Earth and Mineral Sciences: New minor in geographic information science.
Geographic information science, under the term geographic visualization, has been designated as one of the major initiatives within the Geography Department and the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences' master plan. This minor will focus upon meeting the needs of students who wish to acquire grounding in geographic representation and analysis techniques. As the minor will be an extension of the Geographic Information Science Option already available, it will utilize a unique laboratory environment already in place with state-of-the-art hardware and software.
-- Penn State Erie: New major in general business.
This associate degree major is designed to make the School of Business programs more accessible to non-traditional students within its service area and to provide the basis for formal articulation agreements with high schools in the region. In addition, the BAS program is specifically designed as a foundation for four-year majors in the School of Business.
-- College of Communications: Change in Ph.D. degree program in mass communications.
A proposal to change the Ph.D. degree in mass communications from intercollege program status to a program in the College of Communications, fully administered by the college, was approved by the Graduate Council. The current intercollege program was instituted in 1985 as the first step in establishing the study of mass communications at Penn State at the Ph.D. level. In 1994, the College of Communications invited an external team of well-known scholars to review the program and make recommendations. The program will reflect the collective vision of a carefully selected, productive, nationally recognized faculty. Focus and coherence will lend definition to the college in the national academic community, and will lead to a more enhanced reputation for the college in the field of communications scholarship and research.
-- College of Engineering: New program for integrated bachelor's and master's degree
Offering of the integrated bachelor of architectural engineering and master of architectural engineering degrees is designed to better prepare graduate degree recipients to take a significant role in professional practice. By combining the bachelor's and master's degrees, graduates will possess the credentials that properly reflect their ability to compete with graduates of other institutions. The program will streamline the graduate curriculum, reduce the time to degree and provide an active and problem-based graduate-level learning experience.
-- College of Engineering: New minor in high-performance computing
The objectives of the minor are to educate graduate students in scientific and high performance computing with an emphasis on the capabilities and uses of parallel computers. The provision of a graduate minor in high performance computing will provide courses to graduate students in all colleges and majors in the application of high performance computing to the solution of problems of both scientific and engineering importance; provide a degree of external visibility that is crucial to the recruitment of high quality students and faculty; and promote interdisciplinary research and instruction.
-- Penn State Great Valley: New program to offer MBA
Program options include business administration and health care administration. The MBA program is geared toward the needs of part-time students who are employed full-time. The program will enable students interested in management in the public, private or nonprofit sectors to pursue integrated programs of study covering the fundamentals of management, the interfaces of the several sectors with one another and a choice of specializations applicable to one or more of the sectors. Program options include business administration and health care administration.
-- Penn State Great Valley: New program to offer master's degree in environmental pollution control
This is an intercollege graduate program designed for students with backgrounds in science or engineering who want to obtain proficiency in a specific area of environmental pollution control. The program is currently offered at University Park and Penn State Harrisburg. Students graduating in the program will have acquired a core competency in environmental pollution control; the necessary skills to pursue environmentally related career opportunities; and the use of a technology-enhanced collaborative learning environment.
-- Penn State Great Valley: New program to offer master's degree in systems engineering
The program will meet an expressed need for innovative design and practice-oriented graduate program among technical professionals in the Delaware Valley area. It will provide students with a core competency in a specified discipline named systems engineering; access to a common core module of professional courses including project management, business ethics, design and communication; and the opportunity to shift career into a growth-oriented field of specialization.
-- Penn State Harrisburg: Change in the requirements for MBA program
The undergraduate and graduate programs in business administration at Penn State Harrisburg were recently examined by the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business in the accreditation process. The review team noted that by reorganizing, the MBA program could improve its market position. The change in the program maintains the program content but "externalizes" an 18-credit package of preparatory courses which serves as prerequisite to the proposed 30-credit curriculum. This is a change from the current program which requires 48-credit hours for all students to a 30-credit hour program.
-- Eberly College of Science: New option added to graduate program in mathematics
An option in logic and foundations has been added to the graduate program in math. The creation of the new option is aimed toward creating an environment where research and education in mathematical logic and foundations of mathematics can thrive beyond the current level and is intended to augment and enrich the current program rather than alter it. Typical candidates for the option would be students with a strong undergraduate mathematics background, who are interested in mathematical logic and foundations of mathematics. The resources needed to offer the option are already in place.